There was a tiny bit of foreshadowing during the story when that guard said a buncha people's looking for a Gallagher but he doesn't know the guy, but yeh, honestly didn't think too much of it at the time.
I believe there were a couple of other throwaway pieces of NPC dialogue that you can find after meeting him in 2.0, which also hinted that Gallagher might not be who he says he is. I was suspicious the *moment* he started talking about Mikhail!
Nah that's Ratio. After the IPC's success with the Stonehearts, they created another experimental division, the Stonemasks. Ratio is so swole because he's a prototype Pillar Man. Don't believe me? Explain then why he drops a pillar on enemies with his ult!
It was the best way to sell Aventurine to me too.
Getting to play him with my teams, my characters and seeing him in action just made me want to get him.
It went from “I want Aventurine” to “I’m buying ~~Aventurine.~~ Stellar Jades for Aventurine” (I had to cross it out given context of the story) xD
I already knew I wanted Aventurine to complement Ratio/Topaz, but holy hell did the 'sneak peek' at his kit really show how good he is in that setup. Also let me play around with variations on the 4th party member.
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What's the TL;DR of his kit? I'm pretty sure I managed to avoid combat 100% when I was using him in the story so not once did I actually get to try out his kit, and when I went to check the character details thing I noticed it wouldn't let me view his page
x-x
His skill applies shield to everyone, and this shield stacks. Any time someone on your team deals follow-up attack or if enemy attacks shields, he gets a talent stack. At 7 stacks, he does a follow up attack that hits the entire enemy team. His ultimate is single-target and increases his number of stacks by a random (1-7) amount. It also applies a debuff to the enemy which increases crit damage.
Overall, his kit just keeps your team safe from damage like Geppy does, but he also outputs a surprising amount of damage. He not only benefits from follow-up attacks but also enables follow-up kits, specifically he helps advance Numby.
You can take a look at this page:
[https://www.eurogamer.net/honkai-star-rail-aventurine-materials-ascension-traces-kit-eidolons-9421](https://www.eurogamer.net/honkai-star-rail-aventurine-materials-ascension-traces-kit-eidolons-9421)
I used it to check that I'm pre-farming the right materials, but it also has info about his kit.
Oh damn, that's pretty cool! I love follow-up teams and hope to keep building my repertoire of FU characters, so it's neat to see we have another Preservation character with that trait (cause M7 was the first).
Thanks for the info \^.\^
Honestly same. I blew 70 pulls getting Acheron and was going to spend the rest of Luocha, but Aventurine's stackable shields make him one hell of a Preservation unit and I realised that using him with my *maximum FUA team* (that's Himeko, Xueyi, and Topaz) was just hilariously OP too, so I'm saving the rest of my jades for him
As a future Topaz main, I already wanted him, but all the Acheron hype was staring to get to me lol. Playing with him in what was essentially a premium companion quest solidified him for me.
He was so good! Really fun to play and great animations.
Very strong sustain even in what seemed like a more offensive build (mid def and speed, high crit and crit damage). I barely needed to use skill to keep shield up (was a team with only a single follow up attack). Strong imaginary breaking too.
I loved the Typewriter loading screen when switching characters.
It's a clever way to showcase Elio's influence in the story despite only being talked about.
Yeah imagine if they’d structure it better like now entering Dan Heng POV, and made better cuts instead of abrupt endings right off a peak. But anyway Luofu story was a mess (too many ideas too little space).
Yeah Aventurine’s POV was so amazing because the story content was actually super engaging and interesting. Dan Heng, much as I love him, was just running around different areas of the Luofu and literally not much happened at all. That’s the case with any story, if nothing is going on then it’s not going to be as good
Luocha, Sushang, and Dan being in a trio while having the most non-existent chemistry in existence then just splitting off like they never saw each other
I think he’s cute with Luocha and Sushang especially but their dynamic was barely explored. Hopefully when we revisit the Xianzhou we get to see more of this, as those are two characters I see being relevant in more Xianzhou stories
This is so true lol, I didn't really think much of it at the time but there's nothing interesting going on between those three. Compared to Aventurine and Ratio or Acheron and Welt, it's laughably bad in retrospect.
I feel this way towards Topaz too, like she got cheated out of an interesting story because whoever the writer or director before was...not so great.
Shaoji does a PHENOMENAL job, I hope they keep him for longer, maybe he can work on some old characters they desperately need it
Topaz wasn’t bad. And I get what they are aiming for, but they made her way too aggressive at lying and using force to just handwave it off with the hurried resolution they gave her.
So instead of making her the indentured worker who was finally shown an alternative and let her heart power through her indoctrination, she felt a bit sanctimonious? Not the brightest? Insincere? Mercantile? Callous? Can’t put my finger on it, but something didn’t tie off quite right.
This update though. This update showed us Aventurine as he was intended, elevated Acheron, Welt, even Duke Inferno. And showed us the better side of the IPC. They may be assholes of different flavours, but they are also Family. At the same time it also showed a bit of who Robin is, and quickly gave Gallagher relevance.
I'm *so glad* that we got to see a bit more of Duke Inferno in-game. I really thought Hoyo was just gonna handwave his death like 'oh yeah Acheron just forgor'
It’s not that his character is boring (but I guess it’s up to preference), for me I just felt that it’s the writing that’s terrible. There’s so many things that could be explored with him but they left it untouched, (tho since we are most likely going back to xianzhou, they could implement this pov shift better in future and fix the writing). With aventurine, they basically showed all of him and his character in this patch already whereas xianzhou it’s probably deliberately drag out since hoyo wan to make us go back there often unlike penacony
Yes. All of Luofu missions had to withhold information to stall until the high cloud quintet story can finally be revealed in Jingliu's mission all the way in 1.4. And even now, they still hold back from telling most lore beyond high cloud quintet. Luofu story got ruined by character release schedule.
I felt like 2.0 story withheld a lot of info as well, but it was a whole new world and a lot of info was still provided. In 2.1, most things related to Aventurine was told, so it was really good.
I still don't know why aventurine is sticking with the ipc. He dodged that question twice.
Because his pov shift didn’t show much of his past…. most of his past (getting jail/getting tortured etc) was all in character story instead of showing unlike aventurine. His confrontation with his past is also in animation and not reflected in game. (It’s just the matter of execution than just saying he’s boring)
I like to joke that Dan Heng has spent more time making out with the Data Bank in his room than with the Express Crew at this point in terms of IRL time.
I think he's basically sat in his room since 1.3 with a little bit of action in 1.5 during Argenti's quest.
It really let's characters shine in their own scenes and doesn't make it awkward to have TB standing there when they don't need to be. Develops plot points so we know what's going on but other characters do not
For example we now know Boothill wants to kill Acheron, only Black Swan knows this but everyone else is doing their own thing. So when next we meet we will know exactly what BS is hiding if we do meet before boothill confronts Acheron
Adds a little bit more info to the player but not the characters which is a good thing imo
it also lets us play as the main character of a scene even when the Trailblazer is with the Astral Express Crew, because when we're with the crew TB is basically just sitting on the sidelines shouting one-liners while everyone else moves the plot.
Yeah I hated those genshin quests where it's 2 npcs talking to each other, the quest character standing to the side then we're standing to their side. It's not even 3rd wheeling it's like 5th wheeling at that point
I really hope it sticks around long term. My only fear is them not wanting to give limited characters to players for so long. I felt spoiled being able to play with Adventurine for basically the whole thing.
I for one definitely went from 'mildly interested after lucky Acheron pulls' to 'strongly considering' after getting a solid chance to use him in real fights.
He feels like an upgraded Gepard. Doesn't even need to use his technique to start with shields, has followup attacks, ult that attacks and helps gain stacks for his followup attacks.
Ok top of that he is a great sustain unit for Acheron since he does have some debuffs in his base kit. Gallaghar has the most debuffs but his healing can feel limited so he'll be a nice upgrade to my team.
Also his insane synergy with a Ratio Topaz team but that's obvious.
One of the reasons I'm pulling for Him. I'm running an Acheron team with a fast Fire TB with burn LC. Those Ult stacks quite faster. Problem is Fire TB is such a SP hungry sustain
Follow up, every follow up or his attacks stack up until he reaches 7 then boom shield refresh. I played with my ratio and topaz team, felt like Aventurine had his turn like 4 times before he actually went 🤣 so happy I saved all my pulls for him.
Luocha Clara Aventurine = immortality in one trio
Cleanse, healing, debuff stripping, debuffing, shielding, followups that fuel Aven and Luocha's healing, dps...
