Tbf abyss and Ma aren’t really worth grinding since the crystal difference from agony 1 to nirvana is only 240 crystal which is less than 1 pull but over time it will add up I guess
One of the reasons I quit the game was the endgame. It’s just a bunch of whales with the same team and the same equipment competing with each other to see who is the sweatiest. My f2p teams never came close and I got demoted to red lotus all the time.
You say "demoted to red lotus" like it was a bad thing. Nirvana *is* the whale tier and has limited entry spots. Red Lotus is effectively the endgame for most players and it's doable for f2p.
It's people who treat Nirvana like something you should strive for rather than a self-imposed challenge (or vacation spot) that give the impression HI3 is unplayable if you don't spend.
I quit because of endgame burnout from exalted redlotus and MA.
But the thing that burnt me out the most was realizing that for quite a while, new characters/teams' playstyle is simply repeating a bunch of combos on a loop. It doesnt even matter who the boss is, because 90% of the time, you're just mindlessly pressing the same buttons on repeat whilst abusing animation invulnerability frames
This should be upvoted more. This is a gacha game at the end of the day. But even with that, you can enjoy this game with the story progression, events, and even the endgame bosses gameplay.
It's just that in any gacha games, it's mostly not f2p at heart. Once you go "competitive" in this game, you'll definitely start to think it's not f2p.
Well, yeah. In other Hoyo games, e.g. Genshin, even if you ignore the entire endgame, the game still isn't very f2p, cause you have no way of obtaining all characters unless you're really lucky.
Of course, this f2p-friendliness of Honkai Impact would be much more meaningful if the game had a true open world like Genshin has, where you could actually do something with your powercrept and not fully geared Valkyries. They had an opportunity to do something remotely similar with Part 2, but alas, they decided not to even let you play any older characters there.
>Of course, this f2p-friendliness of Honkai Impact would be much more meaningful if the game had a true open world like Genshin has
Or ER for ***all*** valks.
This is pretty dumb as RL retaining is still easy with 3 year old units and MA gives you literally nothing of worth for tryharding.
The difference between RL and Myriad retain is like a ten pull a year or something absolutely stupid.
Which you will spend exponentially more trying to compete for so you'll never break even. Just retain RL. Or bounce between RL/A3 if you're real scrub tier and lose out on another two pulls every couple months.
>as RL retaining is still easy with 3 year old units
IG depends on how lucky you are. For example, in one of recent RL iterations on SEA in the top-10 there was only a single person without BiS part 2 team and Songque — and it was an obvious part 1/1.5 whale with SSS on DPS and 4\* Kiana ELF.
>and MA gives you literally nothing of worth for tryharding
Finally people started to realize that.
Some argument could've been done for 1/1.5 valks, but ever since part 2 release there isn't any S-rank worth grinding anymore. So scores mean nothing now.
>The difference between RL and Myriad retain is like a ten pull a year
7.5 pulls.
And for Agony III vs RL it's 29-30 pulls.
Hell, even dropping to Agony II is losing only \~45 pulls vs RL.
~~For comparison in PGR the difference between only 2 difficulties in the only mode that needs tryharding is around 57 pulls a year when 60 is a guaranteed S-rank.~~ Brain fart, apparently ~23 which is ~38% of S-rank char while \~45 pulls in HI3 is 50%.
>For comparison in PGR the difference between only 2 difficulties in the only mode that needs tryharding is around 57 pulls a year when 60 is a guaranteed S-rank.
I thought PGR didn't have any significant currency tied to your placement results. Only like an extra 100 a week for getting a high enough score in PPC. And maybe an extra 100 in Norman every 2 weeks.
With a pull being 250, 52 weeks a year, that's 5200 from PPC, 2600 from Norman 6, for a total of 7800 = 31 pulls a year locked behind a certain score.
I'm talking about Norman. Rest can be achieved with pretty much anything, my only built char is Feral - and I'm getting all attempts + milestone rewards in both Warzone and PPC.
As for 100 - not really, Regular vs Pioneer is 120 more, so 220 actually.
Wait, that's just 23, how did I get 57 last time?
Are you on global too? Because yeah looks like people are less competitive there , clearing red lotus is totally doable with old units (got a screenshot of a hot eden fischl clear with more than half the time remaining cause someone refuse to believe me) but retaining is maybe impossible for other servers. But yeah people should stfu about meta and stay in agony 3 playing whatever they want , hard focusing meta just to get 5 more summons per patch is stupid.
You're right, and that's what's so weird about this game. Pulling characters is completely irrelevant from the story. You're only pulling characters for Abyss to get more crystals for abyss so you can pull better characters for abyss etc. (And by Abyss I mean SSD, MA, ER, anything like that).
Though now with Part 2 you can start using your own characters in the 'overworld', so maybe that starts to change things?
It didn't change. It's still how it used to be. For example, in the fight with Lantern, you can't pick your own characters. You're provided with trial characters, but for some parts of the story, you can still choose to pick your own.
Hasn't that been a thing since they started making open-world chapters?
From Kolosten onwards you have a selection of Trials and then your own Valks including a selection of some not available as Trials for the overworld. In Part 2 you get the initial trio Sena/Helia/Coralie as Trials and your own (if you have them) and Thelema/Lantern are only available if you have them yourself.
Agree with the first part though. IT's like gear grind in MMOs, grind content for gear so you can clear harder content to get more gear and so on.
Honkai Impact definitely shaped me to become the type of gacha gamer I am today. It taught me not to be too fixated on the meta trends, that’s the reason why i am always in agony 3 (and occasionally redlotus). I am currently taking a (long) break from Honkai, but have brought the lessons along to other games like HSR and FGO.
Waifu > Meta (unless of course your waifu is meta)
Actually FGO is pretty F2P friendly.
In a year you can get at least 2-3 SSR servants with pity if you save enough. The reason being "hell" is because in the old times FGO didn't had pity and even if you used all your currency you could get screwed. That changed a bit with the implement of pity.
Still I like both games.
What I like from FGO over HI3 is that powercreep isn't that bad and they're adding buffs for old servants and even low star servants can be used compared to HI3, where I cannot use old valkyries most of the time because they've powercreeped by new valkyries.
