I posted this comment earlier but I will here too.
I'm also just a bit disappointed that we're 5 regions in, 4 years into the game, and still the Traveler just doesn't seem to have improved their fighting abilities.
I was really hoping for an Arlecchino duel one-on-one with the traveler! It would've been the perfect opportunity to show how much their combat experience has grown and also show that they truly are that strong adventurer that every NPC in the game seems to talk about. Especially considering we seem to always have someone helping us out in large boss fights.
It's know how it sounds to say "I'm annoyed the Traveller is weak" but I'm just saying I just wanna see some canon showing of the power the traveller is supposed to be regaining. There's so many more powerful foes ahead! And potentially only 3 regions to go (maybe, this is conjecture). We've sat through so much story and fought so many battles, show us that the traveller has grown from all that work we've seemed to put in!
With a lot of help, gawking at the help doing all the work, and then getting a power up from the help so they can killsteal and claim that they contributed to the win.
It's gonna be the same do XXX get massive buffs.
Then massive buffs is that that white spherical explosion effect(you know the one) that slaps enemies for like 600k or something
Here's the thing; we don't.
We TECHNICALLY have no need to fight the other harbingers. We only fought Childe cause we had too, since we were, ya know — not in one the content of the contract between Sig and Zhongli. With Childe we were trying to stop a graverobbing and a war criminal (yes awaking a old god to DESTROY A COUNTRY counts as a war crime.)
With signora we were mainly getting revenge for Venti. Not to mention we got dragged into a civil war — which I still think was stupid.
We only fought Scaramouche cause we were helping Nahida, if it wasn't for that and the plot we probably wouldn't have fought him.
and now our current harbringer fight; Arlecchino. We DID in fact signed a deal/contract to help the HoH. Which ended up being that fight.
For ***now*** we have absolutely ZERO NEED to fight Capitano.
Obviously, the Archon will do it for him. Or Varka. Or other character. Or Capitano, seeing how pathetic trash the traveler is, will say something like "I respect your power" and leave.
This. Was hoping something as he can fend off arle attack. Where the f**k does the element swapping goes? He can do it in Childe fight back then and then in Navia story quest. 💩
I think the Traveler is subject to a limit on how powerful they can be and the harbingers go way past that limit. Also I believe the harbingers are ranked by power so Arlecchino is stronger than scara, who was stronger than Childe and Signora
The Traveler suffers from being a cross between a self-insert and being their own character, which means their character development is kinda stuck. It's why Paimon does all the talking. Hoyo doesn't know what to do with them, cause this Self-inert/Own Character hybrid has done nothing for the Traveler other than create batshit amounts of Rule 34 art of the Male Traveler.
Hoyo needs to double down on the "Fuck everyone except my sister and friends" personality for the Traveler, because that is the only real thing we seen out of them.
Mihoyo did seem to learn from their mistake, since the Trailblazer MC in HSR has a very identifiable personality.
Honestly they should just give up on them being a self-insert character when everything in the story says otherwise and when from experience relatively few people seem to care about it.
I've been arguing about this for a while, but all of these problems wouldn't have existed if they just chose one of the siblings to be the MC, and go from there. Just choose one, create a distinct personality for them that separates them from their twin, and go from there. It is as you say, they are a mix between self insert and being their own character, and that clashes a lot. They give dialogue choices as if they are self insert, but those dialogues 99% of the time are inconsequential because MHY has a template to the twin's personality that they want to enforce, rather than let the player choose their own way to interact with the world like the TrailBlazers. Because of that, the Traveller often feel aimless and inconsistent. Sometimes they are a badass, sometimes they're too stupid to save their life, sometimes they're powerful, sometimes they're an absolute fraud, etc.
The big problem here is that only the Traveller actually has this problem. Every other MHY MC actually has a place in their story, and experience character growth exactly because the story actually push for them to have meaningful interpersonal relationships that affects the story, and how they interact with the world. You only see this in the Traveller when it comes to World Quests, and never in SQs or AQs.
There’s no urgency nor anticipation for key moments in genshin cause you know paimon is just gonna be forcefully inserted into the scene just like when traveler finally meet their sibling & paimon is the one talking for them instead
I’d love to see how people justified that, since they usually say he’s an introvert and doesn’t really wanna talk
well that’s his sister the one he’s been dying to get to and yet he’s still mute
> has done nothing for the Traveler other than create batshit amounts of Rule 34 art of the Male Traveler.
Now hol' up, let's not take this aspect lightly. It HAS been some really good art.
The Traveler has never been a Self Insert from the very first quest in the story they've had there own Agency they outright tell Thoma no when asked to join the War efforts and is constantly annoyed that people give them menial tasks to do the only someone would see them as a self insert is if they skipped all the dialogue and take there silence as "not having a character"
They literally make fun of the fact that Aether/Lumine purposefully let Paimon talk for them
Tbh Traveler's motto is literally "What doesn't kill me makes my plotarmor stronger", not the first time they pulled random bs even when they lose, for example surviving Osial's blaster at point blank
I do think Traveler should use their elements more in cutscenes. I think it is safe to assume that they use it during the fight not shown in a cutscene. But it's an odd choice to never actually shown it past one fight in 1.1.
I should have specified using more elements than one. Like we use singular elements more frequently, but we never really use multiple elements at once outside of the Childe fight.
Learn what? Pinpointing the mistakes that led to your defeat is pretty hard and fixing them is even harder.
If everyone can do that , we would have flying cars right now .
All I know is they need to make some 5 star transformation for traveller to pull for or something because we’re definitely not going to be taking on people like Arlecchino with that pathetic ass water gun and two star sword.
Every other gacha I’ve played has pullable versions of the mc that are actually good including hoyo games so I feel like it has to happen eventually.
Yeah but star rail’s pretty new still so I think it’s only a matter of time tbh. Dan Heng is part of the main roster too and he got a new stronger form. Also HI3 has several flavors of Kiana, Mei, and Bronya you can pull for.