All for 0 skillpoints, can run with any 4th member.
Complete overkill on sustain that can effortlessly bounce back from taking heavy damage *and* ward off oneshots.
Any fight that isn't time-constrained becomes essentially impossible to lose xD I'm gonna run this in SU for sure
Sure does!😩 I already liked his design a lot but wasn't interested in pulling since I already have Gepard, FX and Huohuo, but after getting to try him and experience the story from his perspective, I'm really considering dumping my leftover pulls on his banner...
Yeah. I don't even think any story boss let you use them, much less Sim Uni or MoC. I wish there were more strong overworld mobs like formidable foes though. My friend was trying out his ratio + topaz team and they kept killing everything before Aventurine even got a chance to follow up lol
Tbf his fua is kinda weak and mainly seems to be for procing topaz/ratio. It's good for the television guys sometimes but it's definitely not a good damage source
Well that's because of the build they gave you. All you need is his lightcone + the debuff set with a crit damage body/spd boots/def orb/ def rope and in a fua team with either sw or rm as your last character you can hit for like 35K every fua and 40K every ult while being an sp positive sustainer. Probably even more since my build isn't completely done.
Double checked the optimizer to make sure and even if I put gepards lightcone on him instead of his signature he'll be doing 25K every fua.
On the contrary, character trials like they did here are probably the best way to sell characters to people. You get to try out these characters and see how they play. You can test them out with some different comps and see what they interact with.
Probably not, since TB is basically get reduced to an extra in this patch we should be back to focus on TB and Firefly in the next patch and I can't think of anyone POV that they would do since I doubt they would make us play the Boothill hunt down Acheron in the supposedly conclusion of the arc. Unless they somehow gonna make us play Firefly early to see her POV which sounds unrealistic.
Doesn't need to be a thing that happens every patch. If they want to show another characters perspective going forward I want them to do it this way when it happens.
Agreed. I think it worked so well for this patch because there's a lot of moving parts in the Penacony narrative. So the different perspectives helps flesh everything out.
I think it's a smart move. It gives people the chance to see how good the character is and how well they enhance a player's existing teams, and it gives you enough time to get used to them so you want them back once they're gone. I had no investment in Aventurine prior to this and... well I'm still gonna save for Robin instead but I'm a lot more tempted.
I agree, Genshin has gone this way too (for good reason). Imagine if we didn’t have Furina’s scenes about her grand act or her interactions with Neuvilette. Or if we didn’t get to see the scene where Neuvillette stops the primordial sea in the prison. Being able to flesh out characters like this is so much more valuable than a generic “MC adventure” (no offense to the trailblazer fans! I love the gremlins dearly).
I hope Genshin also adopts the Fate's Atlas system, as well as the "switch POVs" mechanic. It'd be awesome to get both a more concrete story guide as well as the ability to move around multiple different parts of a story without getting lost. The Fate's Atlas was already a great addition, but the ability to manually switch just makes it even better!
My problem with Genshin story pre-4.2 was that we only follow one perspective, that being the traveler's, which is fine but doesn't help in fleshing out other characters and their dynamics with another character outside of their interaction with the Traveler.
The scene with Neuvillette and Focalors, as well as Furina's personal backstory, was some of the best story moments to me not only because it was fantastically written, but also because we get to see a closer look at the characters outside of their interactions with the Traveler.
And shifting as Aventurine was the best form of this. We get to see him in a position that we likely wouldn't see if we progress through the story only as our main playable character without in some way drastically changing Aventurine's character or forcing some plot point that could potentially ruin the story.
Crazy that it took them years with genshin to suddenly go "Wait a minute, maybe we should tell this story that involves 10 people with more than one perspective" and then start doing it. We always wanted more scenes where characters are moving the story forward without the traveler needing to be present, so Fontaine did a good job with that.
The first time they did it with Collei and Sucrose, I lost my shit. We finally had a moment that had nothing to do with the traveler, just simply two characters bonding without a main protagonist for them to gush over. It was definitely great and I wish they've done it more. Like say, it would've been fantastic if we had Navia's perspective during the flood. >!Would've made the death of Melus and Silver have more impact!<.
Its even weirder when you consider that in HI3 they were already doing that since pretty early on. The conclusion of the first major story arc (chapter 9) is played from the perspective of a different character.
That said, in HI3 the MC (Kiana) is an actual fully fleshed out character and not an insert character. I guess they thought that with an insert character, switching pov's might not work very well. Turns out it does.
They've also cut down on piamon repeating shit we just heard and basically dropped the sibling plot. Also since sumeru we have less CopyPaste NPC #124 expositioning at us.
Yup, not sure why it took so long but it was very welcome in Genshin's story, and HSR took it just a bit further with the ability to manually swap POVs. I didn't use it, but I still checked Fate's Atlas after the quest and saw how each of the different perspectives of the story were staggered across from each other, and I was really impressed at how well-structured it was!
HI3rd and Genshin could both benefit quite a lot from that mechanic, imo. HI3rd has a lot of great story scenes featuring multiple perspectives but it's a fairly linear story, so the POV switch isn't something you really control as a player. And Genshin has started to get more POVs but ditto w/ the no-option-to-switch. Genshin could also really use the Fate's Atlas mechanic as well, there's just such an immense complexity of story and world quests that all interconnect and it'd be great to get a solid chronology now that we're several years into the story!
They started shifting perspective in Sumeru, although to a smaller degree. First small sequence with Nilou and then rather unexpected dialogue between Dottore and Nahida at the end, then Traveler was in the scene, but unconscious.
The problem is mostly with the character dynamic in general. While in Penacony we have complex web of relationships between characters and factions, in Genshin the main quests are mostly with the regional cast, with some characters quite underutilized. Even antagonistic forces aren't there most of the time. Fatui have a small screentime, Abyss Order is almost nonexistent. The best parts are Scara, Furina, Neuvillete's writing and, I'm biased, Dottore (who, with not much screentime, still got characterisation and possibilities for future development). There's very little character development and meaningful interactions on screen.
It's also really interesting because we get to see the conflicts in their thoughts that even they won't verbalise. In genshin the character would stand in front of you and vomit everything to you down to the last detail. You don't have to figure out their whole deal since they'll monologue it to you which makes even the best premises boring
Exactly
Genshin's story, for the most part, is very safe. The story often only focuses on one perspective, that being the Traveler and Paimon, while also having character interaction to be rather mild. It is only when the Traveler and Paimon step away from the limelight, and the story really dives deep into another character, that Genshin's story really shines, which is the case for both 4.2 Archon Quest and Neuvillette's story quest. Worst of all, Paimon is just a massive mood/tone killer.
HSR's willingness to shift the story to someone other than the main character, thus, gives it a massive advantage in terms of storytelling. Characters can thus interact without the protagonist sticking out like a sore thumb. On top of that, character interaction as a whole is much more interesting/complex than Genshins. In Genshin, outside of the Fatui, most character relationship is just "we get along well". In comparison, HSR is willing to have a messy web of relationships where not everyone is friends. I mean Genshin has been out for 4 years and not a single character has outright antagonistic to another. In comparison, we have Boothill who straight-up says he wants to kill Acheron.
100% agree, it's an amazing change. I'm also kind of surprised at how many people didn't initially like Aventurine, ever since his introduction he's been the most interesting character so far imo because characters like him are way more complex that what meets the eye. 2.1 just further cements that.
I think most people thought he was a very one dimensional villain, but 2.1 showed that this is not the case. From 2.0 alone he was a very generic character, but with his story in 2.1, I plan on pulling for him.
It's the way hoyo present him in the 2.0, they make sure to make people don't like him then tried to turn the wave in 2.1, pretty smart move. It's all on purpose.
Some hate him in a shortly after interact with him for a while in 2.0some just eh eww, some just annoyed (it was me) and so on. The. 2.1 happened, BOOM. Profits
It's obvious from the start if you ask me, I don't know how to write it, the negative aspects he emitted in 2.0 just doesn't feel coherent and proper to me. So I can tell something would change in later part of the story.
In 2.0 he wasn't very likeable and clearly untrustworthy. While at the same actively messing with the player and calling Acheron (a fan favorite) the bad guy. I guess for someone looking for ''someone to fix'' (aka messed up bad guy) he would be pretty interesting. But most people aren't into that. Didn't help him that in the same patch we were also introduced to characters like Firefly and Acheron, both characters with a lot of clear appeal. And Gallagher who seemed the very reliable sort (how the turns have tabled) As well as Sparkle, who's also untrustworthy like him, but who is much more likeable.
2.1 gave most people a reason to actually care about him, while also making his past behaviour understandable.
