Honkai Star Rail

[Tenzen12]

I need Swan, no questions asked, but Acheron is Myukichi, so can't pass on her either. I feel like Sparkle would allow me run crit dmg body on QQ.

Well, O will probably pass on Sparkle, but it's tough choice.

[Liddo-kun]

a lot has changed on my pull plans the past months. Since, there's some new infos on youtube.

even in the best case scenario.. I could probably only gather 40-50 Special Pass in each server before Ratio banner end. Together with some pity, it is enough for one character.

had plenty of talk with a friend in discord. Told me that Swan is not good if I don't have Kafcat (lol). However, would still be pulling for Swan in one server. Simply because I like the character. Don't care if she's useless for my teams or whatever.

on two other servers, I will pull for Sparkle. Will try to get character and cone. Expecting her to add some serious punch to my teams.

will probably not be able to get Acheron, there would be too little resources left to get her.. if she would come right after Sparkle's banner.

[Liddo-kun]

codes:

TT9S28LK4QHP
EA8BKR4JL93T
LTQA2Q5249KF

[MeoTwister5]

Sparkle looks essentially required for a DHIL team. Good thing I don't have DHIL.

[Tenzen12]

I jealous of you. I have Dan AND Kafka. I am also big fan of Myuki Sawashiro (Archon). I am will not go for all three, but choices are hard...

[Liddo-kun]

relic increased drops are good. Completed a Brilliant Star set for Xueyi, and also got some things for other characters.

_______


on the new banners. Is it already confirmed that Acheron will come right after Sparkle. Or will Aventurine come first?

[Liddo-kun]

still farming relics for Xueyi on all servers.

reached 148 SPD in Asia server. But then I realized she only has 37% crit rate.... so it's back to smashing relics again. So far, this character is the most challenging to farm for. Need to balance the right amount of crit rate and crit damage, while trying to get 145 SPD at the same time.

[Liddo-kun]

[Liddo-kun]

Black Swan trailer.

[MeoTwister5]

Hoary sheet 2.0 actually starts today and not tomorrow. One day earlier than Genshin.

[belatkuro]

Yeah it was always Wednesday for Genshin and for Star Rail. But 2.0 is today.

Managed to get Black Swan in around 60 pulls, along with E6 Tingyun, E5 Gui and 1 Misha. Decent odds moving forward for Hanabi and Yomi.
Having some minor crashes during Simulated Universe on my phone farming Pan Cosmic for BS. The review guide for BS in prydwen is hella long. I'll play the main quest later tonight. At least I'm mostly done exploring Chenyu Vale in Genshin, though Lantern Rites is also happening there.

[MeoTwister5]

I rolled 50 just for the TB points and got 1 Misha and no BS, which is good I suppose since Acheron is the priority.

And FWIW we get temporary access to material domains in case you pull for someone who's materials you don't have yet. Neat, I wish Genshin had this.

[Liddo-kun]

did four 10-pulls. No Black Swan... she's playing hard to get I guess.
will save 20 more, then pull for her again. Have tested her from "borrowing" from other players. She's decent even without Kafka. Enough reason for me to plan some more pulls on her banner.

[belatkuro]

Spoiler for brief thoughts on 2.0 story:

I don't fully trust Aventurine, even if Black Swan does. He's just so shady that I'll be surprised to be wrong about him. I forgot who said it but gamblers are not to be trusted. Plus, Black Swan is more for the recording of the memories of Penacony and the trouble brewing beneath it so as long as it gives her good stuff, she'll side with anyone like Aventurine.
I trust Acheron more. Her feeling lost going to the hotel lobby after barging in our room with Aventurine just feels genuine. And the bond at the warp jump to Penacony must mean something. Sure she may be hiding that she's an actual Emanator and not just a Galaxy Ranger but she just feels more real in this place of dreams.

