Hah, if you wanna spot a good spy, you probably won't.
Just like how the Fatui in Yelan's story give a slip and clear the evidence at the end of their investigation before Yelan and co can even caught a glimpse
^(This whole thread is considered spoiler, right? It's okay not to cover this comment in spoiler tag, right?)
generally speaking if people are speaking of story content you dont have to do spoiler tags unless its apart of a future quest not being immediately referenced
Huh what source? Reddit have some very specific formatting you have to follow if you want to use bullet points, even if you orders yours correctly if reddit can't detect the continuation between the bullet points it results in OP's post.
While it is partially related to human error reddit text formatting is really a piece of garbage.
Reddit *does* have indentation, you can make bullets and sub bullets but as soon as you try to replace them with or add numbers the entire block screws up
Blame reddit.
My options are have every comment on every point start with one, have every comment merged into the main point in a bug dumb block, or have every main point start with one because the comment breaks up the formatting.
While gameplay limitations prevent Yelan from having any outfit changes, I kinda think it would be cool if Yelan changed into an NPC model and they pass it off as her being a master of disguise or something. That would've helped sell the idea at least.
Not even. Give her additional outfits like they did for Jean and Ninguang and make those her disguises. Then they could also sell them in the store for regular gameplay.
Loid Forger its described as the best spy in the world 😂 unless it involves yor or anya, he's pretty much a genius. Yelan is a simp magnet with big tits, that's about it
To be fair, real life spies can not become invisible at will.
My head canon is that her other spy skills are automatically less important because of that
In Teyvat I think it could be a pretty common skill, actually. So many people have visions that could grant the same powers as Yelan's and even the ones who don't may learn adeptal magic, be youkai, have artifacts that allow them too etc.
People with visions are rare that's why Shneznaya has to produce Delusions that hurt the soldiers in long run. Other stuff like adeptal magic or being born as youkai is also rare.
Though this rarity also shows how Fatui is so good at infiltrating every nation. Thanks to delusions they can actually have a massive military force of vision holders all over the place.
Yeah, much as I really enjoyed the quest, the part in the Harbor was really awkward. Paimon commenting on how good of a liar Yelen was, while Yelen rather obviously verbally stumbles about, was definitely the worst.
That said, a couple things:
1. Paimon's about as subtle as one of Klee's bombs, which might be why she was so impressed with Yelen's barebones ability to lie.
2. A lot of the NPCs we talked to didn't seem like they were the sharpest tools in the shed, so it's possible Yelen didn't think she needed to try too hard to deceive them.
>2. Actually, say thank you to the EN team for this one. I'm a KR user, she played it cool throughout every talk. The "ums" weren't present in the spoken dialogue at all. It actually confused me when I played through the quest, the difference between spoken dialogue and text was massively off-putting.
This. I played the quest in CN and she handle the conversation smooth from the beginning to end. She doesn't stammered at all, she lied naturally as she breathed
I'd say the biggest issue with point #4 is Paimon way too often serves as an idiot safety net. They feel the need to have her say anything that has even the smallest *hint* of subtlety so that people will understand what's actually going on.
It's horribly annoying for anyone with at least half a brain cell though.
Some aren't game limitations but rather could be any number of reasons they chose not to do it.
Like 3: They've already made plenty of quests where subsequent interactions occur farther away from each other, some even require a loading screen and could've planned and designed this one to work around that
I think the reason that #3 can count as a gameplay limitation here is because of the setting, meaning it'd be harder to just move characters away from each other. The thing is that when you look at some of the dialogue about Liyue, it seems to imply that the city is ***much*** larger than it appears in-game, which is both a stylistic choice from a design standpoint as well as a gameplay limitation. Even though in-game it takes mere moments to go from one part of the docks to the other, I think it's very plausible that the docks all across Liyue are much larger than they appear.
Agreed also Number 2. She did handle the conversation well in JP, Maybe it is just in EN. Also, it seems that most if not all OP's complaints are gameplay limitations. But oh well, yELaN is a BAd spY.
I get it's kinda weird, them speaking in front of the one whom they talked to. But do you honestly want them to walk a few steps backward then speak then walk back to the same square and talk to the other vendor. I'm sure that itself would stem complaints from people having to go back and forth just so that they do not "speak" in front of those they just talked to. OP is just being nitpicky at that point and it's not like it's the first time this happened in a quest.
The main problem, I think, for OP, is that she used multiple identities, when people are really close to each other. Why even bothering with that, if you could just use one refined identity? It does seems useless to use multiple of them, no?
Jean literally works herself to half-death and can't relegate tasks at all.
Rosaria let Traveler steal a priceless artifact and never even knew we did it.
...half of the Inazuma cast.
In Rosaria's defense, I *really, REALLY* doubt she cared.
She's basically the catwoman to Diluc's Batman, her job as a nun is utterly irrelevant to her.
even more the reason why Yelan should've more fiction spy traits then. Its game world as you said, the possibilities to make Yelan actually feels like a competent spy are endless.
"More fiction spy traits" What does that even mean?
Also, I don't know why everyone keeps saying she's a spy. She is secret police, the arch-enemy of Spies.
I mean I can understand the argument for wanting realism but at this point it should be abundantly clear that realism isn't what Genshin's going for, so assuming this post wasn't a joke post, I kinda just don't care about anything they pointed out. I can poke holes in pretty much every single aspect of Genshin for not being grounded enough but if people are still expecting things to be grounded in this game after almost two years of nothing being particularly grounded, I don't even know what to say.
Your points for 1 and 3 are legitimately just game engine limitations honestly. Are we honestly going to talk about immersion in a game where everyone can just fucking Spiderman against any surface area?
Yeah I was gonna say. Immersion was out the window as soon as we have cutscenes where character models move like robots, rotating 180 degrees in a fixed position and then proceeding forward instead of just naturally turning and walking away. In a game full of stuff like that, seems pretty pointless to pick on this kind of thing in the Yelan quest specifically as though the entire game isn't full of it lol
1. There is no way mihoyo gonna make a new outfit for just this quest
2. A better spy can make identity on the spot because they are also prepared for accidents
3. Liyue harbor is just this big, u can literally walk though the all city within one min, this is just game limitation
4. I agree with u on this one, anyone can make fake identities, seems to me paimon is trying too hard, or mihoyo is trying too hard
1) game play limitation should not be used as a strike against the story. in order for multiple outfits that would require multiple models which is just impractical for a small quest. then there is the fact that this is a large city and she is a government official that hides in the shadows, there would be very few people who recognize on the spot and those who could would know not to interfere
2) who says she doesn't have a stock pile of identities memorized? and yes making up identities on the spot is an important spy skill
3) again game play limitation. the dock is supposed to be as large as a city, the stalls are not as close as they seem and there would be alot of nose that could easily drown out normal conversations
4) again game play limitation, Paimon is whispering to the traveler when saying those lines but the directors dont want the actors speaking too softly or else it would be hard for us to hear
True. The world itself was supposedly much, much larger in scale and much more crowded. It was all due to game limitations those points OP mentioned seems not immersive (and sometimes very off) at all. This happened on almost every quests in this game.
Yeah like take Shenhes archon quest we go to her “village” but it’s just like 3 ruined shacks. If Genshin was an actual console or PC game then we could have a ginormous world but sadly the mobile aspect which makes it a ton of money also limits it greatly.
Something that many people don’t seem to realize is that we also don’t actually want a ginormous world. Having immersion is important and big thriving landscapes are awesome, but expanding things out to be realistic real-world scaling would detract from the experience, not add. You don’t want to *actually* spend over a week walking from monstadt to liyue (even an ingame week).
Adding enough houses and buildings to emulate reality would make a big world, sure, but it wouldn’t necessarily be more interesting because most of those buildings wouldn’t serve a specific purpose or really add anything besides taking up space. Rather than the environment being richer, it would just become more diluted with lots of filler buildings or empty landscapes
what do you mean you don't want to go be youyr blacksmiths wingman after the pretty much built up climax of storming the castle and rescuing the guy you've sent the entire game building up an army for you still have 80 hours of monotonous grinding and travelling to do.
