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

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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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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...
It's in the "Travel Log". Either press F1 or open the Phone -> Travel Log or click the left-most icon at the top menu bar (the one that kinda looks like the Steam logo)
Or what Li Kao said if you're looking for the other one (though that one is really not worth bothering with after doing it 3 times to nab the extra stuff).
 
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Li Kao

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Lol, I didn’t think about this other check in. This game is a mess of menus.

Like, I was at one point anxiously waiting to unlock the dailies.
…unlocks the dailies…
Hello traveller, I heard you want dailies ? I will unlock at least 4 or 5 panels of things to do ! At 4 or 5 different locations in the menu !

:sweaty-blob:
 
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Panda Pedinte

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I got Bailu from one of the banners but so far Natash is still the best healer, though I havent went too hard yet on the builds.
 

spindoctor

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Hmm, just checked. Phone / Official communities / Check In.
Thanks, this was the one I was trying to find. Turns out it's a webpage outside the game which is why I guess I couldn't find it on my own. That said, I can't seem to claim rewards past the first one I claimed on the first day. The other daily login thing (from the Travel Log which gives special passes) is counting 4 days now but this webpage one is stuck on 1 day.

Some random thoughts and questions about the game;

Should I use XP items to level up my characters and weapons immediately or hold on to them for if/when I add a new person into the party?

Is there anything specific I should buy from the world shop (the one in the space station uses the currency you get there).
Likewise, from the Embers exchange part of the shop, does it make sense to prioritize the special passes before getting the regular passes? Or will we get enough of the currency to buy 5 of both?

The main character (Trailblazer) should have had voice acting throughout the game and not just in cutscenes. I cannot understand why they didn't do that. It's not like there's a vast amount of branching dialogue in this game which would make it too expensive or cumbersome to do. Everything your character will say is predetermined. Plus, they have (and will continue to) record voice acting for dozens of NPCs in the game. It's not a dealbreaker but man does it feel awkward during conversations when your character is saying something and the camera lingers with no sound at all.

This is one example of a more general observation that this game did not get the Genshin treatment in terms of budget and polish. Another example is the lack of jumping. It's not a necessity but it means they didn't want to make the maps jump friendly. Which seems strange in a game where all the maps are so constrained already (basically all corridors). The stiff movement animations are another sign. The rest is all good, the art and music is top notch as expected, but it's definitely a tier below Genshin in production values. Bit of a shame cause I was hoping to be blown away by another unbelievable production from Mihoyo.

That said, the game is still entertaining for me at least. I've read the complaints here about the writing and the combat and it doesn't bother me. It's pretty damn good for a free game.
 
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Li Kao

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spindoctor Well, why use XP when it isn’t needed ? I use it to level up my team when an enemy is higher and that’s it. That leaves me with a stash that was really useful when I got new characters to level up to 29.
The only thing I insta buy in the shop are the two weekly set of normal and special gacha passes.
 

spindoctor

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spindoctor Well, why use XP when it isn’t needed ? I use it to level up my team when an enemy is higher and that’s it. That leaves me with a stash that was really useful when I got new characters to level up to 29.
The only thing I insta buy in the shop are the two weekly set of normal and special gacha passes.
Well being overleveled is handy for me. I'm using March 7th and Natasha in my party and both of them can't do shit for damage. All the DPS is on the other two characters. Being higher level makes the fights go a bit faster. So I got the full party to level 20 right before I got enough star rail passes to complete the starter lootbox.

Then I got this 5 star character from it and I have no idea if she's any good.



Without checking I also don't think I have enough XP materials to get her up to level 20 to match the other characters so I'm not even using her right now.

Had to go back to the space station to do some side quests to level up for the main story. I can see that some of the writing can be juvenile but I'm enjoying it. The trash can gag was objectively silly but also kind of endearing. The text message interactions are generally amusing. This particular side quest (obvious Interstellar vibes) was quite nice and got me to stop to think for a moment before deciding what to do...



I also came across a specific fancy treasure chest on the space station that I cannot figure out how to reach. It's in a room with those orange and blue light bridges but I just cannot seem to get to it. Has anyone done this (pic below)?



