|OT| Honkai: Star Rail | Trails to the Wallet

Ascheroth

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About

Official Website: Home | Honkai: Star Rail official website | May this journey lead us starward
Developer: Hoyoverse
Publisher: Hoyoverse
PC release Date: April 26th 2023
Platforms: PC (Standalone Launcher), Android, iOS, PS4 & PS5 (after release, date tba)

Honkai: Star Rail is a free-to-play (yes, it’s gacha) turn-based RPG that takes players on a cosmic adventure across the stars. Hop aboard the Astral Express and experience the galaxy’s infinite wonders on this journey filled with adventure and thrill.


Gameplay

Honkai: Star Rail is not an open-world game, instead it’s closer to traditional JRPGs with zones you can walk around in to interact with NPCs and objects, solve puzzles, find treasure chests and come across enemies. Combat will start when making contact with these enemies.



In combat you will field a party of four. Characters and enemies will then act in turns based on their Speed stat (characters with high Speed can get multiple turns before characters or enemies with low speed get a turn).


Every character has 3 actions available per turn. A Basic Attack, a Skill and an Ultimate.
Skills need Skill Points to be used, which are shared by the entire party and capped at a maximum of 5. Skill Points are primarily generated by using Basic Attacks.
Every action and defeating enemies also generates Energy for the Ultimate ability. Once the Ultimate is ready it can be used anytime, even out of turn order (think S-Breaks in Trails games). If the Ultimate is used during the character’s turn, it does not end the turn.
In addition to that, each character has a passive Talent that triggers if the correct conditions are met and a Technique that can be used in the overworld and gives you an advantage when it is used to initiate combat with an enemy.
Strengthening a character unlocks Traces, which are additional smaller passives that are either straight stat boosts or again conditional.

Enemies have 2 bars. The red bar is their Health and the white bar is their Toughness. Health reduces whenever an enemy takes damage. Enemies have multiple elements they are weak against, but do not take extra damage when hit with such an element, instead their Toughness is reduced. If their Toughness hits 0, they enter a weakened state in which they take extra damage and get a debuff based on the element that reduced the Toughness to 0. These debuffs are various flavors of damage over time and turn delays. Toughness fully regenerates on the next turn of the enemy.

There are 7 elements in the game. Each character corresponds to one:
  • Physical
  • Fire
  • Ice
  • Lightning
  • Wind
  • Quantum
  • Imaginary
Additionally each character belongs to a Path (basically a class). There are currently 7 Paths:
  • Destruction (General DPS)
  • Hunt (Single Target DPS)
  • Erudition (AoE DPS)
  • Harmony (Offensive/Utility Support)
  • Nihility (Debuffs)
  • Preservation (Defensive Support/Tank)
  • Abundance (Healer)


Characters

As a gacha game, Star Rail has a wide roster of playable characters available at release, with more to come.
Here are some of them, the crew of the Astral Express accompanying you on the journey:

Trailblazer

The playable character. You can choose Male or Female at the start of the game.

March 7th



An enthusiastic girl who was once saved from eternal ice by the Astral Express. She now travels with them, always bringing her camera in the hopes of capturing a memento from her past.

Dan Heng



The cold and reserved train guard of the Astral Express. Wielding a spear named Cloud Piercer, he joined the Astral Express crew to escape his secluded past.

Welt



A seasoned member of the Express Crew. The passion buried in his heart burns anew as he enjoys this fresh adventure. Occasionally, he would sketch the experiences in a notebook.

Himeko



An adventurous scientist who encountered and repaired a stranded train as a child. She now ventures across the universe with her train currently named the Astral Express, operating as its navigator.

More characters on the webiste or the wiki.


The Monetization

It’s a gacha game. Most of its systems are pretty much directly lifted from Genshin.
It has premium currency used to gamble for characters and Light Cones (weapon equivalents), a pity system that guarantees you a 5 star after a certain number of pulls, a 50/50 chance of that being the thing you actually want and a real guarantee to get what you want the next time in case you fail that.
Premium currency will be earnable in-game by playing the game and participating in events.
It also has a monthly pass granting additional premium currency every day, and a Battle Pass which grants additional resources and a selectable exclusive weapon.


