Honkai Star Rail

[Marina2]

Finished building my Kafka, however, I need to build her teammates next and...that will take sometime.

[felix]

Thank god the game has the custom relic craft since some of these domain drops are going to drive me insane if that wasnt a thing. It seems they're also adding a lot more of it as reward.

[Liddo-kun]

yeah, being able to custom choose the relic main stat is a good feature. But must be used carefully and sparingly, because resin is rare.

fortunately, yesterday Path of Drifting dropped a 5 star Crit Rate Musketeer. So I don't have to use the resin anymore. But need one more for Silver Wolf. Gonna keep on farming.

_________

sharing a fanart of Herta.

[Liddo-kun]

finished Underground Treasure Hunt in Asia server.

to those who have not started yet... and are interested in the rewards. I suggest you start now. The quest is long, and will be hard to finish in just one night.

[Sheba]

Raising the energy cap to 240 IS a welcome improvement. Now my daily routine is like 6x exp, 6x cash, 6x Traces of the day, 2x ascension materials for the characters who still need it.

As for the storyline, it bring a sentiment of closure to the Xianzhou arc. Being Yukong is suffering. Unfortunately, the fact we have had to wait for the conclusion of the arc kind of dulled the impact. And I didn't feel invested in the Xianzhou cast as I did in the Belobog cast.

Moreover:

Spoiler:

- Until proven otherwise, Tingyun is dead. The burial ceremony more or less hammer that.
- Luocha confirmed the suspicious vibes he gave off to all veterans of Honkai Impact.

Also, this is what my limited banner warp history look like:

Images

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[Liddo-kun]

yeah, raising trailblaze power to 240 is a great help. The "reserved power" function is also quite useful.

[Key Board]

Maybe having [redacted] die for real is setting the tone and expectations

ie: just because you can roll for them in gatcha does not mean they will survive in the story

//

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Key Board

Maybe having [redacted] die for real is setting the tone and expectations

ie: just because you can roll for them in gatcha does not mean they will survive in the story

//

I'm still in the not convinced camp on this one, but I agree that it does mess with people's expectations. In this kind of sci-fi setting that already has a multiverse angle, though, it's a lot easier for them to come up with justifications for this kind of thing anyway.

[Klashikari]

I can't help but feel like Luofu arc was symptomatic to how Mihoyo writers handle things since we got similar issues to what happened in Liyue, Inazuma and Sumeru to some extent. It was a clusterfuck and it really makes me think the game was released too early and/or the writers can't stay consistent with what they do.

Spoiler for Luofu arc, including 1.3:

For starters, I frankly think the way how they released the tidbits of Luofu doesn't change anything in term of quality. Sure, its drippy aspect definitely felt bad but it only exacerbated the inherent narrative issues the arc already had.

In term of characters, you barely get to know the Luofu characters, be it the playable ones or the citizens. If anything, it was incredibly inconsistent for major ones to boot.

• March and Welt felt more like bystanders than real actors, considering they pretty much disappeared during a huge chunk of the first part of the arc.
• Dan Shu was heavily implied to have a more nuanced role in this mess given how things went haywire with the Hunt Aeon going terminator left and right. But not only her quest was weirdly tacked into the main story quest before they adjusted it, but then she was merely a pawn for Phantylia.
• Phantylia was a very bland antagonist who basically showed at the very last minute, didn't do much either and just disappeared. There wasn't really any allusion to her disguise except that one time Tingyun seemly musing about the Abundance but that's about it.
• Tingyun completely relegated to a non character with the plot twist. Fu Xuan heavily implies she was already swapped by Phantylia by the time the crew arrived at the ship. There is not really any implication the crew knew about the real Tingyun so the whole funeral thing rung super hollow, especially when the crew is tasked to select items related to her.
• Jin Yang and Fu Xuan were conveniently quite passive despite being some major players in the plot, or so it seemed.
• Luocha being hinted as a more sinister character at the very end, while doing absolutely nothing since the very start aside of being a bit suspicious in term of timing. It really makes his companion quest practically pointless to boot.
• Blade was portrayed as a man on a mission, going through the ends of the galaxies to hunt down Dan Heng. Yet, after stabbing him once, he just left with the hunters. I realize the whole spirit whisper thing with Kafka is a setup for later, but the problem with that approach is that it made Blade gave up quite easily without much repercussions in term of character interactions. I thought it would have been a good opportunity for Blade to have some past reminiscences about the Quintet before going full vengeance against Heng for a while before Kafka or another character has to interfere.
• Speaking of interference, Yanqing was pretty much some fodder for some reasons and it doesn't help that his companion quest was mostly what has happened offscreen instead of being focused on himself.
• The biggest sinner out of the bunch, quite literally: Dan Heng and Dan Feng. For some reason, Mihoyo thought it was a good idea to have him doing his little quest with Sushang and Luocha without much inner monologue or introspection to delve a little more about his past. But more importantly, there wasn't any foreshadowing plot point at all about him. The game kept dancing around some past issue with the Luofu but that's about it. Then we got that extremely important backstory about Dan Feng while omitting the more important details (such... I dunno, his damn sin that require you to go through many hoops to have a slight idea of what he has done, and all the stuff about the High Cloud Quintet). The worst thing about this is that, Dan Heng's struggle with his past was basically done offscreen after the whole fact with the animated short. There wasn't any buildup between him and Feng up to that climax, and the animated short itself wasn't played in-game for whatever reasons

