Honkai: Star Rail, Why it is incompetent, and … competent?

Intro

Recently, I feel myself more interested in the field of Game Design (as I already learn about it for the past 2 years, tho I still can't understand certain decisions based on financial gain wise).

While game designs quality may vary, some of their own aspect stand in an unique way that make the impossible become possible, in the least expected way.

Travel with me to unveil the design behind Honkai: Star Rail (HSR), and what makes it become a competitive game despite having near-zero PvP (Players vs Players) interactions.

First Impressions X_X

Honkai: Star Rail on its own is a decent game, with many of improvements bring over from its predecessor (Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd). The game overall design is very similar to other Turn-based game, such as Fate/Grand Order.

It feature a fined (many HoYo fans debating over this) and linear story progression.

The decisions you choose along the way will not change the outcome, if it does you get a chance to pick again until it goes correctly as the story intended to go. _{(certain side quests does not follow this and do have consequence on picking wrong option)}
Or so as I have thought it is a linear story:

The main focus of the game is on the characters rotation, chance-based system (gacha banners, gears) as a live-service game. Into detail later on

Recently the International version of the game has updated to the 2.3 version (Title: Farewell, Penacony), featuring Firefly as one of new characters (my favorite personally).

Firefly on her own does not relate to the field we are diving into today, but she is one of many reasons that I decided to write a small article about this game design, as well as its "competitiveness".

Core Design

I will not being too deep into the entire game, as it is a large scaled game, so writing about all of the aspects is going to make the article too long to read. （￣︶￣）↗　

There are some notable design that makes the game while having no competitive gameplay, that being a kind of competitive game.

We will going into the following 3 aspects that I find contribute the most to the scene, as well as explain on why it have impact on the overall design, and why it is competent.

• Gacha banner system.
• Gears system.
• Community Intergrations.

Gacha banners

As a live-service game, HSR maintain its patch cycle and content update on a mere monthly basis, most of the patches spin in after 4-6 weeks.

Each patch consists of a predictable table of contents:
- 2 new 5-stars characters (2 separate banners) and 2 new 5-stars Light Cone (Signature equipment).
- 0-2 new 4-stars characters and new Relics (gears) set.
- Story progression update.
- New patch exclusive events and 1 permanent event.
- Extra gimmick such as bug fixes, adjustments, etc.....

For a single patch I would say this is an expected amount of contents to keep the player base stable (events being rolled out require completing new patch mission).
However, I find HSR getting an immense amount of things to learn, with the recent "Gold and Gears" Simulated Universe - An enhanced version of "Swarm Disaster" Simulater Universe - Which is also an enhanced version of Divergent Universe - Which is enhanced version of Simulated Universe. For anyone coming back or a new player, I find this to be quite a bit too much (But I guess Fare/Grand Order also does the same thing so its fine).

The most anticipated content and also the main way that HSR currently using right now to retain player base along with generating profits is the new "Signature" characters introduced in the patch, and the only way to obtain it is via the Limited-time gacha banner, this banner is the same as any others in the game, following the same rule:
- Each 10 pulls will grant atleast a character/light cone from 4 stars and above, which works as the following:
+ If you did not get any 4 stars or above in 9 pulls the 10th will be a guaranteed 4 stars or above.
+ If you get 4 stars or above at any point the remaining count until guaranteed get reset back to 10.
+ No limit on how many 4 stars is present in 10 pulls, you may have a chance to get all 10 (very unlikely) or only 1 (most likely).

- Each 90 pulls will grant a guaranteed 5 stars character, with 50% fixed chance obtaining the rate up (Signature) character. If you miss because of skill issues, the next 5 stars is the guaranteed rate up.
+ Light Cone banner follow the exact same principle.
+ There is no limit on how many 5 stars can be obtained in 10 pulls, this goes along with 4 stars.

If you get duplicated 4/5 stars it can be used to further enhance the stuff you obtained. (Eilodons for Characters / Superimposition for Light Cone)

So, Why?