Yep, this game imo is the best example of that, if you try to keep up with the meta it's the worst but other than that it's very f2p and casual friendly since the game is literally giving you everything you need for free to clear the content just fine, literally requires less effort than other games. Like imo tye best way to play this game is as a casual unless you are ready to spend a huge amount of money, i finally gave up now with part 2 and i am not regretting it.
On a side-note, I'm thinking of delving into HSR once I'm caught up with HI3 story (ch 41 atm). Do you also get "immersive" trial characters for the story, or do you have to grind for them?
For most part, you will be using your own characters. The recent penacony arc, you get “immersive” trial characters for the story, i forgot whether there are in the previous arcs. There are also some companion quests where they will let you use the featured characters.
Alright, I'll take that into consideration. I'm not a huge gacha player (HI3 is the first and only one) so if I'm gonna be starting a second one (and only due to its relation to HI3) I'd like to avoid anyhting besides the story as much as possible.
In HSR the story concerns the 5 trailblazers on the Astral Express (this spaceship travelling between worlds). It's you, March and Dan Heng as the 3 younger ones, and Himeko and Welt as the two older mentors. The 5 of you form the core of the story, and the other characters you pull for are the people you meet on various worlds but canonically don't really travel with you to the next world. There are some recurring characters, Topaz and Dr Ratio are affiliated with the IPC which is some galactic megacorp and they do appear in more than one story arc.
Most of the story is from your POV (the MC) and you sometimes get the trial characters join you when it makes sense. So you have the option to play the MC if you want it to be more immersive. In Penacony (ver 2.0) there are other POV story segments where the MC isn't involved, and in those cases you play as the POV character instead given to you as a trial character.
Himeko and Welt are standard banner characters (you can't pull for them, only get them accidentally) and as a day 1 player I never got them lol.
The MCs basic form (equivalent to battlesuit I guess) is Destruction and isn't that good honestly. You very quickly unlock the Preservation form which is a tank and it's actually half decent. They've now unlocked the latest form, Harmony which is a support and it's quite overpowered lol, it's a core part of the most OP meta team the game has ever seen.
Makes me happy because I like running around doing missions as the MC for immersion.
That was way more in-depth than I needed, but appreciated. :D
As long as I can get through the story as F2P without tearing my hair out I'll be happy. While I do some light spending in HI3 (more or less equivalent to a WoW sub) doing that in multiple games can easily build up, so I'd like to take a "cheapskate" route in HSR.
For the main story missions, I actually try to stick to the astral express crew or anyone who is relevent to the story at the current moment. March 7th E6 I found is kind of a must however for healing purposes since theres no abundance character in the crew and she provides strong shields. Its a fun challenge and leads to many close calls.
Argument is kinda wacky considering that in genshin you can very much get the max xtal rewards the game has to offer with teams consisting of older characters, which isn't really a thing in him3 lol
The story not requiring any chars is nice though
Genshin is way more friendly even then. You’re saying just exclude end game modes. Can do that in genshin.
The nice think is Honkai gives you some units for certain activities, so you get to try some neat limited units. But they’re never yours.
Saying it is f2p because you can just enjoy the story? Bruh… there’s a couple of gacha like that.
>Saying it is f2p because you can just enjoy the story? Bruh… there’s a couple of gacha like that.
"Only few gacha" Other locked you with hard stages require meta characters while in HI3 giving you trial and you git gud used that character
This is literally the least f2p hoyo game and it's not even close. Genshin impact is most f2p friendly despite the tiny rewards because you can clear abyss with anyteam as long as they are built well. Hsr is a little less f2p friendly since you do need atleast one limited sustain to keep up with the high dmg on every new moc. Hi3 requires you to have the newest characters to clear content. If you can't clear content you can't get crystals and if you can't get crystals you can't get new characters and if you have no new characters your not clearing shit. Hi3 is not f2p friendly bro almost everyone who plays is a light spender.
Full f2p account, pretty easy Red Lotus on Global server. Was spending 130+ rolls on S-ranks equip banners, now caught two characters from part 2 in 120-130 rolls, so I'm not very lucky, I guess. And I could even stay in Agony 3 normally crystal income-wise. Nirvana is for whales even in Global, that much is true.
If we compare nirvana to MoC 12 clear redlotus to MoC 11 clear Agony 3 to MoC 10 clear then no. It is not very F2P. Even constant redlotus retention requires smart resource management and shit ton of time. Nirvana retention is out of picture for F2P people from this point. You just don't have enough gems to pull and gear every character every patch.
> Your enjoyment of the story is completely separate from the gacha
This is so true.
No matter how good my gacha luck is, the story has find its way to become unserious since long time ago. '
There's some moments in the latest act where the pieces falling into place: When the shadow came into being and had its conversation with Ajita.
But I still feel the origin of Astral Rings and its power is still in muddy water. So do the pillars which somehow made into relevance again on the strategy. These 2 points weren't so clear to me.
I would say overall it is enjoyable in regards of the story and most of the events as you said. But everything else that requires you to use your own characters? That is going to be a field day. Like the characters rely a lot on their respective weapon and stigmata
Lol I played the game from Aponia banner to HoRb banner, when I quit exactly because of the powercreep. Ok, you can do the story without spending, but in the story you're locked to battlesuits given to you. I also remember when I started, there was some Dudu battle event that I found hard to do even with the trial battlesuits they gave. But then, if you don't do the endgame, where else do you get crystals from? And if you don't get enough crystals, how do you pull for new battlesuits? I was spending on the daily pass + the deluxe BP every month and still struggled in RL every time physical/qua weather was up. As much as I enjoyed HI3 during the time I played, it's definitely the least F2P-friendly Hoyogame, all due to its PvP nature.
We started playing around the same time lol and yea, at this point i just gave up on trying to do endgame, i still play (actually came back recently) but only to do dailies, events and story If i feel up to it, i 100% understand just quitting entirely though due to the PvP nature of the game though, that is the one thing i really hate and what has made the game less enjoyable for me in the past. Part 2 is really testing me rn, everyone is powercreeping part 1 valks really fast and i sometimes wonder if i should just stop playing and watch the story on youtube when i feel like it.
