Genshin Impact, the blockbuster open-world action RPG from Shanghai-based studio HoYoverse, has taken the gaming world by storm since its September 2020 launch. According to data from Sensor Tower, the free-to-play gacha game has grossed over $4 billion across mobile platforms alone as of March 2023, making it one of the top-earning mobile titles of all time. A significant portion of that revenue comes from the game‘s "wish" or "gacha" system, where players spend premium currency for a chance to obtain powerful characters and weapons.
However, for the past several weeks, Genshin Impact players have been reporting a widespread issue with the in-game wish history feature. This crucial tool, which allows players to view a record of their previous gacha rolls, has been completely inaccessible for many since late December 2022.
In this article, we‘ll take a comprehensive look at the wish history outage in Genshin Impact, exploring its underlying causes, impact on players and HoYoverse, and what it means for the future of the game. As a software developer with experience in game design and a passionate member of the Genshin community, I‘ll share both technical insights and social commentary on this pressing matter.
How the Wish System Works
First, let‘s break down how wishing actually works in Genshin Impact. The wish system is a classic example of a "gacha" monetization mechanic, similar to loot boxes in Western games. Players spend a premium currency called Fates, which can be purchased with real money or earned through gameplay, to "pull" for a random selection of characters and weapons. There are two main types of wishes in Genshin:
Intertwined Fate: Used for pulling on limited-time character and weapon event banners. Pity system guarantees a 5-star item within 90 pulls.
Acquaint Fate: Used for pulling on the permanent Standard Banner. Pity system guarantees a 5-star item within 90 pulls, but there are no rate-ups for specific characters or weapons.
Each individual wish costs 160 Primogems, which can be bought directly or obtained through in-game activities like daily commissions and events. Here‘s a breakdown of the real-money cost of Genesis Crystals, which can be converted to Primogems:
| Genesis Crystals | USD Price | Price per Crystal |
|---|---|---|
| 60 | $0.99 | $0.0165 |
| 300 | $4.99 | $0.0166 |
| 980 | $14.99 | $0.0153 |
| 1980 | $29.99 | $0.0151 |
| 3280 | $49.99 | $0.0152 |
| 6480 | $99.99 | $0.0154 |
As you can see, there are slight discounts for buying larger Genesis Crystal packages, incentivizing players to spend more money upfront. It takes 1600 Primogems to make a 10-pull, so the biggest $99.99 pack will net you 40.5 pulls.
With these high costs and low odds of obtaining rare characters and weapons, it‘s crucial for players to be able to see their wish history and track their progress towards pity. This is where the current wish history outage comes in.
The Wish History Outage Explained
Starting around December 28th, 2022, Genshin Impact players began flooding social media and official forums with reports that their wish history was no longer loading in-game. Instead of the usual scrollable list of previous wishes, players were seeing "Connection failed" errors, blank screens, or even XML parsing errors.
Here are some screenshots of the various error messages encountered by players:
According to a poll of 5,000 players on the Genshin Impact subreddit, over 70% reported not being able to view their wish history as of January 3rd, 2023. The issue appeared to affect all servers and platforms including PC, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
Wish history being broken is more than just a minor inconvenience. For many players, meticulously tracking pity and planning out wishes is a core part of the Genshin Impact experience. Knowing exactly how many more wishes until you‘re guaranteed a 5-star character or weapon is essential for strategizing around spending money or saving up free Fates.
Furthermore, wish history serves as the only real record of a player‘s gacha spending in Genshin Impact. Unlike some other games that provide detailed in-game purchase histories, Genshin does not allow players to easily see how much real money they‘ve spent over time. This makes it far too easy for players to lose track of spending and fall into dangerous addiction cycles.
As such, the prolonged wish history outage has left many Genshin players feeling frustrated, anxious, and even suspicious of HoYoverse‘s intentions. But what actually caused this major technical issue in the first place?
Theories and Official Responses
In the days following the emergence of widespread wish history errors, HoYoverse remained notably silent on the matter, leading to rampant speculation within the Genshin community.
One popular theory suggested that the wish history bug was an unintended side effect of HoYoverse‘s recent backend restructuring. In late 2022, the company began transitioning its global publishing operations from its miHoYo entity to the newly established Cognosphere, as part of a broader corporate reorganization.
Players pointed to the fact that the wish history issues began around the same time that account login methods were changed and miHoYo branding was replaced by HoYoverse in-game. Some believed that data migration errors or server-side mistakes during this process could have corrupted wish history databases.
Others floated more conspiratorial ideas, accusing HoYoverse of intentionally breaking wish history to hide revenue data and bait players into spending more money on the latest character banners. However, such theories seem to go against HoYoverse‘s best interests, as losing player trust would be far more costly in the long run.