There's an elevator behind my character but I cannot activate it and I'm thinking maybe that opens up later but otherwise I just cannot figure it out.

More questions and thoughts;

What do you guys do with all the extra weapons that you get from the lootboxes? I've been using all the duplicates to enhance my character weapons but I realized that might be a mistake. Does this game have that system where you use duplicates to make your weapon more powerful (like how eidolons work for extra copies of characters you get)?

When you're doing that Calyx combat thing, is there any benefit to doing multiple waves? It doesn't seem like you get more rewards for doing more waves but each wave uses up 10 of that currency that is capped at 180/180. What's the strategy for doing that little wave based activity?

The train conductor looks fucking creepy. That is all.

The phone UI has gotten very messy. There really shouldn't be this many different progression tracks for playing the game. This whole thing should have been designed better.

The Twitter algorithm has figured out that I'm playing this game and I've been seeing quite a bit of fan art for the last few days. Somehow, 75% of all the fan art I've seen is of Kafka, the character you met for 10 minutes at the start of the game and then never again :grinning-face:
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Bronya is great. Strong buffs and turn-order manipulation. But probably scales better into mid-late game when you actually have a strong damage dealer built.

The chest is part of a sidequest that will unlock later.

Weapon duplicates can be Superimposed up to 5 times to increase their passive buffs. Personally I would keep one of each 3* weapon around and superimpose it, just in case they turn out particularly good for a character.

Doing more waves is just a time-saver so you don't need to back out and go in again. Just do as many as you need, but do spend that Energy. There's no point in letting it stay capped.
 

Panda Pedinte

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I'm using March 7th and Natasha in my party and both of them can't do shit for damage.
March and Natasha aren't focused on dealing damage, so their damage output will be lackuster when compared to other characters, though March is really useful in shielding characters (I'm not sure if it's right, but shielded characters seem to draw more aggro) and Natasha healing is really useful.

Maybe they can improve their damage output once they reach higher levels and with the right items.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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March and Natasha aren't focused on dealing damage, so their damage output will be lackuster when compared to other characters, though March is really useful in shielding characters (I'm not sure if it's right, but shielded characters seem to draw more aggro) and Natasha healing is really useful.
You are excactly right. March's shield draws more aggro if the shielded character has more than 30% health, it's in the skill description :p
 

Dandy

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Thanks, this was the one I was trying to find. Turns out it's a webpage outside the game which is why I guess I couldn't find it on my own. That said, I can't seem to claim rewards past the first one I claimed on the first day. The other daily login thing (from the Travel Log which gives special passes) is counting 4 days now but this webpage one is stuck on 1 day.
The webpage check-in is monthly. So on May 1st it reset.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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The webpage one also isn't worth the effort imo. If you have to, do it 3 times for the initial extra goodies and then it's fine to forget it. Never bothered with it in Genshin either.
 

Vantr

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spindoctor Bronya is a top tier character. DMG boost. Crit Boost. Move an ally up in the turn order. She does a lot and might possibly be one of the best support characters for a while. You should probably build your team something like Dan Heng, Natasha, Bronya and another support/shielding unit. Dan Heng gets wind resistance penetration when an ally buffs him so you Bronya skill > Dan Heng ult + skill for damage. Also for the Calyx content try getting a high level character in a support so you auto as many waves as possible and relax. Good units for that are Himeko and Seele.

Anyways trying to clear out endgame content and up to World 6 in simulation. I think the typical strat has been to stack Abundance to do the Worlds you are underlevelled in (which you acquire at World 5). For the worlds before that it's stacking preservation with March 7th. Forgotten Hall requires 2 teams later on so I'm looking saving for the Luocha banner next since there is a lack of healers atm in the game.
 
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Dandy

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I used Seele as a support character for Echoes of War and it's crazy how much damage she pumps out. So tempting to pull for her, but I'm trying to save up for Luocha when he is up for grabs.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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I used Seele as a support character for Echoes of War and it's crazy how much damage she pumps out. So tempting to pull for her, but I'm trying to save up for Luocha when he is up for grabs.
Don't let the FOMO get to you. Yeah, having a strong 5* carry will make you get further in the side-modes faster, but there's no rush.
People have already cleared Simulated Universe 6 or something, and here I am still in World 3, but it's not like you miss out on anything by taking your time ¯\(ツ)
Way better to just save for a character you actually want.
 
