r/Genshin_Impact 4d ago

The new theater mechanicus is awful. I tried it and its just horrible. The old one was more refined and was 5x better. Any differing opinions? Discussion

25 Upvotes

13

u/OneDubber 4d ago

Its harder than last time thats for sure. Finally managed to clear a stage without 0 survivors, but only because I got the ticket which gives me 5 back. Was at 4/20...Its really kinda hard this time.

1

u/izhkoort 1d ago

I hope you figured it out, because it's actually MUCH easier

I have been brute forcing every stage without thinking, didn't repeat any stage, I think you are missing the "charity" ("T" key on PC) which power up your torrets, if you don't like your charity, you can draw new ones (3 free, every new draw after cost 50)

I used Cryo+Hydro and only buying sticks for them, with my wife we used Ayaka+Mona to freeze easily and Kazuha+Jean to swirl/stop enemies

1

u/OneDubber 21h ago

I figured it out, yes. I still think its more difficult than last time. Its highly depends on the sticks you get to chose. I had runs were I had to use to many points to refresh, because I simpy didn't get much for the turrets i had. One time i had ridiculious physical turrets with isane dmg.

1

u/izhkoort 17h ago

Remember each stage at random doesn't receive charity of two turrets, when that happens you stick with the turrets that upgrade or exit and enter again to see if that changed

13

u/xSionide 4d ago

I'm so sad, they absolutely murdered the only event that I really loved in this game because it was purely strategic.

3

u/BuilderAura 20h ago

Agreed. I don't usually like tower defense games but the first theater mechanicus was a lot of fun.

This one is awful. I really wish companies would stop trying to "improve" game mechanics that are already great the way they are.

27

u/kurumuyu 4d ago

Setup your towers + arcanum + charity and keep on flipping cards for multiple buffs. That's the key to this event.

7

u/re-sad Vergil at home 4d ago

True. You just enjoy flipping cards and selecting buffs while everything is dying in the background

7

u/rizqy96 2d ago

I agree. They went for something different this time. I loved the Liyue one so much, but it's hard for me to enjoy this one.

17

u/saurde 4d ago

You need to collect fortune cards and use them..i finish first stage without knowing what that is and had difficulties on 2nd stage then kind stranger tell me about it in co-op and then it's too easy compared to last one..less grind and can focus on 2-3 for more bonuses.

9

u/LutherPoppin 4d ago

yeah they really ruined it

2

u/SyhyronicaTUGG 4d ago

I did the first one like 6 times until I got enough to clear out the primos

17

u/thepooker 4d ago

Seems to be less grind. So i'll take it

8

u/mmgfrcs 4d ago

I hate it as well, but I like parts of it.

What I actually like from this rerun:

  1. More prep time. The last one's got like 60 seconds only, it's nice that they extended this.
  2. More resources (now it's in the thousands)
  3. Enemies now have effects like Heal, Taunt, etc. and not just passively walking.

Now to the things I hate from this rerun:

  1. The cards. Why put a RNG to upgrade the towers? 70% of them are pretty much unused as well
  2. The tower stat panel is useless now. Wtf with all towers having 10000 base ATK, and why upgrades are defined with Levels instead of a straight number (Upgrade tower ATK by 1 level thing)?
  3. The stages (so far) are basically the same as the previous run, only with different portal positions on some of them; there's no new stages
  4. Fickles are dumbed down to either Do nothing, drop one Mechanicus type ATK by 2 levels, or destroy random Mechanici. They are also sometimes attached to basic cards that are such obvious not-to-pick choices, making Fickles largely a dud.

What doesn't change this time around:

  1. The aim of the towers are still bad. It's probably even worse than before.
  2. The speed of the game is still really slow, and the speed difference between the slow Hilichurls and the fast Ruin Hunters are still staggering. Can't they just give the Samachurl's run speed as the default (with Ruin Hunter speed as the max still) and double/triple the ATK speed of the towers?

With all that said, it's still a breath of fresh air for this game. I would just like the following to happen next time around:

  1. Turn up the speed of the game
  2. New stages and new enemy types (Flying enemies, Teleporting enemies, Invisible enemies, etc.)
  3. Return the upgrade system of the first and maybe introduce a skill tree to buy tower skills (like the Hydro tower's bubbles, Anemo tower's windblade, etc)
  4. Also return the old per-wave upgrade system, but use the new Cards UI instead of the old UI so you can still flip cards...
  5. Make Fickles that allows high risk-high reward play... extend that to Courage as well.
  6. Return the tower stats too. Clear base ATK, numbers in percentages rather than the arbitrary levels, get ATK speed and range in there as well.
  7. Add Targeting. First, Last, Close, Far, that kind of thing.
  8. Fix the aim of the towers, especially the Pyro towers!

16

u/calinbulin12 pyro gril 4d ago

I think it's around the same for me. If it was the exact same it would have felt a bit boring. I'll take this over windblume anyday though.

-10

u/SyhyronicaTUGG 4d ago

You can’t even upgrade towers though

12

u/kurumuyu 4d ago

You can upgrade by using points to flip cards for buffs. Just play the game without much tought in order to earn cards.

4

u/CoolFiverIsABabe 4d ago

RnG on increases, like this game needs more of that.

