Prelude
I created my Twitch account years ago, but have only used it for the past year or so. I have been watching Genshin and Star Rail streamers for the most part with a little bit of Just Chatting mixed in there. Before I go into my experience with these streamers and their communities, my luck with online interactions with people has been extremely inconsistent and because of this I have learned to take everything I deal with, with a grain of salt.
I have mentioned thousands of times in the past the difficulties I have had with maintaining any sort of relationship online because of how transparent, toxic and fake people can be and unfortunately Twitch is not any different. The goal of the streamers I watch is to develop a vibey and friendly atomsphere which is all fine and acceptable. However, when members of your community are spending hours upon hours of their days watching you, I strongly believe that is the responsibility of the streamer and their moderators to form a more complete setting.
As it is, rarely do streamers talk about their personal lives and most do not even share their names. Actually, I can confidently say that I am not 100% sure that I know the names of any of the streamers I watch. All give a general area of where they live and I can tell by looking at them and how they behave how old they are, but any other sorts of personal information is taboo and rarely talked about. All of their energy is focused on keeping a positive vibe and nothing else.
Life on Twitch A lot of the streams I watch have the same dynamic. The streamer plays Genshin or Star Rail, asks for shoutouts to other streamers that happen to hop in and try their best to reply to everyone that chats in their stream. There are other interactions other than just chatting on Twitch such as posting song requests and videos and this is where I have a little bit of an issue. Posting songs and videos is a privilege that streamers give their community and all that they ask is for these songs and videos fit the flow in the room and too many members fail at this miserably. It is upsetting to see and something personally I would deal with right away and not let linger. This is where the major issue lies with life on Twitch. It is not real. Streamers do not punish members of their community at all and everything is taken in jest. Everyone is seen as your friend, even though you know nothing about them and problems continue to linger. This is a major sticking point with me. These problems are minor and all it takes is a firm talking to and the problem should be resolved.
I am not saying that every little thing should be punished, but when an issue such as someone posting inappropriate songs and videos remains, then that person needs to be taken care of. Especially when it happens every single day. The fact that most of these members are teenagers that do not know any better only proves my point that they need to be taken care of. Discipline is something that is extremely lacking in the streams that I watch and it is honestly painful to see these issues have no end in sight.
That reminds me of another issue I had with streams when I started using Twitch. Power abusing moderators also ruin the mood of the stream, even more than these kids that do not know any better and post their nonsense. The main thing that these moderators would do is delete "inappropriate" messages by users. It happened to me several times when all I was doing is vibing with the streamer and not saying anything offensive at all. My issue with these moderators is that the streamer should be able to take care of these sorts of problems. If they see that someone is saying things they should not be saying, then tell them to stop. Simple right? Why does a moderator need to without any warning delete messages which only disrupts the chat and annoys the person who's message is being removed? Makes sense.
I was actually a Twitch moderator for a streamer that I still watch as much as I can. I will not get into the drama that took place here, but during the couple of days that I did moderate her stream, there really is not much to do. As mentioned earlier, their main task is to give shout outs to other streamers. I have talked to streamers and moderators on what sort of other tasks that they do and all of them say there really is not much to it. Literally anyone can become a moderator and it does not take much effort at all. Major Hot Take
The Twitch Genshin and Star Rail communities are made by streamers and for streamers and streamers only. I understand that without streamers there is no Twitch, but the community members that are their life blood, should get more attention. As I mentioned earlier, every stream I watch on Twitch is literred with shoutouts for streamers and streamers only and this has always confused me. First of all, the definition of a streamer and how much people stream should be objective but it is not. For example, if someone streams once a month does that makes them more of a streamer than someone that streams regularly? Of course it does not. Plus a lot of these so called streamers only stream to take advantage of events that offer rewards and have no intention in doing things long term and developing a community. This is all fine in my book, but they should not be acknowledged on the same level as streamers that put their blood sweat and tears into streaming and sadly this is the case.