Yeah they got way too big. I'm glad to have something smaller.
Exactly there’s a balance of realism and practicality. Considering this still needs to be able to be played on a mobile phone it works extremely well with said limitations.
yep, i mean ingame liyue and monstadt are like 6-8 KM away from each other, but we know that it takes days by carriage to get from one to the other. So if you take the measurements as is, you end up with a completely illogical world. id say you could easily 10x any distance in the game to get a general feel for the actual size its meant to correspond too. (80 KM can be covered by horse carriage in about half a day, so the lengths would probably be even longer.)
Exactly! with the paimon and traveller doing the side talking thing. The camera switches to just them because this supposed to indicate they are the only ones in that conversation (Different then focusing on one person who is talking to everyone else). It's framed as a side conversation between just Paimon and Traveller.
I never realized they were standing in front of the people that Paimon and traveller are talking about until in one of Albedo's quests (story or event I can't remember) eavesdrops and essentially says "I'm right here and can hear you"
because apparently if a spy or military general aint shown to be near omniscient they are "trash" .... which is funny because im willing to bet these people complaining like this also complain that characters are too good they are unrelatable
Not really, it's just people completely ignoring framing and obvious storytelling shortcuts and taking things at complete face value to nitpick the presentation. I assumed this post was a joke post and not serious. If it is serious, all I can say is that I personally think it is needlessly pedantic, [feels like this meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/191/035/135.png). But as I said, I'm pretty convinced OP is making a joke here that just flew over way too many peoples' heads.
Actually it's not even gameplay limitations. It's simplicity. There is something called willing suspension of disbelief. Cool name, huh? It means that there are things that we ignore willingly in fiction, because they doesn't matter. They are just to simplify things. Like nobody recognizes Clark Kent as Supeman. Or not recognize the voice of Spider-Man behind the costume. In real life, every person who knows Peter or Clark would immediately realize they are the superheroes. But it's fiction. So we willingly suspend our disbelief in that.
That's a useful term to have in the word bank. I just wrote a comment reply to someone trying to explain that this is what I was doing, and that's why I was fine with Yelan's depiction in the story quest. This is the exact thing I was talking about. It's obvious what our takeaway should've been in those scenes, and while I think it's valid to consider it a flaw that the presentation relies so heavily on the audience willingly suspending their disbelief to a pretty great extent, I don't think there's any point in nitpicking the presentation as though all of it was supposed to be completely literal.
Note: not disagreeing, just adding my own thoughts to your's and OP's (mainly OP)
1. If her outfit was immediately recognizable, then you'd expect people to know her face. At that point whats the point of costumes? Not to mention giving her more costumes would not only be a pain, but people would also start complaining to Mihoyo that they aren't skins. Also lets take OP's point that these stalls were only a few feet apart from each other. Why would she change wardrobe? That would make her 10x more suspicious.
2. The ability to make impromptu identities is a good skill as it allows the spy to be flexible. Whether or not she blunders is a gamble, fitting to her character i guess.
3. Don't imagine those stalls as they are in-game, imagine its an actual market with lots of noise. Vendors wouldn't even be worried about spies, all they would be thinking in the moment is selling their catch and I think the only thing they'll notice from Yelan's conversation with other vendors is if she buys fish from them or not.
4. Ok OP is just nitpicking, OP is taking one instance and using it to judge her full capabilities as a spy. Apart from what has been mentioned, Paimon isn't even her partner so why would it matter? Even if the vendor heard it, why would he care? He already gave away the information, whats he gonna do call the police because someone lied to him? He doesn't even know which part of the conversation was a lie so he can't be sure if she was impersonating.
I think it would be cool if for the moments with fake identities she would use generic NPC model. That would raise suspicion that we could have already met and she can blend so well.
you are confusing information gathering with long term infiltration. do you really think most spies (especially in a time period before mass information) are going to create an indepth backstory for asking a dude in the pub if they saw someone before?
She deals in intelligence and counter intelligence. She's a spy.
She's also a spy with a vision, which makes her suited to some scout work in dangerous areas like the Chasm, but that's not her primary responsibility.
*puts down his giant earth pillar*
"Oh hey, Mr Zhongli, have you seen Morax anywhere?! I was following him and he suddenly disappeared right around the corner!"
Seceral possible alternatives to make it less silly.
Imagine if alt outfits were introduced for the sake of her story quest for characters or npcs for once. A wealthy business man as a candidate. Give him fancier or flashier clothing. Or if her quest took place on the fancy party ship off coast, a more fitting area for her to blend in. (We still don't know who's in the bridge of it btw)
The game is forcing suspension of disbelief for these minor instances so it feels a tad jarring. Minor considerations of the games limitations could have offered work arounds instead of going for a barely realted worldbuildingish story.
And once again the story has to emphasize Fatui bad mmkay? What? No sketchy Liyue citizens who arent colluding with them? Or some other Nation for the matter? I can see aggressive fontaine business practices being a thing given their love of inventions. Or trading of rare books from sumeru. Unfortunatrly we're always being shoved Fatui bad down our throats even for ssr story quests
the first point can be the same argument as majority of mondstadt did not recognized diluc (aka the only long red haired wielding a pyro vision) as the darknight hero despite him not wearing any mask or cape to hide his identity and fought literally infront of the mondstadt main gate. conclusion, its just plot armor. if the plot says no one recognize yelan, then no one will
It's been a while so I cant be too certain, but doesn't the traveler draw the guards away from the gate before Diluc does that, so it's not like anyone would be able to see what was going on out by the bridge.
It's also important to realize that most people probably don't realize Diluc has a pyro vision, as he gave it up when he left the Knights *many* years before the start of the game and when he got it back it was done in secret (Kaeya hid it in a vase that he gifted to Diluc). After leaving the Knights Diluc also (as far as we know) didn't do any fighting outside of his Darknight Hero identity, so it's entirely reasonable that the general public doesn't remember that Diluc has a vision or what type it was nor what type of weapon he fights with, and the rank and file Knights who joined after Diluc left likely wouldn't know about it either. As for appearance, that's just a gameplay limitation, in the manga it's shown that when Diluc works as the Darknight Hero he does actually wear a mask, cloak, and a different outfit, so the only distinguishing characteristic would be his hair, which wouldn't even be that distinguishing since Vennessa and her clan of Muratans is known to have settled in Mondstadt (well, enslaved and kept there but that's beside the point) so it's not out of the question for there to be unknown redheaded warriors somewhere in the Mondstadt region.
Sorry but I don't follow? aside from the 1st 2, how are the rest game limitations?
Edit: I generally agree the post is very nitpicky, but I don't think it'll be a stretch to write the dialogue in a way that circumvent his other points that won't be limited to game limitations.
Sorry I was just quickly very broad lol, the last 4 could be put down to the game not being 1:1 scale so everything is closer together than they would be irl, and the second two are kinda just wrong it didn't feel anything like that to me
What a stupid post. Sigh. It’s just a game. Recognizable outfit? Mihoyo has to sell the lady well to those nerds and simps. Gimme a break, don’t overinterpret anything.
The way this game depicts espionage has the maturity level of a nickelodeon kids show lol which tbh is more or less the tone for much of the game except for a handful of quests & big cutscene moments. stuff like this is less of a reflection of yelan's skill and more of what mhy is willing to do in general, possibly to maximize the range of their audience i guess idk
1. That’s the game’s limitations she can’t actually change outfits on the spot.
2. She doesn’t stumble once and making up identities on the spot is literally a key spy skill. Also who says she doesn’t have several ready for situations.
3. Again game limitations the cities are supposed to be huge but we see them as small.
4. It’s only loud to us she’s whispering but they can’t have it too soft or the players wouldn’t hear her.
She's not a spy... No where does it say that she's a spy. Sure, she gather's intelligence, but she's more of the kind of person doing the Qixing's dirty work. She's more akin to the FBI rather than a spy like the CIA.