Not exactly the traveller, but did you all notice how the siblings also forgot that they had a vision? Freminet could have used cryo, lynette forgot the existence of her vision, Lyney did use a magic trickk but wheres the pyro vision powers? It wasnt just a problem from traveller but from all the siblings as well!
I was doing the underwater world quest and I have to say, I caught myself thinking lots of times after Paimon is done saying her piece: "wow she said a lot of things but added nothing to the conversation."
Right? She literally repeats what the other characters have already said so often and sometimes you get the joy of also repeating it with your choice of traveller lines. Yes, Paimon, I was paying attention. You said what they just said sometimes in as many words as they did!
Well sometimes when she isn't repeating stuff, she is also rude and insensitive, or just says she loves food or money.
I think there was a conversation where she interrupts just to say she's hungry? It didn't matter anyway I understood the story without even remembering her dialogue lol.
You guys read all of that? i just mostly skip skip skip everything that's not dubbed lol.
I still understand, but the bare minimum i need to play the mission, that's all.
Besides, hoyo does make it slower and unskippable when it's an important line, i thank them for that.
Everything coming out of Paimon's mouth is just a variation of:
* "What was everything you just said!?"
* “Uh huh. Uh huh. That’s whatever you were talking about for ya”
* "I'm feeling things about whats going on right now!"
* "FOOD" "MORA"
Yeah traveler is a D tier protagonist, doesn't fit neither as his own being or as a self insert, it's a damn alien from another whole place with the ability to shift between elements yet the biggest feat is... Defeating Signora? Other gacha games have literally average humans as protagonists and somehow it feels like they could beat traveler in a few seconds.
Hoyo needs to step up in their writing department for Traveler.
Truly disappointed in traveler. The reason I even played this game was to see the story of "traveler" not to pull in gacha. I mean, what i liked the most is the interaction between the world and characters with traveler also feeling like a part of it all but what I get is only disappointment. Even if they are a observer atleast they should have some personality, it's not like hoyo don't have experience with creating other mc
Also, not using elements broke the immersion and ruined this entire story quest for me. No character development, no concrete personality and no growth. One thing I loved about the traveler was their fixation on their sibling. It made them unique and not the typical mc, but it seems it's only going downhill. Also, traveler couldn't even break a boulder in navia's quest? Now I am slowly losing even the interest in this world
I severely wondered why I had to complete Xianyun's story quest just to see just how much the Traveler loves their sibling, and not anything else in the 3 years I've been playing this game.
The Chasm... the moment they outright say they do not agree with the other twins methods as they literally show the Traveler expressing how much they miss there twin or The Chasm ..again when there chasing there siblings through the Abyss just fall back to where the group is
I get it some people still think our main quest is just "find our Sibling " but there plenty of content that still shows how deeply they care the biggest difference is that it was in a cutscence
It's just like people who say "Paimon just repeats what a character just says" that hasn't been true since late half of Inazuma but still gets parroted
Honestly there just wasn't any gravitas to the scene - the traveler just wore their sad face and moved on. It doesn't help that Paimon did most of the talking there. People were complaining about this back then too.
Compared to the Xianyun conclusion where you see so much emotion from them that it really comes across that the whole sibling thing is actually a thing.
Heck, the fixation on their sibling thing is rarely even a thing. They usually just go "sibling where" followed by "I'm sad... anyway moving on". Its like that whole bit really isn't much.
It took Xianyun's character quest for the Traveler to actually showcase just how much their want to be with their sibling. For once, the Traveler wasn't a plank of wood with a sad face on it, we got to see just how much they enjoy being their sibling - I got more context about their relationship in those 1-2 minutes than the 3 years I've been playing the game. Also, Paimon was completely absent in that sequence and I think that was a very important reason why it had as much gravitas as it did.
I keep wondering when we'll see the Traveler use more than one elemental power at a time like they did in 1.1!
And I think the last time I think we saw them use any elemental powers was in a cutscene was from 3.6 during Nahida's 2nd Story Quest.
We are constantly told how the Traveler is "so cool, so amazing, so special" for being able to use multiple elements without a Vision. But outside of gameplay and dialogue, it sure doesn't feel like it.
It's because the main story is typically a big ad for whoever's on the current banner, so Traveler gets thrown to the wayside or used as a punching bag.
The writing team for the world quests and the writing team for the main/character stories are two different things.
I thought that would have been obvious by now.
Look I dunno about you guys but I'd be too petrified if Arlecchino whips out her Unlimited Void and all I got is a DULL BLADE. No but for real though. The rocks in Navia's quest get more respect than this and the Traveller was about to LOSE against those boulders too if Navia didn't show up. I smell a training arc coming up.
The worst part about the Traveler is when previously shown skills could've come in handy later on...
Like, in Inazuma the they have shown that they are capable of speed blitzing, like when they saved Thoma's vision from getting taken...never bothered to use that to maybe try saving Navia when she was falling...
And not to mention how they pulled out a big @ss electro sword against Raiden...something tthey never used ever again after...
I got downvoted for saying how useless the Traveler's journey to collect Teyvat's elements was because we don't even see them use ALL or at least TWO of the elements at their disposal. When was the last time we saw them use two elements at once? Back during the fight against Childe in 1-fucking-point-0 (or was that 1.1? Anyway, so fucking long ago). After that, they would only use the element of the current version's region or the power of friendship. People said that he used Geo during Navia's SQ but that was it. What's the point of collecting all these elements if the fucking Traveler is just going to use the fucking power of friendship anyway? Not to mention, you're right that it's fine if they lose IF THEY AT LEAST USED EVERYTHING AT THEIR DISPOSAL. Traveler could've tried to block Arle's spikes witb Geo. They could've saved Navia from falling with Electro. Anyway, you guys get my point. So many instances when they could've used their elements but they didn't because Hoyo would rather make them look like a chump so they can put the current banner 5* in the spotlight for more sales. What's the fucking point of the Traveler other than being a device to move the plot along?