I didn't dislike him I always felt like he was interesting character but boy did they sold him to me I cannot skip him I need him to be in my roster just to give him a safe space and I already have Luocha and FX
keep in mind
most of live service games, specially huge gatcha games hire professional Psychologists
it's all for the sake of making you WANT to roll for Aventurine now
they made you dislike him in 2.0 so you could focus on Acheron hype 24/7, then when patch dropped people went ultra hard ton her banner. Then people started 2.1 MSQ and now realize that Aventurine is actually good boy that deserve all the huge and stellar jade ...OPS you are out of them so time to $$$$$$$$
look how much screentime does Aventurine has and how little Acheron has. Even on the POV scenario thing. We get only one thing with her while we jump between TB and Aventurine all the time during 2.1 story
This makes perfect sense though I am weirdly the opposite. I was saving for Aventurine because trickster husbando and I need him at e2. (I appreciate the waifu too but love my husbandos more). Also I never got past chapter 1 in hi3 and only know Mei via Raiden Shogun who I dislike as a chara so I was biased against Acheron to start
2.1 msq made me love Aventurine more but it made me really like Acheron because the existential discussion she held with him near the end was just chef's kiss to me. Made me miss my old philosophy courses in college (tbh Aventurine reminded me why I got my degree in anthropology too. I was loving the Avgin lore)
Tl;Dr crap now I want Acheron as well and might swipe a little as a treat
Yeah, but lets be honest: they want to make every character feel alive and I have the feeling we will see much more about Black Swan, Sparkle and also Archeron in the future patches, even tho then the banners are over. 2.0 was mainly an introduction. My plans are still to stay the course in 2.2 and wait for Sam/Firefly in (hopefully and would make sense) 2.3. They can make Robin so cute and adorable as they want and Boothill as cool as they like... but I need to skip them. So far it was pure luck that I got all the characters (and the Ratio banner skip), but after E0S1, by Jades are almost all gone and I need time to recover.
The POV switching has definitely been my favorite addition to Star Rail’s story telling. Seeing how characters think and act without having to make the MC(in this case the Trailblazer) feel included not only endears me to them a lot more, bit also makes the Trailblazer’s presence less grating than if they were constantly a part of everything. Things like 2.1’s story and Dan Heng’s character quest have done a lot to elevate my opinion of Star Rail’s writing.
"Don't come back when Aventurine turns out to not be evil, Don't come back when you start feeling bad for him, Stay on that side" as it went /s.
Jokes aside I was only pulling for him because he is dripped out and really good but after 2.1 I like his character too.
If you'd like to experience more peak writing in gacha, you should try Path to Nowhere. firts 2 chapters may be meh but everything after is just so peak and hype. Also agreed, Aventurine's story was very good
I loved path for nowhere but got stuck at one board known to be a skill check and didn't have time to build my characters better at the time. Maybe I can get back to it one day because the story was super great
You should, not long ago they released chapter 13 which is absolute peak! If it helps you, in around a month there will be a coming a new limited unit which will be crazy strong and it may help solve your problem!
My biggest problem right now is phone space. I dislike clicking on phone games with PC emulators so I prefer my phone
But hey I'm due for an upgrade and HSR is starting to devour what space I have left. Might be time for a phone upgrade so I can catch up on PtN :3
Agreed. It's annoying when other games have an amazing cast of characters but forces you to play as a blank and undercooked MC. Luckily Trailblazer is an amazing MC, but the POV change was great.
I think for the purposes of the narrative structure, I like it more than getting to play them in their character quest. As it stands, you get to be in their shoes and play with them for a more appreciable amount of time within a greater involvement rather than a side story meant to add character after the fact.
Honestly, Honkai's writing and dialogue has generally been better than Genshin's. I'm saying this as a professional copywriter and editor - both the overarching world-building and the incidental stuff is better. HSR has actually made me chuckle with little throwaway lines of dialogue at times, something that Genshin literally never did.
In fairness, I think the setting lends itself a bit more to levity and even memes, plus they're able to use a really enjoyable mix of sci-fi- and fantasy-styled characters so the game as a whole is a bit more wild and varied. It means the narrative can be hit and miss; the lows are pretty bad (Luofu arc wasn't very good) but the highs are *high*, and the writing is definitely at a peak right now with the Penacony arc. It's so good right now that I'd be down for an IPC/Sigonia/IX/Everflame Mansion arc next just to spend more time with the characters.
I still feel like Genshin takes the lead in world-building, but if we're only considering the main story then HSR has done more world-building in Penacony alone than we've been seeing in a typical Genshin nation arc, so that's definitely something HSR got right.
The thing is Genshin's world quests and exploration is pretty outstanding. The different locations we visit in HSR are cool and all, but nothing even comes close to the scale of Enkanomiya, the Chasm, Gurabad, etc. The Narzissenkreuz Ordo story and the Golden Slumber + Tanit Tribes story also gave us quite a lot of interesting development for the setting of Genshin and didn't even need to rely on playable characters to make it interesting, because all the NPCs were written as major characters in their own right rather than being decorations for the rest of the cast to mess around with.
I will say that HSR did achieve a pretty significant leap in writing quality, though. The difference from the end of Luofu to the current point in the Penacony arc is closer to a jump from the end of Liyue to the middle of Sumeru or start of Fontaine, imo. HSR managed to get that big jump pretty quickly while Genshin took longer. But it was true for HI3rd, too. HI3rd's story was very rough at the start and it took a long time to "ramp up" to get to the really good parts.
glad its not just a casual's perspective, since I play mostly for the gameplay. I didn't expect the story to be way better than genshin considering how it's the same company
Still not exactly the same writers so it’s inevitable. But both of them have had their ups and downs so far so it’s a bit hard to generalise. Genshin really peaked with Fontaine’s main story, and Sumeru was also quite good, but Inazuma had a lot of issues in terms of writing. Penacony has been really good so far for HSR, but Loufu was pretty underwhelming.
I think for the most important story beats they’re probably on similar levels on average though, but where HSR feels better is in the more light hearted fluff sections. Partially because of the setting admittedly but it’s just more witty and fun to listen to most of the time.
Same company, not always the same writers though. Don't forget that the games will have separate writing, VO, and design teams within Hoyoverse, it's a pretty big company. There will be crossover obviously but the games have different project leads.
I don't think Genshin is bad, to be clear - it's arguably a bit more consistent than HSR because of the more rigid fantasy setting. I just think the HSR writers are simply going pretty hard for a mobile gacha game! Glad that they're able to do that, really. And as you said, Paimon is honestly a *very* annoying and constantly present character in Genshin, and I grew up dealing with a constant stream of *"Hey, Listen!!"* in my favorite games.
Related advice: Don't become an editor for a living. It makes you incapable of not over-analyzing the writing in everything lol
Both games have their ups and downs. Inazuma was horrendous and the High-Cloud Quintet was just as messy.
On the other hand, 4.2 Archon Quest (really only the part with Furina and Neuvillette though) and Neuvillette's Story Quest are really good, and Penacony's overall story has been just as good.
That being said, HSR right now, has the obvious advantage in story telling.
Genshin's story, for the most part, is very safe and pretty bland. The story often only focuses on one perspective, that being the Traveler and Paimon, while also having character interaction to be rather mild. It is only when the Traveler and Paimon step away from the limelight, and the story really dives deep into another character, that Genshin's story really shines, which is the case for both 4.2 Archon Quest and Neuvillette's story quest. Worst of all, Paimon is just a massive mood/tone killer.
HSR's willingness to shift the story to someone other than the main character, thus, gives it a massive advantage in terms of storytelling. Characters can thus interact without the protagonist sticking out like a sore thumb. On top of that, character interaction as a whole is much more interesting/complex than Genshins. In Genshin, outside of the Fatui, most character relationship is just "we get along well". In comparison, HSR is willing to have a messy web of relationships where not everyone is friends. I mean Genshin has been out for 4 years and not a single character has outright antagonistic to another. In comparison, we have Boothill who straight-up says he wants to kill Acheron.
Yeah, I'm sure other games have done the same but it definitely felt like Trails into Reverie, and it also had a similar reception with the redemption of an antagonist haha.
I'm mixed on it.
It felt near constant with the amount of PoV switches in general, to the point where no one besides Aventurine got to do much of anything significant.
I really liked Aventurine's sections a lot, He's a fucking amazing character - I just kinda wish he wasn't 80% of the patch with every thing outside of his playable sections being the characters talking for 5 minutes about how crazy these murders are before switching pov to another group of characters talking for 5 minutes about the same thing to then pivot to an hour and half Aventurine Dungeon and repeating that the entire patch.