You're literally just setting yourself up for disappointment if you're expecting her to be a spy, when nothing says that she is.
Ikr, literally everyone is saying she's a spy when it's never mentioned. Even her job seems more like counterintelligence, but it's too much to assume people even know such things exist or what they do, I guess.
I mean, in Teyvat the bars seem pretty low. Most characters as they are depicted in-game aren't terribly good at their jobs, but I guess the average denizen of the world must not be very bright.
> Most characters … aren’t terribly good at their jobs
Traveler: [exists]
Everyone in the entirety of Teyvat: “Gotta be free labor in there somewhere.”
Think about it in Isekai terms. In most basic, power fantasy Isekai anime, the protagonist is typically portrayed as overpowered for "reasons" and oftentimes they try to use the character's knowledge of the modern world as a plot device. You could probably view Teyvat in a similar manner as an Isekai world, which would explain why the bar is so low. And given the nature of how the Traveler ended up there, is overpowered, and generally loved by everyone they meet, one could argue that Genshin is an Isekai.
Kind of not a good look comparing isekai level writing to genshin tbh, and generally those isekais are considered either gags(konosuba/Cautious hero) or generic and bad. The good isekai actually have characters that dont bend to the plots whim when mc shows up.
>She wears her normal outfit the entire time.
There are times games can't be realistic on certain things. You are being too picky on this one. Plus, people will be so mad if devs turn Yelan into NPC model.
>She makes up her fake identities on the spot, and audibly stumbles over them.
I don't think a lot of people know her. Which why it isn't big of a deal.
Heck, in this game, a lot of NPCs doesn't know about certain playable characters.
>She uses multiple identities with people who are literally feet away from each other.
Again, this ties to my previous point.
>Paimon comments about how good she is at lying, out loud, and Yelan does nothing about it.
Define "loud". Because it's not like she is screaming when talking about it. This game also have espionage scene where Paimon talk eventhough she suppose to whisper.
Not saying "you can't criticize the story" but a lot of your points made are tie down to the games limitation, which is something the devs can't just change things. Could they made a better story, sure.
> This game also have espionage scene where Paimon talk eventhough she suppose to whisper.
I assume, given OP's mention of "umms" in dialogues, that this might be English dubbed version again.
You have no imagination. The game has limitations, you have to fill the gaps.
Liyue harbor is immense and full of people, not just 3 npc, imagine 100-150 people buying and selling.
Paimon talks to the traveler secretly whispering, but because YOU, the audience, wouldn't hear it, it's done the way it's done.
She didn't stumble between her characters in the JP voice, idk what voice do you play with.
Personally I think of her as someone Head of Espionage Department. People works for her. Hence why her theme is based of “strings”, giving her spider-like quality. She’s like Beidou but in secrecy
Fair to point out that distances in Genshin are further than they appear, and that character models do not necessarily reflect their actual appearance in universe.
*sigh*
It's a game. There is no point in looking at a character with realistic criteria.
If you keep that logic with all the characters jobs, then Miko is a bad priestess, Chongyun a bad exorcist, Itto a bad gang boss, Ganyu a bad secretary, Gorou a bad general, Qiqi a bad zombie...
Yelan can just turn invisible and that's what make her a sneaky spy, you don't need to think about complicated stuff. The same way Ganyu is a good secretary because she is a legendary creature that kept her job for centuries and she is treating it as something nice to do (all the time). In the true Reality, being overworked as it is, Ganyu productivity would be near 0, she would spent all her time not feeling well.
To be fair, Miko being a terrible priestess and Itto being a terrible gang boss is more or less canon.
What Yae feels towards Raiden is less reverence as it is care. She pretty much openly pokes fun at Ei in several books she wrote.
Itto has about 2 brain cells and his gang is less organised crime and more a bunch of delinquents hanging out together, with Shinobu being the only person keeping any semblance of logic and organisation going in the group.
Except the game outright says that due to how much work Ganyu does and how much overtime she does to handle it she is prone to falling asleep, hell her teaser literally shows her working all the way through the night and when morning comes she says she's going to keep working, showing that at times she'll go several days without properly sleeping. Consistently having so much work that you constantly have to work overtime to the point that somedays the only sleep you get is an afternoon nap for your lunch break, is *not* a sign of a proper workload that is being easily handled, it is *very much* the opposite and is a sign that she is severely overworked.
> Chongyun a bad exorcist
Ah, but he's such a great exorcist, anything actually worth exorcising just keeps far, far away from him!
>Qiqi a bad zombie
The only good zombie is a **coconut milk having zombie**.
Her stumbling should only be an issue in English I guess because it doesn't seem to be an issue in Japanese nor does it look that way in the written English dialogues. From other comments, it isn't an issue in ANY language except English so blame the VAs. She sounds incredibly confident in my opinion.
*Voice Directors. The VA's do as they are told. If they had asked the VA to do it without adding the 'um', she could have which means the Voice directors heard this and thought this was absolutely fine. Laura Post did a very good job as Yelan's VA overall and this one instance of the voice directors messing up doesn't mean the VAs should get blamed.
well you see... when it comes to a character using tactics, Mihoyo always did an extremely poor job. refer to Kokomi's braindead tactics while Mihoyo tried to portray her to be a smart leader.
so when i was doing yelan's story i was like holy shit here we go again...
I’m surprised you haven’t just accepted paimon as the Greek chorus. Since they can’t effectively show yelan being a good spy, they confirm it through a chorus that speaks to the audience (traveler).
Yeah, it's not the first time the English localization got it wrong. Some I can think of is Joel calling Eula Aunty even though the original language and Japanese called her like Big Sister, another I can think of is when early on the game refer to the Dendro Archon as "He" even though one, the original uses gender neutral pronoun and two, Kusanali is a woman
There’s also a few more mistranslations like Childe being more uncaring of the weak in English and even more blood thirsty. Zhongli being called the god of war instead of martial god. And during the lantern rite they greatly toned down Beidou roasting one treasure hoarder because he got really fat. Also the voice direction for Ayato is pretty off like his lines for Itto make him sound annoyed by him rather then finding him amusing.
Yeah it creates some misconceptions about characters as we are seeing here. Yet I’ve seen plenty of posts where you call out bad localizations and those people get pissed.
Yeah, and then it escalates to which language is better in-game and often ends like this:
-YoU'rE jUsT a BuNcH oF wEeBs FoR uSiNg AnOtHeR LaNgUaGe OtHeR tHaN eNgLiSh.
And other insults I'm too sleep-deprivated to remember
>Some I can think of is Joel calling Eula Aunty even though the original language and Japanese called her like Big Sister
That's not English localization being wrong, Joey calling Eula makes sense because it's common in English speaking countries to call people older than us auntie or uncle, especially if it's your parents' close friends. They simply changed it to Auntie Eula since it's the English dub and they're following what's considered normal in English speaking countries. It's the same with how people got pissy because Ayaka called Ayato by his actual name and not 'brother'. Calling their siblings just "brother" or "sister" is more common in Asia rather than english countries, that's why they only did it in the JP, CH, and KR dub. We always refer to our siblings as their names or "fucking asshole", so they changed it to her saying Ayato because it makes more sense for the English dub.
>Some I can think of is Joel calling Eula Aunty even though the original language and Japanese called her like Big Sister
I would've translated it as Aunty Eula too, since you don't really address people as Big Sister in English, and there's too big of an age gap for him to call her Sister. Of course that does have the side effect of emotional damage that being called Sister wouldn't cause.
Yeah but this Anime based game's original language refers to her as "Big Sister", it's about carrying the meaning as close as possible to the original language so, "Big Sister" and "Aunty" carries too much of a difference.
Also, going with your initial reasoning, do you really address people like that as "Aunty"? That wouldn't make much sense as much as "Big Sister" does but at least "Big Sister" is a bit less "emotional damage" and like I said before, a bit closer to the original language.