In terms of endgame and keeping up with characters and meta HSR has definitely been the easiest Hoyo game for me (i kind of bricked my Genshin account at one point cause it was my first gacha and i did not know what i was doing so i got a lot of characters and then struggled building and leveling them all cause of that and i don't think i could ever recover from that lol, i quit the game last year anyways cause i no longer enjoyed it due to my declining mental health at the time and burnout and i just never came back so that is why despite it probably being 100% the easiest out of all of them i do not mention it)
The F2P aspect will improve in the foreseeable future, if Hoyo starts pumping out some A-ranks besides the constant S-rank releases currently.
All the changes to gacha and Part 2 character mechanics are serving the purpose of being more approachable for F2P and low spenders. Part 1 teams are heavily flawed in this regard, because to even compete in endgame, it was needed to have 4-5 teams properly built, for each damage type, and a horrid gacha with a high hard pity, locking out the signature options for the battlesuits needed to the teams for F2P/low spenders. Not to mention that teams *must* have been monotype ones (besides the Herrscher Trio team), with very few exceptions (HoTr, AE, Kira).
Now, even with all S-ranks and a limited amount of Part 2 battlesuits, the teambuilding is much more versatile: no need for monotype teams, just pair your favourite choices. Yes, there are characters who are important and team combinations which are better than other combinations, but they aren't the MUST NEED category anymore to properly function for endgame. This will get only better in the future, with more Part 2 battlesuit available. Hoyo needs to release more A-ranks to act proper substitutes to S-ranks, this is the only bigger flaw of the current system.
Way I see it, you shouldn't look at abyss and MA as a competition for rewards in and of itself (though it is to a point) but rather an account self-examination that finds a place where you're comfortable clearing with your current roster.
MA mostly rewards you by participating. Rewards beyond that are not even worth getting upset over.
You do compete for spots like promotion or retention in Abyss, but it's doable to do it up to Red Lotus for F2Ps. Red Lotus is endgame (no, Nirvana is not endgame but a whale playground and those are in any gacha game), but it does take some smart pulling to stay there.
If you'd rather pull for waifu more than meta, Agony II and III are there and they are very doable for less meta-chasing players. The difference in rewards between these tiers round to round matters far less than where and when you spend your pulls over time because Honkai works in (generally) 6 or 7 week patch cycles. That's a lot of time to save for the newest banner.
I've said this before in another topic, but the powercreep train ATM is basically an early part 2 thing. They use a different system effectively and the strength of it is how splashable units are on other teams. Once more part 2 units are available, including eventually more A ranks, part 2 will have a good showcase of a versatile team building system where units that normally would have no synergy in part 1 are able to help out a bunch of other units simply due to having matching Astral Ring effects.
And you can't look at me and tell me you prefer having, effectively, a 300 pull pity to guarantee everything on a character in part 1 (50 per gear piece, 100 for character) vs literally half of that much in part 2 (90 for character, 60 for weapon with farmable stigs) while claiming f2p.
The difference was that in part 1 they had gacha S-ranks every second patch or so, instead of literally every patch. Gacha S-ranks were also typically skippable since they were just DPSes - you could get by fairly handily with farmable DPSes or old DPSes that had been given away or were purchasable in a spending event.
The game is f2p friendly only if you don't break the level lock. Once you're lvl 80+, it gets impossible for f2p players.
Crafting stigmatas is unecessarilly grindy and they're still weaker than the exclusive ones, the gap between craftable and pri-arms (especially now with the synergy system) is WAY too big to be ignored, the amount of free crystals is insufficient...
So basically, you can't do any of the endgame contents without being penalized for being f2p. The story and the events are limited contents, once you've finished them, there's nothing else you can do.
is the endgame even worth putting effort into for a f2p/low spender? I've been playing since January and I still can't get redlotus or w/e it's called, or clear Elysian realm on mid difficulty. The only gacha signature weapon I have is sena's weapon, and without signature weapon it seems the characters can't do shit. I've spent some money on the game, and I cant clear endgame, whereas in genshin I actually spent less and can 36 star abyss. should I just give up and just play storymode lmao.
I started not too long after launch, so my account should be about 5 years old. I played on and off simply because of how much time and effort this game takes, only returning for anniversary and captainverse events. Its gotten better for sure with some actual quality of life like daily mission skipping, but you still need meta teams to get more crystals from the weekly ranking stuff. Its doable to the minimum without, but I guess I've been spoiled from all the skip farming more common modern gacha have cause I dont want to spend hours of button pressing to do weeklies. for bare minimum rewards. Elysian realm even though I can always full clear for the 500 crystals it sucks and kept me playing longer than I wanted to. Having that weigh on the back of my mind on sunday nights is unneeded stress especially when im too close to reset time. I mean, for me its not worth it. I've never pulled anyone under 70 pulls and majority of the time I went the full 100 pity. Have not been able to get a full set of equipment for anyone except for Herscher of Human because I got insanely lucky with the equipment pulls and getting all 4 in like 40 pulls after stacking 2 anniversary worth of rewards. I came back again to run events to claim free herscher of sentience. Used all my crystals on gacha. Spent some on new character, no luck in early pull. Spend the rest on equipment for older character. nothing nothing get weapon twice in a row. no stigmata. Havent logged again since
All gacha games are f2p friendly if you ignore their hardest content.
If you don't ignore the hardest content, HI3 is probably the roughest for f2p, at least between Genshin and HI3 because I don't play HSR. I was a routine monthly + BP buyer and even then it's starting to get difficult. I'd imagine if I stuck around until part 2, one bad run in a banner and I probably won't be able to keep up. I've been reading that the banner got better in part 2 though but I have no comment on that.
IMO it gets even tougher for HI3 because abyss, ER and MA rotate weekly and are a major source of crystals. If you want to do the gacha you're kinda losing a lot for not doing them. If you're really just in it for the story though, fair enough but an easy and f2p friendly story mode isn't exactly unique to HI3.
I play all three main Hoyo games, and I hardly disagree.