4

u/calinbulin12 pyro gril 4d ago

A bit bummed about that but i like the sticks and leveling system a lot.

10

u/Super_Captain 4d ago

I disagree. They definitely introduced a lot more randomness to the process, which is difficult initially when you're used to the planned out builds of the OG version.

On the plus side, they improved a ton of the mechanicus so that many of them actually make sense to use now. It also promotes varied builds as you progress which makes it a little less monotonous.

Overall I'd say I like it a bit better than the OG. That said, there are some sticks that are just absolutely gamebreaking, and it can be frustrating if you don't pull them.

9

u/AHRIISBEEST 4d ago

Less grind, only care for easy primo

2

u/Kaos126 x 4d ago

I need x2 speed or something u.u

2

u/aur0ra_22 3d ago

I just don't understand a lot of it, especially how to get the talisman for primos

1

u/SubjectDelta10 1d ago

open the event menu, go to theater mechanicus and select Event Rewards, there's a list of objectives that will give you those talismans

2

u/Infinite-Mood-4299 1d ago

Definitely leagues easier than last time. I've almost cleared the shops using only buffed out Pyro and Electro mechanici with the Charity field. 95% of the time nothing gets past the first set of stuff and anything after gets the Bind & Mine combo (set the bind trap then when they're stuck, just keep placing mines that instantly detonate under them). I am playing with my wife in co-op so I'm sure that contributes to how easy it's been but it's still pretty fun.

2

u/Oceandove45 1d ago

I don’t like this new one either. I loved the strategy of the first one. Now it’s all rng and the difficulty spikes makes it less enjoyable. I’m disappointed.

7

u/Kind3d91 4d ago

Exactly! All I did was build 5-8 of the electro towers in a choke point and buy every electro upgrade and spam refresh without looking at the map at all. Extremely dumb gameplay. There was only a single level where I had to change electro for pyro but the same thing....

14

u/land_shark27 4d ago

this is exactly what happned the last time in mechanicus, so what changed?

1

u/Shmirel 4d ago

You can't go watch youtube video in the meantime i guess.

7

u/LiraelNix 4d ago

They introduced RNG to the upgrade mechanics, turning it annoying

4

u/Zealousideal-Ad-1572 4d ago

Not bad, if you do it in co-op

2

u/zerodeath00000000000 4d ago

Nah. It’s fine.

6

u/HotfireLegend 4d ago

Yes, I loved the original. The new one is awful with the random upgrade cards. Half the time I'm mashing through trying to find a specific upgrade (buying any useful ones along the way of course) but often just end up losing before I even finish spending all my points, especially when it comes to the later stages where many enemies are onscreen at once. It feels like if you don't get attack speed/aoe upgrades, you're basically done for. If we could've used those exp you get at the end of each round to buy upgrades for the mechanici like in the original, it'd been absolutely fine!

3

u/wattpadfanficgirl 4d ago

Yeah I’ve been doing the third level about 7x now in coop and have yet to get past the final stage

3

u/SubjectDelta10 1d ago

it's such a ridiculous jump in difficulty. the first waves you barely have do to anything and the last stage is suddenly so overwhelming you with sprinting enemies that it feels impossible to keep up. really bad design.

4

u/GraveXNull 4d ago

Those random cards ruin it...you can't upgrade them anymore.

Just do it for the primos them forget about it...

It's a filler event anyway.

2

u/Nineosix 4d ago

too much rng. I have to spend all my time clicking on cards. I cant even see the towers fighting or interact with fighting

4

u/sockbaws 4d ago

Way easier and smoother than the previous one. A bit too easy imo, but a lot more fun. This is way more enjoyable for me than clearing while being afk for like 10 minutes after finishing your setup.

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Method9 4d ago

I like this new one better. Fun rng upgrades. Harder that keep me trying out different strategies. The only complain I would had is the reward can be more

1

u/21st_century_person 4d ago

What is it making its awful?

It just the same concept back in 1.3

This time every mechanici has much more mechanic

0

u/mitori_kawashiro 4d ago

horrible event, so boring

1

u/nicoletta2k pyro DPS who? 4d ago

I feel the same. I'm just going to do it for the primos and that's it. Don't think I'm even gonna bother for the books and mora.

1

u/ZenithLags 4d ago

Seems to be the consensus

-1

u/Shmirel 4d ago

Imho the first one was really bad, and the new one is tiny bit better.

The old one was literally place 14 turrets in first 2 waves and go watch youtube for 20 min, at least they tried to implement some kind of gameplay this time, also levels are shorter which is a big plus.

The biggest problem is that you cannot really create fun and egaging tower defence game with such limited possibilities. Like seriously how many level layouts there are? like 5? We have like 8 turrets available, and there's like 10 different enemies at best. This is a joke, not a TD game.

1

u/kevinwedler 4d ago

I like both, but overall prefer the old one.

They basicly just turned theater mechanicus into another gacha game.

1

u/izhkoort 1d ago

With my wife, we love tower defense, so the old one was awesome, this one we brute forced it with Hydro+Cryo, it was fun, but we could also set turrets, draw some charity and leave it playing itself

1

u/RafkerR 16h ago

The idea is great, but execution is terrible

Just spam towers of a single element and spam all its sticks

GG EZ

No need for Arcanum, mines and banishments (LOL)