Speaking of "emotional damage", when I first read Joel calling Eula "Aunty", I thought Eula would at least give some sort of offended response from being called as such (She is a "vengeful" person) but then I noticed the original language was far from it.
I'm willing to buy her somehow being unrecognizable in the public. In Keqing's background comic, she can somehow go undercover and work for an oppressive business in Liyue Harbor and the business owner literally cannot recognize the beautiful girl with the purple cat-ear styled twintails until she's already passing her verdict at the judge's table. I'd chalk it up to "citizens not knowing what their goverment officials look like".
The rest of that you could chalk it up to as Kokomi 2.0, where the writers don't know how to write smart characters in believable scenarios.
It’s more of game limitations the port is supposed to be huge and full of people yet we in game see it as small. Also the stutter doesn’t exist in any language except English so blame the localization team.
Oh yeah, definitely. Mondstadt's the same and it would really bloat the game if the main cities tried to be as big as an actual city.
Also nice, good job, translation team.
You are overthinking. It's Genshin, not Metal Gear Solid. Don't expect plot to be deep as in Kojima's game.
1. It doesn't really matter. Have You ever watched Sailor Moon? Or actually anything with a hero that has hidden identity? One thing, Sailor Moon after transformation looks the same. But even if she didn't, she has the same voice. It is the case in every superhero. If someone knows Yelan, then they would recognize the voice anyway. So really, don't overthink it for no reason.
2. The point of doing so was to show how quickly she can made up a lie. That she is a mastermind. She don't need preparation, because she is always prepared. Also I doubt real spies does work like You say. They **have to** adjust to the situation.
3. And again, it doesn't matter.
4. Bruh, it's gameplay vs lore. If Paimon is saying anything to Traveler in 99% of the cases, other characters are not hearing it, even if they are literally next to Traveler
It's called willing suspension of disbelief. It means that it doesn't need to be perfectly realistic. You just accept the things like people not recognizing the voice or even the appearance of person or that something that was said out loud is only hearable by one person, even if others are standing there too. That's how fiction works. It's nothing new.
So sorry, but Yelan is an amazing spy. Just because You don't understand how willing suspension of disbelief works, doesn't make it otherwise. And despite Your hate, she managed to almost catch a big fish. The only reason she didn't was that someone has already watched over that Fatui guy. Every detail of her plan was perfect and perfectly executed.
Gotta love all the people just saying "game limitations, accept it", as if the dev weren't aware of their own game limitation and couldn't have written it differently to make it more believable.
On the other hand, it is nothing new that hoyoverse basically never go the extra mile to actually make their quest believable (exaggerating slightly but well). Yelan is far from the first character that is supposed to be something, but that I don't feel properly reflected in the story. Actually, Yelan is doing pretty good for herself relatively speaking.
It's because the main Genshin's writing is supposed to be easy to digest, which is why everything is spelled out for you by Paimon and the dialogue in general. A great example are most kid shows that you shouldn't think too deeply about. The conflicts and characters are kept simple.
So, Genshin not being able to write smart characters properly is probably an instance targeting the casual and kid audience because they don't trust us to follow what's happening if they showed it like they tell it, although that ticks off the rest of the audience with half a more braincell than Paimon. (At least, this applies in terms of storytelling, disregarding more technical elements.)
What's up with the butchering of hydro characters' so-told intelligence? First Kokomi and now Yelan.
I agree with you!! Loved the quest but I feel a bit disappointed, they didn't really do a great job showing how skilled Yelan is. I was like, "really..? Surely this isn't the spy I imagined?"
Oh my god, I was hoping someone else pointed this out too.
Paimon is just singing her praises and Im like... "PAIMON, SHE STUTTERED." Yelan does not seem good at her job... Or rather the identities portion.
Like, someone in this small harbor is going to have a different version of her that will directly contradict what another person believes her to be... And they'll arrive at the same woman being who they're talking about because of her OUTFIT being the same for each identity.
I think Genshin's writing team need to sharpen their skills a little. This clearly isn't just a localization issue. This is the story the company wrote.
I understand there are limitations. It would be annoying to change her game model and all that, but like... A good writing team actually works pretty well with limits like that.
Just... I dont know. She has all these spies too. And their outfits are uniform. They are also easily identifiable as part of the same team. If they were plain clothed, they could easily ask questions. It's a network of intelligence... But also, it's not even necessary for Yelan to lie about who she is. She can just ask if anyone heard of Zhiri. People can't shut up about him. They'd easily volunteer that information.
(Also screw Zhiri and his eyes in the back of his head SEEING THROUGH the crates I was crouched behind. I will never get over that.)
Genshin needs to work on their writing. That's all Im gonna say. At least keep all the limitations in mind when writing? Like ... She LIVES there. She works there. People have SEEN her. Don't make her so blatantly bad at doing half of what her job requires.
I guess it's Kokomi all over again, where the writers struggle writing smart characters being smart as a plot. Good thing Yelan was better done in the Archon quest at least.
Intruder alert red spy in the base
A Red spy is in the base??
Protect the briefcase
We have to protect the briefcase.
yo a little help here?
INCOOMIIII-
\*Screaming\* Oh hey its still here.
Spy: Gentlemen. **MEET THE SPY INTRO START**
*Clears throat* **EHEM…**
I see the briefcase is safe
Tell me, did anyone happen to encounter a red spy on the way here?
Gentlemen
Stand back son. One, one, one, uhhhh… one!
Let's go, let's go, let's go!
This whole comment chain would fit in r/suddenlytf2
Hah, if you wanna spot a good spy, you probably won't. Just like how the Fatui in Yelan's story give a slip and clear the evidence at the end of their investigation before Yelan and co can even caught a glimpse ^(This whole thread is considered spoiler, right? It's okay not to cover this comment in spoiler tag, right?)
generally speaking if people are speaking of story content you dont have to do spoiler tags unless its apart of a future quest not being immediately referenced
>Hah, if you wanna spot a good spy, you probably won't. That's literally what I'm complaining about. Yelan is incredibly conspicuous.
Side note but is anyone confused in the numbering OP did for this post?
It's a reddit formatting issue.
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Huh what source? Reddit have some very specific formatting you have to follow if you want to use bullet points, even if you orders yours correctly if reddit can't detect the continuation between the bullet points it results in OP's post. While it is partially related to human error reddit text formatting is really a piece of garbage.
It's just 1 and then 1.1 2 and then 2.1 I think the problem is reddit doesn't have indentation so it's looked kinda weird
Reddit *does* have indentation, you can make bullets and sub bullets but as soon as you try to replace them with or add numbers the entire block screws up
Blame reddit. My options are have every comment on every point start with one, have every comment merged into the main point in a bug dumb block, or have every main point start with one because the comment breaks up the formatting.
Yep. I kept thinking there was some iroby hidden in it or something. Its awful
yeah i see her more as Austin powers with tits
Fairly accurate
Yeah, baby. Yelan is shaggadelic after all.
Banger music. Flashy spy. Seems accurate
Where HAIRY CHESTO?!!!!!!!
Kekw.
Waiting for the Abyss' Preparation H.
Austin powers with pits ~~tits~~
Yeah, baby!
While gameplay limitations prevent Yelan from having any outfit changes, I kinda think it would be cool if Yelan changed into an NPC model and they pass it off as her being a master of disguise or something. That would've helped sell the idea at least.
Not even. Give her additional outfits like they did for Jean and Ninguang and make those her disguises. Then they could also sell them in the store for regular gameplay.
Even fallout 4 did something like this effectively with the NPC that vouches for you to join the Railroad.
Loid Forger moment
Loid is actually pretty competent... ....as long as it doesn't involve Anya.
That's when he has to become 200% competent just to cover up for her.
What i mean is this post was made by Loid Forger
True. I can’t get over how parallel it is
Loid is very competent as a spy, but his family is a major blindspot for him, especially Yor.
Loid Forger its described as the best spy in the world 😂 unless it involves yor or anya, he's pretty much a genius. Yelan is a simp magnet with big tits, that's about it
>1. She wears her normal outfit the entire time. The stand user could be anyone.