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SaberVS7

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Is it optimism or delusion? :ROFLMAO:
IDK but the only money I've spent so far is that $5 monthly pass and I think I'd prefer to keep the amount of money I spend on this a year under three digits so I guess I'll be saving then.
 

Vantr

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People have already cleared Simulated Universe 6 or something, and here I am still in World 3, but it's not like you miss out on anything by taking your time ¯\(ツ)
Sim Uni 6 is clearable with F2P units at level 50 but it depends on the blessings you get. Everyone in my discord is rushing to 5/6 because that is when you can start get 5* relics.

A guide for clearing the sims. Although I found for World 6 I had more success with Hunt since when the boss spawns the summons you just use the Hunt skill twice and it should make phase 2 trivial.
 

Dandy

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I feel like I "need" too many characters... Like, I'm leveling 6 at the moment, which probably isn't sustainable. I think part of the problem is that I want to use Gepard, cause he is my only 5*, but I also want to use the Fire Trailblazer cause he is the MC and also Fire... That leaves 2 spots for damage and support. I've been using Serval(E2), Dan, Natasha, and Tingyun(E1). Out of those, I find Natasha the least useful outside of a few specific places. Tingyun also feels less useful, but I imagine that's because she's just buffing others.
 
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Li Kao

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Uh, I didn’t even unlock simuverse 2. I hate you all and me first for playing too many games at the same time.
Just did the first Cyrille quest yesterday, and I didn’t understand shit. Like the Aeons trailer, cool Aeons illustrations, but you meant anything sensible with this drivel of a word salad ?
Sometimes I genuinely wonder if it’s my brain shitting the bed.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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The Cyrille quest will make sense by the end of the questline.
The Aeon trailer is definitely intentionally cryptic, but I'm sure also meaningful. It's just that we aren't deep enough in the lore yet, to make sense of everything in it.
But the gist of it is that Aeons are god-like beings that embody a concept and this trailer is introducing some of them.
 
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Dandy

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Aaahhhh! I just pulled Sushang. I think I may have to replace Dan. And of course, I pulled her with the ticket I got from ascending him past 40 lol

At the end of the Aeon trailer it looked like their were more than what we currently have "classes" for... Like the Enigmata and the Beauty. Which is kinda cool.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Aaahhhh! I just pulled Sushang. I think I may have to replace Dan. And of course, I pulled her with the ticket I got from ascending him past 40 lol
I like her quite a bit too. Her damage falls off somwhat if the enemy isn't in a broken state, but it's still nice.
I cleared Simlulated Universe 3 with Preservation Trailblazer/Natasha/Bronya/Sushang (or Serval instead of Sushang for stuff with no Physical weakness). And a hefty chunk of Preservation blessings :cold-sweat:

I'm still building Dan Hen as well though, cause not everyone has a Physical Weakness (and I like him). And we'll need 2 teams for the later stages of Forgotten Hall anyway.
 

Dandy

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I almost beat SU 3 this morning. I got to Stage 3 of the final fight, but went down really quick. According to the defeat screen, I need more of the SU ability tree unlocked.

Still, it's good to see progress, and I unlocked 2 of those coffers for the 2-pc relics.
 