Definitely easy to say that Firefly is not dead yet. Too early and she feels like a big player in the story given her development and the suddenness of her "death". At least she's more developed than Tingyun. I vaguely remember some spoilers about her but I don't want to verify and double check it so I hope it doesn't cloud my enjoyment. I'll just push it away from my memories. It's still early in the story so everything is confusing at the moment like the last part with Robin and Sparkle's involvement in all this. So far so good so let's hope it delivers.

Topaz exploration MVP. Given how the chest count increased in the areas, having Numby just run off elsewhere to locate chests is just amusing to see especially during the main story. It was tempting and amusing at times to just leave Firefly alone to grab a chest.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by belatkuro

Spoiler for brief thoughts on 2.0 story:

I don't fully trust Aventurine, even if Black Swan does. He's just so shady that I'll be surprised to be wrong about him. I forgot who said it but gamblers are not to be trusted. Plus, Black Swan is more for the recording of the memories of Penacony and the trouble brewing beneath it so as long as it gives her good stuff, she'll side with anyone like Aventurine.
I trust Acheron more. Her feeling lost going to the hotel lobby after barging in our room with Aventurine just feels genuine. And the bond at the warp jump to Penacony must mean something. Sure she may be hiding that she's an actual Emanator and not just a Galaxy Ranger but she just feels more real in this place of dreams.

Definitely easy to say that Firefly is not dead yet. Too early and she feels like a big player in the story given her development and the suddenness of her "death". At least she's more developed than Tingyun. I vaguely remember some spoilers about her but I don't want to verify and double check it so I hope it doesn't cloud my enjoyment. I'll just push it away from my memories. It's still early in the story so everything is confusing at the moment like the last part with Robin and Sparkle's involvement in all this. So far so good so let's hope it delivers.

Spoiler for 2.0 Story:

I had very similar thoughts to you.

A very key hint to all this was at the very beginning when we entered the first dream and Acheron "killed" us. Our "death" animation there was identical to what they showed for Firefly, and that's what caused us to "wake up." On the other hand, it's noteworthy that, with Robin at the end, we saw a body, and not the "explosion," so it may or may not make a difference. At the moment, we are told that both have experienced "Spiritual" Death, but that makes me think all the more that there's a way out.

I also put "wake up" in quotes because it's not even 100% sure that any of this at all is "real" in the traditional sense, even what they call "reality." They've been sure to reinforce, repeatedly, that anyone may be lying, and I'm certainly inclined to believe that many people are. (It was cute that Black Swan was careful to say that Remembrance doesn't lie for several reasons, obviously because of what she would go on to do, but also because Acheron keeps talking about her failing memory.) Of all the times they could end the story with "it was all just a dream," this is certainly one of them... (Did we also experience "Spiritual Death" when Acheron "killed" us at the start, or did that really wake us up?)

I totally agree about Acheron -- it may be that she is actually is an Emanator after all and is hiding her true identity, but I struggle to buy her as the "big bad" of this story, or at least not intentionally. Perhaps her missing memory is a sort of hint here and there's some sort of dissociation going on, but her "prayer" for Firefly seemed pretty genuine as well. There's also clearly some sort of weird time thing going on given the "Have we met before?" at the beginning, and the hint about "moving to the past." If she is an Emanator, perhaps she's from the path of Equilibrium and she's trying to correct a flaw in the timeline, or something like that.

I would also say that it's a safe bet that a Stellaron is at the center of all this. It was a Stellaron outbreak that led to the Family getting control of the planet in the past, and as we know there is no known way to destroy a Stellaron just restrain it. It may also explain Sam's interest in getting to the bottom of this situation. Perhaps either the restraints are starting to wear off, or someone is deliberately letting it loose to cause this trouble. If it were the latter I would have probably presumed Aventurine (as the IPC would like to wrest the planet back from Family control), but although clearly he knows way more about what's really going on, his actions in the end don't look like someone who started this mess, but someone who is gambling that he can take advantage of the situation to win.

