okay i didn't used to have any particularly strong interest in adventurine before but after hearing his voice (eng dub btw) in the latest quest?!? this is the most gender voice i've ever heard?!? sir please i'll need you to put your voice in the bag i'm stealing it!?! like the things i'd do for this to be my voice you don't understand!?! he is already one of my new favourite characters and i have to hold myself back with all my might not to say he's my new favourite character just because of his god damn stupid voice lmao
Like, I predicted that Seele would get a rerun 1.4, but I thought it would be at the expense of not getting a new five star character, maybe a new four star character instead
It feels so soon. 1.4? Not to compare it to Genshin, but that didn't get double banners until 2.3.
(Long ass essay. TLDR, I think HSR's story is going to finish really quickly because of this. Read if interested below the cut)
This makes me think a lot for the future of Star Rail. I think, compared to Genshin and Honkai Impact, it's run time it's going to be a lot shorter.
Like, let's take Honkai Impact 3rd for an example (for reference, I don't play the game. This is just from what I've heard). It released in 2016. The main story ended this year, 2023. Meaning, that it's run time is 7 years. It took them 7 years to finish the main story, to complete whatever the goal is in Honkai Impact 3rd (I'm not familar with the lore.)
Genshin Impact is still running, but we know from the Teyvat Travail Trailer that we are supposed to go to the 7 nations plus Khaenri'ah. We started in 2020, with two nations, and have added one each year, so assuming that there will not be any major story updates between the nations (like going to the light releam or Celestia or something) that warrents its own super patch (ie. the 1.0s, the 2.0s, the 3.0s, and now the 4.0s), then we will finish in 2027. 7 years again.
And let me talk with the pacing of content delivered throughout those 7 years, mainly with banners and account progression, since that's what usually sets the pace of the game. I'll be setting Honkai Impact 3rd aside for now since I have no authority to talk about it, but I feel like it's similar.
So let's start with account level. AR, Trailblaze level, essentially. In Genshin Impact, it took me about 1 year to get to the higher ARs (55+). I have been playing for almost two years now, and I have not hit AR 60. To be fair, I did stall doing acension domains to build, but I don't think that it's too much of a factor because I'm doing the same for Star Rail. In Genshin, 60 is the highest level you can reach. It's been almost two years and I haven't reached there yet. So, assuming that the run time for Genshin is 7 years, then it will take you a little less than half of the run time to reach max account level. Let's say it will take 2.5 years. So, 2.5 out of the 7 years will be used to reach max account level. Seems reasonable. My friend, who had been playing since launch just hit 60 in about March, so, that's about right
Now, let's look at Star Rail, specifically my EU account because that's the most developed one. I have been playing since April, so about 4 months now. The max level is 70. Guess where I am at.
60
My trailblaze level is 60. And I've been stuck here for about 2 months because I've been meaning to build characters better but school started and I've gotten busy. So, it took me 2 months to complete 6/7 levels. Let's say I get to Trailblaze level 70 by the end of December. You know, classes are over, it's winter break, I have time to play again. Meaning, it took me 8 months to reach the max level. And that's if I procrastinate enough. I have friends who have less classwork and assignments than me, so more time to play, they're already at 70. So, let's say the average time it takes to hit TBR 70 is about 6 months. Assuming that the proportions to time it takes for the average player to reach max level and the time it takes for the game to run is course is about proportional, what does it say about Star Rails run time?
I'm not done yet. Let's look at banenrs.
As you know, our first double banner is going to be occuring this patch, with a Seele rerun. I'm honestly hoping for a Jing Yuan banner next patch so I can pull his light cone, but that aside. For both Genshin and Star Rail, the patch run time is about 6 weeks, with some adjustments being made from time to time (Covid lockdowns during, and 1.4 being made 5 weeks because it's not story heavy??? I'm not sure of the reason behind this but apparently, that's what they did in HI3, so I guess that makes sense)
Anyways, not including phases and assuming each patch is 6 weeks, it took Honkai Star Rail until 1.4 to get their first double banner. So, there were 4 patches before that (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3). 4 times 6 is 24 weeks, so about 6 months after being released to get their first double banner.
You wanna compare that to Genshin.
It took Genshin until 2.3 to get their first double banner, with the reruns of Albedo and Eula. Meaning, there has been 11 patches (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2). 6 times 11 is 66 weeks. That's 1 year and about 3 months. Just to get their first double banner.
So, looking at these comparisons, we can now see that Honkai Star Rail seems to be progressing at a much faster rate than other Hoyoverse games. Unfortunately, for global servers there isn't too much information on the earlier patches for Honkai Impact, so I am unable to confirm when the first double banner, but I would assume it's around the same time as Genshin. I would like to guess that these measures, account level and banner cycles, will tell us how long the game will run until we finish the main story. So, using this guess, I can now do a proportion to figure out how long Star Rail will run for using Genshin as a measuring stick.
Doing some math, I get that Honkai Star Rails run time until we finish the main story is about 1.4 - 2.76 years. That's considerably shorter than some of their bigger mainline games, Genshin and Honkai Impact 3rd. If true, this means that Honkai Star Rail will wrap up its main story before we get to Khaenri'ah. The Trailblazer will have fought Nanook before the Traveler found their sibling.
Does this mean that it's necessarily true? No. I personally got into the game hoping that for a few years after Genshin ends, I will have something to play while I look for the next game to play, and I still hope that it's true. But if it's true, why would Hoyoverse speed up the player experience this much? Having double banners this early makes me nervous for two or three years down the line, where we might get to triple banners, especially at the rate the game releases 5 star characters. And for Trailblaze level, I personally wished it took longer, so it we are prepared mentally and with our builds, because now I already feel like a late stage vetaran player, and I've only played for 6 months. 6 months into playing Genshin and I still felt like a baby. It's good, because it keeps players something to work towards to for longer. For those who want to burn through content and levels, they will do that regardless. There are people who are my current AR and they've started playing this year. But the way the game is progressing makes it seem like Honkai Star Rail's run time is going to be shorter than you think.
(Edits: Fixed Typo on Jing Yuans name, fixed incomplete sentence, corrected Honkai Impact 3rd to Honkai Star Rail, man was I half asleep writing this?)
My savings for everyone coming to 1.4 PLEASE Let me win my 50/50 early I’ve already spent probably almost $100 on Kafka & Dan heng and it wasn’t even my money 😭😭😭