FAQ

Q: Do I need to have played Honkai Impact 3rd in order to understand the story?
A: No. Star Rail is set in the same multi-verse and Welt is a character from Honkai Impact, but the actual story is separate.

Q: Does this have multiplayer?
A: No. There is no PVP or co-op. The only multiplayer functionality currently in the game is a friends list and you can borrow one character from a friend.

Q: How free-to-play friendly is this?
A: Since it’s not out yet, the real answer is that it’s impossible to say at the moment. However, since it shares a lot of its systems with Genshin Impact, there’s a good chance it will be pretty casual and free-to-play friendly, but not collector friendly, especially at the start. And while spending money is most likely not gonna be necessary to experience all of the content, the game will most definitely give you a lot of avenues to spend regardless.


Media




 
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Li Kao

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Nice ! I'm relatively hyped. Maybe I will gel with it more than Mihoyo other games ? I suppose that will depend on the quality of the writing, Honkai was super weak in the early game, and I really wasn't a fan of Genshin magical moe fairy.
That being said, I had the urge to give Genshin another try, too.

We will see, I'm not shitting hours in the day.
 

hersheyfan

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Thanks for making an OT Asch, looks great!

I'll give this a shot when I get back home to my PC, I'm currently on vacation in Fukuoka and I don't want to make the same mistake I made with Genshin ("locking" myself into a third party storefront, in my case PlayStation).

Is there a world exploring element like Genshin?
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Nice ! I'm relatively hyped. Maybe I will gel with it more than Mihoyo other games ? I suppose that will depend on the quality of the writing, Honkai was super weak in the early game, and I really wasn't a fan of Genshin magical moe fairy.
That being said, I had the urge to give Genshin another try, too.

We will see, I'm not shitting hours in the day.
I think the general opinion from people who played the closed beta and also played Genshin is that they liked the early story better than Genshin. There's no magical mascot fairy with a high pitched voice and you are not a solo traveller but travel with an actual party. Not sure how the actual writing quality is and how wordy it is though.

Thanks for making an OT Asch, looks great!

I'll give this a shot when I get back home to my PC, I'm currently on vacation in Fukuoka and I don't want to make the same mistake I made with Genshin ("locking" myself into a third party storefront, in my case PlayStation).

Is there a world exploring element like Genshin?
It does have an actual world you move around in and is not just menus, but it's not an open world. There's no climbing, gliding or even jumping. It's more like Trails and earlier Final Fantasies for example. Various mostly linear zones with maybe branching paths and towns/cities as hub areas. I don't know how big these maps are and how many of them there are. We'll have to see.


Btw, there's a pre-release web-event for some goodies underway (it will last until well after release, so no hurry):

Gives you a 4* Light Cone (weapon) and a 4* Relic (equipment).
 
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Li Kao

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Won't there be a PC client or are we forced to fucking use EGS here ?
Not that I care much as I prefer playing gacha on ipad, but uh. The official site only list apple, google and epic.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Won't there be a PC client or are we forced to fucking use EGS here ?
Not that I care much as I prefer playing gacha on ipad, but uh. The official site only list apple, google and epic.
There will be a Standalone PC Client, yes.
You're not gonna see me promoting Epic, lol.
 
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Vantr

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Thanks for the thread Ascheroth!

Hopefully the story will be decent. Honkai has a generally well-praised story except for the final arc where I felt it got really annoying to read due to it being a whole bunch of info dump. I believe first part of the story was also pretty bad as well but I think they reworked it a while ago.

I might stick with this for a while but I have generally FOMO too much when playing gachas it usually ends up feeling like work.

But high hopes for Star Rail unless...

They kill off Himeko again. Then I'm going to be mad. They should find another character to kill off. But I get the feeling that current Hoyoverse won't kill off any playable characters and play it safe with the story. Which I feel is somewhat disappointing since the emotional impact of Himeko's death was pretty big in HI3 and honestly the payoff for that was great. I think Elysian Realm was pretty well done as well but does it count if the characters are already "dead"?
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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They've been releasing trailers for the 5 star standard banner characters over the last couple months.
Today they put a new one up

Here are the older ones

Presumable all of them will get one before release, or around release?
Bronya, Clara and Welt are left.

Well, and some 4 stars have also gotten trailers (both of them are free, though Serval is a pre-registration milestone reward, so will presumable stop being free eventually):
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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I updated the OP with the release trailer.