About Firefly... I thought they were kind of laying it on a bit thick with the extremely obvious foreshadowing, so that is also part of why I'm quite sure she's not really dead yet. But even still... Entropy Loss Syndrome is a pretty heavy-handed way of creating a death flag to make the analogy of her name work. Presumably, even if she survives the "dream death" and "wakes up," she's not in a very good state. Obviously a key question is who she was working with who betrayed her. But when you have Sparkle going around mimicking people at will, you can't even trust that she was really betrayed by the real person she thought she was talking to anyway. But the law of mysteries suggests that the person she was working with should be someone we've already met.

And as for Sparkle... honestly, I'm kind of surprised they making her playable so soon, as they didn't really do all that much to develop her character in the story yet beyond being a rather-malicious tricker. (Disguising as Sunday's "dead" sister was kind of low, but anything for amusement, huh?) Then again, it's not like this game has any qualms about adding morally-questionable or even "evil" people to the roster anyway, so perhaps it's just par for the course. (Technically Black Swan also betrayed us, but I wouldn't say she's outright evil either.)

Anyway, they've set this story up to be a bit of a closed-room murder mystery plot and right now there are a lot of suspects and not a lot of answers. For now I think it was a pretty good start, and pretty good cliffhanger to end on. We'll obviously see if they can deliver on the remaining acts.

The to be continued called the next chapter an Interlude, and they said the story was going to go until 2.3... so perhaps this is a sign that next patch's story will be short and we'll have to wait until 2.2 for a bigger chunk, but hopefully the pacing this time is better than the last arc.

(Also, random point, but Misha's comments as a visitor on the Express might be suggesting they either are, or are related to, one of those Express passengers who stayed behind. It kind of makes me wonder if they've somehow been there trapped since. Although this plot point was dangled at the very beginning, it kind of ended up being mostly ignored so far, so it'll certainly come back at some point. Besides the point about not wanting to wake up from the dream, it may end up being that some cannot wake up instead. They did subtly hint that there's a chance some of them could still be alive.)

Spoiler for 2.0 Gameplay/Bosses/etc.:

Other than that, as far as gameplay goes... they tried pretty hard to stretch the definition of what their combat zones were with all the different kinds of puzzles and tricks. For the most part I think I liked it. A few times I was a bit impatient for the story to progress and they made you basically explore an entire map to get there, but I guess that's part of an RPG. Some of the new enemies (especially when in Formidable mode) are kind of needlessly tanky in my opinion. Some of the new mechanics you kind of have to watch for and reward you pretty strongly for specific party compositions.

I thought the two named bosses had interesting mechanics, but the second phase of the first boss would have been pretty annoying without the "extra help," especially since you don't know in advance to make sure you have the right elements.

And if you see a random trash can in the open world, be careful!

Still need to do the companion quest and sidequests, so more to discover still...

[MeoTwister5]

I also have to chime in on how great the sidequests in Penacony are and can hit emotional beats better than the main story at times.

Spoiler for 2.0 SQs:

Most of these quests draw inspiration from many IRL events.

One quest clearly draws inspiration from the development of the Atomic Bomb, and I suppose this quest may have been partially been inspired by the Oppenheimer movie.

Another quest might also be a dead give away with the character named Lesley Dean, and his situation I suppose is inspired by the events that tragically ended the life so young of the actor James Dean.

[Liddo-kun]

Xianzhou New Year celebration. ^^

[MeoTwister5]

I may attempt to roll for Sparkle. As much as I hate her right now in 2.0, her ability to boost monoquantum teams is unrivaled.

[Liddo-kun]

got three stars for 9 and below, but crystal 10 is my stopping point for Light of Reignition.
nobody died, but I could not beat True Sting on time.

Spoiler:

[Klashikari]

Not gonna lie, I was extremely wary of 2.0 for multiple reasons, namely the chaotic narrative of Luofu arc and Honkai 3rd scenarist revealing to be SR story supervisor, but I must say I was mostly nicely surprised in general.
While I gave Belobog and Luofo a score of 6.5 and 3 respectively, I'd give Penacony a solid 7.5. There were multiple instances where I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, but thus far, it was more than decent.