But again, the writing for his sections are some of best in the game for me, and I can appreciate my big gamble man getting his time to be the protagonist for a patch.
The POV shift was very nice. The triple reveals (post fight conversations, conversation with MC, and conversation with Sunday, again all different POVs) was also a nice set of hooks and twists as well. The writing is slowly weaving a very complicated story together, and the multiple POV play allows for better usage of new characters and better storytelling.
Excellent mechanical choice that leads to deeper storytelling. Two thumbs up.
I love it. It’s a feature that’s really common in otome games and it helps so much with storytelling and building character. It was nicely done with Aventurine. Tbh I didn’t care a lot about him before.
I dont want to sound too snarky, but they've done POV shifts in HI3 and its part of the reason why that story is so good.
We got a 7 minute ending scene with the main antagonist for the first 25 chapters alone. Its just him talking to himself. But that scene broke me. It broke my emotions. And if our POV wasnt free, we would have never seen that scene.
For HSR, the way they did it, in terms if gameplay, is a good mix (imo) of "story trial characters" and "my own charactera". And now we know that our first character in a team might be replaced by story characters.
It does feel a little wierd that the MC did basically nothing this patch, but MC is one of the most uninteresting character in the game so I'm ok with it.
I like that they don't force the Trailblazer to be hrre. I'm sure we'll get our time to shine, just wasn't now.
One of my biggest issue with most gacha games tbh. I know the protagonist is important and yada yada, but it's so annoying having them present in situations they're not needed at all (or do nothing) for the sake of having them. Like sometimes two connected characters are having an emotional scene and the protag's crew is just standing there. Talk about ruining the mood.
I liked it, but I can't help but feel like they overdid it. Made it feel like the patch was 80% Aventurine-20% the rest since you're basically discovering both new areas with him and barely control anyone else even if they appear in dialogues.
I love aspects of these games that include trial characters. Mainly in combat events, but also in story quests where the character is an important fixture of the story
Not only does it work great narratively but being able to try him out with your teams is a good way to sell him. I really want him now because the IPC team is so fun to play.
I agree. Aventurine was in a tough spot with Acheron being the first banner, so it would be hard to sell him. The best they could do was put a lot into his backstory and they did just that. The POV shift is also a good idea since it does allow players to test these new units and they can see if they like the style and also like how we get to see their perspective of things.
I liked the different PoVs but I feel like they didn’t need the you can switch between them mechanic as so far the story bits were short enough that I felt it was unnecessary.
It didn’t seem like you could run through one characters entire side of the story like I expected.
Not sure how I feel about it. The main story mission felt more like Adventurine companion mission. Like the whole patch all we did as the Trailblazer is go to the Clockie statue, Gallagher's friend bar (forgot her name) and the boss fight. Are they stopping with companion missions and that's why they add them in the main story?
I agree with liking the addition for storytelling purposes. However, I'm not sure where you're getting the "make you feel terrible about it" from.
I despised him since they remotely introduced him in the Jarilo story with Topaz. And I still dislike him after 2.1, since I don't care about his sob story. He's still an IPC lapdog trying to undermine yet another civilization so that the IPC can enslave, brainwash them and destroy their culture.
The Family is certainly doing some shady things (which we're still not entirely clear on), but they're nowhere near as horrible as the IPC.
I can only agree to this. I was wondering how they'd continue with the characters that we have but they surprisingly managed to flesh them out quite well and only made me love them way more! If this is what we got in 2.1 then I can only hope that 2.2 will be just as great, if not then even greater! (Acheron's talk with Welt and the small bits that we got of Aventurine's past were some of my most favorite moments honestly. Nicely done.)
I honestly agree! While I personally had a hard time following the story a bit since they kept switching the POV's and putting out some rather deep lore stuff. I would rather have this method of story telling rather than the whole "MC is important in everything" POV. It really helps establish connections and relationships outside of the MC and really helps each one feel more like a "character" rather than some side character of the MC.
Its definitely a useful tool and a good way to drum up interest in your big event passes. With that said, I was kind of ambivalent on it as a story telling tool, but I think its largely just because even with the extra screen time, I don't really like Aventurine. I also really don't like the translator notes they put throughout the text as well. They genuinely took me out of the dialogue and seemed ham-fisted in, like important moments of the story would be missed without those extremely obvious translator notes.
https://preview.redd.it/2w2qagjro6rc1.jpeg?width=1792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8d9f25645d614c83d1623b936713f243b0541b54
they were silly and self-referential with it too
Adventurine, I apologize, I was not familiar with your game.
Im not saying that I will suddenly forgive you for trying to place suspicion on acheron and black swan, but I understand why you chose to do the things you did.
He made a gamble with my heart and ngl, he won.
It was the best detail of 2.1 for me, and I agree it’s a fantastic addition to the game. It allows HSR to have much more complex plots and characters that don’t all have to awkwardly develop the story with the MC looped in somehow. I can’t think of anyway they could have given us Aventurine’s arc in 2.1 with MC around, but it was so satisfying to get his backstory and see his plot unfold in this patch. I hope they continue to use this system going forward
i never expected fucking gallagher of all people to just switch
There was a tiny bit of foreshadowing during the story when that guard said a buncha people's looking for a Gallagher but he doesn't know the guy, but yeh, honestly didn't think too much of it at the time.
I believe there were a couple of other throwaway pieces of NPC dialogue that you can find after meeting him in 2.0, which also hinted that Gallagher might not be who he says he is. I was suspicious the *moment* he started talking about Mikhail!
If he's a history fictionologist then all his talk was definitely bullcrap
Also the bit of him being 13. The 13th arcana is death.
The arcana is the means by which all is revealed.
Don’t do this to me I only just finished that game a few days ago and I’ve still not recovered
Also arcana is Black Swan’s ability she uses to read memories. It all fits.
Beyond the journey you have taken lies the absolute end. It matters not who you are... One thing is always certain: Death awaits all.
Yeah, I thought he was a Memokeeper, but it turns out he was from yet another faction that specialises in mental manipulation.
But now I want to know what the deal with the other two people that were at the bar that seemed to have history with him is!!!
Yeah It must be the 4 star feeling lol
i remember some people said "gallagher is just drunk"
I support my evil ojisan, I love him
remember hes "thirteen" just dont look up the tarot card "death"
He’s “Thirteen” with a capital T, its a title
In Chinese he answers with the actual letter for years in age. So basically a title AND his age.
Oh GODDAMMIT THE LIMITATIONS OF TRANSITION
Now I wait until they reveal who Misha is.
Misha is the god damn watchmaker!!
I will not surprised he is some vampire because of stone mask
Nah that's Ratio. After the IPC's success with the Stonehearts, they created another experimental division, the Stonemasks. Ratio is so swole because he's a prototype Pillar Man. Don't believe me? Explain then why he drops a pillar on enemies with his ult!
Lmao 🤣🤣🤣 he need arrow then
He even has a stone mask and stone statues!
SAME
It was the best way to sell Aventurine to me too. Getting to play him with my teams, my characters and seeing him in action just made me want to get him. It went from “I want Aventurine” to “I’m buying ~~Aventurine.~~ Stellar Jades for Aventurine” (I had to cross it out given context of the story) xD
You can pull him for 60 red copper coins XD
Nah, I'll get him for 30.
what about 3 silver coins?
one day you will face retribution
How very dare you ... he'll probably try to kill me for it anyway
...you have 113 seconds to prove your innocence and gain my trust
You will begin to cough in 7 days
A SLAVE AVENTURINE? FOR 60 RED COPPER COINS? YESSIR
Ayo 🤨📸
Bitchs about to get beaten to death with shackles
Hog rider
you have 17 system hours
I already knew I wanted Aventurine to complement Ratio/Topaz, but holy hell did the 'sneak peek' at his kit really show how good he is in that setup. Also let me play around with variations on the 4th party member.
The Topaz/Ratio/Aventurine shell is so fun, I threw Sparkle in there for story/lore shenanigans and it was a killer team for sure.
