Topic: Honkai Star Rail

@Shigurui I'm really enjoying Natlan. The story is great and the land is fun to explore. New X.0 versions with new lands are Genshin at it's best.

I haven't quite decided which free 5-star i'm going to get. I am close to pity on the standard banner and will wait till the start of the months free wishes to see who I pull naturally before deciding. I have all of them already so it's more about which constellation I want. Jean C2 (team 15% Spd + 15% Atk boost), Mona C3 (+3 Ult) or Tighnari C2 (20% dendro dmg boost) all are good. Diluc C2 or Keqing C1 would be OK. I'm not interested in Dehya C1 and I don't need Qiqi as I have her C6. lol

Can I talk about Zenless in here as well? My priorities with ZZZ banners are a bit different than HSR, as HSR requires you to have specific pieces, whereas ZZZ is more casual at least right now, so just pull who you enjoy.

I skipped Ellen for this reason as her playstyle isn't for me, although in hindsight I basically have no ice character I enjoy using, so if they ever do become more strict about this I am in trouble.

I did pull on Qingyi's banner but not with any real seriousness cause there are a lot of electric agents in the game already, maybe not of her class, but felt I could live without her. Especially as she is like a carpal tunnel simulator, so I didn't get her. I think its cause I was part pity dipped, I ended up getting Jane despite not really being all that interested and Seth (the new 4*).

Surprisingly out of the three new banner characters I pulled, Zhu Yuan, Seth and Jane. I think I ended up enjoying Jane the most, despite being the one I was least interested in. She has a very different playstyle than the others, with it having a high ceiling for skill mastery and expression. When you nail her counters, manage her meter and overwhelm your opponent for massive damage it feels so good. Seth is fine, he fits a niche as only the second defence class character we have and the first electric type in that class too. I pulled Zhu Yuan cause she was only the second character of her element, but I have to be honest, I don't like her playstyle. I kinda liked it in the story, the way she has a dodge built into her combos seems cool, but pulling it off is harder than just dodging with the dedicated button and I find myself just defaulting back to Nicole. She isn't an offensive class, but her playstyle is just easier (put down bubble and switch).

@Pizzamorg I don't mind if you chat a little ZZZ occasionally, though we only chat about Genshin in passing every now and again. I'd suggest if it's going to be a big part of your, or anyone's posts going forward it would be better in the ZZZ forum page instead.

That out of the way I got Ellen, Zhu Yuan, Qingyi and Seth all F2P but missed the 50:50 on Jane, instead I got a second 'The Brimstone' W-engine... which I don't mind too much, weapons are strong in this game and both my main DPS's Ellen & Zhu Yuan can both use it.

I think the casualness of it is mostly because it's early game and no one has larger teams to choose from yet. HSR and Genshin were similar at the beginning. But I have no doubt they will make it harder and you'll have to optimise many characters team archetypes if you want to succeed further down the line.

I've played ZZZ almost every day since it launched but to be honest i'm possibly thinking of dropping it, or at least only coming back for bigger content. I like the combat but I don't like the 'hollow' / TV mechanic at all; and all the to-do list, especially WEEKLY (Notorious Hunt x3, Hollow Zero several times and more) seems to take too long compared to others. I just don't need another time consuming live service on top of what i'm already playing.

To be honest since I finished the story and moved over to HSR. I probably play ZZZ less than an hour a day, and some days I don't log in at all. I love jumping into a quick mission just for the feel of ZZZ as it has one of the best combat systems I've ever experienced, but I don't much care for gaming when there is no goal to what I am doing and right now, the events added to ZZZ have been much smaller than HSRs and its sorta on life support until the big update comes with the new location etc

To be honest though, with HSR and ZZZ, I am only putting the time into them like I am cause this year has been dry for gaming releases, at least for my tastes. Seems like a lot is coming out all at once over the next three or so months, so I dunno if I am gonna have the time to really dedicate much of me to these games, beyond setting aside ten minutes to log in and collect my daily currencies.

@themightyant - Glad you're enjoying it. I doubt I'll ever see Natlan, I noped out right at the start of Fontaine. I've got zero desire to explore that watery hellscape. I detest underwater exploration in any game so Fontaine pretty much killed Genshin for me. As for Zenless, I quit that very early. Probably put about 60 or so hours into it and I was done. Combat was fine and the animation work was superb but I just found everything outside of that utterly tedious.