As 4.3 is already F tier, all cases of corruption that occur in 4.3 will negatively impact the rating of 4.4. Just like how there is overflow healing, we call this overflow penalty.

Moreover, 4.3 just so happens to have several birthdays. In the past, Genshin has had a poor history of attacking people on certain birthdays ('birthday gifts'). So we will count the number of political attacks made on birthdays in 4.3. The higher this number, the lower 4.4's rating will be (as well as 4.x as a whole). Moreover, if this number is high enough, there may be other unforseen consequences.

QoL

Since 4.3, we now teleport directly to near the key when starting domains instead of having to trek a whole staircase to get there. Why didn't we think of this sooner? And what was the purpose of such a long staircase anyways?

For optimizations to artifact level up menu, see pick rates.

Banners

Looks like this is a Xiao version. We have Yoimiya, Xiao N, Xiaogan, and then throw in a random Raiden Shogun.

Chiori was also introduced in this version.

Some people have been talking about pull value. So of these characters, Raiden is the one most worth pulling, namely for rational, hyperbloom, etc. which most people seem to agree are some of the top 'meta' teams (rational/hyperbloom seem to one of the points of consensus among various communities; most of the other junk spewed by USA propaganda is nonsensical hogwash). Raiden is clearly the best of these 4 for abyss and combat.

After that, we have the 3 dps. Based on calcs, Xiao N and Yoimiya just straight up deal more dps than Xiaogan. So that is the answer. As for constellations, except for Raiden C2/C3, none of the other characters really need cons or benefit much from them to do their job (compared to some other characters).

The 1st phase weapon banner seems decent though.

This is a good picture. We give the devs some time to think about why this is nice to look at.

Gacha as a social experiment

It also looks like the banner selectors are so concerned with prolonging the reign of certain people and benefitting their families while attacking all other Chinese people. Moreover, they want to build monopolies around certain kinds of characters while exluding all other people. This kind of selection bias represents the worst effects of unbridled capitalism on society and is a reason why markets cannot and should not be completely free. If private businesses were completely allowed to make all decisions on their own, they would just be manipulated by USA media easily, and the USA hegemony does not have the best interest of society in mind.

There needs to be a law saying that if private corporations act to serve the interests of USA hegemony while harming all Chinese people, then those corporations can be dissolved, liquidated, with all their assets turned over to the treasury and orgchart and staff subject to replacement and rearrangement by centralized authority. Moreover such corporations can be accused of treason for collusion with USA 5th column elements.

Sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry and overreact. If one allows a problem to fester for too long, the tumor can turn into something more lethal to society.

Experiments have already been done where the audience sits back and allows Genshin to make its own decisions without interference (as opposed to giving active feedback or intervention). The conclusion is that without external interference, Genshin by default will follow whatever the USA media and propaganda wants it to do. And therefore it seems certain people cannot be trusted to make independent decisions on their own without external intervention and consultation.

Whatever social experiment Genshin is supposed to be or having this private corporation make autonomous decisions for so long, this is the inevitable conclusion: all media companies without centralized supervision will by default become a USA lapdog and puppet. This is simply the world we live in, one of USA hegemony and a continuance of the Anglo world order. As such, weak entities or countries that do not have the power or mechanisms to combat such interference from the USA will ultimately decay and become satellite states of the USA as well.

Roses and Muskets

The sniper shooting minigame: this is easier on PC than mobile. Very fun, but it's not enough to lift 4.3 out of F tier. But it may reflect positively on 4.4's rating. We actually get to headshot hilichurls, turning Genshin into a fps. Now all we need is a sniper-based dps (we are saying dps not harmony support, and we need someone with greater range than Navi's shotgun E).

Into the Frame: yes, an A tier rating is a 'lukewarm reception', an S tier rating is 'beyond expectations', and an SS tier rating is a 'divine handiwork'. This is satire for legal reasons. But still, it really should not be hard for a version to reach S or SS tier. So why do some people keep fluking? It's almost a phenomea of deliberate inefficiency, which has negative effects on society and the economy.

Trick Shots (combat)

Hyperbloom works each day. Getting over 10k score gives platinum medal. These kinds of events can be used to test and measure team dps (but need account for the buffs too).

Day 1: cc like Venti helps

Day 2 is st city: hyperbloom works.

