Genshin Impact to release long-awaited artifact, expedition quality-of-life updates in version 4.3

Travelers rejoice! Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse has announced that long-awaited quality-of-life updates to the game's artifact and expedition systems, alongside other system optimisations, will finally be added to the game in version 4.3 later this month.

HoYoverse revealed these upcoming quality-of-life updates in a new Developers Discussion blog post posted on Wednesday (6 December). Genshin Impact version 4.3 is expected to be released on 20 December.

In Genshin Impact, artifacts are a type of equipment that grants characters equipping them a variety of stats and other bonuses depending on their type and classification. Despite being one of the central systems in building up characters, artifacts have long been a source of frustration for players with how tedious leveling them up and filtering through them can be.

Expeditions help players get additional materials by assigning certain characters to go on an expedition for a certain amount of time. While not as important as artifacts, expeditions are still a nice way to gather materials players wouldn't normally be able to get through in a typical day's playthrough.

With that said, it can also get tedious due to the amount of clicks a player has to get through to acquire materials characters gained from an expedition then assigning them to do another one.

Starting with the quality-of-life improvements for artifacts, in version 4.3 players will now gain access to the "Enhance to Next Tier" function. This function lets players automatically ascend an artifact to the level thresholds where they gain substat bonuses, specifically levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.

Yes, players no longer have to manually click the exact number of artifacts to get to, say, level 4 as they hunt for those precious Crit Rate and Crit DMG substats on their artifacts.

Players can now also choose whether or not to add 5-star artifacts to the list of enhancement materials used when auto-adding enhancement materials for artifacts.

In addition, new Automatic Locking and Quick Unlock functions have been added to the artifact system to help players lock and unlock artifacts according to specific requirements they set. For example, a player can use this function to automatically lock artifacts with Crit DMG or Crit Rate main stats whenever they gain new artifacts — a welcome addition to help smoothen out the tedium of grinding for that perfect set of artifacts.

As for expeditions, version 4.3 will add a new Claim All button that lets players claim all rewards from completed character expeditions. This also leads to a menu where they can dispatch those same characters on a new expedition with a single click.

Aside from the above quality-of-life changes, version 4.3 will also feature optimisations to how characters, weapons, and artifacts are leveled up.

For one, enhancement information will be integrated into the original screen, letting players quickly see how much stats their characters, weapons, or artifacts gain with each new level they ascend to.

Players can now also use the Auto Add button to add sufficient enhancement materials to get the character or weapon they are leveling up to the highest level they can reach before Ascension with a single click.

Other quality-of-life updates coming in version 4.3 include improved enemy tracking and navigation functions in the Adventurer's Handbook, automatic selection of characters with crafting bonuses when cooking or crafting and combining items, as well as an indicator for how long it takes for a World Boss to respawn after defeating it.

There will also be a nice feature that makes the player reload nearer to the Domain challenge location after completing a Domain challenge, removing the need for players to walk to the Domain challenge location as they farm Domains for artifacts and enhancement materials.

Finally, HoYoverse also said that they are working on an improvement to the Artifact Strongbox that lets players add multiple artifacts to be offered with a single click that will be added in a future version.

While all the above quality-of-life changes may pale in comparison to the addition of new characters or expansions to the map, they are still very welcome changes that makes playing Genshin Impact that much more enjoyable.

It's also nice to know that HoYoverse is still keen on improving the game after all these years, especially after Honkai: Star Rail received multiple updates filled with quality-of-life changes less than a year after its release.

Genshin Impact is currently in the second half of version 4.2, which features reruns for Cyno and Kamisato Ayato. If you're turn on whether or not you should pull on their banners, we've got you covered.

After version 4.2 comes version 4.3, which features the debuts of Navia and Chevreuse.

Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.

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