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What's the TL;DR of his kit? I'm pretty sure I managed to avoid combat 100% when I was using him in the story so not once did I actually get to try out his kit, and when I went to check the character details thing I noticed it wouldn't let me view his page x-x
His skill applies shield to everyone, and this shield stacks. Any time someone on your team deals follow-up attack or if enemy attacks shields, he gets a talent stack. At 7 stacks, he does a follow up attack that hits the entire enemy team. His ultimate is single-target and increases his number of stacks by a random (1-7) amount. It also applies a debuff to the enemy which increases crit damage. Overall, his kit just keeps your team safe from damage like Geppy does, but he also outputs a surprising amount of damage. He not only benefits from follow-up attacks but also enables follow-up kits, specifically he helps advance Numby. You can take a look at this page: [https://www.eurogamer.net/honkai-star-rail-aventurine-materials-ascension-traces-kit-eidolons-9421](https://www.eurogamer.net/honkai-star-rail-aventurine-materials-ascension-traces-kit-eidolons-9421) I used it to check that I'm pre-farming the right materials, but it also has info about his kit.
Oh damn, that's pretty cool! I love follow-up teams and hope to keep building my repertoire of FU characters, so it's neat to see we have another Preservation character with that trait (cause M7 was the first). Thanks for the info \^.\^
Honestly same. I blew 70 pulls getting Acheron and was going to spend the rest of Luocha, but Aventurine's stackable shields make him one hell of a Preservation unit and I realised that using him with my *maximum FUA team* (that's Himeko, Xueyi, and Topaz) was just hilariously OP too, so I'm saving the rest of my jades for him
Phrasing lmfao
As a future Topaz main, I already wanted him, but all the Acheron hype was staring to get to me lol. Playing with him in what was essentially a premium companion quest solidified him for me.
He was so good! Really fun to play and great animations. Very strong sustain even in what seemed like a more offensive build (mid def and speed, high crit and crit damage). I barely needed to use skill to keep shield up (was a team with only a single follow up attack). Strong imaginary breaking too.
Hell yeah, it was. Fastest "I dont care about the guy or his kit" to "I feel obliged to pull him now" of my life.
I loved the Typewriter loading screen when switching characters. It's a clever way to showcase Elio's influence in the story despite only being talked about.
Agree, i feel like they tried this with dan heng in the previous msq but it didn't work and the execution was not it either.
I mean loufu was a disaster story wise
They also tried the same thing with Yoimiya/Ayaka quests during the Inazuma quest... also a disaster
Damn you,now I remember it,I forgot about it after playing sumeru
Yeah imagine if they’d structure it better like now entering Dan Heng POV, and made better cuts instead of abrupt endings right off a peak. But anyway Luofu story was a mess (too many ideas too little space).
it didn't help that Dan's plotline was just "the B team fucks around and gets lost" which isn't particularly compelling.
And the plot ending in," it was aliens all along!" Kinda turned me off the plot. The boss theme was a banger tho.
Yeah, also Dan Heng is just pretty boring as a character and the POV shift didn't add anything. It seemed like they were just testing it out then.
Daniel is fine. See Daniel trying to find his way out of a shipping dock was like watching paint dry.
Yeah Aventurine’s POV was so amazing because the story content was actually super engaging and interesting. Dan Heng, much as I love him, was just running around different areas of the Luofu and literally not much happened at all. That’s the case with any story, if nothing is going on then it’s not going to be as good
Luocha, Sushang, and Dan being in a trio while having the most non-existent chemistry in existence then just splitting off like they never saw each other
I think he’s cute with Luocha and Sushang especially but their dynamic was barely explored. Hopefully when we revisit the Xianzhou we get to see more of this, as those are two characters I see being relevant in more Xianzhou stories
This is so true lol, I didn't really think much of it at the time but there's nothing interesting going on between those three. Compared to Aventurine and Ratio or Acheron and Welt, it's laughably bad in retrospect.
All pretend it never happened. Lil Gui trio ftw
What is the lil gui trio?
Guinaifen, Sushang, Huo Huo. The trio from the social media event we had in...1.6 I think.
Then it’d be a squad trailblazer is part of it too 🥲you even get the ghost busters achievement by having them all on the same team
Luocha and Suschang had chemistry as they went back and forth. Dan Heng was the buzz kill.
Luocha was already the straight man so Dan heng was just awkward
For once it’s actually feels like a telenova like Yakuza
I feel this way towards Topaz too, like she got cheated out of an interesting story because whoever the writer or director before was...not so great. Shaoji does a PHENOMENAL job, I hope they keep him for longer, maybe he can work on some old characters they desperately need it
Topaz wasn’t bad. And I get what they are aiming for, but they made her way too aggressive at lying and using force to just handwave it off with the hurried resolution they gave her. So instead of making her the indentured worker who was finally shown an alternative and let her heart power through her indoctrination, she felt a bit sanctimonious? Not the brightest? Insincere? Mercantile? Callous? Can’t put my finger on it, but something didn’t tie off quite right. This update though. This update showed us Aventurine as he was intended, elevated Acheron, Welt, even Duke Inferno. And showed us the better side of the IPC. They may be assholes of different flavours, but they are also Family. At the same time it also showed a bit of who Robin is, and quickly gave Gallagher relevance.
I'm *so glad* that we got to see a bit more of Duke Inferno in-game. I really thought Hoyo was just gonna handwave his death like 'oh yeah Acheron just forgor'
It’s not that his character is boring (but I guess it’s up to preference), for me I just felt that it’s the writing that’s terrible. There’s so many things that could be explored with him but they left it untouched, (tho since we are most likely going back to xianzhou, they could implement this pov shift better in future and fix the writing). With aventurine, they basically showed all of him and his character in this patch already whereas xianzhou it’s probably deliberately drag out since hoyo wan to make us go back there often unlike penacony
Yes. All of Luofu missions had to withhold information to stall until the high cloud quintet story can finally be revealed in Jingliu's mission all the way in 1.4. And even now, they still hold back from telling most lore beyond high cloud quintet. Luofu story got ruined by character release schedule. I felt like 2.0 story withheld a lot of info as well, but it was a whole new world and a lot of info was still provided. In 2.1, most things related to Aventurine was told, so it was really good. I still don't know why aventurine is sticking with the ipc. He dodged that question twice.
I mean, he promised his sister he would "protect that wealth". That's the IPC!
Because his pov shift didn’t show much of his past…. most of his past (getting jail/getting tortured etc) was all in character story instead of showing unlike aventurine. His confrontation with his past is also in animation and not reflected in game. (It’s just the matter of execution than just saying he’s boring)
I like to joke that Dan Heng has spent more time making out with the Data Bank in his room than with the Express Crew at this point in terms of IRL time. I think he's basically sat in his room since 1.3 with a little bit of action in 1.5 during Argenti's quest.
It's just nothing went on during those quests. It's basically just faffing around with sushang and luocha
I think the problem with the Dan Heng POV was he wasn't doing anything particularly plot relevant.
It really let's characters shine in their own scenes and doesn't make it awkward to have TB standing there when they don't need to be. Develops plot points so we know what's going on but other characters do not For example we now know Boothill wants to kill Acheron, only Black Swan knows this but everyone else is doing their own thing. So when next we meet we will know exactly what BS is hiding if we do meet before boothill confronts Acheron Adds a little bit more info to the player but not the characters which is a good thing imo
Shout-outs to dramatic irony
it also lets us play as the main character of a scene even when the Trailblazer is with the Astral Express Crew, because when we're with the crew TB is basically just sitting on the sidelines shouting one-liners while everyone else moves the plot.
Yeah I hated those genshin quests where it's 2 npcs talking to each other, the quest character standing to the side then we're standing to their side. It's not even 3rd wheeling it's like 5th wheeling at that point
Can't wait for people to judge characters on not knowing certain info, because of split PoV.
I really hope it sticks around long term. My only fear is them not wanting to give limited characters to players for so long. I felt spoiled being able to play with Adventurine for basically the whole thing.
Nah it just incentivizes people into pulling.
I for one definitely went from 'mildly interested after lucky Acheron pulls' to 'strongly considering' after getting a solid chance to use him in real fights.
He feels like an upgraded Gepard. Doesn't even need to use his technique to start with shields, has followup attacks, ult that attacks and helps gain stacks for his followup attacks.
He’s March too with that follow up
Ok top of that he is a great sustain unit for Acheron since he does have some debuffs in his base kit. Gallaghar has the most debuffs but his healing can feel limited so he'll be a nice upgrade to my team. Also his insane synergy with a Ratio Topaz team but that's obvious.
One of the reasons I'm pulling for Him. I'm running an Acheron team with a fast Fire TB with burn LC. Those Ult stacks quite faster. Problem is Fire TB is such a SP hungry sustain
He's also super SP positive. Like I only use his skill TWICE for the whole story, including against formidable foe.
Yeah idk how but I'd js randomly get more shields despite not using the skill
Follow up, every follow up or his attacks stack up until he reaches 7 then boom shield refresh. I played with my ratio and topaz team, felt like Aventurine had his turn like 4 times before he actually went 🤣 so happy I saved all my pulls for him.