There needs to be more emphasis on the members is my point. Streamers really do come and go, but the community members are there forever. Why there is not more emphasis on community members is my biggest quip with what happens on Twitch.
Stream Nation
I have done some streaming in my life on Instagram and not to take streamers for granted or anything like that, but I do not think it is that difficult to do. It is literally you sitting there talking to people playing games. Genshin and Star Rail also take a LOT of time to complete things, so I think streamers should work their content around this. For example, they should do long quests offline and in their own time because doing these on stream takes several hours longer than they normally would and personally I think doing them on stream is a waste of time. I am someone that likes to speed run my quests and most of them still take at least an hour for the short quests and anywhere from 3-8 hours for the longer ones. Simply put, it takes too damn long to complete a quest on stream, so it is much more convenient to complete them in your own time.
Personally, I like it when streamers do exploration on stream and the puzzles in the two games since that way I learn things and run into things that I might not have found yet. Streamers that do quests on stream is something I rarely stick around for since I complete them right away and there is no point for me to see something I have already done. With that there is another problem I have with streamers of these two games, their lack of committment to the games they get paid to play. All of the streamers I watch are not commiited to the quests that are in Genshin and Star Rail and I am pretty sure that some of them do none of them at all. I do not understand how someone can consider themselves a Hoyoverse game player when pretty much everything in the game is neglected. It does not make sense to me. As mentioned in my other post, as a gamer you can play this game which ever way you want, but quests and hangouts are the easiest way to gain primogems and despite being really long, they really do not take much effort.
Leakage!
Another really common issue in the Hoyoverse gaming community are leaks. Personally, I do not mind them unless they are spammed. In my time in being active on Twitch and Discord I have only come across one obnoxious moron that was spamming leaks in a Discord I am in. I understand why Hoyo keeps leaks hush hush and why streamers do not allow them, but some take it overboard when they are streaming. My take is that if you are a passionate gamer you do not mind any kind of information about the game and when it comes to leaks about quests, if you do not want to be victim to leaks, then just do them in a timely manner. Simple! I understand that not everyone is a hardcore gamer, but I think that as a streamer of Hoyo games it is your responsibility to stay some what up to date on quests so that there is more content for your streams and it is not the same kind of things all of the time. It is mind blowing to me how slow some streamers are with major quests in these games since for most of them it is a source of income. They are pretty much taking advantage of this and not making it a priority at all because it really does not take very much time or effort to get them done.
Drama Fo' Yo Mama!
Unfortunately like everything in life there is near constant drama in the Hoyo Universe. All of this comes from the beast that is social media and the degenerates that do their best to corrupt Genshin and Star Rail players to get views and promote their brand. This takes place on Twitch and Twitter mostly and quite frankly it is embarassing to see grown adults act like children. I do not get too involved with this drama, but all that I have read about is that it revolves around greed and selfishness. The rewards that Genshin and Star Rail give are bonuses and something we should be happy about regardless of what they are. Sure, everyone wants more primos for the things they do and it is very frustrating to grind and grind and get next to nothing for your efforts. Does complaining about it over and over solve anything though? I think these people that have nothing better to do than bitch and moan about how terrible this game is are people that fail to reailze that this is just a game. It is supposed to be enjoyed by everyone and if are not enjoying it, play something else. Again, simple!
Too Much Time
I spend a lot of time watching streams on Twitch and if I am not watching them, they are on in the background. During this time I have been able to meet a couple of cozy streamers that are part of my daily routine and that I look forward to watching whenever they are on. But like everything in my life, people come and go. I do enjoy the streamers and their communities that I am lucky to be a part of, but as mentioned earlier my realization that the streamers are not my friends is all too painful and something I deal with more often than I wish to talk about.
All in all, Twitch is a solid platform to enjoy Hoyo Games if you are a new or old player because there are a plentidude of streamers and chances are you will find someone that you are comfy with. I have yet to find that perfect streamer that plays the games exactly like I do, but I do not think that person exists. Genshin are Star Rail are the games that I play that I am the most passionate about and Twitch adds to that in more ways than not.
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