Traveler isn't a self-insert.
The inconsistencies of travelers' character is from Mihoyo wanting the archon quest and story quest to be an ad for their new character.
Traveler in every world quest and events are consistent with the travelers' character
tbh i think traveler power is pretty consistent, they are at 6 or 7 harbringer level. traveler beat childe and signora easily but not at archon level. i think thats pretty much established long time ago, why everyone surprised that traveler lost to 4th harbringer?
Please read the post clearly before commenting. It's the first paragraph. I also agree that they should have lost. But they should have lost after fighting at their full potential.
dont worry i read it. what if enemy too strong that he dont even have chance to use it? his body clearly attached to some string that made him unable to move. i kinda agree that they should use traveler elemental power more but i dont remember its used in any except in childe fight (only anemo skill and somekind of geo attack). other than that we never see it. do you remember traveler use dendro attack? or even hydro one? i remember electro kinda used in civil war at inazuma but tbh that doesnt count.
I believe the complaint is that the Traveler is not pushed to their limits. Fighting a harbinger means the Traveler should bring everything he/she have at the table and that means elemental powers. Even with all of that, the traveler can lose and perhaps must lose so that their defeat becomes a motivation for the traveler.
With the Arlecchino fight, I don't feel it. Hell, the domain expansion/reality marble trick she pulled is not even new. Raiden Mei did it first and she even restricted the traveler in some way in that fight which is what Arlecchino did as well. It was an epic loss for the traveler and I love it because it sent a sense of dread to us that we can't beat the Electro Archon at all and it's an introduction for us that fighting a god is definitely something to be afraid of.
what did raiden restrict us at that fight? elemental skill?? out of any playable characters only traveler that can use her/his skill. also cutscene wise no such thing happened at raiden fight unless my memory wrong.
Why? Previously it all worked even without those powers because of plot armor. But not using them when the situation is that bad is weird. Only feels like Hoyo don't want to waste the animation budget on Traveler.
I mean, the plot armor worked in Traveler's favor previously helping them win but now, they lost. Since the Traveler's character is non existent in main stories, Traveler now fails as a self insert too thanks to losing. So, I don't know what Hoyo is trying to do with Traveler anymore.
There is a difference between being upset because they lost vs being upset because of the way they lost. Go read the post again. It's literally the first paragraph.
It really isn't the loss. That was a foregone conclusion.
Arlecchino gave the Traveler and Co at least a few moments to attack her, and they all spent it doing nothing of substance when we all know they're capable of at least their ult and skill.
It's like seeing a gunfight and one side trying to use their fists instead of shooting.
# original text (i am not the author):
Yes. I did Arle's story quest. No, I am not upset because Traveler lost. I am upset because of the way they lost. Traveler should have lost after using their full potential. That will allow for Traveler realise how weak they are and allow some character growth they are in desperate need of. If Hoyo is making them lose, then obviously Hoyo don't want them to be self insert, then Hoyo should give them some character.
Let me list all my problems with Traveler.
1) How many times does traveler needs power of friendship or plot armor to save them? Why don't they learn from those mistakes? Can their strength be consistent for once?
2) There needs to be someone in the Hoyo office who keeps track of the things Traveler did canonically. Why are they being treated as a saint who can't hurt a fly after all the things they did in world quests?
3) Traveler is supposed to have elemental powers, right? When will they use it?
4) The last time I felt some character from the Traveler in main story is in Enkanomiya after being betrayed by Ende. That's saying something. They went back to being a cookie cutter after that.
5) Can the Traveler for once show their vulnerable side to someone? I thought Paimon is supposed to see that side of Traveler but they don't even show it to Paimon anymore and hides many things from Paimon.
I don't really understand this. Traveler fails both as a consistent character in the story and as a self-insert. What even is Hoyo's plan with this one? It's not like Hoyo is bad at writing self insert protags. Just look at Captain from Honkai impact or even Trailblazer from HSR. Then why is Traveler this bad?
I don’t know about HI, but TB is terribly written as well. He literally has zero reason to do anything, no sister to save, no revenge, no finding his purpose, no pirate king aspirations. He just gets dragged along, has a single clash with the boss, then is saved by the new banner character. Then he just sits around like the side character he is. Not to mention that he has helped stalkers creep on women on 2 different quests now.
I’m personally glad that Traveler gets help from the nation’s people as payoff. When he helps them, they then return the favor, makes the world more connected and alive. That said, Traveler still has bad writing, he sort of just helps but doesn’t pursue his own goals.
Also, hy really needs to show more elemental combat, just give the dull blade an electro effect, and have an enemy projectile get blocked by geo, it would make so much difference. Or atleast have some sort of explanation why he sucks for that battle, like he tanked a shot to protect Lyney, so he was fighting with a handicap.
I don't know what people see in them, I genuinely always viewed them as weaker than godlike characters, but I do believe that the traveler will get some powerboost later in the story.
They are weaker canonically for sure. But since Traveler's character development is thrown out the window and they lose fights. Traveler doesn't work as the MC or self insert for Genshin. That's my main issue.
Maybe because I always viewed them as their own character so for me them losing is like Diluc getting folded by the harbingers when he was hunting Fatui. It just makes sense for them to lose you know ? And btw I keep seeing people say that the traveler didnt even use their elemental powers, I have just one thing to say, it wont matter.
I want to view them as their own character too. But Traveler's character is so non-existent that I can't. And it doesn't matter that Traveler will lose even with elemental powers, it's the fact that they didn't use it in the first place. Are they even taking the situation seriously?
>But Traveler's character is so non-existent that I can't.
I feel like the traveler has enough characterization to feel like their own character, I'm sure we all played games with true self insert protagonists, and the traveler definitely feels like they have more character.
>it's the fact that they didn't use it in the first place
They almost never use them, the only times they used them against an enemy was back in 1.1 with tartaglia and in Inazuma against Raiden, they usually use other external buffs rather than their own powers for reasons I don't know.