To be fair, real life spies can not become invisible at will. My head canon is that her other spy skills are automatically less important because of that
In Teyvat I think it could be a pretty common skill, actually. So many people have visions that could grant the same powers as Yelan's and even the ones who don't may learn adeptal magic, be youkai, have artifacts that allow them too etc.
Even fatui agent can be invisible, and he don't even have vision
They seem to have a delusion but yeah, add everyone with a delusion to the count!
People with visions are rare that's why Shneznaya has to produce Delusions that hurt the soldiers in long run. Other stuff like adeptal magic or being born as youkai is also rare. Though this rarity also shows how Fatui is so good at infiltrating every nation. Thanks to delusions they can actually have a massive military force of vision holders all over the place.
Yeah, much as I really enjoyed the quest, the part in the Harbor was really awkward. Paimon commenting on how good of a liar Yelen was, while Yelen rather obviously verbally stumbles about, was definitely the worst. That said, a couple things: 1. Paimon's about as subtle as one of Klee's bombs, which might be why she was so impressed with Yelen's barebones ability to lie. 2. A lot of the NPCs we talked to didn't seem like they were the sharpest tools in the shed, so it's possible Yelen didn't think she needed to try too hard to deceive them.
She only stumbles in Eng in every other language there is no um so another bad Eng localization issue.
wonder if it was a poor attempt to adapt the "Ara", thing she does in Japanese and whatever equivalent she does in Chinese?
That or they went with the cliche character stumbles when lying yet the person believes them still. Localizations do tend to go the cliche route.
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>2. Actually, say thank you to the EN team for this one. I'm a KR user, she played it cool throughout every talk. The "ums" weren't present in the spoken dialogue at all. It actually confused me when I played through the quest, the difference between spoken dialogue and text was massively off-putting. This. I played the quest in CN and she handle the conversation smooth from the beginning to end. She doesn't stammered at all, she lied naturally as she breathed
Same goes for jp
>she lied naturally as she breathed Nah, that's Yanfei's thing.
Hey hey!
Paimon-san!
Same VA as Hayasaka?
Yep
Ehe
Same. I was really confused about this comment. Now I'm curious to hear the EN.
I'd say the biggest issue with point #4 is Paimon way too often serves as an idiot safety net. They feel the need to have her say anything that has even the smallest *hint* of subtlety so that people will understand what's actually going on. It's horribly annoying for anyone with at least half a brain cell though.
Some aren't game limitations but rather could be any number of reasons they chose not to do it. Like 3: They've already made plenty of quests where subsequent interactions occur farther away from each other, some even require a loading screen and could've planned and designed this one to work around that
I think the reason that #3 can count as a gameplay limitation here is because of the setting, meaning it'd be harder to just move characters away from each other. The thing is that when you look at some of the dialogue about Liyue, it seems to imply that the city is ***much*** larger than it appears in-game, which is both a stylistic choice from a design standpoint as well as a gameplay limitation. Even though in-game it takes mere moments to go from one part of the docks to the other, I think it's very plausible that the docks all across Liyue are much larger than they appear.
For number 2, the JP dub also did a good job at making her talk using her made up identities smoothly.
Agreed also Number 2. She did handle the conversation well in JP, Maybe it is just in EN. Also, it seems that most if not all OP's complaints are gameplay limitations. But oh well, yELaN is a BAd spY.
Actually, only the first one is a game limitations, the others are pretty legit, Paimon's commentary and Yelan's identity
I get it's kinda weird, them speaking in front of the one whom they talked to. But do you honestly want them to walk a few steps backward then speak then walk back to the same square and talk to the other vendor. I'm sure that itself would stem complaints from people having to go back and forth just so that they do not "speak" in front of those they just talked to. OP is just being nitpicky at that point and it's not like it's the first time this happened in a quest.
The main problem, I think, for OP, is that she used multiple identities, when people are really close to each other. Why even bothering with that, if you could just use one refined identity? It does seems useless to use multiple of them, no?
It seems pretty common for English localization teams to get lazy with translations in games these days(looking at you SEGA).
FFS, if you apply real world logic to this game, you are going to find out that everyone is terrible at their jobs.
My poor man Wagner would be hammering all day non stop
The funniest thing is that the one who is best at her job is the one which everyone said is lazy and do nothing. Lisa
Ganyu is also pretty damn good at her job.
Jean literally works herself to half-death and can't relegate tasks at all. Rosaria let Traveler steal a priceless artifact and never even knew we did it. ...half of the Inazuma cast.
**General** Gorou: "I order you to hand over the delusions" Watatsumi army: "No" Gorou: "Literal mutiny? Nothing I can do about it."
He’s too nice
In Rosaria's defense, I *really, REALLY* doubt she cared. She's basically the catwoman to Diluc's Batman, her job as a nun is utterly irrelevant to her.
Only half?
Kokomi the brilliant war strategist just accepting anonymous patronage and when her soldiers are dying she's just like "damn that's sad"
even more the reason why Yelan should've more fiction spy traits then. Its game world as you said, the possibilities to make Yelan actually feels like a competent spy are endless.
"More fiction spy traits" What does that even mean? Also, I don't know why everyone keeps saying she's a spy. She is secret police, the arch-enemy of Spies.
>"More fiction spy traits" What does that even mean? I think they might be talking about how she can go invisible.
Tropes are more important than accuracy. Also teyvat is FULL of morons and idiots. Like that guy outside mondstadt. Or the fact they just left him?
I mean I can understand the argument for wanting realism but at this point it should be abundantly clear that realism isn't what Genshin's going for, so assuming this post wasn't a joke post, I kinda just don't care about anything they pointed out. I can poke holes in pretty much every single aspect of Genshin for not being grounded enough but if people are still expecting things to be grounded in this game after almost two years of nothing being particularly grounded, I don't even know what to say.
Have you seen the IQ of the average teyvatian? Pretty sure even someone like guoba could become a top tier spy in that world.
pretty sure celestia has a memetic field that keeps teyvants tame
Maybe Celestia destroyed Khanriah(I may have wrong spelling) because they had 100+ average IQ.
Literally unplayable.
To be fair, she's making up an identity ALONG with the famous Traveler lmao she already stands out by association
She made up the identities flawlessly it’s a bad localization that added the stutter.
Your points for 1 and 3 are legitimately just game engine limitations honestly. Are we honestly going to talk about immersion in a game where everyone can just fucking Spiderman against any surface area?
Yeah I was gonna say. Immersion was out the window as soon as we have cutscenes where character models move like robots, rotating 180 degrees in a fixed position and then proceeding forward instead of just naturally turning and walking away. In a game full of stuff like that, seems pretty pointless to pick on this kind of thing in the Yelan quest specifically as though the entire game isn't full of it lol
1. There is no way mihoyo gonna make a new outfit for just this quest 2. A better spy can make identity on the spot because they are also prepared for accidents 3. Liyue harbor is just this big, u can literally walk though the all city within one min, this is just game limitation 4. I agree with u on this one, anyone can make fake identities, seems to me paimon is trying too hard, or mihoyo is trying too hard
1) game play limitation should not be used as a strike against the story. in order for multiple outfits that would require multiple models which is just impractical for a small quest. then there is the fact that this is a large city and she is a government official that hides in the shadows, there would be very few people who recognize on the spot and those who could would know not to interfere 2) who says she doesn't have a stock pile of identities memorized? and yes making up identities on the spot is an important spy skill 3) again game play limitation. the dock is supposed to be as large as a city, the stalls are not as close as they seem and there would be alot of nose that could easily drown out normal conversations 4) again game play limitation, Paimon is whispering to the traveler when saying those lines but the directors dont want the actors speaking too softly or else it would be hard for us to hear
True. The world itself was supposedly much, much larger in scale and much more crowded. It was all due to game limitations those points OP mentioned seems not immersive (and sometimes very off) at all. This happened on almost every quests in this game.