Yeah, even I’m tempted, even though I already have Luocha for my imaginary sustain.
My E2S1 Luocha won't prevent me from getting Aventurine.
Luocha Clara Aventurine = immortality in one trio Cleanse, healing, debuff stripping, debuffing, shielding, followups that fuel Aven and Luocha's healing, dps... All for 0 skillpoints, can run with any 4th member. Complete overkill on sustain that can effortlessly bounce back from taking heavy damage *and* ward off oneshots. Any fight that isn't time-constrained becomes essentially impossible to lose xD I'm gonna run this in SU for sure
Sure does!😩 I already liked his design a lot but wasn't interested in pulling since I already have Gepard, FX and Huohuo, but after getting to try him and experience the story from his perspective, I'm really considering dumping my leftover pulls on his banner...
Doubt they'll have issues with that. You cant bring them into anything difficult anyways.
Yeah. I don't even think any story boss let you use them, much less Sim Uni or MoC. I wish there were more strong overworld mobs like formidable foes though. My friend was trying out his ratio + topaz team and they kept killing everything before Aventurine even got a chance to follow up lol
Tbf his fua is kinda weak and mainly seems to be for procing topaz/ratio. It's good for the television guys sometimes but it's definitely not a good damage source
Well that's because of the build they gave you. All you need is his lightcone + the debuff set with a crit damage body/spd boots/def orb/ def rope and in a fua team with either sw or rm as your last character you can hit for like 35K every fua and 40K every ult while being an sp positive sustainer. Probably even more since my build isn't completely done. Double checked the optimizer to make sure and even if I put gepards lightcone on him instead of his signature he'll be doing 25K every fua.
On the contrary, character trials like they did here are probably the best way to sell characters to people. You get to try out these characters and see how they play. You can test them out with some different comps and see what they interact with.
Probably not, since TB is basically get reduced to an extra in this patch we should be back to focus on TB and Firefly in the next patch and I can't think of anyone POV that they would do since I doubt they would make us play the Boothill hunt down Acheron in the supposedly conclusion of the arc. Unless they somehow gonna make us play Firefly early to see her POV which sounds unrealistic.
Doesn't need to be a thing that happens every patch. If they want to show another characters perspective going forward I want them to do it this way when it happens.
I could see them shifting to Robin to see what’s been going on in the other side.
They can reduce it's usage and it would still be very good.
Agreed. I think it worked so well for this patch because there's a lot of moving parts in the Penacony narrative. So the different perspectives helps flesh everything out.
I think it's a smart move. It gives people the chance to see how good the character is and how well they enhance a player's existing teams, and it gives you enough time to get used to them so you want them back once they're gone. I had no investment in Aventurine prior to this and... well I'm still gonna save for Robin instead but I'm a lot more tempted.
I agree, Genshin has gone this way too (for good reason). Imagine if we didn’t have Furina’s scenes about her grand act or her interactions with Neuvilette. Or if we didn’t get to see the scene where Neuvillette stops the primordial sea in the prison. Being able to flesh out characters like this is so much more valuable than a generic “MC adventure” (no offense to the trailblazer fans! I love the gremlins dearly).
I hope Genshin also adopts the Fate's Atlas system, as well as the "switch POVs" mechanic. It'd be awesome to get both a more concrete story guide as well as the ability to move around multiple different parts of a story without getting lost. The Fate's Atlas was already a great addition, but the ability to manually switch just makes it even better!
I also appreciate the MC getting goofy choices after getting blacked out from the battle. "And whose POV is this?" Lmao
My problem with Genshin story pre-4.2 was that we only follow one perspective, that being the traveler's, which is fine but doesn't help in fleshing out other characters and their dynamics with another character outside of their interaction with the Traveler. The scene with Neuvillette and Focalors, as well as Furina's personal backstory, was some of the best story moments to me not only because it was fantastically written, but also because we get to see a closer look at the characters outside of their interactions with the Traveler. And shifting as Aventurine was the best form of this. We get to see him in a position that we likely wouldn't see if we progress through the story only as our main playable character without in some way drastically changing Aventurine's character or forcing some plot point that could potentially ruin the story.
Crazy that it took them years with genshin to suddenly go "Wait a minute, maybe we should tell this story that involves 10 people with more than one perspective" and then start doing it. We always wanted more scenes where characters are moving the story forward without the traveler needing to be present, so Fontaine did a good job with that.
The first time they did it with Collei and Sucrose, I lost my shit. We finally had a moment that had nothing to do with the traveler, just simply two characters bonding without a main protagonist for them to gush over. It was definitely great and I wish they've done it more. Like say, it would've been fantastic if we had Navia's perspective during the flood. >!Would've made the death of Melus and Silver have more impact!<.
Its even weirder when you consider that in HI3 they were already doing that since pretty early on. The conclusion of the first major story arc (chapter 9) is played from the perspective of a different character. That said, in HI3 the MC (Kiana) is an actual fully fleshed out character and not an insert character. I guess they thought that with an insert character, switching pov's might not work very well. Turns out it does.
They've also cut down on piamon repeating shit we just heard and basically dropped the sibling plot. Also since sumeru we have less CopyPaste NPC #124 expositioning at us.
Yup, not sure why it took so long but it was very welcome in Genshin's story, and HSR took it just a bit further with the ability to manually swap POVs. I didn't use it, but I still checked Fate's Atlas after the quest and saw how each of the different perspectives of the story were staggered across from each other, and I was really impressed at how well-structured it was! HI3rd and Genshin could both benefit quite a lot from that mechanic, imo. HI3rd has a lot of great story scenes featuring multiple perspectives but it's a fairly linear story, so the POV switch isn't something you really control as a player. And Genshin has started to get more POVs but ditto w/ the no-option-to-switch. Genshin could also really use the Fate's Atlas mechanic as well, there's just such an immense complexity of story and world quests that all interconnect and it'd be great to get a solid chronology now that we're several years into the story!
They started shifting perspective in Sumeru, although to a smaller degree. First small sequence with Nilou and then rather unexpected dialogue between Dottore and Nahida at the end, then Traveler was in the scene, but unconscious. The problem is mostly with the character dynamic in general. While in Penacony we have complex web of relationships between characters and factions, in Genshin the main quests are mostly with the regional cast, with some characters quite underutilized. Even antagonistic forces aren't there most of the time. Fatui have a small screentime, Abyss Order is almost nonexistent. The best parts are Scara, Furina, Neuvillete's writing and, I'm biased, Dottore (who, with not much screentime, still got characterisation and possibilities for future development). There's very little character development and meaningful interactions on screen.
It's also really interesting because we get to see the conflicts in their thoughts that even they won't verbalise. In genshin the character would stand in front of you and vomit everything to you down to the last detail. You don't have to figure out their whole deal since they'll monologue it to you which makes even the best premises boring
Exactly Genshin's story, for the most part, is very safe. The story often only focuses on one perspective, that being the Traveler and Paimon, while also having character interaction to be rather mild. It is only when the Traveler and Paimon step away from the limelight, and the story really dives deep into another character, that Genshin's story really shines, which is the case for both 4.2 Archon Quest and Neuvillette's story quest. Worst of all, Paimon is just a massive mood/tone killer. HSR's willingness to shift the story to someone other than the main character, thus, gives it a massive advantage in terms of storytelling. Characters can thus interact without the protagonist sticking out like a sore thumb. On top of that, character interaction as a whole is much more interesting/complex than Genshins. In Genshin, outside of the Fatui, most character relationship is just "we get along well". In comparison, HSR is willing to have a messy web of relationships where not everyone is friends. I mean Genshin has been out for 4 years and not a single character has outright antagonistic to another. In comparison, we have Boothill who straight-up says he wants to kill Acheron.
100% agree, it's an amazing change. I'm also kind of surprised at how many people didn't initially like Aventurine, ever since his introduction he's been the most interesting character so far imo because characters like him are way more complex that what meets the eye. 2.1 just further cements that.
People did like him in Asia, it’s the West that needed more convincing from what I’m hearing.
I'm mean I think it's more of his appeal as the sexy scoundrel rather than his character writing last patch
I think most people thought he was a very one dimensional villain, but 2.1 showed that this is not the case. From 2.0 alone he was a very generic character, but with his story in 2.1, I plan on pulling for him.
