Honkai: Star Rail

[Bobin]

HSR is my first and only Hoyo game and the powercreep method of selling meta characters just feels like a waste of the time and resources spent on older characters. It's not like FGO where it's easier to make a couple batch of characters. It takes months of marketing and each character has an enormous impact on your account that you have to specifically save up to for, so you're sacrificing a lot by making the decision to get Blade over Firefly. None of these older characters will get buffed or balanced again in the future either so their value is essentially set on stone.

[Formless Creature]

-snip-

I thought long and hard about what kind of response I should give to this, and I've decided that the best response is to not address anything here. Clearly, this franchise and developer mean a lot to you, so we'll be running in circles no matter what I say. Unfortunately, my view of miHoYo is, and will always be, one of extreme cynicism. After over 4 years of being active daily on Genshin, HSR and ZZZ-related social media, to the point of reaching local celebrity status on certain subreddits, any love or energy that I could spare for this company or its products, god forbid the people who engage with them, has been almost completely exhausted. Even the products you claim are the closest to their truest intentions don't sit right with me at all, for many reasons. And that's fine. People can't agree on everything.

[Lily Emilio]

I thought long and hard about what kind of response I should give to this, and I've decided that the best response is to not address anything here. Clearly, this franchise and developer mean a lot to you, so we'll be running in circles no matter what I say. Unfortunately, my view of miHoYo is, and will always be, one of extreme cynicism. After over 4 years of being active daily on Genshin, HSR and ZZZ-related social media, to the point of reaching local celebrity status on certain subreddits, any love or energy that I could spare for this company or its products, god forbid the people who engage with them, has been almost completely exhausted.

I have no idea how you got that kind of impression from my replies. I play a lot of games of multiple genre from a lot of companies, from the west to the east and in terms of gacha I've played some of the earliest ones back in the 2010s when the industry was brand new. So naturally I had the kind of insight and experience of someone who have been in the know for over a decade. My conclusion of Hoyo and how they handle their games came from me simply experiencing all of them and comparing the differences.

Maybe it's because you don't know me, so you assume I am the ultimate hoyo glazer. But I have the same attitude with any franchise and companies, even if I spent years with them and have positive things to say about them. I spent more time with TM than Hoyo and you'll see me criticizing things I don't like about both, Nasu isn't safe when he writes trash contents, Shaoji isn't safe when he writes trash contents. Maybe you've missed the time I shit on Genshin, HSR story and gameplay design choices. Maybe you've also missed the time where I destroyed Honkai Impact's absolute disaster of a finale that got me quit playing it during a discussions in the FGO thread, or how I expressed fear for the next HSR arc because of a certain writer rumored to be in charge. I like Miyabi, but my cynical side looking at her and instantly recognizing her as neo Yae Sakura + Ayaka rehash, didn't stop me from liking her. One Piece is my favorite shounen but I would clown on Oda for quite a few stupid things he wrote. I can't blame you for not being there nor expecting you to know everything about me, but that's how I roll.

Even the products you claim are the closest to their truest intentions don't sit right with me at all, for many reasons. And that's fine. People can't agree on everything.

You still don't get the point. Your initial claim was about sincerity, which I found strange because Hoyo devs have been know for going the extra miles in all of their games. What that means to me, is that you really like ZZZ's latest story and Miyabi and immediately praise the effort they put into that, while to me it is just another "hoyo being hoyo" moment since I've experienced their other stuffs. It does not take away the praises it deserves, just that it's not a special thing for me since I knew they can pull it off all along.

You then shifted to how "they deliver messages" while bashing Belobog's ending, which was not rainbow and sunshine or suddenly the government (led by one leader going crazy despite the system working for the last 700 years) getting torn down, so I gave you another example of how the writers chose the same resolution of removing the crazy leader then reform the system (which, in case you still didn't know, is not uncommon IRL, and was also a direct jab at how Mao Zedong remains a heroic figure after how much damage he caused to China, for similar reasons). That to me is them willing to deliver that kind of message even if it is disturbing to the readers.

Also you are confusing the idea of them being genuine and showing their true intentions (being coomer otakus or w/e) and them writing good story being mutually exclusive. It isn't. It is no different from Nasu writing coomer dialogues and create bait characters while at the same time capable of writing good contents.