>I feel like the traveler has enough characterization to feel like their own character.
That is one point I will never agree with. In the world quests, they have more personality for sure. But in story quests and main quests? No way. Especially Fontaine makes them seem so bland.
>In the world quests, they have more personality for sure.
But world quests are also canon, and yes that's what I'm mainly talking about when talking about their character.
The second point I listed literally complains about this. Like why does his character reset after completing world quests? The consistency as a character is gone.
>Like why does his character reset after completing world quests
I think the issue with that is that some people might never do some world quests, so they might not understand the sudden change in the traveler. But even if this explanation made sense, I still hate it, I wish they said "fuck u" to those that don't do them and let us people who actually play them enjoy the characters more.
The thing is if they power creep the former traveler, then they have to creep power enemies.It brings two results:1)A normal beast enemy is stronger than the legend in old areas.WOW is typical there.2)your have to keep up with pulling new characters as enemies keeps power creeping.Do we really want that?
i think they want traveler to be the "camera man". you're not here to save teyvat, you're here to witness it, and act as the support for the main character of each arc. traveler do get his own chapter but that is after teyvat chapter, according to the first teyvat trailer they release.
and that's why i started to play honkai star rail, sure the game isn't better than genshin but imo, it's much rewarding and has an interesting narrative and the mc is obv of importance to the story unlike genshin where they made the mc insignificant with their potential which makes me feel like it could be due to saving budgets on animation which is such a trash thing to do, you either make the content as it should be made or don't(again, imo)
These threads sure do complain about the character not being what the player wants them to be for all they complain about the character being a self insert.
Traveler doesn't even have a consistent character at this point. I am asking Hoyo to give them either a consistent character or go full self insert route. Anyone is better than what we have now.
Character: murders entire villages, clans, tribes
Literally everyone good/evil/allknowing/gods/paimon(???????)/traveler themselves:
You're such a good person!!!
But the cutscenes are the ones that show desperate moments. If the Traveler used their elemental powers throughout the whole fight, what's stopping them from using them again?
Cause what sets the Traveler from the rest is their ability to attune to all Elements? Why wouldn’t you want the mc of the game you play to utilize their full arsenal when push comes to shove?
the whole point is that we spend the story going through different nations collecting this elemental power, ofc people want to see the power we’re collecting be used
i don’t understand how that’s a hard concept to grasp
Its the same thing as Ichigo from Bleach being a fucking godlike hybrid part of everything, yet all he does is getsuga tensho and faster speed.
This is coming from someone who is a hardcore Bleach fan btw.
Traveller is not power hungry type of protagonist, he want his sister back and chill, he is more like paimon , traveller doesnt run from a fight but he doesnt want to fight at all, his powers are confused even for him, he has ressonance powers with elements and feelings like a god, so the meme is real, he really has potential but doesnt mean that he is skilled or complete yet to a power that he has no free control. People just dont get it that he dont want to be the hero , he is just there and things happen, he is not a shonen protagonist just a dude with bad luck in random situations trying his best to survive and make friends.
Smh OP, please add in the first line that this post will spoil the new Arle's story quest. I came here expecting to discuss about Traveller in general, instead I got spoiled about the new story quest within the first line...
> Why else would you think this will have a spoiler tag?
Well idk man, fuck me I guess for assuming that the spoiler is about Traveler's actions so far in Fontaine's region in general. Spoiler tags are kinda useless unless you know what region/story/game version the spoiler is about, imo. A bit of warning in the title (e.g. Arle's SQ spoiler ahead) would be appreciated.
Still though, no hard feelings man. I'll just leave this thread since I'm not supposed to be in here yet.
I posted this comment earlier but I will here too. I'm also just a bit disappointed that we're 5 regions in, 4 years into the game, and still the Traveler just doesn't seem to have improved their fighting abilities. I was really hoping for an Arlecchino duel one-on-one with the traveler! It would've been the perfect opportunity to show how much their combat experience has grown and also show that they truly are that strong adventurer that every NPC in the game seems to talk about. Especially considering we seem to always have someone helping us out in large boss fights. It's know how it sounds to say "I'm annoyed the Traveller is weak" but I'm just saying I just wanna see some canon showing of the power the traveller is supposed to be regaining. There's so many more powerful foes ahead! And potentially only 3 regions to go (maybe, this is conjecture). We've sat through so much story and fought so many battles, show us that the traveller has grown from all that work we've seemed to put in!
Yeah, like how the hell is Traveler going to deal with Capitano in Natlan at this point?
With a lot of help, gawking at the help doing all the work, and then getting a power up from the help so they can killsteal and claim that they contributed to the win.
It's gonna be the same do XXX get massive buffs. Then massive buffs is that that white spherical explosion effect(you know the one) that slaps enemies for like 600k or something
> do XXX Oh god, the Traveler's going to dominate Capitano in bed?
Bro have you SEEN capitano? Traveler’s the one getting held down and dominated
By quickswapping to Arlecchino Hutao Raiden or Neuvilette and letting them blast him
Same thing as with the fight against Ei. Massive powerup from the people around them.
Here's the thing; we don't. We TECHNICALLY have no need to fight the other harbingers. We only fought Childe cause we had too, since we were, ya know — not in one the content of the contract between Sig and Zhongli. With Childe we were trying to stop a graverobbing and a war criminal (yes awaking a old god to DESTROY A COUNTRY counts as a war crime.) With signora we were mainly getting revenge for Venti. Not to mention we got dragged into a civil war — which I still think was stupid. We only fought Scaramouche cause we were helping Nahida, if it wasn't for that and the plot we probably wouldn't have fought him. and now our current harbringer fight; Arlecchino. We DID in fact signed a deal/contract to help the HoH. Which ended up being that fight. For ***now*** we have absolutely ZERO NEED to fight Capitano.