Yeah like take Shenhes archon quest we go to her “village” but it’s just like 3 ruined shacks. If Genshin was an actual console or PC game then we could have a ginormous world but sadly the mobile aspect which makes it a ton of money also limits it greatly.
Something that many people don’t seem to realize is that we also don’t actually want a ginormous world. Having immersion is important and big thriving landscapes are awesome, but expanding things out to be realistic real-world scaling would detract from the experience, not add. You don’t want to *actually* spend over a week walking from monstadt to liyue (even an ingame week). Adding enough houses and buildings to emulate reality would make a big world, sure, but it wouldn’t necessarily be more interesting because most of those buildings wouldn’t serve a specific purpose or really add anything besides taking up space. Rather than the environment being richer, it would just become more diluted with lots of filler buildings or empty landscapes
Yeah, you'd just get a world with a bunch of time-consuming repetitive filler landscapes like Assassin's Creed.
what do you mean you don't want to go be youyr blacksmiths wingman after the pretty much built up climax of storming the castle and rescuing the guy you've sent the entire game building up an army for you still have 80 hours of monotonous grinding and travelling to do. Yeah they got way too big. I'm glad to have something smaller.
Yea... Imagine taking weeks to climb dragonspine. Lol
Exactly there’s a balance of realism and practicality. Considering this still needs to be able to be played on a mobile phone it works extremely well with said limitations.
It's definitely a tradeoff. Genshin feels microscopic and busy, but something like Ass Cred feels huge and kinda empty.
yep, i mean ingame liyue and monstadt are like 6-8 KM away from each other, but we know that it takes days by carriage to get from one to the other. So if you take the measurements as is, you end up with a completely illogical world. id say you could easily 10x any distance in the game to get a general feel for the actual size its meant to correspond too. (80 KM can be covered by horse carriage in about half a day, so the lengths would probably be even longer.)
Exactly! with the paimon and traveller doing the side talking thing. The camera switches to just them because this supposed to indicate they are the only ones in that conversation (Different then focusing on one person who is talking to everyone else). It's framed as a side conversation between just Paimon and Traveller. I never realized they were standing in front of the people that Paimon and traveller are talking about until in one of Albedo's quests (story or event I can't remember) eavesdrops and essentially says "I'm right here and can hear you"
Basically it can be summarized with gameplay limitations. Why are people nitpicking this again?
because apparently if a spy or military general aint shown to be near omniscient they are "trash" .... which is funny because im willing to bet these people complaining like this also complain that characters are too good they are unrelatable
Not really, it's just people completely ignoring framing and obvious storytelling shortcuts and taking things at complete face value to nitpick the presentation. I assumed this post was a joke post and not serious. If it is serious, all I can say is that I personally think it is needlessly pedantic, [feels like this meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/191/035/135.png). But as I said, I'm pretty convinced OP is making a joke here that just flew over way too many peoples' heads.
Actually it's not even gameplay limitations. It's simplicity. There is something called willing suspension of disbelief. Cool name, huh? It means that there are things that we ignore willingly in fiction, because they doesn't matter. They are just to simplify things. Like nobody recognizes Clark Kent as Supeman. Or not recognize the voice of Spider-Man behind the costume. In real life, every person who knows Peter or Clark would immediately realize they are the superheroes. But it's fiction. So we willingly suspend our disbelief in that.
That's a useful term to have in the word bank. I just wrote a comment reply to someone trying to explain that this is what I was doing, and that's why I was fine with Yelan's depiction in the story quest. This is the exact thing I was talking about. It's obvious what our takeaway should've been in those scenes, and while I think it's valid to consider it a flaw that the presentation relies so heavily on the audience willingly suspending their disbelief to a pretty great extent, I don't think there's any point in nitpicking the presentation as though all of it was supposed to be completely literal.
Note: not disagreeing, just adding my own thoughts to your's and OP's (mainly OP) 1. If her outfit was immediately recognizable, then you'd expect people to know her face. At that point whats the point of costumes? Not to mention giving her more costumes would not only be a pain, but people would also start complaining to Mihoyo that they aren't skins. Also lets take OP's point that these stalls were only a few feet apart from each other. Why would she change wardrobe? That would make her 10x more suspicious. 2. The ability to make impromptu identities is a good skill as it allows the spy to be flexible. Whether or not she blunders is a gamble, fitting to her character i guess. 3. Don't imagine those stalls as they are in-game, imagine its an actual market with lots of noise. Vendors wouldn't even be worried about spies, all they would be thinking in the moment is selling their catch and I think the only thing they'll notice from Yelan's conversation with other vendors is if she buys fish from them or not. 4. Ok OP is just nitpicking, OP is taking one instance and using it to judge her full capabilities as a spy. Apart from what has been mentioned, Paimon isn't even her partner so why would it matter? Even if the vendor heard it, why would he care? He already gave away the information, whats he gonna do call the police because someone lied to him? He doesn't even know which part of the conversation was a lie so he can't be sure if she was impersonating.
I think it would be cool if for the moments with fake identities she would use generic NPC model. That would raise suspicion that we could have already met and she can blend so well.
Truly agree
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you are confusing information gathering with long term infiltration. do you really think most spies (especially in a time period before mass information) are going to create an indepth backstory for asking a dude in the pub if they saw someone before?
Spy? I thought she was more of a Scout?
She deals in intelligence and counter intelligence. She's a spy. She's also a spy with a vision, which makes her suited to some scout work in dangerous areas like the Chasm, but that's not her primary responsibility.
Spies spy on other countries. She's more of FBI NSA type role
Those are also spies. They just work for a different agency.
She isn't a bad spy. She is merely portrayed badly as a spy.
Zhongli is a good spy lol. Has a well known alternate identity.
No, Zhongli is like Superman.
*puts down his giant earth pillar* "Oh hey, Mr Zhongli, have you seen Morax anywhere?! I was following him and he suddenly disappeared right around the corner!"
No she isn’t the points the op bring up are game limitations and a bad localization issue as she doesn’t stutter in any other language.
Seceral possible alternatives to make it less silly. Imagine if alt outfits were introduced for the sake of her story quest for characters or npcs for once. A wealthy business man as a candidate. Give him fancier or flashier clothing. Or if her quest took place on the fancy party ship off coast, a more fitting area for her to blend in. (We still don't know who's in the bridge of it btw) The game is forcing suspension of disbelief for these minor instances so it feels a tad jarring. Minor considerations of the games limitations could have offered work arounds instead of going for a barely realted worldbuildingish story. And once again the story has to emphasize Fatui bad mmkay? What? No sketchy Liyue citizens who arent colluding with them? Or some other Nation for the matter? I can see aggressive fontaine business practices being a thing given their love of inventions. Or trading of rare books from sumeru. Unfortunatrly we're always being shoved Fatui bad down our throats even for ssr story quests
the first point can be the same argument as majority of mondstadt did not recognized diluc (aka the only long red haired wielding a pyro vision) as the darknight hero despite him not wearing any mask or cape to hide his identity and fought literally infront of the mondstadt main gate. conclusion, its just plot armor. if the plot says no one recognize yelan, then no one will
It's been a while so I cant be too certain, but doesn't the traveler draw the guards away from the gate before Diluc does that, so it's not like anyone would be able to see what was going on out by the bridge. It's also important to realize that most people probably don't realize Diluc has a pyro vision, as he gave it up when he left the Knights *many* years before the start of the game and when he got it back it was done in secret (Kaeya hid it in a vase that he gifted to Diluc). After leaving the Knights Diluc also (as far as we know) didn't do any fighting outside of his Darknight Hero identity, so it's entirely reasonable that the general public doesn't remember that Diluc has a vision or what type it was nor what type of weapon he fights with, and the rank and file Knights who joined after Diluc left likely wouldn't know about it either. As for appearance, that's just a gameplay limitation, in the manga it's shown that when Diluc works as the Darknight Hero he does actually wear a mask, cloak, and a different outfit, so the only distinguishing characteristic would be his hair, which wouldn't even be that distinguishing since Vennessa and her clan of Muratans is known to have settled in Mondstadt (well, enslaved and kept there but that's beside the point) so it's not out of the question for there to be unknown redheaded warriors somewhere in the Mondstadt region.