First banner:


Second banner will be Jing Yuan. 4 stars STC, but these were the ones in the beta



And of course there's already a big leak scene for the game, lol.
Upcoming characters (some were already teased in the new trailer)


Personally I'm probably gonna pull a little on Jing Yuan's banner cause I want the 4 stars more but not go to pity and go into saving mode for Jingliu (though I certainly wouldn't mind an early Jing Yuan either!). Seele gonna have to wait until a rerun.
 
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Vantr

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Those leaks seem interesting.

What server is everyone going to be on? I'll be on the Asia server.
 

Li Kao

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I'm lost Ascheroth
Didn't follow all the promo stuff too closely, so what's there to do ? I created a Star Rail account, obviously, there are 3 promo codes being distributed, some twitch drop if you want to go the extra mile, some daily connection to a website for rewards...
But wasn't there a special promo that last several weeks more that I'm forgetting ?

Too many promos, lost.

Edit. It was the DIY ticket thing. Do I forget any other ?
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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I'm lost Ascheroth
Didn't follow all the promo stuff too closely, so what's there to do ? I created a Star Rail account, obviously, there are 3 promo codes being distributed, some twitch drop if you want to go the extra mile, some daily connection to a website for rewards...
But wasn't there a special promo that last several weeks more that I'm forgetting ?

Too many promos, lost.
Alright, let's sort this out.

There's a web event here:
It lets you pick 2 items which you can then claim in the game. You wanna pick these:


The upper one is the important one, the lower one doesn't really matter, but any of the 4 star gloves seem to be the preferred option. This event is still lasting a month and it takes 2 days at most to get the stuff, so no need to worry or rush.

The codes will be claimable via these links once the game is released and you've made a character (assuming they are working for Global, could be we'll get different ones):

The twitch drops don't seem to be live yet (and they are probably not gonna matter anyway). I don't think there's anything else.
 

Li Kao

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So nice to see I cracked all my warps and got... the gloves.
What does the book thing do ?
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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So nice to see I cracked all my warps and got... the gloves.
What does the book thing do ?
It's a 4* weapon. You're guaranteed to get it after... 20 warps (I thought it was fewer though, sorry).
 
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Line

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Oh yeah, I haven't posted in this thread yet.
:blobmelt:
I think the warp event lasts until May 24, so I suppose you can just can just come back for a few days to get enough missions/rolls to redeem the 4* weapon.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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It's out!

Played until I hit the Simulated Universe at Trailblazer Level 5.

First impressions: I like it quite a bit!
Presentation and music is on-point as expected.
The Break system and the ways character skills interact with each other is quite satisfying so far. (Starting a battle with a strong attack from the map that immediately breaks some enemies which causes Trial Himeko triggering her follow-up immediately killing them and maybe breaking some others was hella satisfying).
Though I am slightly worried about the battle animations getting old sooner rather than later, but we'll see.

Did 30 pulls on the Departure Warp and I've already gotten Pela, Sushang and Tingyun, which are all of the non-free ones that I wanted, so I'm already 100% satisfied, lol. The bigger "problem" right now is that I need to figure out which team(s) to make out of them first and who to build first :cold-sweat:


More codes:
HSRVER10XEDLFE
STARRAILGIFT
 
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Line

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Hmm, was a bit worried after the beta, and yeah, the combat isn't particularly fun. Looks good, sounds good, but it's also a lot of animations that you'll want to fast forward (or ideally, remove entirely after a few patches I assume), and mechanically... it's pretty dire.
The break bar is just a big slump after Genshin, it's as basic as can be with effects being copy/pasted for three elements each... and it's sloooow "white" damage before you can use your real bomb like so many JRPGs nowadays - and in none of them does it add anything but wasted time. It will be even less relevant in a gacha since you'll blow things up immediately anyway, so it will only be used for top end bosses like in FF7R or something and ignored for normal encounters...

But really, what makes me much more afraid is the level design, or lack thereof. When the first hour is an absolute black hole of fun where you just run in empty, ugly corridors bashing the few mobs in the way, only to get access to mostly empty cities that aren't particularly impressive and where not only can you not explore in 3D but not even jump... it feels like a bland anime MMO circa 2006 frankly.
 

Dandy

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Played a bit this morning, but now I have to goto work.