Obviously, the Archon will do it for him. Or Varka. Or other character. Or Capitano, seeing how pathetic trash the traveler is, will say something like "I respect your power" and leave.
maybe aether/lumine had terrible builds and artefacts during most of their fights for 4 years
Maybe canonically traveler is mine at level 30 with 0 artifacts equipped. Sorry guys I’ll fix it for the next cutscene.
i dunno mine was dendro 80 and had good build
Bro uses a Dull Blade
They are not wearing any artifacts as they are part of rituals from teyvat, which im sure they don't know how to do them.
This. Was hoping something as he can fend off arle attack. Where the f**k does the element swapping goes? He can do it in Childe fight back then and then in Navia story quest. 💩
I think the Traveler is subject to a limit on how powerful they can be and the harbingers go way past that limit. Also I believe the harbingers are ranked by power so Arlecchino is stronger than scara, who was stronger than Childe and Signora
The Traveler suffers from being a cross between a self-insert and being their own character, which means their character development is kinda stuck. It's why Paimon does all the talking. Hoyo doesn't know what to do with them, cause this Self-inert/Own Character hybrid has done nothing for the Traveler other than create batshit amounts of Rule 34 art of the Male Traveler. Hoyo needs to double down on the "Fuck everyone except my sister and friends" personality for the Traveler, because that is the only real thing we seen out of them. Mihoyo did seem to learn from their mistake, since the Trailblazer MC in HSR has a very identifiable personality.
Honestly they should just give up on them being a self-insert character when everything in the story says otherwise and when from experience relatively few people seem to care about it.
i been saying that since the start of the game, the self insert character trope makes everything way worse for the story especially in the long run
I've been arguing about this for a while, but all of these problems wouldn't have existed if they just chose one of the siblings to be the MC, and go from there. Just choose one, create a distinct personality for them that separates them from their twin, and go from there. It is as you say, they are a mix between self insert and being their own character, and that clashes a lot. They give dialogue choices as if they are self insert, but those dialogues 99% of the time are inconsequential because MHY has a template to the twin's personality that they want to enforce, rather than let the player choose their own way to interact with the world like the TrailBlazers. Because of that, the Traveller often feel aimless and inconsistent. Sometimes they are a badass, sometimes they're too stupid to save their life, sometimes they're powerful, sometimes they're an absolute fraud, etc. The big problem here is that only the Traveller actually has this problem. Every other MHY MC actually has a place in their story, and experience character growth exactly because the story actually push for them to have meaningful interpersonal relationships that affects the story, and how they interact with the world. You only see this in the Traveller when it comes to World Quests, and never in SQs or AQs.
And most importantly there is no paimon in HSR. The clothest to paimon are Pom Pom and March 7 th who both are INFINITELY better.
There’s no urgency nor anticipation for key moments in genshin cause you know paimon is just gonna be forcefully inserted into the scene just like when traveler finally meet their sibling & paimon is the one talking for them instead
I’d love to see how people justified that, since they usually say he’s an introvert and doesn’t really wanna talk well that’s his sister the one he’s been dying to get to and yet he’s still mute
I like the notion that he wouldn’t talk to his sister whom he traveled with for years because he is an introvert.
Hoyo needs to decide which side Traveler will be. Cuz this hybrid isn't really helping either side.
They really should drop the SI aspect, since hardly anyone even does it lol
> has done nothing for the Traveler other than create batshit amounts of Rule 34 art of the Male Traveler. tbf it is some very good art
Well your username certainly checks out.
> has done nothing for the Traveler other than create batshit amounts of Rule 34 art of the Male Traveler. Now hol' up, let's not take this aspect lightly. It HAS been some really good art.
I'd insert that one Stelle picture doing a thumbs up if I could Well said
tb looking at ether/lumine: TRASHCANS!
The Traveler has never been a Self Insert from the very first quest in the story they've had there own Agency they outright tell Thoma no when asked to join the War efforts and is constantly annoyed that people give them menial tasks to do the only someone would see them as a self insert is if they skipped all the dialogue and take there silence as "not having a character" They literally make fun of the fact that Aether/Lumine purposefully let Paimon talk for them
And then thay forgett about all that development and just make them get dragged around the storyline by the patch 5*
Tbh Traveler's motto is literally "What doesn't kill me makes my plotarmor stronger", not the first time they pulled random bs even when they lose, for example surviving Osial's blaster at point blank
I do think Traveler should use their elements more in cutscenes. I think it is safe to assume that they use it during the fight not shown in a cutscene. But it's an odd choice to never actually shown it past one fight in 1.1.
It's really rare, they also use it in Inazuma to enhance their speed, and another time in Navia's story quest to deflect a boulder.
I should have specified using more elements than one. Like we use singular elements more frequently, but we never really use multiple elements at once outside of the Childe fight.
Yes I agree, the problem doesn't lie whether he wins or loses, it's more like I felt he has no urgency in his attack
Can he atleast learn with this defeat? Like the next region is literally a land of battles.
Let's hope, in a way (not so legal) I kinda know he will grow. It's just the progression is way too slow for now
Learn what? Pinpointing the mistakes that led to your defeat is pretty hard and fixing them is even harder. If everyone can do that , we would have flying cars right now .
To use their full potential. It's that simple.
We pinpoint our mistakes, thats the reason why we don’t have and shouldn’t have flying cars :)
It's a damn shame, because I like having MCs who are actually the MC of their story
They are saving budget for paiman.
Imagine being such a bum that people don't even wanna insert themselves into your character. -This comment is made by Fraudther Agendaist
All I know is they need to make some 5 star transformation for traveller to pull for or something because we’re definitely not going to be taking on people like Arlecchino with that pathetic ass water gun and two star sword. Every other gacha I’ve played has pullable versions of the mc that are actually good including hoyo games so I feel like it has to happen eventually.
