I played Genshin, briefly, on launch and I can say the gacha definitely hurts it, whether or not you can progress without it. Good weapons are locked behind the gacha, but the game needs to give you loot, so you get piles of worthless garbage and duplicates. Characters are locked behind the Gacha, so there's a good chance you won't be able to play with the characters you want to, but so are character abilities, which makes everything feel very static and repetitive, even as you're levelling up.
If it was a full priced game, with properly paced unlocks, I'd definitely recommend it. As is, I'd recommend staying away.