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HSR is my first and only Hoyo game and the powercreep method of selling meta characters just feels like a waste of the time and resources spent on older characters. It's not like FGO where it's easier to make a couple batch of characters. It takes months of marketing and each character has an enormous impact on your account that you have to specifically save up to for, so you're sacrificing a lot by making the decision to get Blade over Firefly. None of these older characters will get buffed or balanced again in the future either so their value is essentially set on stone.

They CAN buff older characters (see Jing Yuan). The problem is, to get buffs you have to be a favorite of the devs.

[mami-kouga]

I'd assume they got that impression because you write a thesis whenever you argue with someone regarding their games

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I'd be very into that if I could get through their other games. Lobotomy Corp. filtered me hard.

I just watched two videos on the plot and jumped in while my friend would bridge the gap on references. Some fights make me incredibly mad (BAMBOO KIM) but otherwise it's pretty enjoyable as someone who didn't even know what lobocorp was till a year ago

[Lily Emilio]

I'd assume they got that impression because you write a thesis whenever you argue with someone regarding their games

I write in similar ways about other things and anything I want to talk about. I wrote more about Type-Moon related stuffs than anything about all Hoyo games combined. Time to stop using that argument. You don't have to read if you're incapable of reading anything longer than a few lines.

[Formless Creature]

led by one leader going crazy despite the system working for the last 700 years

Two things about this that I could not bring myself to ignore:

- Feudalism lasted for roughly 600 years, nearly the same as this system. I think few alive today would agree that it was a good system, or that it didn't deserve to be replaced. It didn't destroy humanity, but a system doesn't need to do that to be a bad system.

- Cocolia wasn't the first bad Supreme Guardian (see Cyrille Rand), though she was the most destructive. Ultimately the fact that what happened to her can happen at all should be cause for tremendous alarm, because not only was this not the first time, it won't be the last time so long as the current system stays in place. The purpose of Cyrille Rand as a character in the lore is to demonstrate that Belobog placing absolute power in the hands of a single person creates a tremendous point of failure that can be exploited by any part of ill-intent both within and outside of Belobog, which is why it baffled me that the story did not make any attempt to address this at all.

Bronya didn't reform the system. It's still the same system. The narrative contrives ways for it to remain like that, for example during the Topaz follow-up quest where Bronya tries a (really shitty) implementation of democracy, it ends in a deadlock, and she has to solve things herself like always, along with the help of a different foreigner who I guess is good because she's on our side.

But ultimately the reason why I resent Belobog's ending is because it conflicts with my political beliefs in a way that I find irreconcilable. No defense of it can solve that issue, so I'll always dislike it. This doesn't mean I think people who like it are unreasonable or anything, it's just not something that I think is agreeable and I find it very comicbook superhero-y (i.e. "the status quo is preferable to the chaos that would be caused if you try to change it"). Of course I have zero desire to discuss those beliefs in-depth, so I won't respond to you if you respond to this part of my post. To be clear, though: my issue was not with the fact that they lied. My issue is with the fact that the narrative both writes Bronya in a way that makes me think I'm supposed to like her (I really, really don't) and because it makes no real effort to criticize the system itself, only criticizing Cocolia's actions.

I will give you this: it is possible that what Belobog is trying to say is the development team's sincere belief. My initial assumption is that it was a Marvel movie non-committal ending meant to cause as little controversy as possible, a storytelling tactic I find loathsome. If this has connections with Chinese history, though, that changes my views on it a little. I ultimately have very little understanding of how the average Chinese person sees their politicians and their country's own history, and because of self-evident reasons, most Chinese works that have political commentary that is critical of the current system tends to conceal that criticism under layers of allegory and insincere flattery to avoid being detected, making it even harder to study this subject. You don't get anything as blatant as Project Moon's "our setting is a capitalistic nightmare hellscape dystopia btw the city is literally shaped exactly like seoul"

I write in similar ways about other things and anything I want to talk about. I wrote more about Type-Moon related stuffs than anything about all Hoyo games combined. Time to stop using that argument. You don't have to read if you're incapable of reading anything longer than a few lines.

