Topic: Honkai Star Rail

@z0d15g0d - Good to hear its F2P friendly, I expect it'll be pretty generous early on like most gacha's but I don't mind dropping a few £ here and there if I enjoy the game. What's your beef with Dr Ratio?
That dude is a FuA monster, he got crept a fair bit by Boothill for single target dmg but he's still top tier, quality freebie imo.

Speaking of free 5* characters, which free standard are you getting next patch? It'll either be Welt to get his E4 or Clara's E1 for me.

@Shigurui thanks for the codes! And yes excited for WuWa on PS5. I’ve been playing that since day 1 but hate the mobile / tablet performance. Hopefully better on PS5.

As @z0d15g0d said it’s been amazing for F2P so far (it can always change), I’ve not spent a penny, no battle pass or anything and have everyone except one limited 5-star (Zhezji) and one standard 5-star (Encore) I also have four 5-star weapons. To be fair my luck has been insane, including three 5-star characters at E1 equivalent (Jiyan, Verina & Camelya). The weapons banner is also guaranteed, no 50:50s or 75:25 and has its own currency which they give free wishes for. They’ve given us several free 5-stars, weapons and characters. (I don’t know if they will for new players) They also seem like they are struggling to keep up with HoYo’s update schedule and already didn’t have a new character for half a patch, which makes it easier to get them all if they keep giving the same amount of free rewards. More time to save.

As for the game it’s VERY much a clone of Genshin Impact in most ways but with a more skill based battle system. If you like Genshin, especially exploring the world, you’ll provably like WuWa.

If I had any complaints it’s that while it’s production value is still high it’s a lot more janky and less polished than a HoYo game… especially on mobile / tablet. The multipliers for 5-star weapon and banner character copies are also much higher, DPS checks are more obvious in some end game content. Combine that with the high skill requirement and a lot of on screen effects sometimes makes it hard to tell what’s going on it, which does make the end game tough for F2P. But as long as you can accept some stuff is likely out of reach for F2P unless you are a gaming god (or spend money) then it’s great.

My only MAJOR complaint is less about this game specifically but more that all these Gacha games are so time consuming, especially if you play several (I’m on 4 currently: Genshin, HSR, WuWa and ZZZ) it doesn’t leave enough time for other games. My backlog has grown a lot since I started playing Gacha games and it’s grown even more since WuWa and ZzZZ came out. They are all good games but the OPPORTUNITY COST of playing them is huge due to their time consuming nature. Would I be better off playing ONE of theses or playing ALL of Baldurs gate 3, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth & Tales of Arise instead? That’s the real cost to me. Free is enticing, and I’ve fallen in, but would you have I be better off using our time differently. Look at the hours you have put into HSR and ask if it’s worth it. We’re all in a different position and only you can be the judge of that.

I really need to drop ZZZ, the combat and style is amazing, but I don’t like the rest of the game and it’s such a time sink. I’m just struggling to go cold turkey, sunk cost (in terms of time) fallacy. Meanwhile I’m very slowly going through Xenoblade Chronicles 3 would prefer to play that, but find it hard to quit Gacha.

@themightyant - Dayum! Major info drop, much appreciated! The only gacha I play is HSR so picking up WuWa won't be overly detrimental to my gaming time. I quit Genshin ages ago and Zzz did absolutely nothing for me at all, dropped that very early on. Looking forward to finally getting to play WuWa.

@Shigurui haha. lol. Didn’t feel so long when writing it!

Reading it back the last part reads more like self-therapy. I just need to delete ZZZ and play other games instead!

EDIT: I’ve deleted it from PS5 and mobile & tablet. Thanks for indirectly helping me to stay accountable! 😂

@themightyant - Well I'm glad you managed to cut the Zzz cord at least. Happy to hear WuWa has a skill ceiling. I cut my teeth on Ninja Gaiden Black and NG2 as well as DMC back in the day. (Top 5 in the world on NG2), really looking forward to WuWa now!

@Shigurui it does have a high skill ceiling, especially certain characters/teams, so you might enjoy it. Ninja Gaiden was tight back in the day, never quite gelled with DMC.

The only problem for me is that the moves can be so flashy it’s hard to sometimes read what is happening (too many effects). That doesn’t always feel fair, but ymmv. Hope you enjoy it.