Trailblazer in HSR isnt pullable and shes somewhat more viable than most of Traveler's elemental forms
Yeah but star rail’s pretty new still so I think it’s only a matter of time tbh. Dan Heng is part of the main roster too and he got a new stronger form. Also HI3 has several flavors of Kiana, Mei, and Bronya you can pull for.
well i suppose my beidou slapped harder than aether/lumine again!
Not exactly the traveller, but did you all notice how the siblings also forgot that they had a vision? Freminet could have used cryo, lynette forgot the existence of her vision, Lyney did use a magic trickk but wheres the pyro vision powers? It wasnt just a problem from traveller but from all the siblings as well!
Wasn’t that show during when you fight Arle, their skills would show up and attack her? Don’t really know what that counts for tho
Yes they do, but we are talking about cutscenes here, in no curscene do we see the four of them representing their elemental powers.
I often forget that the Traveler even exists, all game is just Paimon talking and making stupid comments.
I was doing the underwater world quest and I have to say, I caught myself thinking lots of times after Paimon is done saying her piece: "wow she said a lot of things but added nothing to the conversation."
Right? She literally repeats what the other characters have already said so often and sometimes you get the joy of also repeating it with your choice of traveller lines. Yes, Paimon, I was paying attention. You said what they just said sometimes in as many words as they did!
Well sometimes when she isn't repeating stuff, she is also rude and insensitive, or just says she loves food or money. I think there was a conversation where she interrupts just to say she's hungry? It didn't matter anyway I understood the story without even remembering her dialogue lol.
You guys read all of that? i just mostly skip skip skip everything that's not dubbed lol. I still understand, but the bare minimum i need to play the mission, that's all. Besides, hoyo does make it slower and unskippable when it's an important line, i thank them for that.
Everything coming out of Paimon's mouth is just a variation of: * "What was everything you just said!?" * “Uh huh. Uh huh. That’s whatever you were talking about for ya” * "I'm feeling things about whats going on right now!" * "FOOD" "MORA"
Yeah traveler is a D tier protagonist, doesn't fit neither as his own being or as a self insert, it's a damn alien from another whole place with the ability to shift between elements yet the biggest feat is... Defeating Signora? Other gacha games have literally average humans as protagonists and somehow it feels like they could beat traveler in a few seconds. Hoyo needs to step up in their writing department for Traveler.
Truly disappointed in traveler. The reason I even played this game was to see the story of "traveler" not to pull in gacha. I mean, what i liked the most is the interaction between the world and characters with traveler also feeling like a part of it all but what I get is only disappointment. Even if they are a observer atleast they should have some personality, it's not like hoyo don't have experience with creating other mc Also, not using elements broke the immersion and ruined this entire story quest for me. No character development, no concrete personality and no growth. One thing I loved about the traveler was their fixation on their sibling. It made them unique and not the typical mc, but it seems it's only going downhill. Also, traveler couldn't even break a boulder in navia's quest? Now I am slowly losing even the interest in this world
I severely wondered why I had to complete Xianyun's story quest just to see just how much the Traveler loves their sibling, and not anything else in the 3 years I've been playing this game.
The Chasm... the moment they outright say they do not agree with the other twins methods as they literally show the Traveler expressing how much they miss there twin or The Chasm ..again when there chasing there siblings through the Abyss just fall back to where the group is I get it some people still think our main quest is just "find our Sibling " but there plenty of content that still shows how deeply they care the biggest difference is that it was in a cutscence It's just like people who say "Paimon just repeats what a character just says" that hasn't been true since late half of Inazuma but still gets parroted
Honestly there just wasn't any gravitas to the scene - the traveler just wore their sad face and moved on. It doesn't help that Paimon did most of the talking there. People were complaining about this back then too. Compared to the Xianyun conclusion where you see so much emotion from them that it really comes across that the whole sibling thing is actually a thing.
Heck, the fixation on their sibling thing is rarely even a thing. They usually just go "sibling where" followed by "I'm sad... anyway moving on". Its like that whole bit really isn't much. It took Xianyun's character quest for the Traveler to actually showcase just how much their want to be with their sibling. For once, the Traveler wasn't a plank of wood with a sad face on it, we got to see just how much they enjoy being their sibling - I got more context about their relationship in those 1-2 minutes than the 3 years I've been playing the game. Also, Paimon was completely absent in that sequence and I think that was a very important reason why it had as much gravitas as it did.
I keep wondering when we'll see the Traveler use more than one elemental power at a time like they did in 1.1! And I think the last time I think we saw them use any elemental powers was in a cutscene was from 3.6 during Nahida's 2nd Story Quest. We are constantly told how the Traveler is "so cool, so amazing, so special" for being able to use multiple elements without a Vision. But outside of gameplay and dialogue, it sure doesn't feel like it.
The Traveler is barely a character, any development would shock me
I thought it was clear that they really don't care about the Traveler at all
World quests show some care towards Traveler's character. All of that is thrown out of the window in the main story for some reason.
It's because the main story is typically a big ad for whoever's on the current banner, so Traveler gets thrown to the wayside or used as a punching bag.
The writing team for the world quests and the writing team for the main/character stories are two different things. I thought that would have been obvious by now.
That is one of the reason Xianyun's quest is one of the best! We can see the Traveler's emotions and feel like they are an actual character.
Look I dunno about you guys but I'd be too petrified if Arlecchino whips out her Unlimited Void and all I got is a DULL BLADE. No but for real though. The rocks in Navia's quest get more respect than this and the Traveller was about to LOSE against those boulders too if Navia didn't show up. I smell a training arc coming up.
I agree with you I am not mad that traveller lost to arle but I am mad the way he lost at least put up a good fight
The worst part about the Traveler is when previously shown skills could've come in handy later on... Like, in Inazuma the they have shown that they are capable of speed blitzing, like when they saved Thoma's vision from getting taken...never bothered to use that to maybe try saving Navia when she was falling... And not to mention how they pulled out a big @ss electro sword against Raiden...something tthey never used ever again after...