It's not about the volume of what you write, it's about how you phrase it. You come across as very hostile and very self-assured, as if you've already determined that your stance on any given subject is more correct than that of the person you're debating with - there's very little attempt to commiserate or even slightly soften the blow. In other words, it feels like you're saying "I know better than you, so stop arguing and listen to me". I don't know if that's intentional or not, but it is off-putting. I will give you this though: it's better than arguing with people who put in no effort and only spam buzzwords all the time.

[mami-kouga]

I write in similar ways about other things and anything I want to talk about. I wrote more about Type-Moon related stuffs than anything about all Hoyo games combined. Time to stop using that argument. You don't have to read if you're incapable of reading anything longer than a few lines.

I can read long posts, enjoy a good deal of them too, yours are just uniquely unpleasant. Ah but please don't regal me with another thirty paragraph response, afterall this isn't really a discussion.

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Two things about this that I could not bring myself to ignore:

- Feudalism lasted for roughly 600 years, nearly the same as this system. I think few alive today would agree that it was a good system, or that it didn't deserve to be replaced. It didn't destroy humanity, but a system doesn't need to do that to be a bad system.

- Cocolia wasn't the first bad Supreme Guardian (see Cyrille Rand), though she was the most destructive. Ultimately the fact that what happened to her can happen at all should be cause for tremendous alarm, because not only was this not the first time, it won't be the last time so long as the current system stays in place. The purpose of Cyrille Rand as a character in the lore is to demonstrate that Belobog placing absolute power in the hands of a single person creates a tremendous point of failure that can be exploited by any part of ill-intent both within and outside of Belobog, which is why it baffled me that the story did not make any attempt to address this at all.

Bronya didn't reform the system. It's still the same system. The narrative contrives ways for it to remain like that, for example during the Topaz follow-up quest where Bronya tries a (really shitty) implementation of democracy, it ends in a deadlock, and she has to solve things herself like always, along with the help of a different foreigner who I guess is good because she's on our side.

But ultimately the reason why I resent Belobog's ending is because it conflicts with my political beliefs in a way that I find irreconcilable. No defense of it can solve that issue, so I'll always dislike it. This doesn't mean I think people who like it are unreasonable or anything, it's just not something that I think is agreeable and I find it very comicbook superhero-y (i.e. "the status quo is preferable to the chaos that would be caused if you try to change it"). Of course I have zero desire to discuss those beliefs in-depth, so I won't respond to you if you respond to this part of my post. To be clear, though: my issue was not with the fact that they lied. My issue is with the fact that the narrative both writes Bronya in a way that makes me think I'm supposed to like her (I really, really don't) and because it makes no real effort to criticize the system itself, only criticizing Cocolia's actions.

I will give you this: it is possible that what Belobog is trying to say is the development team's sincere belief. My initial assumption is that it was a Marvel movie non-committal ending meant to cause as little controversy as possible, a storytelling tactic I find loathsome. If this has connections with Chinese history, though, that changes my views on it a little. I ultimately have very little understanding of how the average Chinese person sees their politicians and their country's own history, and because of self-evident reasons, most Chinese works that have political commentary that is critical of the current system tends to conceal that criticism under layers of allegory and insincere flattery to avoid being detected, making it even harder to study this subject. You don't get anything as blatant as Project Moon's "our setting is a capitalistic nightmare hellscape dystopia btw the city is literally shaped exactly like seoul"

Well there's less misogyny in PM games than real Korea I'll say that much. More cannibalism though

[Formless Creature]

Well there's less misogyny in PM games than real Korea I'll say that much. More cannibalism though

I think the idea is that the City is so advanced in its implementation of capitalism that it does not care about what you are, only whether or not you benefit the system. Men and women of all shapes, colors and sizes, are equally capable of working so they are treated equally as poorly. Prejudice still exists because prejudice is an innate aspect of human nature, but it tends to either be class-based, or focused on the City's own inexplicable fixation with having the purest human experience possible. Furthermore, prostheses, weaponry and clothing serve as absolute equalizers, meaning that a person's physiology is pretty much irrelevant in the City.