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Dandy

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Just pulled my 81st warp on the standard banner and got a 5*! And it was Clara's lightcone. The only destruction characters I have are Arlan(unused) and the MC, so kinda useless. For a second, I thought I had pulled Clara! I also got March 7th E1 and a 4* Nihility lightcone, but I don't use March cause I have Gepard, and I don't have any Nihility characters. :ROFLMAO:
 
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Li Kao

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Just pulled my 81st warp on the standard banner and got a 5*! And it was Clara's lightcone. The only destruction characters I have are Arlan(unused) and the MC, so kinda useless. For a second, I thought I had pulled Clara! I also got March 7th E1 and a 4* Nihility character, but I don't use March cause I have Gepard, and I don't have any Nihility characters. :ROFLMAO:
Oof, that's rough1 ! Take solace, the game is stingy to me, too. The only 'big' character I pulled has been Himeko. And a couple of days later she was downgraded in the tiers list.
I don't really care as I really like the core characters, but yeah, Seele, Gepard or Bronya would be nice :anguished-face:


1Relative to the fact that players want a good character and not a fucking light cone. Because I'm sure it's otherwise a great light cone
 
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spindoctor

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Been playing the game a lot in the last few days and I'm really liking it a lot more than I thought I would. I finished off the first planet a couple of days ago and while I think it was a bit longer than it needed to be, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm the last person to get here so I'll just repeat what everyone already knows which is that the final boss fight was spectacular. It was so good I actually uploaded it to my defunct youtube channel so that I can go back and watch it in the future. I don't play that many jrpgs so this is probably the most epic jrpg boss fight I've ever played. Aside from that I'm really enjoying the writing in the game. Some of the side quests and I'd say all the companion quests are really well written. I like that you can go to talk to quest givers after a quest is over to get some more thoughts and context about the quest from them. In fact, talking to random NPCs every now and then is almost always interesting. It gives a sense of depth to the game world.

I wish there was a way to check how long I've played the game. I would estimate somewhere around 25-30 hours. I still have the second world to do. I've just landed there and done some of the preliminary stuff so all I can say about that is that it's visually gorgeous. Really beautiful artwork all around.

That all being said, now that I've played the game a decent amount of time, I'm starting to see behind the veil of the monetization and how the game systems are implemented and like everyone else I do wish it was better. For the first planet I used my standard crew of trailblazer/Dan/Natasha/March at level 39 almost throughout until I finally leveled up Bronya to match them. I can tell how powerful her buff can be when you have a high DPS character getting free double turns and damage boosts. Leveling these 5 characters pretty much drained my XP resources to the point where I calculated I probably cannot get a 6th character to 40. I wanted to level Serval to have another element for damage but it wasn't really possible. Also I needed to save up some XP materials to boost my core team once the level 40 threshold was passed. I do not think it is viable for free to play players to level more than 5-6 characters which is a shame cause I'd really like to be able to try out all the characters and their abilities. I had a look at the shop and of course they're selling a fairly expensive bundle which has a lot of XP items in it to let people boost up their characters.

I should mention at this point that I've played the game long enough that I'm willing to pay some money for it. I bought the $5 pass (which was more than $6 for me because Mihoyo uses the crappy iOS currency conversion). The battle pass seems okay for $10 ($12+ for me) but I'm just reluctant to pay for another battle pass when I'm already playing 3 other games with battle passes. I'm at level 17 in the battle pass right now so I'll probably pick it up if I'm actually able to complete it within the month. Other than that, man, the prices in the shop are absurd. It's no wonder they obfuscate your purchases into two different currencies to mask how much you're really spending on the game. In my currency it's about $3 per lootbox which is $30 for just 10 of them. I know people are happy to spend that and much more on the game and no judgement from my end but it really is too much for me. This pricing makes the $5 pass look attractive because you get about 18 lootboxes worth of currency from that which would translate to "over $50 value". 18 lootboxes per month (if you log in every single day, another thing I'm not a fan of) is pretty much nothing really. I hope the game is generous with free lootboxes but I assume that's only true at the start and your currency income crashes after you finish the content.

The other thing that bothered me is the artificial level and timegating of content. When I finished the main story on the first planet I was around level 27 or 28. I had a bunch of side quests and companion quests to get through so I thought I'll clear all of them out before moving on. Did everything I could including using up my energy on the repeatable content and stopped my session. The idea was I'll come back later at night and put in a good couple of hours on the new planet. Well, when I came back, it turned out that I needed to be level 29 to continue the quest. And I had absolutely no way to get there. A little bit of energy had recharged so I did a couple of those things and that was it. You really like a game and you sit down to explore a new planet and turns out you can't play at all. It was so annoying. I know this is very common in mobile games and they sell energy refills to let you bypass the restriction but man this game did not need to do that. They make tens of millions of dollars on their lootboxes. Why do they also need to frustrate their players? That was a real black mark on an amazing game. And the best part is when I finally got back to playing the next day and breached level 29, a new companion quest appeared on Jarilo-VI. So irritating.