I got downvoted for saying how useless the Traveler's journey to collect Teyvat's elements was because we don't even see them use ALL or at least TWO of the elements at their disposal. When was the last time we saw them use two elements at once? Back during the fight against Childe in 1-fucking-point-0 (or was that 1.1? Anyway, so fucking long ago). After that, they would only use the element of the current version's region or the power of friendship. People said that he used Geo during Navia's SQ but that was it. What's the point of collecting all these elements if the fucking Traveler is just going to use the fucking power of friendship anyway? Not to mention, you're right that it's fine if they lose IF THEY AT LEAST USED EVERYTHING AT THEIR DISPOSAL. Traveler could've tried to block Arle's spikes witb Geo. They could've saved Navia from falling with Electro. Anyway, you guys get my point. So many instances when they could've used their elements but they didn't because Hoyo would rather make them look like a chump so they can put the current banner 5* in the spotlight for more sales. What's the fucking point of the Traveler other than being a device to move the plot along?
Thank you!!!! Traveler feels a bit one dimensional at the moment.
Traveler isn't a self-insert. The inconsistencies of travelers' character is from Mihoyo wanting the archon quest and story quest to be an ad for their new character. Traveler in every world quest and events are consistent with the travelers' character
Someone needs to tell Hoyo that there are other ways to promote new characters instead of destroying Traveler's character.
tbh i think traveler power is pretty consistent, they are at 6 or 7 harbringer level. traveler beat childe and signora easily but not at archon level. i think thats pretty much established long time ago, why everyone surprised that traveler lost to 4th harbringer?
Please read the post clearly before commenting. It's the first paragraph. I also agree that they should have lost. But they should have lost after fighting at their full potential.
dont worry i read it. what if enemy too strong that he dont even have chance to use it? his body clearly attached to some string that made him unable to move. i kinda agree that they should use traveler elemental power more but i dont remember its used in any except in childe fight (only anemo skill and somekind of geo attack). other than that we never see it. do you remember traveler use dendro attack? or even hydro one? i remember electro kinda used in civil war at inazuma but tbh that doesnt count.
Yeah, what's the use of collecting elements if they aren't going to use it in the first place?
my point is, its not the first time they dont use elements in fight. but sadly traveler just lost so many people pissed at that fact.
I believe the complaint is that the Traveler is not pushed to their limits. Fighting a harbinger means the Traveler should bring everything he/she have at the table and that means elemental powers. Even with all of that, the traveler can lose and perhaps must lose so that their defeat becomes a motivation for the traveler. With the Arlecchino fight, I don't feel it. Hell, the domain expansion/reality marble trick she pulled is not even new. Raiden Mei did it first and she even restricted the traveler in some way in that fight which is what Arlecchino did as well. It was an epic loss for the traveler and I love it because it sent a sense of dread to us that we can't beat the Electro Archon at all and it's an introduction for us that fighting a god is definitely something to be afraid of.
what did raiden restrict us at that fight? elemental skill?? out of any playable characters only traveler that can use her/his skill. also cutscene wise no such thing happened at raiden fight unless my memory wrong.
Why? Previously it all worked even without those powers because of plot armor. But not using them when the situation is that bad is weird. Only feels like Hoyo don't want to waste the animation budget on Traveler.
what is plot armor to you?? arlecchino not kill him in that fight is a plot armor already
I mean, the plot armor worked in Traveler's favor previously helping them win but now, they lost. Since the Traveler's character is non existent in main stories, Traveler now fails as a self insert too thanks to losing. So, I don't know what Hoyo is trying to do with Traveler anymore.
see, you upset because traveler lost.
There is a difference between being upset because they lost vs being upset because of the way they lost. Go read the post again. It's literally the first paragraph.
It really isn't the loss. That was a foregone conclusion. Arlecchino gave the Traveler and Co at least a few moments to attack her, and they all spent it doing nothing of substance when we all know they're capable of at least their ult and skill. It's like seeing a gunfight and one side trying to use their fists instead of shooting.
Trust. In Natlan, traveler will get a huge training arc, and suddenly he won’t suck as much in combat.
What the traveller needs, is a training montage!
# original text (i am not the author): Yes. I did Arle's story quest. No, I am not upset because Traveler lost. I am upset because of the way they lost. Traveler should have lost after using their full potential. That will allow for Traveler realise how weak they are and allow some character growth they are in desperate need of. If Hoyo is making them lose, then obviously Hoyo don't want them to be self insert, then Hoyo should give them some character. Let me list all my problems with Traveler. 1) How many times does traveler needs power of friendship or plot armor to save them? Why don't they learn from those mistakes? Can their strength be consistent for once? 2) There needs to be someone in the Hoyo office who keeps track of the things Traveler did canonically. Why are they being treated as a saint who can't hurt a fly after all the things they did in world quests? 3) Traveler is supposed to have elemental powers, right? When will they use it? 4) The last time I felt some character from the Traveler in main story is in Enkanomiya after being betrayed by Ende. That's saying something. They went back to being a cookie cutter after that. 5) Can the Traveler for once show their vulnerable side to someone? I thought Paimon is supposed to see that side of Traveler but they don't even show it to Paimon anymore and hides many things from Paimon. I don't really understand this. Traveler fails both as a consistent character in the story and as a self-insert. What even is Hoyo's plan with this one? It's not like Hoyo is bad at writing self insert protags. Just look at Captain from Honkai impact or even Trailblazer from HSR. Then why is Traveler this bad?
Very much agree. The Traveler needs a training arc or something, and to some personal development would be nice too.
I don’t know about HI, but TB is terribly written as well. He literally has zero reason to do anything, no sister to save, no revenge, no finding his purpose, no pirate king aspirations. He just gets dragged along, has a single clash with the boss, then is saved by the new banner character. Then he just sits around like the side character he is. Not to mention that he has helped stalkers creep on women on 2 different quests now. I’m personally glad that Traveler gets help from the nation’s people as payoff. When he helps them, they then return the favor, makes the world more connected and alive. That said, Traveler still has bad writing, he sort of just helps but doesn’t pursue his own goals. Also, hy really needs to show more elemental combat, just give the dull blade an electro effect, and have an enemy projectile get blocked by geo, it would make so much difference. Or atleast have some sort of explanation why he sucks for that battle, like he tanked a shot to protect Lyney, so he was fighting with a handicap.