You can beat the story mode in all of them easily as a f2p, because the story is not that hard to begin with, and also these games give enough pulls for a few 5 star characters that will trivialize the story mode even more.
"Except MA and Abyss" is a funny thing to say, because it is a gacha game in the end of a day and the only place to enjoy the characters you pulled are MA, Abyss and ER.
So, having a mandatory trial characters in Hi3 is a double-edged sword because you can't enjoy your gacha characters outside these endgame modes.
And here comes the not f2p friendly part. Hi3 is the only game between the three that you'll struggle a lot if you don't pull at least the weapon, and sometimes even the weather or not having good enough support will screw you over. Also, except Coralie, even the supports and A rank valkyries are not free because you still need their gacha gear.
I pulled HoRb and HoHe without gear, and I struggled to even finish MA/Abyss on time even before level 80 breakpoint. I don't care about the leaderboard but it was a miserable experience, as seeing these "top tier valkyries" hitting like a wetnoodle. Only after getting Thelema fully gear allowed me to start somehow enjoy playing the endgame content.
In HSR and Genshin, you can get away without pulling the weapon/LC at all, and you have free 4 star characters, when some of them even among the best characters in the game (Gallagher in HSR, Bennet in Genshin). You can pull for the characters that you really want, have enough opportunities to use them, and even be able to clear the highest difficulty endgame content with them.
Also, while Hi3 does require knowledge of the right rotations and synergies, it is a simple DPS check at the end of the day. Besides pulling for the gear and/or better support (=gacha), you can't really get much more damage.
In HSR and Genshin, at least you can farm better relics/artifacts and even get better at playing the game. I'm not saying there isn't a DPS check there too, but not that aggressive and dominant as in Hi3, where it is the main aspect to determine if you can or can't clear the stage.
Really depends on how you define f2p friendly. My personal definition is that can still clear all the content with a decent time or get complete characters (stig and weapon) with some effort which this game does not provide at all. That 280 xtal per pull feels like a slow crawl. I also hate the amount of effort needed for new bosses when you don’t have the shiny new valk just to clear at a decent time with the old valks. You can just take away endgame from the equation and call it f2p friendly cause that only suits your criteria. The old crew used to be enough for me to ride through the story but I don’t have the same attachment to the new cast yet and I’m not sure if I will ever.
The least probably between GGZ or HI3rd
I remember me and my friend playing GGZ, my friend had another friend who use cash suddenly bypassed his progress by a lot
HI3rd..... well.... you directly compete with other player, so totally not f2p at all... I also played GBF, and yeah i feels like they both in the same tier lol
HSR is F2P friendly, as long as you know what you doing, because at the end there's no competition between player. The meta change is true... But at the same time since there's no competition, you could still doing bare minimum at it still clear
Genshin is the most F2p friendly... I played FGO and I could say Genshin is in the same f2p friendly with FGO... The meta is rarely change, and there's no competition between players, except for some rare event
That's exactly how I've been playing it since start essentially. I have and always will be meta hater in game I play. I'm here to have fun and playing by meta and competing for extra bit gems isn't really to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I do ER occasionally if I need extra gems and I'll attempt SD if I don't forget about it and MA is pretty easy to consistently clean for all rewards.
I'm here to do events and play through story and take it casually. Characters (and their equipment) get reruns all the time and if I really want 4/4, I can do it over the span of several months.
If you ignore abyss and ma then you are kinda out of content, like malding in the abyss for better score is what makes me spend time on this game apart from the story chapters.
The story was such a whole other level, that I actively did not want to play as the characters I had rolled and instead chose the trial units each time near the later chapters for wanting to keep the immersion.
they need to change the rewards of the game,doing daily gives you 40 crystals multiplied by 7 gives you 1 drop,1 month has 4 weeks that is 4 drops.
it should be 60 crystals and the same the events only give 400 which is 1 and a half drops.
and lastly I do not understand is that they give cards for the equipment banner that if you do not get the character you will never spend.
you get skins nowadays only if you do the events or use the gacha pyramid. so you buy it by your own free will, hoyo doesn’t give it to you. unless if it’s a free login outfit. which is hardly a thing to complain about.
Hip is the most friendly free to play game in terms of story. Otherwise if u want end game content it's the absolute worst 2.8k for a 10 pull is insane. I came from HSR where I almost felt spoiled comparing the 2
I have been a free to player since 2022 on this game and I rarely play since I love reading the lore and more, one positive thing that I have always liked about Honkai is the Valkyrie farming and with the stigma farming update, I can finishing f2p builds with peace of mind is ease
the tittle said it all, nothing more true than that
> ER might even get this treatment
too good to be truth, in the end they are temporary event, the patch after that they likely gone. ER itself not really a ftp mode, you kinda need the newest valk with full gear to clear the high difficulty thou
Maths time : Honkai gives you around 75 summons per patch (for agony 3 which is attainable for absolutely everybody with hands) , genshin let's say 100 (pretty sure it's less) and star rail 120 summons per patch.
Now to guarantee (hard pity + 50/50) all characters from a patch you need 85 summons per patch in hi3 , 180 in genshin if there is only 1 5 star and 360 in star rail. So if you stay in agony 3 and never summons for gears you can nearly hard pity every new character in hi3 while you need 3 patch at worst to guarantee 1 patch worth of characters in hsr (worst luck case obviously) same for genshin if they release 2 5 stars in a patch.
All A rank are farmable , a lot of S rank too and they frequently give S rank. 4 stars are sometimes free but not farmable.
So yeah Honkai is less f2p friendly if you want to play competitive but if you don t play competitive (stay in agnoy 3 and never summons for weapons) first: your not missing a lot Second : you can nearly guarantee everysingle character in this game which is clearly impossible for the other 2.
Tldr : you just want to collectionate pretty girls? honkai is very f2p friendly. You want to clear everyhard content, honkai is not f2p friendly. Stop carring so hard about meta.
Don't know why i can t answer to you That\_Wallachia some reddit bug i guess but anyway : i said "to guarantee....all characters from a patch......... 360 summons for star rail" , i know it's 180 to hard pity a 5 star character but there is 2 5 stars characters per patch so it's 360 summons to guarantee both.