Spoiler for 2.0 Impressions, full spoilers:

First, I definitely appreciated the design of Penacony as a whole. While it has obvious inspirations from Jazz Age and Las Vegas, it had interesting designs choices leaning over utopia, nightmares and so on, without being too overly bizarre with dream motifs. Because of this, it felt like it was a civilization relying on entertainment rather than just a "usa of old" inspired planet. Its glamorous atmosphere was portrayed quite nicely in general and I hope MHY will implement smaller zones from the other dreamscapes, although I don't expect all 12 (or was it 10?) to be covered.

Regarding the story, I have far less complaints this time around. The narrative is much more straightforward: a simple investigation regarding a mysterious encoded message turned into some kind of murder mystery is right in my alley. Not only that, but I feel that the pacing and relevancy for most characters were solid for once. Aside of few characters such as Misha and Gallagher who had very minimal role at the moment, the cast involved in Penacony has proper role and screentime, with personal agenda to boot. Additionally, the fact most are part of specific factions that can't stand each other is good because it would be a bit weird for so many characters from different origins to be all friendly, especially with all the lore about aeons and so on.

That said, as much as I like Firefly, I do agree with many that MHY went a bit too heavy handed when it comes to her portrayal as the tragic heroine. While I don't mind stories with 2 characters bonding really fast, I do think the trailblaze and Firefly got closer a little too fast. Sure, if we consider the theory that Firefly is/was a Stellaron Hunter (which means that she and the TB could be acquainted way before the story started), it felt a bit too rushed. I think it would have made more sense if the early part of the golden hour was longer with TB trying to figure out how the dreamscape works, meeting Firefly on multiple occasions while she is chased by the bloodhounds then only after that we get the tour then the pseudo date.
Additionally, I also agree that they could have avoided the "key-like cancer" tragic heroine trait dropped just like that. Sometimes, less is more and having Firefly just longing for happy dreams with merely implications her life wasn't so great would have been enough. Blatantly telling us that she is already on borrowed time was a bit too on the nose. But ultimately, her death was really abrupt despite the death flags that I think it would have subverted the expectations if that happened early in 2.1 and get resolved by the end of it or 2.2. At the moment, I'm sure the vast majority of the fanbase didn't fell for her "death" considering how it was framed. Aside of non lore reasons (design too nice to be just a NPC, leaks etc), the fact it was a "spiritual death" is already enough to conclude it isn't permanent, moreso from what we learn from Black Swan quest, although it is obviously not all and dandy and the crew will have to beat the crap out of the "something unto death" boss to save Firefly and Robin.

When it comes to Aventurine, Acheron and Black Swan, it is all about context and circumstances. While the story tried to do a 180 when it comes to who to trust between those 3, I'm not totally sold by Aventurine crafty behaviour. The dude is all about gain, but unlike Black Swan who needs TB for her objective, he will definitely discard TB and the express crew the moment they are no longer useful or required for his objectives. As for Acheron, I really doubt MHY would try anything funny with a character that is part of their all star cast among their games, her issues is mostly part of her abilities that she probably cannot control well. That or it is part of some sort of drastic attempts to alter a timeline given the implications she has been threading this scenario more than once.
Meanwhile, I'm a bit surprised very few people expressed doubts about Clockie. I don't think he is the big bad for this arc, but I can't shake this uneasiness when it comes to him. I mean, he can literally manipulate people emotions just like that, which is akin to the Family tinkering with their employees and guests memories. So yeah, I expect this mascot to be more relevant later.

As for the gameplay, while still leaning on the easier side of things, the puzzle and map navigations didn't overstay their welcome. They were thematically nice and intuitive to grasp in my case.

Honestly, I just hope they will deliver 2.1 in the same fashion. Last thing this game needs is 2.1 to be similar to Inazuma 2.1 patch.