It's true that most East Asian works don't examine misogyny in-depth, though. But I think one could have the interpretation that Angela is to some degree a feminist allegory.

[mami-kouga]

I think the idea is that the City is so advanced in its implementation of capitalism that it does not care about what you are, only whether or not you benefit the system. Men and women of all shapes, colors and sizes, are equally capable of working so they are treated equally as poorly. Prejudice still exists because prejudice is an innate aspect of human nature, but it tends to either be class-based, or focused on the City's own inexplicable fixation with having the purest human experience possible. Furthermore, prostheses, weaponry and clothing serve as absolute equalizers, meaning that a person's physiology is pretty much irrelevant in the City.

It's true that most East Asian works don't examine misogyny in-depth, though. But I think one could have the interpretation that Angela is to some degree a feminist allegory.

I can definitely see what you mean about Angela (being used, dehumanised and left behind with her resulting response falling into its own extremes) and about how the city's equal opportunity hatred for everyone who is unfortunate enough to live in it stands out.

That said after the whole shit show with the artist that had to leave a part of me wonders if it's just a result of government critique being less of loaded gun that anything that could examine Korean's whole gender war.

[Formless Creature]

I can definitely see what you mean about Angela (being used, dehumanised and left behind with her resulting response falling into its own extremes) and about how the city's equal opportunity hatred for everyone who is unfortunate enough to live in it stands out.

That said after the whole shit show with the artist that had to leave a part of me wonders if it's just a result of government critique being less of loaded gun that anything that could examine Korean's whole gender war.

I definitely think there's an attempt to avoid controversial topics. Criticizing the government or capitalism isn't exactly controversial. Saying something like "well, I think communism would be better" certainly would be, but PM is not based enough to do is not doing that as can be clearly seen with the Yurodiviye. There are topics that PM avoids very strictly. Child abuse is rare and treated as a major tragedy when it happens. Anything related to sex just does not get acknowledged at all, the closest it ever comes is with stuff like Pink Shoes where it's more about hedonistic desire, and Angelica being implied to have been pregnant. And of course there's the subject of prejudice, which is kind of acknowledged as a thing that can happen but in a very fantastical way (i.e. cyborg racism, appropriation of historical and cultural aesthetic motifs to suit a prejudiced narrative but with the crusaders and not, say, the Roman Empire, etc), there's no direct address of any real-life prejudices. This is a subject which, especially, is really controversial with PM's playerbase specifically, and I would not be surprised if the developers themselves had opinions about it. So maybe it's a topic best left for another work.

Also they are definitely not touching anything related to the Cold War at all. Even the Japanese occupation got kinda whitewashed by the fact that the people who confront Dongrang are from the British-inspired T Corp and not the Empire of Japan as it was in the real man's actual life. If it's something that seems like it might piss off their playerbase's sensibilities, they won't even touch it. But this is a thing with lots of modern writers really, very rarely will you see a writer that goes full balls to the wall "yeah I'll talk overtly about this sensitive topic even if it makes people mad", especially in East Asia which is a very conflict-averse cultural sphere which favors subtle criticism over blunt and potentially disorienting honesty. Even Nasu tends to create giant Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad-shaped holes all over his setting because he doesn't want to come across as insensitive in a religious sense.

[Lily Emilio]

Belobog

Belobog isn't even feudal. It is an aristocratic system resembling the Roman Empire. The Architects in charge of protecting Belobog select the Supreme Guardians and they collectively hold power over the government. But there are times the elected Supreme Guardian will have more power and influence than the rest of the Architects just like how certain Roman Emperors got the upperhand over the Senate. This system is a lot harder to change than the Roman Empire, simple because the Architects aren't just a ruling class on Belobog, but an intergalactic faction with members governing multiple different planets under their protection.

Is it a bad system? Yes. Is it easily changed? Not at all. Also I never said the system is good, but you ignored it and only focusing on it being bad, something I never denied lmao. But the point is that just because it is bad doesn't mean it has to be changed right there, right now, while other immediate matters take priority and it can be improved, reformed with changes later down the line. Expecting Bronya alone to solve it instantly isn't realistic either. What are you expecting from one single total newbie at the job, still trying to settle the mess her predecessor did?