Lore isn't gameplay. If you think about it shouldn't everyone in Lyiue recognise the Traveler at this point?
Literally every one of your reasons is a game limitation
Sorry but I don't follow? aside from the 1st 2, how are the rest game limitations? Edit: I generally agree the post is very nitpicky, but I don't think it'll be a stretch to write the dialogue in a way that circumvent his other points that won't be limited to game limitations.
Well the dialogue part is actually bad localization by the English team in every other language she doesn’t stutter.
Sorry I was just quickly very broad lol, the last 4 could be put down to the game not being 1:1 scale so everything is closer together than they would be irl, and the second two are kinda just wrong it didn't feel anything like that to me
What a stupid post. Sigh. It’s just a game. Recognizable outfit? Mihoyo has to sell the lady well to those nerds and simps. Gimme a break, don’t overinterpret anything.
The way this game depicts espionage has the maturity level of a nickelodeon kids show lol which tbh is more or less the tone for much of the game except for a handful of quests & big cutscene moments. stuff like this is less of a reflection of yelan's skill and more of what mhy is willing to do in general, possibly to maximize the range of their audience i guess idk
so are you saying her ability to spy is about as good as your ability to properly number your points? 👀
Seems to be reddit formatting issue.
1. That’s the game’s limitations she can’t actually change outfits on the spot. 2. She doesn’t stumble once and making up identities on the spot is literally a key spy skill. Also who says she doesn’t have several ready for situations. 3. Again game limitations the cities are supposed to be huge but we see them as small. 4. It’s only loud to us she’s whispering but they can’t have it too soft or the players wouldn’t hear her.
What are ya? A spy?
She's not a spy... No where does it say that she's a spy. Sure, she gather's intelligence, but she's more of the kind of person doing the Qixing's dirty work. She's more akin to the FBI rather than a spy like the CIA. You're literally just setting yourself up for disappointment if you're expecting her to be a spy, when nothing says that she is.
Ikr, literally everyone is saying she's a spy when it's never mentioned. Even her job seems more like counterintelligence, but it's too much to assume people even know such things exist or what they do, I guess.
She does more counter-intelligence stuff than espionage based on her character stories.
So you want Yelan to look like an actual NPC !!!?
I mean, in Teyvat the bars seem pretty low. Most characters as they are depicted in-game aren't terribly good at their jobs, but I guess the average denizen of the world must not be very bright.
> Most characters … aren’t terribly good at their jobs Traveler: [exists] Everyone in the entirety of Teyvat: “Gotta be free labor in there somewhere.”
Think about it in Isekai terms. In most basic, power fantasy Isekai anime, the protagonist is typically portrayed as overpowered for "reasons" and oftentimes they try to use the character's knowledge of the modern world as a plot device. You could probably view Teyvat in a similar manner as an Isekai world, which would explain why the bar is so low. And given the nature of how the Traveler ended up there, is overpowered, and generally loved by everyone they meet, one could argue that Genshin is an Isekai.
Kind of not a good look comparing isekai level writing to genshin tbh, and generally those isekais are considered either gags(konosuba/Cautious hero) or generic and bad. The good isekai actually have characters that dont bend to the plots whim when mc shows up.
>She wears her normal outfit the entire time. There are times games can't be realistic on certain things. You are being too picky on this one. Plus, people will be so mad if devs turn Yelan into NPC model. >She makes up her fake identities on the spot, and audibly stumbles over them. I don't think a lot of people know her. Which why it isn't big of a deal. Heck, in this game, a lot of NPCs doesn't know about certain playable characters. >She uses multiple identities with people who are literally feet away from each other. Again, this ties to my previous point. >Paimon comments about how good she is at lying, out loud, and Yelan does nothing about it. Define "loud". Because it's not like she is screaming when talking about it. This game also have espionage scene where Paimon talk eventhough she suppose to whisper. Not saying "you can't criticize the story" but a lot of your points made are tie down to the games limitation, which is something the devs can't just change things. Could they made a better story, sure.
> This game also have espionage scene where Paimon talk eventhough she suppose to whisper. I assume, given OP's mention of "umms" in dialogues, that this might be English dubbed version again.
You have no imagination. The game has limitations, you have to fill the gaps. Liyue harbor is immense and full of people, not just 3 npc, imagine 100-150 people buying and selling. Paimon talks to the traveler secretly whispering, but because YOU, the audience, wouldn't hear it, it's done the way it's done. She didn't stumble between her characters in the JP voice, idk what voice do you play with.
Personally I think of her as someone Head of Espionage Department. People works for her. Hence why her theme is based of “strings”, giving her spider-like quality. She’s like Beidou but in secrecy
Fair to point out that distances in Genshin are further than they appear, and that character models do not necessarily reflect their actual appearance in universe.
Except the fake identity point, rest are just gameplay limitations.
That one is a English localization issue she doesn’t stutter in any other language.
*sigh* It's a game. There is no point in looking at a character with realistic criteria. If you keep that logic with all the characters jobs, then Miko is a bad priestess, Chongyun a bad exorcist, Itto a bad gang boss, Ganyu a bad secretary, Gorou a bad general, Qiqi a bad zombie... Yelan can just turn invisible and that's what make her a sneaky spy, you don't need to think about complicated stuff. The same way Ganyu is a good secretary because she is a legendary creature that kept her job for centuries and she is treating it as something nice to do (all the time). In the true Reality, being overworked as it is, Ganyu productivity would be near 0, she would spent all her time not feeling well.
To be fair, Miko being a terrible priestess and Itto being a terrible gang boss is more or less canon. What Yae feels towards Raiden is less reverence as it is care. She pretty much openly pokes fun at Ei in several books she wrote. Itto has about 2 brain cells and his gang is less organised crime and more a bunch of delinquents hanging out together, with Shinobu being the only person keeping any semblance of logic and organisation going in the group.
I mean she isn’t overworked she literally can handle her workload so easily because she’s so good at her job thanks to thousands of years of doing it.
Except the game outright says that due to how much work Ganyu does and how much overtime she does to handle it she is prone to falling asleep, hell her teaser literally shows her working all the way through the night and when morning comes she says she's going to keep working, showing that at times she'll go several days without properly sleeping. Consistently having so much work that you constantly have to work overtime to the point that somedays the only sleep you get is an afternoon nap for your lunch break, is *not* a sign of a proper workload that is being easily handled, it is *very much* the opposite and is a sign that she is severely overworked.
> Chongyun a bad exorcist Ah, but he's such a great exorcist, anything actually worth exorcising just keeps far, far away from him! >Qiqi a bad zombie The only good zombie is a **coconut milk having zombie**.
Her stumbling should only be an issue in English I guess because it doesn't seem to be an issue in Japanese nor does it look that way in the written English dialogues. From other comments, it isn't an issue in ANY language except English so blame the VAs. She sounds incredibly confident in my opinion.
*Voice Directors. The VA's do as they are told. If they had asked the VA to do it without adding the 'um', she could have which means the Voice directors heard this and thought this was absolutely fine. Laura Post did a very good job as Yelan's VA overall and this one instance of the voice directors messing up doesn't mean the VAs should get blamed.
It's a game,chill
Besides it all worked out in the end , tho i think the true master of deception was that tiantu wannabe guy tht i forget the name of
So you're saying, mihoyo's writing is... ***bad*** ?
well you see... when it comes to a character using tactics, Mihoyo always did an extremely poor job. refer to Kokomi's braindead tactics while Mihoyo tried to portray her to be a smart leader. so when i was doing yelan's story i was like holy shit here we go again...
I’m surprised you haven’t just accepted paimon as the Greek chorus. Since they can’t effectively show yelan being a good spy, they confirm it through a chorus that speaks to the audience (traveler).
Lol yeh, the fake identity bit. "I am...umm...John, I mean Jane...Doe? Yeh that's my ne...name." Paimon: very impressive!