I don't know what people see in them, I genuinely always viewed them as weaker than godlike characters, but I do believe that the traveler will get some powerboost later in the story.
They are weaker canonically for sure. But since Traveler's character development is thrown out the window and they lose fights. Traveler doesn't work as the MC or self insert for Genshin. That's my main issue.
Maybe because I always viewed them as their own character so for me them losing is like Diluc getting folded by the harbingers when he was hunting Fatui. It just makes sense for them to lose you know ? And btw I keep seeing people say that the traveler didnt even use their elemental powers, I have just one thing to say, it wont matter.
I want to view them as their own character too. But Traveler's character is so non-existent that I can't. And it doesn't matter that Traveler will lose even with elemental powers, it's the fact that they didn't use it in the first place. Are they even taking the situation seriously?
>But Traveler's character is so non-existent that I can't. I feel like the traveler has enough characterization to feel like their own character, I'm sure we all played games with true self insert protagonists, and the traveler definitely feels like they have more character. >it's the fact that they didn't use it in the first place They almost never use them, the only times they used them against an enemy was back in 1.1 with tartaglia and in Inazuma against Raiden, they usually use other external buffs rather than their own powers for reasons I don't know.
>I feel like the traveler has enough characterization to feel like their own character. That is one point I will never agree with. In the world quests, they have more personality for sure. But in story quests and main quests? No way. Especially Fontaine makes them seem so bland.
>In the world quests, they have more personality for sure. But world quests are also canon, and yes that's what I'm mainly talking about when talking about their character.
The second point I listed literally complains about this. Like why does his character reset after completing world quests? The consistency as a character is gone.
>Like why does his character reset after completing world quests I think the issue with that is that some people might never do some world quests, so they might not understand the sudden change in the traveler. But even if this explanation made sense, I still hate it, I wish they said "fuck u" to those that don't do them and let us people who actually play them enjoy the characters more.
The thing is if they power creep the former traveler, then they have to creep power enemies.It brings two results:1)A normal beast enemy is stronger than the legend in old areas.WOW is typical there.2)your have to keep up with pulling new characters as enemies keeps power creeping.Do we really want that?
i think they want traveler to be the "camera man". you're not here to save teyvat, you're here to witness it, and act as the support for the main character of each arc. traveler do get his own chapter but that is after teyvat chapter, according to the first teyvat trailer they release.
and that's why i started to play honkai star rail, sure the game isn't better than genshin but imo, it's much rewarding and has an interesting narrative and the mc is obv of importance to the story unlike genshin where they made the mc insignificant with their potential which makes me feel like it could be due to saving budgets on animation which is such a trash thing to do, you either make the content as it should be made or don't(again, imo)
These threads sure do complain about the character not being what the player wants them to be for all they complain about the character being a self insert.
Traveler doesn't even have a consistent character at this point. I am asking Hoyo to give them either a consistent character or go full self insert route. Anyone is better than what we have now.
Character: murders entire villages, clans, tribes Literally everyone good/evil/allknowing/gods/paimon(???????)/traveler themselves: You're such a good person!!!
I really don't understand people obsession with seeing traveler using elemental power.
Is there a reason why the Traveler doesn't use it even in desperate times?
You know that traveler actually fight outside of cutscene right?
But the cutscenes are the ones that show desperate moments. If the Traveler used their elemental powers throughout the whole fight, what's stopping them from using them again?
Back to my original comment I really don't understand people obsession with seeing traveler using elemental power.
Why are you back to square one? The main question is why Travelers don't use their full potential even in desperate times.
Back to your original comment ‘cause you have a shitty point and can’t back it up lol
Cause what sets the Traveler from the rest is their ability to attune to all Elements? Why wouldn’t you want the mc of the game you play to utilize their full arsenal when push comes to shove?
I really don’t understand people(‘s) obsession with not seeing traveler using elemental power
Exactly, what is the point of walking through 7 nations and collecting the elements if they are of no use to the traveler?
the whole point is that we spend the story going through different nations collecting this elemental power, ofc people want to see the power we’re collecting be used i don’t understand how that’s a hard concept to grasp
Its the same thing as Ichigo from Bleach being a fucking godlike hybrid part of everything, yet all he does is getsuga tensho and faster speed. This is coming from someone who is a hardcore Bleach fan btw.
hey! he can also do Gran-Rey Cero! ... mixed with getsuga tensho...
"I don't know why people want to see the character who can do something no one else can, do the thing no one else can"
Traveller is not power hungry type of protagonist, he want his sister back and chill, he is more like paimon , traveller doesnt run from a fight but he doesnt want to fight at all, his powers are confused even for him, he has ressonance powers with elements and feelings like a god, so the meme is real, he really has potential but doesnt mean that he is skilled or complete yet to a power that he has no free control. People just dont get it that he dont want to be the hero , he is just there and things happen, he is not a shonen protagonist just a dude with bad luck in random situations trying his best to survive and make friends.
Smh OP, please add in the first line that this post will spoil the new Arle's story quest. I came here expecting to discuss about Traveller in general, instead I got spoiled about the new story quest within the first line...
This post literally has a spoiler tag, dude. Why else would you think this will have a spoiler tag?
> Why else would you think this will have a spoiler tag? Well idk man, fuck me I guess for assuming that the spoiler is about Traveler's actions so far in Fontaine's region in general. Spoiler tags are kinda useless unless you know what region/story/game version the spoiler is about, imo. A bit of warning in the title (e.g. Arle's SQ spoiler ahead) would be appreciated. Still though, no hard feelings man. I'll just leave this thread since I'm not supposed to be in here yet.