You are expecting changes that logically would take many and many years to happen, which is unrealistic considering that is the very first planet of the game. Shit I would drop the game if the next 20 hours of it is about how Bronya trying to convince the Architects to change the political system.

But ultimately the reason why I resent Belobog's ending is because it conflicts with my political beliefs in a way that I find irreconcilable. No defense of it can solve that issue, so I'll always dislike it. This doesn't mean I think people who like it are unreasonable or anything, it's just not something that I think is agreeable and I find it very comicbook superhero-y (i.e. "the status quo is preferable to the chaos that would be caused if you try to change it"). Of course I have zero desire to discuss those beliefs in-depth, so I won't respond to you if you respond to this part of my post.

You are not wrong for not agreeing with it. I literally said that the writers presented the kind of solution that makes sense for the context of everything happened in the story at the time despite it not sitting right with the readers to give you that so-called message you wanted, that yippie democracy baby isn't going to happen instantly, growth and changes of political systems are not easy nor fast even IRL, and you have to deal with what you have.

I will give you this: it is possible that what Belobog is trying to say is the development team's sincere belief. My initial assumption is that it was a Marvel movie non-committal ending meant to cause as little controversy as possible, a storytelling tactic I find loathsome. If this has connections with Chinese history, though, that changes my views on it a little. I ultimately have very little understanding of how the average Chinese person sees their politicians and their country's own history, and because of self-evident reasons, most Chinese works that have political commentary that is critical of the current system tends to conceal that criticism under layers of allegory and insincere flattery to avoid being detected, making it even harder to study this subject.

Like I said, Hoyo has done this before. The reason they didn't go deeper in explaining why the solution was done here is because Belobog is the very first chapter of the game, they don't have time like Otto case. In HI3rd case, they had years of build up and lore showcasing how Otto is perceived by the public and how crucial Schicksal is in protecting mankind from Honkai, to the point their rival organization the Anti-Entropy (lead by Einstein, Tesla and Welt Yang) is perceived by most of the clueless public as a terrorist organization. They also have a whole chapter of his successor Theresa (decided by himself before he even died) going around trying to gain trust from the public, showing how much of an influence he was that people had no faith in Theresa being able to succeed him. They also have discussions between her and the other protagonists on how to tell the public about Otto's evil deeds, and how it would affect the world. After careful considerations, they decided to keep the secrets to spare the public from chaos, since they need unity in time of crisis.

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I can read long posts, enjoy a good deal of them too, yours are just uniquely unpleasant. Ah but please don't regal me with another thirty paragraph response, afterall this isn't really a discussion.

It's because you're incapable of countering any of it. The truth hurts.

[mami-kouga]

You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, good luck with that I guess?

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I definitely think there's an attempt to avoid controversial topics. Criticizing the government or capitalism isn't exactly controversial. Saying something like "well, I think communism would be better" certainly would be, but PM is not based enough to do is not doing that as can be clearly seen with the Yurodiviye. There are topics that PM avoids very strictly. Child abuse is rare and treated as a major tragedy when it happens. Anything related to sex just does not get acknowledged at all, the closest it ever comes is with stuff like Pink Shoes where it's more about hedonistic desire, and Angelica being implied to have been pregnant. And of course there's the subject of prejudice, which is kind of acknowledged as a thing that can happen but in a very fantastical way (i.e. cyborg racism, appropriation of historical and cultural aesthetic motifs to suit a prejudiced narrative but with the crusaders and not, say, the Roman Empire, etc), there's no direct address of any real-life prejudices. This is a subject which, especially, is really controversial with PM's playerbase specifically, and I would not be surprised if the developers themselves had opinions about it. So maybe it's a topic best left for another work.

Also they are definitely not touching anything related to the Cold War at all. Even the Japanese occupation got kinda whitewashed by the fact that the people who confront Dongrang are from the British-inspired T Corp and not the Empire of Japan as it was in the real man's actual life. If it's something that seems like it might piss off their playerbase's sensibilities, they won't even touch it. But this is a thing with lots of modern writers really, very rarely will you see a writer that goes full balls to the wall "yeah I'll talk overtly about this sensitive topic even if it makes people mad", especially in East Asia which is a very conflict-averse cultural sphere which favors subtle criticism over blunt and potentially disorienting honesty. Even Nasu tends to create giant Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad-shaped holes all over his setting because he doesn't want to come across as insensitive in a religious sense.