I did 20 pulls on the departure banner, but only got a second Serval. I also grabbed the Express Supply Pass, cause why not? It's the only thing I would ever spend money on(I think).

I hope I don't regret choosing the guy Trailblazer... I probably should've tried the female one out before spending money. That wasn't very smart of me.
 
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Panda Pedinte

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The start is really slow and I'm still not invested in whatever is going on with the plot but the turn based combat may grab me as I can divide my attention between the combat and other things.
 

Line

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Continuing a bit, yeah, combat is already completely meaningless and you autobattle everything, in corridors that genuinely look straight out of the PS2 era, while the story is... there I guess.
Can't say I care about anything because all the lore is supposed to be distant and weird, but that also makes all that happens an outsider's problem to the team that just stumbles on that ice planet.
I do find it hilarious that they try to put themselves as different beings because of their clothes... except everyone has the same edgy anime look to them, from the supposed galactic traveler with a bat that's just from Shinjuku circa 2005 to the backwater artist on the frozen planet.

The designs in general don't look bad, but if you try to make it seem like they're from different worlds, it's a complete failure.
And I think "complete failure" will apply to far too many things in this game. How combat can be so bad and boring while they just had to rip off the elemental reactions from Genshin is already a big question.
 

Li Kao

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I regret to say I may hate the game. I wanted to love it.
Not the corridors. Not the basic combat. But yeah, the writing. The MSQ is nonsense but the player is not meant to understand everything, so whatev. And the little they allude to is seriously cool, like those gods for concepts.
But then you pause the MSQ to visit the station and every NPC, every sidequest, is a torrent of wet shit. Complete and utter nonsense.

I will gladly admit I have a bad case of reading OCD these days, But bruhs…
In the last half hour I had a scientist explain to me that he sports an afro because that way his little girl would have recognized him in a situation of crisis and not been murdered. Cold turkey, no fuck given about delivery. I could only think to myself, well it sucks, man.
And now some random ass terminal wants me to remember a password by finding origamis where a fucking psycho wrote a love poem to the station doggo.

They are not trying. And I fear I will stop, too. It’s so bad that it lead me to question my sanity. Maybe I don’t understand words anymore ? But yeah, Occam’s razor, they shat all over their script.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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That's a shame.

I found those amusing. I've spent a couple hours combing the entire Space Station and just barely left (got 960 Hertarium from all the interactions and found a chest with a 4* Light Cone).
There's a treasure chest mini-story that I found hilarious.






And you find him again elsewhere afterwards:












And then he gives you a reward, lol.

But ye, if you can't get any enjoyment out of those, best bail. There seems to be an enourmous amounf of such (mostly silly, sometimes less so) interactions sprinkled around.
The "Space Comedy" trailer makes a lot more sense now. It seems to be going for quite a light-hearted vibe most of the time. (With probably sprinkles of seriousness in the main story).
 
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Line

meh
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Continuing, the dungeons get actively worse each time, that's impressive after how bad the opening was.
And frankly, the entire story premise don't even hold up when Serval is from a backwater planet, barely hanging on, cut off from the galaxy for 700 years and looks like this:


While the galactic travelers look like this :


What a load of shit.
Frankly, I think the game is pretty much rubbish, from the nonsense story to the combat that's not even on the level of the old ass turn based mobile games on the market to the complete dogshit "level design" and that's already generous to call it that.
It's a mobile-ass mobile game in the most disparaging sense of the term, and it's not even the best one in that flood of mediocrity.

If at least it looked good, but no, not even that. I mean when you look outside of a window to see stretched 144p .jpgs - or the game actually focuses on the brand new city to show the piss poor quality 2D image of it?
Fuck off.
 

hersheyfan

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Finally got to play last night, made it all the way past the first boss and onto the second location. Having a pretty good time so far.

I find the characters charming, and a lot of the character dialogue very warm (as referenced elsewhere, the tone is indeed very reminescent of the Trails RPG series). - I just love March and her shit eating grin. :face-with-stuck-out-tongue-and-tightly-closed-eyes: The music is also damn good as expected, though not quite at Genshin Impact's level.