Anyway I reached level 40 and did the equilibrium 2 test and then realized just how rare ascension materials are. The limited amount of daily energy doubled in importance when I realized how much I'll need to spend on them. I got all 5 of my party members to level 48 and have just been wrapping up other stuff. I'm hoping to dive into the new world finally tonight.

I know some of the frustrations I've mentioned are just part of the genre of gacha/mobile games and the answer is that you should know what you're getting into.

Anyway I've managed to accumulate enough currency so far to get to 87 special rail passes so I thought I'll try the Seele lootbox and see how it goes. This was what I got in my first 10 lootboxes;



Welt was literally the first one I got. I stopped there because now I have some questions about how the lootbox works. Does getting Welt mean that I have used up my chance of getting Seele at 90 pulls? Will I need to wait till 180 to get her now? If that's the case I'll not bother because there's no way I'm getting to 180 before this lootbox goes away. Or does it start counting the pity timer after your last 5 star? In which case, in theory, I'd be able to get Seele on the 91st lootbox I open? In short, is it worth continuing to open this lootbox or should I just save for the next character that's interesting? I've read that Seele is super powerful and will be a top tier character for some time to come.

Also, if you're on the EU server feel free to add me; UID - 701989178

I got a friend request earlier and absentmindedly declined it without thinking about it. If it was someone from here my apologies.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Welt was literally the first one I got. I stopped there because now I have some questions about how the lootbox works. Does getting Welt mean that I have used up my chance of getting Seele at 90 pulls? Will I need to wait till 180 to get her now? If that's the case I'll not bother because there's no way I'm getting to 180 before this lootbox goes away. Or does it start counting the pity timer after your last 5 star? In which case, in theory, I'd be able to get Seele on the 91st lootbox I open? In short, is it worth continuing to open this lootbox or should I just save for the next character that's interesting? I've read that Seele is super powerful and will be a top tier character for some time to come.
The moment you got Welt the counter reset to 0, so the next 5* will come at most 90 pulls from now an and will be guaranteed to be Seele, since you get Welt instead the first time. (Realistically it's gonna be somewhere around 75-80, since this is where "soft pity" kicks in and your chances will dramatically increase every pull until the worst case 90 happens).

As for whether you should go for her or not... Depends on whether you like her or not. She's strong, but future characters will also be strong and going for Seele now means having to skip a future one. Personally I'm having a lot of fun with the free ones and the other 4 stars I got along the way, who are plenty strong and as you say it will take quite a bit of time to build another character, so I'm fine waiting for someone else to come along.
 

Dandy

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The story content ends in such a weird way. After the boss fight, you do a bunch of side things that feel only somewhat related, and then it just... ends. No cliffhanger or anything. It's very anticlimactic.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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The story content ends in such a weird way. After the boss fight, you do a bunch of side things that feel only somewhat related, and then it just... ends. No cliffhanger or anything. It's very anticlimactic.
I'm not there yet, but they did the same with Genshin where it launched with only half of the 2nd story chapter and the rest arrived with the first update. (So in about a month from now). And it also just... ended in the middle. It's weird cause all story updates since have had proper stopping points, so I dunno why they'd repeat that again here.
 

hersheyfan

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OK, so after much waffling I got back on the Star Rail train, and the game finally got its hooks in me. The writing is just such a huge improvement vs. Genshin Impact, its not even funny - some dialogue here I'd be pleased to see in a big budget JRPG, let alone an F2P one. Not liking the cryptic mumbo jumbo they spout in some of the dream sequences, but the characterization is great.

I've gotten over drawing Yanqing as my welcome banner 5 star, and am actually doing quite well with him now. My main team is Yanqing, Natasha C2, Sampo and Serval C3, with March 7th subbing for either Sampo or Serval if I'm up against a particularly tough enemy.

