Fans of miHoYo's latest title, Genshin Impact, have had a remarkably eventful month, given the game's first major update and in-game event arriving in tandem with an outpour of leaks. Now that players have had some time with Version 1.1 of the game, it's becoming increasingly evident that Version 1.2, rumored for December 23, 2020, is indeed right around the corner.
In the latest Genshin Impact Developers Discussion, miHoYo effectively confirmed a list of upcoming quality of life (QoL) adjustments players should expect with Version 1.2 of the game. That being said, one of the smaller details, the addition of Ascension Rewards, is being praised as one of the true gamechangers, despite being included as a mere footnote after the "main" content.
Nowadays, many games release periodic "Developer Diary" content, or "Developer Discussions," as means of giving fans insight into the game's ongoing creation/development process. New game details are often announced, or teased, during these pseudo-interviews, and as such, fans tend to look out for them. Following suit, Genshin Impact's latest Developers Discussion announced Version 1.2 QoL updates, and more specifically, an interesting change to Character Ascension.
Currently, Genshin Impact players generally pay the price of several Ascension Materials in exchange for an increased Max Level Cap. As per the recent announcement from miHoYo, though, it seems that Travelers will now also receive a reward upon Ascension. The Ascension reward will only be granted for Character Ascension, so in other words, as of Version 1.2, whenever a character reaches Level 20, 50, or 70, and undergoes Ascension, players will receive a special reward: one Acquaint Fate.
To boot, this update will be applied retroactively, so players who have already Ascended their favorite characters can actually claim these Acquaint Fates. To do so, it seems that players will have to visit the character's particular Ascension Materials Preview screen - once there, the free Acquaint Fate can be claimed as a "Rank Bonus."
As mentioned above, characters can be Ascended three different times as of Genshin Impact's current frameworks, which makes for three free Acquaint Fates per character, of which every player should have a bare minimum of roughly six.
Acquaint Fates are used for absolutely nothing except for Wishes on the Standard Banner, so players can basically translate this update as: free Wish whenever a character Ascends. Wishes are the game's main source of substantially powerful weapons and characters, and the game's only path to five-star characters aside from the Traveler. As such, Acquaint Fates are an indispensable item, despite their inability to grant the newer characters found in the Special Character Banner (i.e. Zhongli in the Gentry of Hermitage banner). Needless to say, veterans of the game are relieved to hear they'll be able to take advantage of these rewards as well.
Genshin Impact is available now on the App Store, Google Play, PC, and PS4, and is in development for PS5 and Switch.
Source: miHoYo