The run and walk animations are significantly stiffer than GI's, and when combined with the lack of a jump button it makes things feel awkward. The combat is serviceable, its fun enough and super flashy but I'm really doubting if its going to hold up long term. The fact that they already encourage the use of double speed animations in the tutorial RNG dungeons is telling enough.

Since there are no elemental reactions (only weaknesses), it looks like difficulty will basically boil down to whether i have a correct element toon on my team or not. There just arent as many ways to attack the same problem as there are in GI, and I'll be damned if I ever spend any substantial amount of money on a "F2P" game that basically forces me to pay for a crucial game mechanic (the correct element) I need. Its obviously not a problem right now, but I could see it becoming one in the future. :thinking-face:

I threw them a bone by buying one of the Welkin thingos for five bucks, but the jury's still out on whether I'll be playing this long term.

PS. I got pretty bad rolls - aside from the free guys, I got Herta x1, Sampo x1, Serval x2, an extra Natasha (E1) and... Yanqing. :loudly-crying-face: Betrayal!
 
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SaberVS7

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Just gonna drop my HSR friendcode in here: 600084827

...This first chapter feels like it's getting long-in-the-tooth.
 

Li Kao

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PS. I got pretty bad rolls - aside from the free guys, I got Herta x1, Sampo x1, Serval x2, an extra Natasha (E1) and... Yanqing. :loudly-crying-face: Betrayal!
Those are rookie numbers !

1st ten pull, nothing
2nd one, err, Hook
1st one pull on Seele, some 3-star light cone
 

hersheyfan

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Those are rookie numbers !

1st ten pull, nothing
2nd one, err, Hook
1st one pull on Seele, some 3-star light cone
Nah, you must have just missed your 4 star light cone while sorting through your loot haha.

The way it works is, every 10 pulls (warps, wishes, etc) on the same banner, you are guaranteed a four star something. That something could be a weapon (a light cone) or a character (like Hook).

Every 90 pulls on the same banner, you are guaranteed a 5 star something (same deal as above). However, at wish no. 60 and above (iirc) you start building "pity", which basically means for every wish above 60 your chances of pulling a 5 star become progressively higher. Hence its very rare that anybody actually makes it all the way to 90 without getting a 5 star first.

When you pull a four star or a five star in both examples above, your guarantee resets to zero.

The beginner banner you are pulling on has a lower guarantee of 50 instead of 90 warps to help new players out.
 
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Dandy

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I only have 10 pulls left on the departure banner... Hope I get someone good!

I hate the way Exp works in these games. I'm so paranoid about using it, and then I come across enemies 10 levels higher than me... But I think they are supposed to be higher than me? What is a good way of knowing what level you should be? Should your character/lightcone levels be around the same as your Trailblazer level?
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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I only have 10 pulls left on the departure banner... Hope I get someone good!

I hate the way Exp works in these games. I'm so paranoid about using it, and then I come across enemies 10 levels higher than me... But I think they are supposed to be higher than me? What is a good way of knowing what level you should be? Should your character/lightcone levels be around the same as your Trailblazer level?
As high as you can (or maybe one level below the limit if you wanna get combat exp still). The character/equipment max level are gated via Ascensions that are in turn gated by the Trailblazer-level.
For example at the beginning the max level of a character is basically 20. To raise the max-level you need to ascend the character, which requires some materials and a high enough Trailblazer level.
 
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Li Kao

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hersheyfan good point on the first ten pull ! But when I pull I want 5-star, a 4-star light cone is whatever :cold-sweat:
Well, ok, if we must go purple, at least make it multiple purple.
 

Vantr

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So I've just cleared the area after the space station. Oh boy Ascheroth you're in for a treat when you get to the boss of that area. That whole battle is chefs kiss.

Dandy you should just use up your EXP materials to level your characters and try hit the cap asap. You will eventually unlock content that lets you farm EXP materials. As Ascheroth said there is a level cap on your characters which is determined by your Trailblazer level and certain parts of the story will be restricted based on that level so you won't encounter anything that is impossible to clear.

So my impressions so far are I found the combat rather enjoyable if you are facing enemies that are high level that is the only time it is a challenge. I prefer elements in this compared to Genshin as when I first played Genshin if you didn't have the correct element some mobs took forever to clear. In Star Rail it seems like most enemies have 2-3 weaknesses so your team should be able to cover it but if you don't have the correct elements you still deal a pretty decent amount of damage. I haven't deviated much from my standard team of Dan Heng, Bronya, March 7th and Natasha.