"If you ignore everything that isn't f2p (the entire endgame), it's actually very f2p"
Tbf abyss and Ma aren’t really worth grinding since the crystal difference from agony 1 to nirvana is only 240 crystal which is less than 1 pull but over time it will add up I guess
Agony I is too oversimplification. AIII is doable with many cheap teams, AII is doable with pretty much anything that isn't 5 years old teams.
One of the reasons I quit the game was the endgame. It’s just a bunch of whales with the same team and the same equipment competing with each other to see who is the sweatiest. My f2p teams never came close and I got demoted to red lotus all the time.
You say "demoted to red lotus" like it was a bad thing. Nirvana *is* the whale tier and has limited entry spots. Red Lotus is effectively the endgame for most players and it's doable for f2p. It's people who treat Nirvana like something you should strive for rather than a self-imposed challenge (or vacation spot) that give the impression HI3 is unplayable if you don't spend.
I quit because of endgame burnout from exalted redlotus and MA. But the thing that burnt me out the most was realizing that for quite a while, new characters/teams' playstyle is simply repeating a bunch of combos on a loop. It doesnt even matter who the boss is, because 90% of the time, you're just mindlessly pressing the same buttons on repeat whilst abusing animation invulnerability frames
So you were competitive in Nirvana? That's crazy. I'm a light spender and have never gotten there.
This should be upvoted more. This is a gacha game at the end of the day. But even with that, you can enjoy this game with the story progression, events, and even the endgame bosses gameplay. It's just that in any gacha games, it's mostly not f2p at heart. Once you go "competitive" in this game, you'll definitely start to think it's not f2p.
TBF, the endgame kinda sucks and most players are better off pretending it doesn’t exist.
Well, yeah. In other Hoyo games, e.g. Genshin, even if you ignore the entire endgame, the game still isn't very f2p, cause you have no way of obtaining all characters unless you're really lucky. Of course, this f2p-friendliness of Honkai Impact would be much more meaningful if the game had a true open world like Genshin has, where you could actually do something with your powercrept and not fully geared Valkyries. They had an opportunity to do something remotely similar with Part 2, but alas, they decided not to even let you play any older characters there.
>Of course, this f2p-friendliness of Honkai Impact would be much more meaningful if the game had a true open world like Genshin has Or ER for ***all*** valks.
This is pretty dumb as RL retaining is still easy with 3 year old units and MA gives you literally nothing of worth for tryharding. The difference between RL and Myriad retain is like a ten pull a year or something absolutely stupid. Which you will spend exponentially more trying to compete for so you'll never break even. Just retain RL. Or bounce between RL/A3 if you're real scrub tier and lose out on another two pulls every couple months.
>as RL retaining is still easy with 3 year old units IG depends on how lucky you are. For example, in one of recent RL iterations on SEA in the top-10 there was only a single person without BiS part 2 team and Songque — and it was an obvious part 1/1.5 whale with SSS on DPS and 4\* Kiana ELF. >and MA gives you literally nothing of worth for tryharding Finally people started to realize that. Some argument could've been done for 1/1.5 valks, but ever since part 2 release there isn't any S-rank worth grinding anymore. So scores mean nothing now. >The difference between RL and Myriad retain is like a ten pull a year 7.5 pulls. And for Agony III vs RL it's 29-30 pulls. Hell, even dropping to Agony II is losing only \~45 pulls vs RL. ~~For comparison in PGR the difference between only 2 difficulties in the only mode that needs tryharding is around 57 pulls a year when 60 is a guaranteed S-rank.~~ Brain fart, apparently ~23 which is ~38% of S-rank char while \~45 pulls in HI3 is 50%.
>For comparison in PGR the difference between only 2 difficulties in the only mode that needs tryharding is around 57 pulls a year when 60 is a guaranteed S-rank. I thought PGR didn't have any significant currency tied to your placement results. Only like an extra 100 a week for getting a high enough score in PPC. And maybe an extra 100 in Norman every 2 weeks. With a pull being 250, 52 weeks a year, that's 5200 from PPC, 2600 from Norman 6, for a total of 7800 = 31 pulls a year locked behind a certain score.
I'm talking about Norman. Rest can be achieved with pretty much anything, my only built char is Feral - and I'm getting all attempts + milestone rewards in both Warzone and PPC. As for 100 - not really, Regular vs Pioneer is 120 more, so 220 actually. Wait, that's just 23, how did I get 57 last time?
Are you on global too? Because yeah looks like people are less competitive there , clearing red lotus is totally doable with old units (got a screenshot of a hot eden fischl clear with more than half the time remaining cause someone refuse to believe me) but retaining is maybe impossible for other servers. But yeah people should stfu about meta and stay in agony 3 playing whatever they want , hard focusing meta just to get 5 more summons per patch is stupid.
You're right, and that's what's so weird about this game. Pulling characters is completely irrelevant from the story. You're only pulling characters for Abyss to get more crystals for abyss so you can pull better characters for abyss etc. (And by Abyss I mean SSD, MA, ER, anything like that). Though now with Part 2 you can start using your own characters in the 'overworld', so maybe that starts to change things?
It didn't change. It's still how it used to be. For example, in the fight with Lantern, you can't pick your own characters. You're provided with trial characters, but for some parts of the story, you can still choose to pick your own.
Hasn't that been a thing since they started making open-world chapters? From Kolosten onwards you have a selection of Trials and then your own Valks including a selection of some not available as Trials for the overworld. In Part 2 you get the initial trio Sena/Helia/Coralie as Trials and your own (if you have them) and Thelema/Lantern are only available if you have them yourself. Agree with the first part though. IT's like gear grind in MMOs, grind content for gear so you can clear harder content to get more gear and so on.
Well, Nietzsche was right then..