I do wonder what's going to become of the whole thing with Yurodiviye because Rodya still needs narrative closure but also Sonya's ideals are pretty based and her attempts to dismiss them are usually used to highlight her ignorance and inferiority complex.

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As for conflict averse I think it's a bit dependent? It's certainly not main stream though I have read and watched a lot of stuff that are pretty straightforward though they usually tend to be LGBT+ stories

[Formless Creature]

You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, good luck with that I guess?

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I do wonder what's going to become of the whole thing with Yurodiviye because Rodya still needs narrative closure but also Sonya's ideals are pretty based and her attempts to dismiss them are usually used to highlight her ignorance and inferiority complex.

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As for conflict averse I think it's a bit dependent? It's certainly not main stream though I have read and watched a lot of stuff that are pretty straightforward though they usually tend to be LGBT+ stories

Yeah, I was talking mainly about mainstream fiction. There's always going to be outliers and highly-opinionated, political pieces have always been a thing in every culture. But it's more common to see mainstream media make potentially controversial statements in the West.

[TetsuoS2]

Also I never said the system is good, but you ignored it and only focusing on it being bad, something I never denied lmao

You are not wrong for not agreeing with it. I literally said that the writers presented the kind of solution that makes sense for the context of everything happened in the story at the time despite it not sitting right with the readers to give you that so-called message you wanted, that yippie democracy baby

Why are you so concerned with making the person you're talking to feel like an idiot? He wasn't even saying anything bad to you. Just relay your points like you would in real life

This topic really went the way I expected it to.

[Lily Emilio]

Why are you so concerned with making the person you're talking to feel like an idiot?

I did not. If you're so sensitive about snarky remarks because I was annoyed that I have to repeat my points the 2nd time, then maybe the internet is too much for you.

He wasn't even saying anything bad to you. Just relay your points like you would in real life

And I didn't say anything bad to them, we are chill despite disagreements. You're making a fuss over nothing.

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You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, good luck with that I guess?

Thanks.

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Anyways, the new PF revamp is up and while it is looking decent so far, because of how strong the Grit mechanic is (full team advance, huge vulnerability debuffs), I can see it easily abused by the devs to shill banner chars even more. The current one is generic enough (trigger by skill) but it can spiral into super specific things down the line, not good.

[mami-kouga]

Why are you so concerned with making the person you're talking to feel like an idiot? He wasn't even saying anything bad to you. Just relay your points like you would in real life

This topic really went the way I expected it to.

It's she and eh it's fine at this point. I'd probably be feeling more about it if it was a bunch of other people but coming from him it's more befuddling than anything. I'd assume the feeling's mutual so it is what it is~~

[TetsuoS2]

the posts i quoted were responding to formless, but yeah I still could have been wrong so i get your point .

[mami-kouga]

Formless exists as the vague concept of V/V with a guitar to me

[TetsuoS2]

yes, absolutely

[mami-kouga]

Thanks for the clarification though.

Oh yeah on the topic of star rail, this is pretty late at this point but while I don't really mind the patches being kind of dead because I have exams and would rather not be tempted to play the game, after getting Clara in the free 5 star pick which made me nostalgic about Belobog again and reading through the patch, I'm increasingly befuddled at the choice since Penacony started to increasingly reduce the number of character quests. Sunday gets away with it because his joining the express has very story important resolutions and I overall think that the narrative they went for with him is pretty well handled (though I also don't quite like them having him acknowledge that he was wrong, it feels too soon for that), Tingyun is weird because a character who has an alt at this point should have double the screen time but instead they're both weirdly half-assed? It feels like narrative really wants us to care about her relationship with the express but then they just make no attempt to write it. The reveal that we never even meet her, with the story even acknowledging the time most people assumed she'd been kidnapped just makes it even weirder. A character quest before the fake out and one singularly followed on her reunion would probably have been better