Day 4: we did some experiments. We tried a 'Navia' hyper team of say Albedo/Morax-Bennett-flex-Navia. We also tried an Arataki Itto-Gorou-Albedo/Bennett-Navia team where Navia is used as a support. Based on results, the Itto team did more dps than a Navi hypercarry team. So it seems Navi works more effectively as a subdps cannon/support/battery than as a standalone carry. Also, this day gives a massive buff to geo so having multiple geo damage dealers (Itto, Albedo, Navi) to use the buff could help with the Itto geo team dps. The Itto team (C0/C1 Itto) could achieve 13k-14k, whereas the Navi hyper team got a bit under 10k.

But we also tried other teams such as hyperbloom (Alhaitham/Nahida) which also reached 13k-14k and Xiao hyper (Xiao-Faruzan-Bennett-Furina/Morax) which reached 14k-15k (the highest of the tested teams), and these teams do not even use the geo buff. So this explains the state of affairs of geo. Even when geo gets a massive buff in a combat event, hyperbloom and other dps teams (like Xiao) still perform at similar level or higher.

Day 4 is the level with various elemental slimes and hydro phantasms/mimics, so autumn dps and hydro dps are taken out of the picture.

It was somewhat surprising to see the Xiao hyper team outperform the hyperbloom team, but this could be due to Xiao's aoe dps, whereas hyperbloom is more st. Hyperbloom dps tends to decrease the more enemies there are (it is usually better in st or at least 2-3 target scenarios).

Xtreme Drive

This has reminded some people of Mario Party minigames. We can think of the physics of this mechanic. Each player exerts a 'force' on the stabilization mekaball. The ball will move in the direction opposite of a player. The direction is given by the unit vector from the player to the ball. If there are multiple players, these unit vectors are summed, giving the direction the ball will move in.

Suppose we just care about the player's xy coordinates. Suppose a player i's position in 2-space is given by \(u_i \in R^2 \). Suppose the ball's position is given by \(x \in R^2 \). The ball will move in the direction given by: $$\sum_i (x-u_i)$$

To write the dynamics $$x(t+dt) = x(t) + dt \frac{\sum_i (x(t)-u_i(t))}{\sum_i |x(t)-u_i(t)|}$$ where dt is an 'infinitesimal'. The above difference equation can be readily programmed into a discrete form for computers, taking dt to be a suitably small icd/fps/clocking interval.

We can also take the continuous limit and write the differential equation: $$\frac{dx}{dt} = \frac{\sum_i (x(t)-u_i(t))}{\sum_i |x(t)-u_i(t)|}$$ We normalize so that the ball has constant speed. It is just that its direction can change due to the movements of the other players u.

Assuming Newtonian physics, we can derive the kind of force exerted by the players: $$F = ma = m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2} = m\frac{d}{dt} \frac{\sum_i (x(t)-u_i(t))}{\sum_i |x(t)-u_i(t)|}$$ Usually masses attract due to gravity, but in this event there is some kind of repellant force between player and ball.

Event story

The story of Morris, Baptiste, and Veronique is based on the Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. But it is a bit hypocritical. Unfortunately, due to the way certains devs have treated Argenti, Dr. Ratio, Jing Yuan, Navia, Cyno, Alhaitham, Kaveh, Seele, Luocha, Silver Wolf, they should not expect any kind of solidarity for whatever political statement they are trying to make against certain organizations. It is clear that the fundamental issue is that certain devs have deep-rooted biases and favoritism, seeking to benefit only one group of people while screwing over another group of people. They adopt a zero-sum mentality, giving a social ladder boost to certain people while trying to contain and oppress others. They also place their favorites in the 1st, 6th, and 8th positions, while putting others in the 4th position to make political attacks.

If you truly want to use the name of Alex and win the respect of other people, then they should have not done what they did in December 2022, pair Cyno with Furina in the 4.2 banners, redo all the videos around anniversary in 4.1, not change Ptakhur's name last minute, and give more equitable treatment when dealing with Argenti, Navia, Dr. Ratio in the beta.

WQ

There is a quest featuring a guy named Benoit Leroy. He has a daughter named Morticia, married to Athos. They have a child named Molli.

People are not stupid you know. We all know that there is an NPC in Mondstadt Athos voiced by Daman Mills, Lyney's English va.

Also we did pay attention to the Expected Plan/Expected Lie WQ continuation of the Fontaine Research series. Portrayal of Chaussivert in the WQ: gets some points off (扣分). 4.1 already had kesean, and Navia's va is Xiaogan, so don't be a hypocrite. Story of Edwin and Nacker: koufen (扣分).