The general execution of the plot wasn't particularly great either. Pacing issues aside, the arc itself was a weird mixture of usual wuxia shenanigans and politics that didn't mesh well given they were badly executed and tied together.
We basically have Dan Heng past, Blade going apeshit (sort of), Kafka luring the crew by Elio's command, Bailu responsibilities, Dan Shu faction trying to reactvate the Abor, Phantylia stirring the situation for shit and giggles (which also is weird to have her wield the power of abundance despite being an Emanator of Destruction, but I digress), Sushang and Luocha laid back adventure, and so on. All of that packed with mandatory introduction of a new area.

Frankly, the whole fact that epilogue could have been implemented in 1.2 instead was just the insult to the injury. Everything thus far was fairly more infuriating given how simple yet effective Belobog arc was in comparison. It wasn't particularly impressive in term of twists and themes, but every characters' agenda and motivations weren't a bogging mess, and the pacing was mostly fine, with obvious high such as wildfire moment.

[relentlessflame]

I tend to agree with most of the criticisms about the arc.

Spoiler for Story up to 1.3:

They tried too hard to have a story that is developing on multiple fronts, over multiple timelines, with multiple overlapping factors/motivations, and it's just biting off more than they can chew. It makes the story seem very disjointed, like it was constantly hinting at "there's *so much here*!" but it's all in the periphery and delivered in these weird fragments. Although some of it seems interesting (the underlying theme of immortality and the drawbacks therein is pretty rich in potential, and they clearly put a lot of thought into the lore) but how much do you really care for any of the characters and what's going on in the plot?

The disconnect about Dan Shu is certainly the most blatant part, and the fact they changed it to be a side quest (rather than believing it was an integral part of the main quest) screams of the left-hand not knowing what the right-hand is doing. (Like two different writers working on the two parts in parallel and not sharing notes on how to make sure they align well together in the end, which they mostly don't. The side quest builds Dan Shu up to be an important person, and she ends up just being a forgettable extra in the main story.)

Even the timing of introducing banner characters was weird and chaotic. At least in Genshin Impact they've been pretty good about ensuring the characters on the banner are developed before putting them on the gacha (or at least in the same patch), but here the order makes very little sense. It's like it was chosen for marketing reasons "blindly" rather than in GI where they had the clear mandate that the story is what drives interest in the characters, or just that the story changed substantially in production for whatever reason and they couldn't shuffle the characters around.

On the other hand, as you point out, the Belobog arc was much simpler and self-contained. The plot develops in a logical, linear fashion, each point building on the last, and it has a very dramatic conclusion that ties up most of the loose ends. Obviously not perfect by any means, but it worked and is easy to follow and understand.

It does sort of feel like the first two arcs were developed in pre-production, but Luofu launched in an unfinished state and it became more about how they needed to keep having more maps, and more characters, and more "stuff" rather than a really tightly-knit plot. Perhaps they launched the game too soon, but thought they needed to strike while the iron was hot for some reason (to hit the gap between Genshin Impact regions, maybe?).