To know the impact of this mechanic affect the competitve-ness of the game, we have to know a few base thing:

• The maxed amount of upgrade for a set of featured Character/Light Cone is Eilodon 6 / Superimposition 5 (V), so if you want to maxing out a particular 5 stars, it takes a lot of time to make it possible, or you whip your Visa.
• The game design leverage around getting the main currency for pulling (Stellar Jade) via playing the game instead of Card Swipe (although this is their main way getting money) and it is more balanced than spending money:
  • in HSR the highest amount of Jade you can buy is 6480 x 2 = 12960 ~~ Around 80 pulls for only one time, purchasing more only get you half of the amount, which is around 40 pulls.
  • Getting a 5 stars character averaging around 50-70 pulls, so spending like this is probably too much if you think that they would rather pay than play.
  • Each patch present a quite lot amount of content that offer Jade as rewards + community events. So if you participating in the game daily you get around 16000 ~~ 100 pulls for next patch, which is already worth 200$ without bonus.
• Along with the character getting its signature Light Cone is also very important, which puts the required pulls to be almost doubled, makes it extremely expensive to maxed out the entire thing.

With that being said the community mostly agreed on one principle that not only you have to be lucky, but you also have to actively playing the game to get the character, and with a really big community formed around that, sometimes, people just like to flex their luck and skill don't they? （￣︶￣）↗　

However, this only contribute a small amount of the main thing we are discussing, why? you may ask. It it because the game is not consist of 100% ready-to-pay player, and not 100% players are getting their wanted rate up character, they may stuck with a Firefly that deal Electro damage and can heal, revive teammate instead.

Even when you get your favorite rate up character, that doesn't mean it is ready to use yet. Like any other games, when you are middle way of going into endgame contents, you realize having a particular character is not everything, but also its Relics stats is getting too dull to clear particular stage.

Relics (Gears) System

For those who read the above part, you may already guesses what I will be into today, for those who did not or don't know after reading, I will be covering the chance-based system on the Relics (Equipments) in the game.

Here is a breakdown on how the stat on Relic is presented and the process getting them:

• Main and Sub-stats of a Relic piece is randomized, which can be one of many main stats available, but:
  • Head and Hand pieces share the same Main stat. (HP for Head and ATK for Hand)
  • 4 Sub-stats is randomized in both possible cases, you get a randomized amount of Sub-stats when obtain the Relic, if it is not 4, when upgrading it will add randomized stats until it reach 4, If the Relic already have 4 Sub-stats, it will randomly upgrade one of them when reaching level threshold.
  • Sub-stats cannot be the same as Main stat.
  • No particular stats is exclusive to a set.
• The main way to farm Relics is through clearing Cavern of Corrosions, however, you have to spend 40 Energy (short-called, forgor the name). But the energy cap is 240 and it regen very slow so you are capped at a certain amount of runs daily (Based on my experience you also have to spare for other contents).
• Here is the pool of main stats for anyone interested and already familiar with the game:
  • Head - Flat HP
  • Hands - Flat ATK
  • Body - HP%, ATK%, DEF%, Crit Rate%, Crit DMG%, Outgoing Healing Boost%, Effect Hit Rate%
  • Feet - HP%, ATK%, DEF%, Speed
  • Planar Sphere - HP%, ATK%, DEF%, Elemental Damage Boost*
  • Link Rope - HP%, ATK%, DEF%, Break Effect%, Energy Regen Rate%
• And Sus-stats:
  • Flat HP
  • Flat ATK
  • Flat DEF
  • HP%
  • ATK%
  • DEF%
  • Crit Rate%
  • Crit DMG%
  • Effect Hit Rate%
  • Effect RES%
  • Break Effect%
  • Speed

Have you realized the problem?

No? (￣y▽,￣)╭

The problem with this design is that each character in the game follows a different gameplay type, and each gameplay type require the character to have certain stats at their max potential to fully make use of them in the game.