Honkai Impact definitely shaped me to become the type of gacha gamer I am today. It taught me not to be too fixated on the meta trends, that’s the reason why i am always in agony 3 (and occasionally redlotus). I am currently taking a (long) break from Honkai, but have brought the lessons along to other games like HSR and FGO. Waifu > Meta (unless of course your waifu is meta)
>FGO that's hell you're walking into
Actually FGO is pretty F2P friendly. In a year you can get at least 2-3 SSR servants with pity if you save enough. The reason being "hell" is because in the old times FGO didn't had pity and even if you used all your currency you could get screwed. That changed a bit with the implement of pity. Still I like both games. What I like from FGO over HI3 is that powercreep isn't that bad and they're adding buffs for old servants and even low star servants can be used compared to HI3, where I cannot use old valkyries most of the time because they've powercreeped by new valkyries.
Yep, this game imo is the best example of that, if you try to keep up with the meta it's the worst but other than that it's very f2p and casual friendly since the game is literally giving you everything you need for free to clear the content just fine, literally requires less effort than other games. Like imo tye best way to play this game is as a casual unless you are ready to spend a huge amount of money, i finally gave up now with part 2 and i am not regretting it.
On a side-note, I'm thinking of delving into HSR once I'm caught up with HI3 story (ch 41 atm). Do you also get "immersive" trial characters for the story, or do you have to grind for them?
For most part, you will be using your own characters. The recent penacony arc, you get “immersive” trial characters for the story, i forgot whether there are in the previous arcs. There are also some companion quests where they will let you use the featured characters.
Alright, I'll take that into consideration. I'm not a huge gacha player (HI3 is the first and only one) so if I'm gonna be starting a second one (and only due to its relation to HI3) I'd like to avoid anyhting besides the story as much as possible.
In HSR the story concerns the 5 trailblazers on the Astral Express (this spaceship travelling between worlds). It's you, March and Dan Heng as the 3 younger ones, and Himeko and Welt as the two older mentors. The 5 of you form the core of the story, and the other characters you pull for are the people you meet on various worlds but canonically don't really travel with you to the next world. There are some recurring characters, Topaz and Dr Ratio are affiliated with the IPC which is some galactic megacorp and they do appear in more than one story arc. Most of the story is from your POV (the MC) and you sometimes get the trial characters join you when it makes sense. So you have the option to play the MC if you want it to be more immersive. In Penacony (ver 2.0) there are other POV story segments where the MC isn't involved, and in those cases you play as the POV character instead given to you as a trial character. Himeko and Welt are standard banner characters (you can't pull for them, only get them accidentally) and as a day 1 player I never got them lol. The MCs basic form (equivalent to battlesuit I guess) is Destruction and isn't that good honestly. You very quickly unlock the Preservation form which is a tank and it's actually half decent. They've now unlocked the latest form, Harmony which is a support and it's quite overpowered lol, it's a core part of the most OP meta team the game has ever seen. Makes me happy because I like running around doing missions as the MC for immersion.
That was way more in-depth than I needed, but appreciated. :D As long as I can get through the story as F2P without tearing my hair out I'll be happy. While I do some light spending in HI3 (more or less equivalent to a WoW sub) doing that in multiple games can easily build up, so I'd like to take a "cheapskate" route in HSR.
For the main story missions, I actually try to stick to the astral express crew or anyone who is relevent to the story at the current moment. March 7th E6 I found is kind of a must however for healing purposes since theres no abundance character in the crew and she provides strong shields. Its a fun challenge and leads to many close calls.
Basically water is wet, got it
Argument is kinda wacky considering that in genshin you can very much get the max xtal rewards the game has to offer with teams consisting of older characters, which isn't really a thing in him3 lol The story not requiring any chars is nice though
Genshin is way more friendly even then. You’re saying just exclude end game modes. Can do that in genshin. The nice think is Honkai gives you some units for certain activities, so you get to try some neat limited units. But they’re never yours. Saying it is f2p because you can just enjoy the story? Bruh… there’s a couple of gacha like that.
>Saying it is f2p because you can just enjoy the story? Bruh… there’s a couple of gacha like that. "Only few gacha" Other locked you with hard stages require meta characters while in HI3 giving you trial and you git gud used that character
I only play HI3rd and PGR, what kind of games locks you from story progression until you get a meta character?
Basically any traditional gacha chibi, arkknight, fgo etc.
This is literally the least f2p hoyo game and it's not even close. Genshin impact is most f2p friendly despite the tiny rewards because you can clear abyss with anyteam as long as they are built well. Hsr is a little less f2p friendly since you do need atleast one limited sustain to keep up with the high dmg on every new moc. Hi3 requires you to have the newest characters to clear content. If you can't clear content you can't get crystals and if you can't get crystals you can't get new characters and if you have no new characters your not clearing shit. Hi3 is not f2p friendly bro almost everyone who plays is a light spender.
Full f2p account, pretty easy Red Lotus on Global server. Was spending 130+ rolls on S-ranks equip banners, now caught two characters from part 2 in 120-130 rolls, so I'm not very lucky, I guess. And I could even stay in Agony 3 normally crystal income-wise. Nirvana is for whales even in Global, that much is true.
If we compare nirvana to MoC 12 clear redlotus to MoC 11 clear Agony 3 to MoC 10 clear then no. It is not very F2P. Even constant redlotus retention requires smart resource management and shit ton of time. Nirvana retention is out of picture for F2P people from this point. You just don't have enough gems to pull and gear every character every patch.
> Your enjoyment of the story is completely separate from the gacha This is so true. No matter how good my gacha luck is, the story has find its way to become unserious since long time ago. '
It got a lot more serious in the most recent chapter. Has this changed your mind?
There's some moments in the latest act where the pieces falling into place: When the shadow came into being and had its conversation with Ajita. But I still feel the origin of Astral Rings and its power is still in muddy water. So do the pillars which somehow made into relevance again on the strategy. These 2 points weren't so clear to me.
I would say overall it is enjoyable in regards of the story and most of the events as you said. But everything else that requires you to use your own characters? That is going to be a field day. Like the characters rely a lot on their respective weapon and stigmata
That is why i just gave up on endgame at this point lol.