I guess if I had to make a suggestion, I probably would have kept the Stellaron Hunter stuff out of it more. I realize it's important to the overarching plot of the game, and they wanted to introduce the characters to the gacha, but I think it's still too early and all this is really not that satisfactory a way of introducing them anyway. The plot needed to be more focused and local. I would have centered it more on Dang Heng's development and kept him in the center of the plot rather than having him go off in a parallel journey. And as you suggested, they probably also should have developed Tingyun a lot more if they were going to pull this twist. Basically, make the story much smaller in scope, more focused, and more personal.

I think the reason why this gets particular criticism is indeed because it is returning to some of the similar issues that faced some of the early Genshin Impact archon quests, which they've gone a fair ways towards resolving over the years (not perfect still, but certainly improved). So people expect that the HSR team will apply those lessons learned already and not make the same mistakes, so in some ways it feels even worse. Plus, as many have said, HSR does not have the open world exploration aspect to keep people engaged, so in some ways it depends more on the story quests to keep people hooked. The audience who is going to keep playing the game just for things like SU and MoC are only a fraction of the audience.

Anyway, we'll see what happens next. Perhaps they'll find their footing after this chaotic start and over time things will stabilize. And I still think they have a lot of interesting ideas, but they're really struggling to nail the landing right now at least as far as story quests go.

[Key Board]

I suspect they had to made changes because people complained about the Dan Shu arc and they had to make abrupt changes

and the complaints about Dan Shu aren't valid either. Just a bunch of people throwing tantrums

//

[Liddo-kun]

would just like to say again. Increasing the cap of Trailblaze power to 240 + reserve function really helped. Now, I only have to log in during the evening.. instead of both morning and evening to avoid wasting some power. I thank whoever is the dev who thinked of this.

[FlameSparkZ]

From what I can tell, HSR is pretty much using features from both Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact as reference either combining or improving on them.

The energy system for example, HI3rd has a reserve function, but has no condensed.
Genshin has condenced resin, but no reserve.
All 3 games have items that allow us to refill energy without using gems.

This was only about energy, there's quite a few features from both games present in HSR.

[Liddo-kun]

have never played Honkai Impact 3rd, so can't compare. But what Star Rail has now, strong at 240 cap + reserves is better than Genshin 160 cap + 5 condensed.

____

oh, and the Swarm Disaster Event for Simulated Universe is active now. More jades to be won.

[Marina2]

Swarm Disaster SU is pretty difficult and there are so many thing to collect and complete. It probably take me a month or more to 100% everything in that mode.

[belatkuro]

Yeah, failing hard at the 3rd layer boss of difficulty III.
Main SU was a bit difficult at first but it's easier when you get all the buffs. Gotta grind it out again for this new mode's buffs.

[GDB]

This new mode basically feels like "Tank Check Simulator". Since I don't have a good tank, I'll probably just not bother with it until Fu Xuan comes out.

[Liddo-kun]

tried Inhibitor at char trials.
he is indeed strong.. getting tempted to pull.
but I can resist. Special Pass I have gathered are just enough to get Fu, and her signature light cone.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by GDB

This new mode basically feels like "Tank Check Simulator". Since I don't have a good tank, I'll probably just not bother with it until Fu Xuan comes out.

Same for me, gonna wait on Fu Xuan. Even Luocha isn't getting me through. Swarm Disaster 2 is handing me my ass even using Abundance.

[Marina2]

EDITED: managed to clear with Nihility \ now,these are teams I can use to defeat Swarm Disaster at difficulty 3 (4 is another story for now)

Hunt Path


The combination of Imperishable Victory (After a character defeats an enemy, their action is Advanced Forward by 100%) and Auspicious Star (When a character defeats an enemy, regenerates Energy 60-100%) Blessing allow my Selee to defeat the boss stage by keep spamming ultimate on small bug and skill on boss bug without letting them have a turn.

Nihility Path


Nihility, Remembrance, and Propagation blessing going together really well. Nihility-Propagation Resonance interplay (normal attack trigger all DOT on enemy) is broken. Try to get the destruction blessing that share damage between all party member. It is very useful for survival.

.......................

People said Abundance Path work well but I can't make it work yet because the game often troll me by not give any Dewdrop card. I guess I will try Rememberance next.

Yeah, I am going to get Fu Xuan.

..................................................

Note: Farm passive buff from Communing Trail, they help a lot.