Taking the new character: Firefly as example, the most ideal, dream build stats for Firefly based on her Skills (You can check out on HSR Wiki) is Break Effect%.

But....wait, look at the stats pool.....
Break Effect% is only available on the Link Rope as main stat, and through the Sub-stats pool.

Putting in the best possible case you see:

• Getting a Link Rope with Break Effect% as Main stat averaging around 20% chance.
• Getting a Link Rope with Break Effect% as Sub-stat averaging around 30% chance.
  • Getting a Link Rope with Break Effect% on both averaging around 6%.

But wait, it get worse ԅ(¯﹃¯ԅ)

• Since Sub-stats upgrade is randomized on level threshold, each time upgrading a Sub-stats you get a 25% chance of upgrading the stat that you preferred.
  • An ideal rate is upgrading the stats you wanted 2-3 times, in this case it is Break Effect%, so you averaging from 6% getting it upgraded 2 times, and 1.5% getting it upgraded 3 times.
  • Compare it with the ideal Link Rope best possible outcome it will be 0.09% (Very unlikely)
  • Please note that is is the Worst Case Possible for a Link Rope, since other piece does not have Break Effect% in the main stat pool, but you also have to prioritize the stats such as HP, Elemental DMG%,....it pretty much the same.

Since you can't "Pay" to get a Relic with particular stat directly, but you get more Energy to keep gambling and Copium on getting particular stats (Even when it is ideal on only one stats it doesn't mean it is ideal on 3 other Sub-stats), it is a very daunting process but crucial during gameplay.

=> With this system it is extremely lucky to get a "Very ideal" Relic (Getting the most Ideal frequently is like hacking in Da Wei desk).

Here come the crucial part:

Community Intergration

Well I mean, this is a very basic degenarate kind of conversation that may eventually popped up between certain random couple of friends, and it is perfectly normal. Just basic comparison between a small amount of people.

However （￣。。￣）

HoYoLAB

Please welcome HoYoLAB, miHoYo's social platform that has been tuned and specialized on their own collection of games.
HoYoLAB basically a mini Facebook with embedded features that intergrate their game public APIs to make a closed mini game-based social media platform, where players share about builds, guides and so on.

One specific feature is the Tools section, which is on the right side of the image above. It contains all the needed mini-tools to enhance the interaction between players and the game via public APIs.
Specifically Battle Chronicle.

The page showing detailed stats of your character, every single stats. It can even highlight the recommended Sub-stats from HoYoWiki (Their official Wiki for all their games).

While this does create a comfortable experience, because the in-game UI sucks-@ss (￣y▽,￣)╭ , it also raise a lot of comparisons on the endgame side where people usually compete with the hardest game contents. (Memory of Chaos, Pure Fiction, Apocalyptic Shadow), getting good Sub-stats is extremely important, both short-term (Featured endgame contents) and long-term (Bosses Rotation).

Pairing this with the above good stuffs, we can already imagine about a few small scene where people showing off their well-built character, but immediately get bunked down by a random person online telling you that this build is so mid, check out this, this and this,......

You get titled and decide to dedicate more time to farm the relics, you do that endlessly, you farm until you drop your last breath of soul out of your mind......

§(*￣▽￣*)§

While this is just a simple "Following a standard" behavior this has become competent because the standard was not set by miHoYo, they had never been the one that set a perfect standard to a character stats, but the players. And with the later updates keep rolling out, along with the meta changes and diverse selections between characters, it slowly create a highly competitive environment on both skills (cycles to clear a stage) side and chance-based (gacha, relics) side.

This is a very interesting study since I like the game, the characters (but I hate the gacha system as a Honkai Impact 3rd veteran). Honkai: Star Rail become a few mobile games on the market that leverage the design around keeping player interest well while having near-zero PvP interations. This kind of designs is very rare and miHoYo has pulled it off so well.