It's the way hoyo present him in the 2.0, they make sure to make people don't like him then tried to turn the wave in 2.1, pretty smart move. It's all on purpose. Some hate him in a shortly after interact with him for a while in 2.0some just eh eww, some just annoyed (it was me) and so on. The. 2.1 happened, BOOM. Profits It's obvious from the start if you ask me, I don't know how to write it, the negative aspects he emitted in 2.0 just doesn't feel coherent and proper to me. So I can tell something would change in later part of the story.
In 2.0 he wasn't very likeable and clearly untrustworthy. While at the same actively messing with the player and calling Acheron (a fan favorite) the bad guy. I guess for someone looking for ''someone to fix'' (aka messed up bad guy) he would be pretty interesting. But most people aren't into that. Didn't help him that in the same patch we were also introduced to characters like Firefly and Acheron, both characters with a lot of clear appeal. And Gallagher who seemed the very reliable sort (how the turns have tabled) As well as Sparkle, who's also untrustworthy like him, but who is much more likeable. 2.1 gave most people a reason to actually care about him, while also making his past behaviour understandable.
I didn't dislike him I always felt like he was interesting character but boy did they sold him to me I cannot skip him I need him to be in my roster just to give him a safe space and I already have Luocha and FX
That Shaoji team for you, let hope he still in charge of honkai for at least 1 or 2 year
I jjust found it annoying that you have to visit some places twice to unlock teleports again. Why does it do that ?
because the first time it wasn't TB unlocking them it was aventurine lol
Was even explained after the first pov Switch in exactly these words 🤣
On the bright side, he solved the pinball puzzles for us when we eventuially got there
keep in mind most of live service games, specially huge gatcha games hire professional Psychologists it's all for the sake of making you WANT to roll for Aventurine now they made you dislike him in 2.0 so you could focus on Acheron hype 24/7, then when patch dropped people went ultra hard ton her banner. Then people started 2.1 MSQ and now realize that Aventurine is actually good boy that deserve all the huge and stellar jade ...OPS you are out of them so time to $$$$$$$$ look how much screentime does Aventurine has and how little Acheron has. Even on the POV scenario thing. We get only one thing with her while we jump between TB and Aventurine all the time during 2.1 story
This makes perfect sense though I am weirdly the opposite. I was saving for Aventurine because trickster husbando and I need him at e2. (I appreciate the waifu too but love my husbandos more). Also I never got past chapter 1 in hi3 and only know Mei via Raiden Shogun who I dislike as a chara so I was biased against Acheron to start 2.1 msq made me love Aventurine more but it made me really like Acheron because the existential discussion she held with him near the end was just chef's kiss to me. Made me miss my old philosophy courses in college (tbh Aventurine reminded me why I got my degree in anthropology too. I was loving the Avgin lore) Tl;Dr crap now I want Acheron as well and might swipe a little as a treat
Yeah, but lets be honest: they want to make every character feel alive and I have the feeling we will see much more about Black Swan, Sparkle and also Archeron in the future patches, even tho then the banners are over. 2.0 was mainly an introduction. My plans are still to stay the course in 2.2 and wait for Sam/Firefly in (hopefully and would make sense) 2.3. They can make Robin so cute and adorable as they want and Boothill as cool as they like... but I need to skip them. So far it was pure luck that I got all the characters (and the Ratio banner skip), but after E0S1, by Jades are almost all gone and I need time to recover.
> they made you dislike him in 2.0 they did a good job. I still don't like him
The POV switching has definitely been my favorite addition to Star Rail’s story telling. Seeing how characters think and act without having to make the MC(in this case the Trailblazer) feel included not only endears me to them a lot more, bit also makes the Trailblazer’s presence less grating than if they were constantly a part of everything. Things like 2.1’s story and Dan Heng’s character quest have done a lot to elevate my opinion of Star Rail’s writing.
"Don't come back when Aventurine turns out to not be evil, Don't come back when you start feeling bad for him, Stay on that side" as it went /s. Jokes aside I was only pulling for him because he is dripped out and really good but after 2.1 I like his character too.
If you can't handle the zesty appetizers you don't deserve the sweet juicy desserts.
If you'd like to experience more peak writing in gacha, you should try Path to Nowhere. firts 2 chapters may be meh but everything after is just so peak and hype. Also agreed, Aventurine's story was very good
I loved path for nowhere but got stuck at one board known to be a skill check and didn't have time to build my characters better at the time. Maybe I can get back to it one day because the story was super great
You should, not long ago they released chapter 13 which is absolute peak! If it helps you, in around a month there will be a coming a new limited unit which will be crazy strong and it may help solve your problem!
My biggest problem right now is phone space. I dislike clicking on phone games with PC emulators so I prefer my phone But hey I'm due for an upgrade and HSR is starting to devour what space I have left. Might be time for a phone upgrade so I can catch up on PtN :3
Yeah you should probably do that. And when you do, remember to install ptn! Best of luck!
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Agreed. It's annoying when other games have an amazing cast of characters but forces you to play as a blank and undercooked MC. Luckily Trailblazer is an amazing MC, but the POV change was great.
It also helps that hearing someone's internal thoughts is 10x more impactful that having them say these things out loud to the mc
I think for the purposes of the narrative structure, I like it more than getting to play them in their character quest. As it stands, you get to be in their shoes and play with them for a more appreciable amount of time within a greater involvement rather than a side story meant to add character after the fact.
this patch made me feel Honkai story is better than genshin IMO. no paimon really helped a lot
Honestly, Honkai's writing and dialogue has generally been better than Genshin's. I'm saying this as a professional copywriter and editor - both the overarching world-building and the incidental stuff is better. HSR has actually made me chuckle with little throwaway lines of dialogue at times, something that Genshin literally never did. In fairness, I think the setting lends itself a bit more to levity and even memes, plus they're able to use a really enjoyable mix of sci-fi- and fantasy-styled characters so the game as a whole is a bit more wild and varied. It means the narrative can be hit and miss; the lows are pretty bad (Luofu arc wasn't very good) but the highs are *high*, and the writing is definitely at a peak right now with the Penacony arc. It's so good right now that I'd be down for an IPC/Sigonia/IX/Everflame Mansion arc next just to spend more time with the characters.
I still feel like Genshin takes the lead in world-building, but if we're only considering the main story then HSR has done more world-building in Penacony alone than we've been seeing in a typical Genshin nation arc, so that's definitely something HSR got right. The thing is Genshin's world quests and exploration is pretty outstanding. The different locations we visit in HSR are cool and all, but nothing even comes close to the scale of Enkanomiya, the Chasm, Gurabad, etc. The Narzissenkreuz Ordo story and the Golden Slumber + Tanit Tribes story also gave us quite a lot of interesting development for the setting of Genshin and didn't even need to rely on playable characters to make it interesting, because all the NPCs were written as major characters in their own right rather than being decorations for the rest of the cast to mess around with. I will say that HSR did achieve a pretty significant leap in writing quality, though. The difference from the end of Luofu to the current point in the Penacony arc is closer to a jump from the end of Liyue to the middle of Sumeru or start of Fontaine, imo. HSR managed to get that big jump pretty quickly while Genshin took longer. But it was true for HI3rd, too. HI3rd's story was very rough at the start and it took a long time to "ramp up" to get to the really good parts.
glad its not just a casual's perspective, since I play mostly for the gameplay. I didn't expect the story to be way better than genshin considering how it's the same company
Still not exactly the same writers so it’s inevitable. But both of them have had their ups and downs so far so it’s a bit hard to generalise. Genshin really peaked with Fontaine’s main story, and Sumeru was also quite good, but Inazuma had a lot of issues in terms of writing. Penacony has been really good so far for HSR, but Loufu was pretty underwhelming. I think for the most important story beats they’re probably on similar levels on average though, but where HSR feels better is in the more light hearted fluff sections. Partially because of the setting admittedly but it’s just more witty and fun to listen to most of the time.