Ascheroth, I understand they implemented the 300 pull = free pick system in the standard banner here, yes? How does that work exactly (since it doesnt exist in Genshin Impact)? If I break pity at 80/80/80 (so 240 pulls), I get to choose whoever I want at 300... does this reset my regular pity to zero, or does the 300 pull have a separate counter?
 
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spindoctor

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Something I didn't find out until yesterday is that you get a good chunk of jades for completing each level of the forgotten mirror thing in the astral express. Got 1200 jades from that and more from exploring Xianzhou Luofu and I'm back up to 90 special passes.

As for whether you should go for her or not... Depends on whether you like her or not. She's strong, but future characters will also be strong and going for Seele now means having to skip a future one. Personally I'm having a lot of fun with the free ones and the other 4 stars I got along the way, who are plenty strong and as you say it will take quite a bit of time to build another character, so I'm fine waiting for someone else to come along.
I'm leaning towards getting Seele now that she is guaranteed after 75-90 attempts as you say. Getting a guarantee on the featured character seems better than taking my chances on a future one. All of the lootboxes will always be 50-50 to get the signature character and that was the case here as well, but with my luck it has changed the guaranteed reward from 180 down to 91. That seems mathematically worth it. Also everyone says she is really strong. I haven't done that trial thing they have in the game so I'll check that out. Also, looking to the future, I'm not sure how much this game will be able to hold my attention once the story stuff runs out and other things like Diablo 4 appear. It makes sense to get the desirable stuff while you're still playing rather than wait for an indeterminate future. I still do see myself playing the game but the core of the experience for me is the story content and not the regular grinding. There's still another week before the Seele lootbox goes away so I'll think about it some more before deciding.

Speaking of story content, it is getting weird on the second planet. You're following the main story up until a point when the story just stops and you get railroaded into a random separate side story. And when that painfully long side story is over you get that message again telling you to level up to 34 before you can continue. I literally just hit level 32 when that message popped up so now I have to grind out 2 levels before I can continue. Not my idea of fun at all.

One question I had about weapons. In various weapon guides I see that every character has a signature weapon but how do you actually identify it? Is it by looking at the artwork and recognizing the character or is there some other way?

Out of curiosity, how many star rail passes have you guys managed to get so far? I've used up all my regular passes (40 on the starter lootbox, 55 on the permanent one) and 100 special passes (10 used, 90 remaining). I've already seen people talk about getting to 300 on the regular one to pick their character of choice. That is so ridiculously far away for me lol.
 

Panda Pedinte

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I managed to get my Natash to E6 while trying to get Seele and I got Yaqing as my 5 Star.He doesn't seems to be bad so I'm not mad even mad.

these are the characters I got so far:

 
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spindoctor

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Eleven level 40 characters :eek: What black magic is this?

A question that occurred to me while I was playing today was... how will Mihoyo handle the level gating of the story starting from the next patch? Currently the story ends around level 34 or 35. Will the story continue at that level? By the time the patch comes (in a month or whatever) there will be people who are easily trailblazer level 50-60+ or even just capped at 70. Those people will just one shot all the enemies in the story if it continues at level 35. On the other hand, if they boost up the requirement to say level 50 or something then there will be a huge gap for people who start late or don't keep up with the grind. Imagine you start playing a game and you're enjoying the story and then you hit a roadblock that requires 15 days of grinding to continue. They cannot possibly do that right? Does this level gating occur in Genshin Impact as well and if so, how do they handle it there?

I finished SU3 today with my low DPS crew and god damn it was a real slog at the end. There was no danger of dying with all the preservation shield buffs and March providing shields but killing the boss went by so slowly. Really makes me wonder if I've built Dan Heng wrong with the relic choices.
 

Panda Pedinte

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Eleven level 40 characters :eek: What black magic is this?
That was a lot of xp books, though I feel they were easier to acquire than in Genshin Impact. I'm also always sending my characters in assignments to get the exp books and even though the ones you get are the smaller value they can help.