Don't sleep on March 7th. She's an amazing unit for a f2p player. Her shield is absurd. Also Natasha is an important character f2p in team building as she is one of the only two healers out so far (The other being Bailu which is a 5*).

Anyways my HSR ID 800351377 is if anyone in the Asia server wants to add me.
 
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SaberVS7

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Pulled Clara from my Starter Banner pity-pull, well at least I'm replacing Physical Protagonist sooner rather than later then.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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They're already gonna have a concert in 2 days, lol. (I'm very much here for that.)
Oh, and 10 Special Tickets for pulling.






May the stars be with you on this journey. We are grateful for your support in this boundless voyage with Honkai: Star Rail. Thanks to you, we have achieved fantastic results in topping the charts of many countries and regions.

The Express Crew would like to invite you to the Honkai: Star Rail Departure Festival at 19:30 (UTC+8) on 2023/04/30 for a Stellaris Symphony performed solely for you. We will also issue Star Rail Special Pass ×10 to you on the day of the festival.



Follow the accounts below to watch the livestream:

Official YouTube account:

Official Twitch account: HonkaiStarRail - Twitch



Once again, thank you for your continuous support and encouragement.

May this journey lead us starward.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Finally got to Trailblazer 15 and did my 50th departure warp - got Gepard. I'm not sure if he's good or not. From what I read, he's great for end game.
He seems really good, yeah. Full-Party shield on his Ultimate, Ascension passive that increases his aggro, Def scaling on his last Ascension passive.

Personally I'm actually thinking of making a Dan Heng hypercarry team now, cause I do feel like I want a good Wind attacker (and while Bronya is wind, she's not really an attacker) and exploiting his Synergies seems very fun to set up big numbers.
Like... Dan Heng, Bronya, March 7th and maybe Tingyun or someone else depending on enemy weaknesses.
I have Dan Heng on the 3* Hunt Light Cone that gives 24% crit for a few turns and his E1 so he has almost 50% crit already without other gear. So use Skill and Crit to Slow an enemy -> any of the others buff him to trigger his Talent for Resistence Penetration -> Ultimate on Slowed enemy for extra damage%. Should be biiig numbers. And then Bronya can move him forward to have him attack more often and/or buff him even more with her Ult and Tingyun can recharge his Ult. Sounds quite fun against Bosses.
 

spindoctor

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Jun 9, 2019
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I played the tutorial of the game and reached the ship you're supposed to escape to. Would like some tips on what to do next... specifically, with all the gacha/lootbox stuff. I saw there are at least 3 different lootboxes I can open with the 20 free tickets I have... which is the most desirable one to get? Also the one free lootbox gave me this character



Is she any good?

As you can tell, I'm pretty clueless about this kind of game so any advice for a newbie would be appreciated. I like the game so far. Great production values although the movement animations could be a bit better.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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I played the tutorial of the game and reached the ship you're supposed to escape to. Would like some tips on what to do next... specifically, with all the gacha/lootbox stuff. I saw there are at least 3 different lootboxes I can open with the 20 free tickets I have... which is the most desirable one to get? Also the one free lootbox gave me this character



Is she any good?

As you can tell, I'm pretty clueless about this kind of game so any advice for a newbie would be appreciated. I like the game so far. Great production values although the movement animations could be a bit better.
I got the same. Don't think she is actually good but didn't look too much into tiers list.
With the normal gacha ticket you should pull on the starter warp until you get a 5-star. When you get your 5-star on the starter warp, you should use the normal pass on the regular banner to accrue pity.
The golden passes are used for the spotlight banner, so no choice there.

No idea or interest about pulling for light cones for now, personally.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,120
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I played the tutorial of the game and reached the ship you're supposed to escape to. Would like some tips on what to do next... specifically, with all the gacha/lootbox stuff. I saw there are at least 3 different lootboxes I can open with the 20 free tickets I have... which is the most desirable one to get? Also the one free lootbox gave me this character



Is she any good?

As you can tell, I'm pretty clueless about this kind of game so any advice for a newbie would be appreciated. I like the game so far. Great production values although the movement animations could be a bit better.
She's the guaranteed character you get from that "tutorial" pull. She seems quite alright against multiple enemies and is a buffer. Probably not a priority, but if you like her, feel free to use her.