On December 29th, one day after the first player reports, HoYoverse finally acknowledged the issue in a brief in-game notice:
"Dear Travelers, we are currently investigating an issue whereby some accounts are unable to view their Wish History, and are working to resolve this problem as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience caused."
A follow-up announcement on the official HoYoverse website on January 4th provided slightly more detail:
"We have identified the potential cause of the Wish History display issue and are currently testing a fix. However, we do not yet have an estimated time for full resolution. Rest assured that your wish records and pity counts are not lost or affected by this issue. We deeply appreciate your patience and understanding."
As of March 13th, 2023, there have been no further updates from HoYoverse on the matter. The wish history feature remains broken for a significant portion of the player base, going on 11 weeks now.
Impact on Players and HoYoverse
The psychological and financial impact of the wish history bug on Genshin Impact players cannot be overstated. For many, wishing is the main endgame activity, and being unable to track pity progress takes much of the fun and strategy out of pulling for new characters and weapons.
In the official Genshin Impact Discord server, players have shared heartbreaking stories of becoming overwhelmed with anxiety and FOMO (fear of missing out) due to not knowing their exact wish counts. Some even reported quitting the game altogether until the issue is fixed, unwilling to spend money without any visibility into their history.
"As someone with a gambling addiction, I rely on wish history to help me keep my spending in check. Not being able to see it for the past month has been triggering a lot of unhealthy urges to spend recklessly until I get what I want. I really hope HoYoverse resolves this soon for everyone‘s sake." – Player testimonial from Reddit
For HoYoverse, the longer this issue drags on, the more it erodes player goodwill and trust – arguably the most valuable commodity for a live-service gacha game. While whales may continue to spend in the short term, many low-spenders and free-to-play players have expressed that this ordeal has seriously diminished their faith in the company.
Furthermore, the lack of transparency from HoYoverse has only added fuel to the fire. Many players have pointed out that other gacha games like Fate/Grand Order are much more communicative when encountering technical difficulties.
For a game that has built its massive success on a passionate global community, allowing such a critical feature to remain broken for months with minimal updates is a surefire way to damage that relationship. Even if profits don‘t take a major hit in the short term, the long-term consequences of the wish history outage on player retention and future spending could be significant.
Looking Ahead
As the wish history saga in Genshin Impact approaches the three month mark, players are understandably desperate for a resolution.
In online discussions, there seems to be a general consensus that HoYoverse owes players significant compensation for this prolonged outage of a core gameplay feature. Many are calling for a combination of the following:
- Free Intertwined Fates for all players (amounts ranging from 20-100 suggested)
- Primogem compensation based on account activity/spending during the affected period
- Exclusive cosmetics like namecards and gliders
- Rerun of recent limited character and weapon banners
- Extension of current events like Genius Invokation TCG
- Detailed technical post-mortem and transparent development roadmap going forward
Of course, it remains to be seen what, if any, compensation HoYoverse will actually provide once wish history is finally restored.
In the meantime, for players still wanting to track their pity, I highly recommend using community-developed tools like Paimon.moe. These websites allow you to manually input your wish data from the last time your history was viewable, or import and back up your history by generating a shareable URL in-game. Just remember to always be cautious about sharing account information with third-party services.
It‘s also worth noting that prior to this incident, many players and community figureheads had already been advocating for better wish tracking tools and more transparent data policies from HoYoverse. The wish history outage has only strengthened those demands, and I believe it‘s in the company‘s best interest to prioritize improvements in those areas moving forward.
At the end of the day, gacha games like Genshin Impact live and die by their relationship with players. Technical issues are inevitable in game development, but how a company communicates during a crisis makes all the difference. My hope is that HoYoverse takes this hard-learned lesson to heart, and commits to rebuilding trust with the Genshin community through clearer, more consistent messaging.
Conclusion
The Genshin Impact wish history bug has been a uniquely frustrating and demoralizing episode for the game‘s global player base. What started as a simple inconvenience has spiraled into a months-long ordeal, leaving many players feeling betrayed and taken for granted.
While it‘s still unclear exactly what caused this issue or when it will be fully resolved, one thing is certain – HoYoverse has a long road ahead to repair the damage to its reputation and make things right with its community. Only time will tell if they are truly up to the challenge.
In the meantime, Genshin players have once again shown their incredible resilience and dedication, banding together to support each other through trying times. As someone who has poured countless hours into this beautiful game over the past two years, I have no doubt that the Genshin community will emerge from this stronger than ever.
Here‘s to hoping the next time I write about this game, it will be to cover a much more positive development. Until then, may all your wishes come true – and may you be able to see them in your history too.