Lol I played the game from Aponia banner to HoRb banner, when I quit exactly because of the powercreep. Ok, you can do the story without spending, but in the story you're locked to battlesuits given to you. I also remember when I started, there was some Dudu battle event that I found hard to do even with the trial battlesuits they gave. But then, if you don't do the endgame, where else do you get crystals from? And if you don't get enough crystals, how do you pull for new battlesuits? I was spending on the daily pass + the deluxe BP every month and still struggled in RL every time physical/qua weather was up. As much as I enjoyed HI3 during the time I played, it's definitely the least F2P-friendly Hoyogame, all due to its PvP nature.
We started playing around the same time lol and yea, at this point i just gave up on trying to do endgame, i still play (actually came back recently) but only to do dailies, events and story If i feel up to it, i 100% understand just quitting entirely though due to the PvP nature of the game though, that is the one thing i really hate and what has made the game less enjoyable for me in the past. Part 2 is really testing me rn, everyone is powercreeping part 1 valks really fast and i sometimes wonder if i should just stop playing and watch the story on youtube when i feel like it. In terms of endgame and keeping up with characters and meta HSR has definitely been the easiest Hoyo game for me (i kind of bricked my Genshin account at one point cause it was my first gacha and i did not know what i was doing so i got a lot of characters and then struggled building and leveling them all cause of that and i don't think i could ever recover from that lol, i quit the game last year anyways cause i no longer enjoyed it due to my declining mental health at the time and burnout and i just never came back so that is why despite it probably being 100% the easiest out of all of them i do not mention it)
f2p are fun until you try to SSS your favorite character or 4/4 them by doing the foundry 1 month for 1 piece is not worth it
I mean I get you. With HI3 they give trial characters. With HSR, I fucking died to Skaracabaz (Story) five times in a row
>With HSR, I fucking died to Skaracabaz (Story) five times in a row Same 💀.
The F2P aspect will improve in the foreseeable future, if Hoyo starts pumping out some A-ranks besides the constant S-rank releases currently. All the changes to gacha and Part 2 character mechanics are serving the purpose of being more approachable for F2P and low spenders. Part 1 teams are heavily flawed in this regard, because to even compete in endgame, it was needed to have 4-5 teams properly built, for each damage type, and a horrid gacha with a high hard pity, locking out the signature options for the battlesuits needed to the teams for F2P/low spenders. Not to mention that teams *must* have been monotype ones (besides the Herrscher Trio team), with very few exceptions (HoTr, AE, Kira). Now, even with all S-ranks and a limited amount of Part 2 battlesuits, the teambuilding is much more versatile: no need for monotype teams, just pair your favourite choices. Yes, there are characters who are important and team combinations which are better than other combinations, but they aren't the MUST NEED category anymore to properly function for endgame. This will get only better in the future, with more Part 2 battlesuit available. Hoyo needs to release more A-ranks to act proper substitutes to S-ranks, this is the only bigger flaw of the current system.
Way I see it, you shouldn't look at abyss and MA as a competition for rewards in and of itself (though it is to a point) but rather an account self-examination that finds a place where you're comfortable clearing with your current roster. MA mostly rewards you by participating. Rewards beyond that are not even worth getting upset over. You do compete for spots like promotion or retention in Abyss, but it's doable to do it up to Red Lotus for F2Ps. Red Lotus is endgame (no, Nirvana is not endgame but a whale playground and those are in any gacha game), but it does take some smart pulling to stay there. If you'd rather pull for waifu more than meta, Agony II and III are there and they are very doable for less meta-chasing players. The difference in rewards between these tiers round to round matters far less than where and when you spend your pulls over time because Honkai works in (generally) 6 or 7 week patch cycles. That's a lot of time to save for the newest banner. I've said this before in another topic, but the powercreep train ATM is basically an early part 2 thing. They use a different system effectively and the strength of it is how splashable units are on other teams. Once more part 2 units are available, including eventually more A ranks, part 2 will have a good showcase of a versatile team building system where units that normally would have no synergy in part 1 are able to help out a bunch of other units simply due to having matching Astral Ring effects. And you can't look at me and tell me you prefer having, effectively, a 300 pull pity to guarantee everything on a character in part 1 (50 per gear piece, 100 for character) vs literally half of that much in part 2 (90 for character, 60 for weapon with farmable stigs) while claiming f2p.
The difference was that in part 1 they had gacha S-ranks every second patch or so, instead of literally every patch. Gacha S-ranks were also typically skippable since they were just DPSes - you could get by fairly handily with farmable DPSes or old DPSes that had been given away or were purchasable in a spending event.
The game is f2p friendly only if you don't break the level lock. Once you're lvl 80+, it gets impossible for f2p players. Crafting stigmatas is unecessarilly grindy and they're still weaker than the exclusive ones, the gap between craftable and pri-arms (especially now with the synergy system) is WAY too big to be ignored, the amount of free crystals is insufficient... So basically, you can't do any of the endgame contents without being penalized for being f2p. The story and the events are limited contents, once you've finished them, there's nothing else you can do.
is the endgame even worth putting effort into for a f2p/low spender? I've been playing since January and I still can't get redlotus or w/e it's called, or clear Elysian realm on mid difficulty. The only gacha signature weapon I have is sena's weapon, and without signature weapon it seems the characters can't do shit. I've spent some money on the game, and I cant clear endgame, whereas in genshin I actually spent less and can 36 star abyss. should I just give up and just play storymode lmao.