There are some guides with routes to maximize the xp gained from combat but I still haven't tried it to see it it's worth or not.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Eleven level 40 characters :eek: What black magic is this?

A question that occurred to me while I was playing today was... how will Mihoyo handle the level gating of the story starting from the next patch? Currently the story ends around level 34 or 35. Will the story continue at that level? By the time the patch comes (in a month or whatever) there will be people who are easily trailblazer level 50-60+ or even just capped at 70. Those people will just one shot all the enemies in the story if it continues at level 35. On the other hand, if they boost up the requirement to say level 50 or something then there will be a huge gap for people who start late or don't keep up with the grind. Imagine you start playing a game and you're enjoying the story and then you hit a roadblock that requires 15 days of grinding to continue. They cannot possibly do that right? Does this level gating occur in Genshin Impact as well and if so, how do they handle it there?

I finished SU3 today with my low DPS crew and god damn it was a real slog at the end. There was no danger of dying with all the preservation shield buffs and March providing shields but killing the boss went by so slowly. Really makes me wonder if I've built Dan Heng wrong with the relic choices.
I personally also don't really see the exp constraints for level 50. It's probably the next one (TL40+) where things will slow down, since you're gonna spend a bunch of time in that range I guess.
(I just hit TL38 for the record)








Regarding your other question, they are not gonna drastically increase the TL requirements for story. If anything newer players will probably have even fewer timegating since I bet they'll add new side-areas and side quests to the currently existing parts of the game that will be additional sources for exp.
Iirc Genshin even lowered the account level requirements for main story at some point. Currently you have access to all of the main story with an account level of 35 which you reach really fast at this point since there are so many chests and side quests and everything.

The Equilibrium level that can be increased every 10 Trailblazer Levels will make sure story stuff will stay somewhat scaled to your party strength, but eventually you're probably just gonna handily outgear main story stuff.
 
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Dandy

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I managed to clear SU World 3. The last time I ran it, I wiped on Phase 3 of the Boss in a spectacular fashion. This time I used Preservation and destroyed him so quickly. It was crazy. Then I made it to the Phase 3 of the Boss on World 4, but just couldn't keep up/survive the hands after several rounds. Phase 1 and 2 were a breeze though.
 

spindoctor

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I personally also don't really see the exp constraints for level 50. It's probably the next one (TL40+) where things will slow down, since you're gonna spend a bunch of time in that range I guess.
(I just hit TL38 for the record)
This just makes me wonder if there's some obvious XP source/farm that I've somehow managed to miss while playing the game, just like I had missed over a thousand stellar jades waiting for me as a reward from the forgotten mirror. I was thinking about it yesterday but then a bit of perspective arrived which is that the game has only been out for 2 weeks and I've been playing for less than that. I got 6 characters to level 50 last night so it's not that I'm far behind or something. Besides, it seems like basic character/weapon levels are only half of the story and the real power of a character comes from relic/trace leveling anyway.

I was unable to get 3 stars in forgotten mirror level 8 and 9 yesterday so I decided I should go ahead and get Seele to see if that can help me boost up my DPS. I got her after spending 50 more tickets on the lootbox. I guess it's very lucky that I got Welt and Seele both with 60 lootboxes. Now I have 50 special passes left over which I can save for the next character I might want. I can see why Seele seems so powerful with all her extra turns and Bronya giving her even more. I gave her Dan Heng's gear and weapon because I don't think I have any other stuff good enough to level up to 50 specifically for her. Last thing I did last night was to autobattle some Calyx levels to use up energy and I alt tabbed out while it was going on. When I came back to the game I had an achievement for Seele soaking up 5 consecutive turns which was quite amusing.

I started the game yesterday and did everything I could (all the daily stuff, all available side quests, all the treasures I could find in the second world, all energy used up) and it was still not enough to reach level 34 to continue the story. Again, in perspective, it's only one 'wasted' day but I don't think I will ever like the idea of level gating and time gating content.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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They aren't messing around huh.
So in the span of 2 weeks we've gotten a concert, an astronomy documentary with a nobel laureate, 2 lore trailers, a dev diary/making of/tourism promo for Xianzhou and now this.