So regarding the Gacha stuff:

You should first clear the "Departure Warp".

It uses the Star Rail Passes that look Silver.


You'll get one of the 5 stars after 50 pulls at most and a bunch of 4 star characters or weapons along the way. Doesn't take long to get the 40 pulls to clear it.

After that you spend those Star Rail Passes on the Regular Warp. There's no need to save them.


If you do not have Passes, it will ask you if you want to convert Stellar Jade (the premium currency in the top right corner) for the Passes.
DON'T DO THIS. Only use the Star Rail Passes the game fives you here. You're guaranteed to get one 4* character or weapon every 10 Passes and 1 5* character or weapon in at most 90 (but the chances will increase starting around ~75, so on average it will take 80).


Then there's the current Character Event Warp for Seele.

It uses Star Rail Special Passes (the golden ones)


It has the same rules as the Stellar Warp for the most part. One 4* item guaranteed every 10 pulls. There's a higher chance to get any of the 3 listed 4* characters. Once you get a 5* item after at most 90 pulls, there's a 50% chance to get Seele. Otherwise you'll get one of the 5* characters from the Regular Warp. If you do not get Seele here, she's guaranteed the next time you get a 5* item on that banner (again at most 90 pulls).
This Banner lasts for 3 weeks after she's "gone" until they rerun her and another character will take the spotlight instead (Jing Yuan, the guy I posted somewhere above). Any pulls you make her do not reset if that banner ends.

You want to use your Stellar Jades (the premium currency) on this type of banner, but you don't need to spend them right now.
Personally I like to save until I have enough currency for a guarantee and then just "buy" the next character I want and I'll treat getting lucky as an unplanned discount. Though right at the beginning where you didn't have time to save up yet it's a bit tricky.



The 3rd Banner type is the Weapon (or Light Cone here) Banner.

My advice for that one is to just ignore it. At the very least until you're more familiar with the systems, but it's probably gonna be fine to ignore it forever. (I'm doing the same in Genshin and am doing just fine).



Also, in the Shop Menu there's the "Embers Exchange".
You can buy 5 of each Passes every month with currency you get from pulling. Make it a priority to buy them if you have enough currency. The other things here aren't really important in comparison.
 

spindoctor

MetaMember
Jun 9, 2019
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Thanks for the super detailed write up. Really appreciate it! I'll look into this carefully next time I'm in game.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,120
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Well I think it's fair to say they got me again.
I'm having an absolute blast with the game. I'm towards the end of the first planet and am currently doing the sidequest to hit TL 24 in order to continue.
Story so far is alright, nothing amazing, but a basic JRPG plot well executed. Which is fine imo, since this is just the beginning of a long jounrey that I expect to get progressively better and more compley as more pieces are introduced.
The side stuff however is really fun and there's so much of it. Lots of entertaining and weird stuff, but also genuine thoughtful things inbetween.

Combat has also grown on me after I've had some actually fairly challenging encounters in the story and unlocked Simulated Universe World 2. It's basically a rogue-like mode with combat and text events where you stack buffs to give yourself an advantage and has its own upgradable ability tree to constantly unlock new things. Some fun synergies to be had with these and the characters. The text is also quite interesting.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,120
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So I've just cleared the area after the space station. Oh boy @Ascheroth you're in for a treat when you get to the boss of that area. That whole battle is chefs kiss.
I just did that part earlier. That was really cool.




Concert in ~30 minutes:
 

Dandy

Bad at Games.
Apr 17, 2019
1,515
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Here's a code relating to the Departure Festival:

2T7BP4JVEBT7

Nothing crazy - Credit ×5000, Adventure Log ×3, Condensed Aether ×2, Cosmic Fried Rice ×3
 
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spindoctor

MetaMember
Jun 9, 2019
804
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I'm back with another stupid question :disappointed-face:

So I've played the game for the last couple of days and I remembered there was a login bonus thing. As in, you had to claim something every day you logged in. I did it on the first day but I've not been able to find where to do it ingame again since then. Literally looked through all the UI but I couldn't find it because stupid. So uh... can someone tell me how to access that part of the game...
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,706
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Hmm, just checked. Phone / Official communities / Check In.