Hmm, Morris... Edwin Eastinghouse... It is almost surprising that Genshin has not yet received a case of libel. If it were a certain Singapore leader, they would file a lawsuit for libel and defamation everyday. Perhaps certain writers may want to learn what it feels like to be put under in the corporate hierarchy, with several layers of management in between.

Cases of corruption in 4.3

Easy to predict

By this point, given how clear the deep-rooted biases and discrimination of certain people are, it is easy to guess what will happen in 4.3.

The artists will put Navia on the cover art of 4.3. They put Neuvillette on the cover art of 4.0, 4.1, 4.2. They have a primal urge to put wei on the cover art of each version in 4.x to serve the interests of only one group of people while attacking and discriminating against everybody else. Liu Wei, we get it. It is completely understandable that you want to put yourself on the cover art of every version.

But people should not be surprised when spam and repetition negatively affects the evaluation of such versions. One or two times is one thing, but repeating things 3, 4, 5+ times becomes spam. We are counting the number of times Neuvillette or Navia appears on the cover art. The higher this number, the less forgiving we will be when Natlan arrives.

The artists will put a character they have bias and discrimination against 4th in the 4.3 web events and character fan art contest.

The storywriters will make a political attack against people they have bias and discrimination against in Navia's story quest.

The storywriters will make a political attack against people they discriminate against in the 4.3 flagship event quest. Hey this prediction turned out to be correct: it shows how predictable some writers are.

For any combat event or trial, they will put the characters they hate most in the 4th position and put their favorite characters in the 6th or 1st position.

There are a number of birthdays coming up in December when 4.3 releases, including Neuvillette, Layla, Zhongli, Dori, etc. On each birthday, the game will make a political attack against their enemies. We will be counting the number of birthday attack 'gifts' made in 4.3. The higher this number, the more negatively 4.x will be evaluated, and the worse 5.x will be evaluated too.

Moreover, it seems the release of Navia just so conveniently aligns with the release of a certain other video game. This instance of politically motivated scheduling will result in a penalty of the rating of 4.x as a whole.

On one hand, the number of mistakes and political attacks made in 4.x is bad for the evalustion of 4.x versions, but on the other hand, it gives people more dirt that can be used against 5.x Natlan.

The more corrupt people choose to be in 4.x, the less forgiving we will be when it comes to evaluating Natlan.

What truly saved 4.x from the 'prophecy' is the choice of voice actors for the Fontaine main cast. It would take something more spectacular to save 5.x from impending doom.

The cases

Version 4.3 trailer: position of art director Chiori indicates discrimination from video makers. Find people making trailers, inspect them for corruption, find replacements. How would they feel if they put Chiori 1st and Xavier or Navia in 4th position instead. It's a shame that certain video directors do not have EQ or pay attention to the people around them.

In the 4.3 SP, the TCG art with Dehya could be improved. Also the microagression with Yoimiya has been noticed and will result in a penalty in the corresponding versions' ratings.

Title of version 'Roses and Muskets' is repetitive and indicates bias and favoritism based on name.

Event story contains political attacks, monopolizes awards so that only one or two people are rewarded while everybody else is attacked. Moreover, it seems the story was written out of anger. This will reflect poorly on 4.4's rating. What if Morris won the film festival, and Xavier was the culprit? What if instead of Yoimiya lying on the ground it was Ayato? Certain people seem to have some opinions on Morris and Yoimiya. This only suggests that they deserve to be put under Morris and Yoimiya. Moreover, the scriptwriters probably need to be investigated and rotated out. We cannot have people with the same biases and prejudices writing things for years with impunity and without replacement.

Are the creators of Genshin employed by Morris? If not, why do they care so much about Morris? Zhongli, the god of Liyue, is named Morax, so you would expect some people to show some MORe respect. Otherwise, it is not surprising that a certain somebody stepped down.

Fake news and rumors

Fontaine seems to have brought in a new trend of spreading fake news and rumors. What happens is that the USA FBI/CIA creates fake accounts online and then spreads misinformation in order to mislead and threaten the public. This has a negative and corrosive effect on society. People who abuse their media platforms to spread misinformation need to be punished by law. Failure to cleanse and purge the internet of fake news and comments can lead to a disorderly society, breeding the grounds for social instability, color revolution, implosion, similar to what happened to the Soviet Union. A strong central authority is needed to completely dominate the internet and combat the attacks made by lascivious hostile forces, including the false sheperd known as USA imperialism.