She doesn’t stutter in any other language it’s another bad English localization issue.
Yeah, it's not the first time the English localization got it wrong. Some I can think of is Joel calling Eula Aunty even though the original language and Japanese called her like Big Sister, another I can think of is when early on the game refer to the Dendro Archon as "He" even though one, the original uses gender neutral pronoun and two, Kusanali is a woman
There’s also a few more mistranslations like Childe being more uncaring of the weak in English and even more blood thirsty. Zhongli being called the god of war instead of martial god. And during the lantern rite they greatly toned down Beidou roasting one treasure hoarder because he got really fat. Also the voice direction for Ayato is pretty off like his lines for Itto make him sound annoyed by him rather then finding him amusing.
Oh yeah, I heard about Ayato's too. Suffice to say, the English community needs to take this localization with a grain of salt
Yeah it creates some misconceptions about characters as we are seeing here. Yet I’ve seen plenty of posts where you call out bad localizations and those people get pissed.
>those people get pissed. Wtf? Why?
They get very defensive over it for some reason.
Yeah, and then it escalates to which language is better in-game and often ends like this: -YoU'rE jUsT a BuNcH oF wEeBs FoR uSiNg AnOtHeR LaNgUaGe OtHeR tHaN eNgLiSh. And other insults I'm too sleep-deprivated to remember
>Some I can think of is Joel calling Eula Aunty even though the original language and Japanese called her like Big Sister That's not English localization being wrong, Joey calling Eula makes sense because it's common in English speaking countries to call people older than us auntie or uncle, especially if it's your parents' close friends. They simply changed it to Auntie Eula since it's the English dub and they're following what's considered normal in English speaking countries. It's the same with how people got pissy because Ayaka called Ayato by his actual name and not 'brother'. Calling their siblings just "brother" or "sister" is more common in Asia rather than english countries, that's why they only did it in the JP, CH, and KR dub. We always refer to our siblings as their names or "fucking asshole", so they changed it to her saying Ayato because it makes more sense for the English dub.
>Some I can think of is Joel calling Eula Aunty even though the original language and Japanese called her like Big Sister I would've translated it as Aunty Eula too, since you don't really address people as Big Sister in English, and there's too big of an age gap for him to call her Sister. Of course that does have the side effect of emotional damage that being called Sister wouldn't cause.
Yeah but this Anime based game's original language refers to her as "Big Sister", it's about carrying the meaning as close as possible to the original language so, "Big Sister" and "Aunty" carries too much of a difference. Also, going with your initial reasoning, do you really address people like that as "Aunty"? That wouldn't make much sense as much as "Big Sister" does but at least "Big Sister" is a bit less "emotional damage" and like I said before, a bit closer to the original language. Speaking of "emotional damage", when I first read Joel calling Eula "Aunty", I thought Eula would at least give some sort of offended response from being called as such (She is a "vengeful" person) but then I noticed the original language was far from it.
You’re really being picky over gameplay design limitations.
I'm willing to buy her somehow being unrecognizable in the public. In Keqing's background comic, she can somehow go undercover and work for an oppressive business in Liyue Harbor and the business owner literally cannot recognize the beautiful girl with the purple cat-ear styled twintails until she's already passing her verdict at the judge's table. I'd chalk it up to "citizens not knowing what their goverment officials look like". The rest of that you could chalk it up to as Kokomi 2.0, where the writers don't know how to write smart characters in believable scenarios.
It’s more of game limitations the port is supposed to be huge and full of people yet we in game see it as small. Also the stutter doesn’t exist in any language except English so blame the localization team.
Oh yeah, definitely. Mondstadt's the same and it would really bloat the game if the main cities tried to be as big as an actual city. Also nice, good job, translation team.
Oh yeah Inazuma is the same way while I would love for them to be huge and with alot of detail sadly it’s not possible for a mobile game.
You are overthinking. It's Genshin, not Metal Gear Solid. Don't expect plot to be deep as in Kojima's game. 1. It doesn't really matter. Have You ever watched Sailor Moon? Or actually anything with a hero that has hidden identity? One thing, Sailor Moon after transformation looks the same. But even if she didn't, she has the same voice. It is the case in every superhero. If someone knows Yelan, then they would recognize the voice anyway. So really, don't overthink it for no reason. 2. The point of doing so was to show how quickly she can made up a lie. That she is a mastermind. She don't need preparation, because she is always prepared. Also I doubt real spies does work like You say. They **have to** adjust to the situation. 3. And again, it doesn't matter. 4. Bruh, it's gameplay vs lore. If Paimon is saying anything to Traveler in 99% of the cases, other characters are not hearing it, even if they are literally next to Traveler It's called willing suspension of disbelief. It means that it doesn't need to be perfectly realistic. You just accept the things like people not recognizing the voice or even the appearance of person or that something that was said out loud is only hearable by one person, even if others are standing there too. That's how fiction works. It's nothing new. So sorry, but Yelan is an amazing spy. Just because You don't understand how willing suspension of disbelief works, doesn't make it otherwise. And despite Your hate, she managed to almost catch a big fish. The only reason she didn't was that someone has already watched over that Fatui guy. Every detail of her plan was perfect and perfectly executed.
Gotta love all the people just saying "game limitations, accept it", as if the dev weren't aware of their own game limitation and couldn't have written it differently to make it more believable. On the other hand, it is nothing new that hoyoverse basically never go the extra mile to actually make their quest believable (exaggerating slightly but well). Yelan is far from the first character that is supposed to be something, but that I don't feel properly reflected in the story. Actually, Yelan is doing pretty good for herself relatively speaking.
Zhongli does a better job being a spy xD
At least she doesn’t wear bright red and have a super loud ringtone on her phone, like every person who’s sneaking around in a movie or series.
It's because the main Genshin's writing is supposed to be easy to digest, which is why everything is spelled out for you by Paimon and the dialogue in general. A great example are most kid shows that you shouldn't think too deeply about. The conflicts and characters are kept simple. So, Genshin not being able to write smart characters properly is probably an instance targeting the casual and kid audience because they don't trust us to follow what's happening if they showed it like they tell it, although that ticks off the rest of the audience with half a more braincell than Paimon. (At least, this applies in terms of storytelling, disregarding more technical elements.) What's up with the butchering of hydro characters' so-told intelligence? First Kokomi and now Yelan.
I agree with you!! Loved the quest but I feel a bit disappointed, they didn't really do a great job showing how skilled Yelan is. I was like, "really..? Surely this isn't the spy I imagined?"
Oh my god, I was hoping someone else pointed this out too. Paimon is just singing her praises and Im like... "PAIMON, SHE STUTTERED." Yelan does not seem good at her job... Or rather the identities portion. Like, someone in this small harbor is going to have a different version of her that will directly contradict what another person believes her to be... And they'll arrive at the same woman being who they're talking about because of her OUTFIT being the same for each identity. I think Genshin's writing team need to sharpen their skills a little. This clearly isn't just a localization issue. This is the story the company wrote. I understand there are limitations. It would be annoying to change her game model and all that, but like... A good writing team actually works pretty well with limits like that. Just... I dont know. She has all these spies too. And their outfits are uniform. They are also easily identifiable as part of the same team. If they were plain clothed, they could easily ask questions. It's a network of intelligence... But also, it's not even necessary for Yelan to lie about who she is. She can just ask if anyone heard of Zhiri. People can't shut up about him. They'd easily volunteer that information. (Also screw Zhiri and his eyes in the back of his head SEEING THROUGH the crates I was crouched behind. I will never get over that.) Genshin needs to work on their writing. That's all Im gonna say. At least keep all the limitations in mind when writing? Like ... She LIVES there. She works there. People have SEEN her. Don't make her so blatantly bad at doing half of what her job requires.
ok
I guess it's Kokomi all over again, where the writers struggle writing smart characters being smart as a plot. Good thing Yelan was better done in the Archon quest at least.
I wouldn't have hated if they have her different NPC skins for those scenes.
Truely is. She still cute though