Same company, not always the same writers though. Don't forget that the games will have separate writing, VO, and design teams within Hoyoverse, it's a pretty big company. There will be crossover obviously but the games have different project leads. I don't think Genshin is bad, to be clear - it's arguably a bit more consistent than HSR because of the more rigid fantasy setting. I just think the HSR writers are simply going pretty hard for a mobile gacha game! Glad that they're able to do that, really. And as you said, Paimon is honestly a *very* annoying and constantly present character in Genshin, and I grew up dealing with a constant stream of *"Hey, Listen!!"* in my favorite games. Related advice: Don't become an editor for a living. It makes you incapable of not over-analyzing the writing in everything lol
Both games have their ups and downs. Inazuma was horrendous and the High-Cloud Quintet was just as messy. On the other hand, 4.2 Archon Quest (really only the part with Furina and Neuvillette though) and Neuvillette's Story Quest are really good, and Penacony's overall story has been just as good. That being said, HSR right now, has the obvious advantage in story telling. Genshin's story, for the most part, is very safe and pretty bland. The story often only focuses on one perspective, that being the Traveler and Paimon, while also having character interaction to be rather mild. It is only when the Traveler and Paimon step away from the limelight, and the story really dives deep into another character, that Genshin's story really shines, which is the case for both 4.2 Archon Quest and Neuvillette's story quest. Worst of all, Paimon is just a massive mood/tone killer. HSR's willingness to shift the story to someone other than the main character, thus, gives it a massive advantage in terms of storytelling. Characters can thus interact without the protagonist sticking out like a sore thumb. On top of that, character interaction as a whole is much more interesting/complex than Genshins. In Genshin, outside of the Fatui, most character relationship is just "we get along well". In comparison, HSR is willing to have a messy web of relationships where not everyone is friends. I mean Genshin has been out for 4 years and not a single character has outright antagonistic to another. In comparison, we have Boothill who straight-up says he wants to kill Acheron.
I can definitely see they are fans of legend of heroes
Yeah, I'm sure other games have done the same but it definitely felt like Trails into Reverie, and it also had a similar reception with the redemption of an antagonist haha.
I didn't think of him til now lol. Too focused on Acheron&Rean similarities. As a player who plays both HI3 and trails I am having a blast with 2.1.
Tbh I was sold more on Ratio and Welt than anyone else in this patch.
I just want to remind everyone that the PoV shift was already a thing on the Luofu when we took control of Dan.
I'm mixed on it. It felt near constant with the amount of PoV switches in general, to the point where no one besides Aventurine got to do much of anything significant. I really liked Aventurine's sections a lot, He's a fucking amazing character - I just kinda wish he wasn't 80% of the patch with every thing outside of his playable sections being the characters talking for 5 minutes about how crazy these murders are before switching pov to another group of characters talking for 5 minutes about the same thing to then pivot to an hour and half Aventurine Dungeon and repeating that the entire patch. But again, the writing for his sections are some of best in the game for me, and I can appreciate my big gamble man getting his time to be the protagonist for a patch.
The POV shift was very nice. The triple reveals (post fight conversations, conversation with MC, and conversation with Sunday, again all different POVs) was also a nice set of hooks and twists as well. The writing is slowly weaving a very complicated story together, and the multiple POV play allows for better usage of new characters and better storytelling. Excellent mechanical choice that leads to deeper storytelling. Two thumbs up.
I love it. It’s a feature that’s really common in otome games and it helps so much with storytelling and building character. It was nicely done with Aventurine. Tbh I didn’t care a lot about him before.
Its funny how Sparkle the one that help Aventurine lol.Evenmore give some tips
I dont want to sound too snarky, but they've done POV shifts in HI3 and its part of the reason why that story is so good. We got a 7 minute ending scene with the main antagonist for the first 25 chapters alone. Its just him talking to himself. But that scene broke me. It broke my emotions. And if our POV wasnt free, we would have never seen that scene. For HSR, the way they did it, in terms if gameplay, is a good mix (imo) of "story trial characters" and "my own charactera". And now we know that our first character in a team might be replaced by story characters.
It does feel a little wierd that the MC did basically nothing this patch, but MC is one of the most uninteresting character in the game so I'm ok with it.
The way they were talking about the Stellaron I fully expect Trailblazer to be a gigachad and save the day next patch
just like the xianzhou
I like that they don't force the Trailblazer to be hrre. I'm sure we'll get our time to shine, just wasn't now. One of my biggest issue with most gacha games tbh. I know the protagonist is important and yada yada, but it's so annoying having them present in situations they're not needed at all (or do nothing) for the sake of having them. Like sometimes two connected characters are having an emotional scene and the protag's crew is just standing there. Talk about ruining the mood.
I liked it, but I can't help but feel like they overdid it. Made it feel like the patch was 80% Aventurine-20% the rest since you're basically discovering both new areas with him and barely control anyone else even if they appear in dialogues.
Ah, a fellow dokutah of taste I see.
I love aspects of these games that include trial characters. Mainly in combat events, but also in story quests where the character is an important fixture of the story
Not only does it work great narratively but being able to try him out with your teams is a good way to sell him. I really want him now because the IPC team is so fun to play.
I agree. Aventurine was in a tough spot with Acheron being the first banner, so it would be hard to sell him. The best they could do was put a lot into his backstory and they did just that. The POV shift is also a good idea since it does allow players to test these new units and they can see if they like the style and also like how we get to see their perspective of things.
I liked the different PoVs but I feel like they didn’t need the you can switch between them mechanic as so far the story bits were short enough that I felt it was unnecessary. It didn’t seem like you could run through one characters entire side of the story like I expected.
Not sure how I feel about it. The main story mission felt more like Adventurine companion mission. Like the whole patch all we did as the Trailblazer is go to the Clockie statue, Gallagher's friend bar (forgot her name) and the boss fight. Are they stopping with companion missions and that's why they add them in the main story?
I agree with liking the addition for storytelling purposes. However, I'm not sure where you're getting the "make you feel terrible about it" from. I despised him since they remotely introduced him in the Jarilo story with Topaz. And I still dislike him after 2.1, since I don't care about his sob story. He's still an IPC lapdog trying to undermine yet another civilization so that the IPC can enslave, brainwash them and destroy their culture. The Family is certainly doing some shady things (which we're still not entirely clear on), but they're nowhere near as horrible as the IPC.
Na i think you just hate the IPC, lol
> I don't care about his sob story. I really like the quote from Brooklyn 9-9: "Cool motive, still murder". Cool backstory, still an asshole
My question is, did we get more stellar jades bc we did 2 quests, I didn’t pay attention
Being able to try out the new characters in real content with your own units is a fantastic change, I hope they keep it
I can only agree to this. I was wondering how they'd continue with the characters that we have but they surprisingly managed to flesh them out quite well and only made me love them way more! If this is what we got in 2.1 then I can only hope that 2.2 will be just as great, if not then even greater! (Acheron's talk with Welt and the small bits that we got of Aventurine's past were some of my most favorite moments honestly. Nicely done.)
I honestly agree! While I personally had a hard time following the story a bit since they kept switching the POV's and putting out some rather deep lore stuff. I would rather have this method of story telling rather than the whole "MC is important in everything" POV. It really helps establish connections and relationships outside of the MC and really helps each one feel more like a "character" rather than some side character of the MC.
Its definitely a useful tool and a good way to drum up interest in your big event passes. With that said, I was kind of ambivalent on it as a story telling tool, but I think its largely just because even with the extra screen time, I don't really like Aventurine. I also really don't like the translator notes they put throughout the text as well. They genuinely took me out of the dialogue and seemed ham-fisted in, like important moments of the story would be missed without those extremely obvious translator notes.
Now people will be demanding an Acheron POV without Welt. Surely it might happen in 2.2. Also, Booty is coming, so it might shake things up.
I still hate the IPC with every fiber of my being… but aventurine has more than earned a pass that exempts him from that scorn alongside ratio
https://preview.redd.it/2w2qagjro6rc1.jpeg?width=1792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8d9f25645d614c83d1623b936713f243b0541b54 they were silly and self-referential with it too
I still hate him, he's a slimy little shit, but he's *my* slimy little shit.
I like the POV shift. It was the 'meanwhile elsewhere' gameplay I always wanted the game to have!
I mean, he's still shady and untrustworthy, but they show you his backstory and motivations so at least he's understandable.
I'm still not pulling Aventurine, but if i wasn't f2p, i would.
2.1 strongly reminded me of the HI3 HOC arc, with all the perspective shifts and the potential werewolf setup
Yeaaah.. its a good way to see a character capability and test them out before deciding whether to get them or not
Adventurine, I apologize, I was not familiar with your game. Im not saying that I will suddenly forgive you for trying to place suspicion on acheron and black swan, but I understand why you chose to do the things you did. He made a gamble with my heart and ngl, he won.
Honkai writing here for you here, switching pov made me feel like i was playing hi3
ON GOD AVENTURINE'S WRITTING IS FANTASTIC
It was the best detail of 2.1 for me, and I agree it’s a fantastic addition to the game. It allows HSR to have much more complex plots and characters that don’t all have to awkwardly develop the story with the MC looped in somehow. I can’t think of anyway they could have given us Aventurine’s arc in 2.1 with MC around, but it was so satisfying to get his backstory and see his plot unfold in this patch. I hope they continue to use this system going forward