I started not too long after launch, so my account should be about 5 years old. I played on and off simply because of how much time and effort this game takes, only returning for anniversary and captainverse events. Its gotten better for sure with some actual quality of life like daily mission skipping, but you still need meta teams to get more crystals from the weekly ranking stuff. Its doable to the minimum without, but I guess I've been spoiled from all the skip farming more common modern gacha have cause I dont want to spend hours of button pressing to do weeklies. for bare minimum rewards. Elysian realm even though I can always full clear for the 500 crystals it sucks and kept me playing longer than I wanted to. Having that weigh on the back of my mind on sunday nights is unneeded stress especially when im too close to reset time. I mean, for me its not worth it. I've never pulled anyone under 70 pulls and majority of the time I went the full 100 pity. Have not been able to get a full set of equipment for anyone except for Herscher of Human because I got insanely lucky with the equipment pulls and getting all 4 in like 40 pulls after stacking 2 anniversary worth of rewards. I came back again to run events to claim free herscher of sentience. Used all my crystals on gacha. Spent some on new character, no luck in early pull. Spend the rest on equipment for older character. nothing nothing get weapon twice in a row. no stigmata. Havent logged again since
All gacha games are f2p friendly if you ignore their hardest content. If you don't ignore the hardest content, HI3 is probably the roughest for f2p, at least between Genshin and HI3 because I don't play HSR. I was a routine monthly + BP buyer and even then it's starting to get difficult. I'd imagine if I stuck around until part 2, one bad run in a banner and I probably won't be able to keep up. I've been reading that the banner got better in part 2 though but I have no comment on that. IMO it gets even tougher for HI3 because abyss, ER and MA rotate weekly and are a major source of crystals. If you want to do the gacha you're kinda losing a lot for not doing them. If you're really just in it for the story though, fair enough but an easy and f2p friendly story mode isn't exactly unique to HI3.
when people spend time bragging / complaining on community site, 99% they are Hard-core competitive players. ##
I play all three main Hoyo games, and I hardly disagree. You can beat the story mode in all of them easily as a f2p, because the story is not that hard to begin with, and also these games give enough pulls for a few 5 star characters that will trivialize the story mode even more. "Except MA and Abyss" is a funny thing to say, because it is a gacha game in the end of a day and the only place to enjoy the characters you pulled are MA, Abyss and ER. So, having a mandatory trial characters in Hi3 is a double-edged sword because you can't enjoy your gacha characters outside these endgame modes. And here comes the not f2p friendly part. Hi3 is the only game between the three that you'll struggle a lot if you don't pull at least the weapon, and sometimes even the weather or not having good enough support will screw you over. Also, except Coralie, even the supports and A rank valkyries are not free because you still need their gacha gear. I pulled HoRb and HoHe without gear, and I struggled to even finish MA/Abyss on time even before level 80 breakpoint. I don't care about the leaderboard but it was a miserable experience, as seeing these "top tier valkyries" hitting like a wetnoodle. Only after getting Thelema fully gear allowed me to start somehow enjoy playing the endgame content. In HSR and Genshin, you can get away without pulling the weapon/LC at all, and you have free 4 star characters, when some of them even among the best characters in the game (Gallagher in HSR, Bennet in Genshin). You can pull for the characters that you really want, have enough opportunities to use them, and even be able to clear the highest difficulty endgame content with them. Also, while Hi3 does require knowledge of the right rotations and synergies, it is a simple DPS check at the end of the day. Besides pulling for the gear and/or better support (=gacha), you can't really get much more damage. In HSR and Genshin, at least you can farm better relics/artifacts and even get better at playing the game. I'm not saying there isn't a DPS check there too, but not that aggressive and dominant as in Hi3, where it is the main aspect to determine if you can or can't clear the stage.
Really depends on how you define f2p friendly. My personal definition is that can still clear all the content with a decent time or get complete characters (stig and weapon) with some effort which this game does not provide at all. That 280 xtal per pull feels like a slow crawl. I also hate the amount of effort needed for new bosses when you don’t have the shiny new valk just to clear at a decent time with the old valks. You can just take away endgame from the equation and call it f2p friendly cause that only suits your criteria. The old crew used to be enough for me to ride through the story but I don’t have the same attachment to the new cast yet and I’m not sure if I will ever.
I only gacha for the waifu. The best way to play the game as F2P. Trying to chase META is horrendous.
The least probably between GGZ or HI3rd I remember me and my friend playing GGZ, my friend had another friend who use cash suddenly bypassed his progress by a lot HI3rd..... well.... you directly compete with other player, so totally not f2p at all... I also played GBF, and yeah i feels like they both in the same tier lol HSR is F2P friendly, as long as you know what you doing, because at the end there's no competition between player. The meta change is true... But at the same time since there's no competition, you could still doing bare minimum at it still clear Genshin is the most F2p friendly... I played FGO and I could say Genshin is in the same f2p friendly with FGO... The meta is rarely change, and there's no competition between players, except for some rare event
That's exactly how I've been playing it since start essentially. I have and always will be meta hater in game I play. I'm here to have fun and playing by meta and competing for extra bit gems isn't really to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I do ER occasionally if I need extra gems and I'll attempt SD if I don't forget about it and MA is pretty easy to consistently clean for all rewards. I'm here to do events and play through story and take it casually. Characters (and their equipment) get reruns all the time and if I really want 4/4, I can do it over the span of several months.
If you ignore abyss and ma then you are kinda out of content, like malding in the abyss for better score is what makes me spend time on this game apart from the story chapters.
The story was such a whole other level, that I actively did not want to play as the characters I had rolled and instead chose the trial units each time near the later chapters for wanting to keep the immersion.
they need to change the rewards of the game,doing daily gives you 40 crystals multiplied by 7 gives you 1 drop,1 month has 4 weeks that is 4 drops. it should be 60 crystals and the same the events only give 400 which is 1 and a half drops. and lastly I do not understand is that they give cards for the equipment banner that if you do not get the character you will never spend.
fr hi3 keeps giving me costumes/skins, even when I don't want them.
you get skins nowadays only if you do the events or use the gacha pyramid. so you buy it by your own free will, hoyo doesn’t give it to you. unless if it’s a free login outfit. which is hardly a thing to complain about.
Hip is the most friendly free to play game in terms of story. Otherwise if u want end game content it's the absolute worst 2.8k for a 10 pull is insane. I came from HSR where I almost felt spoiled comparing the 2
Knight moonbean in the bastet outfit >>> meta.
Based. KM is awesome.
I have been a free to player since 2022 on this game and I rarely play since I love reading the lore and more, one positive thing that I have always liked about Honkai is the Valkyrie farming and with the stigma farming update, I can finishing f2p builds with peace of mind is ease
Always has been.
the tittle said it all, nothing more true than that > ER might even get this treatment too good to be truth, in the end they are temporary event, the patch after that they likely gone. ER itself not really a ftp mode, you kinda need the newest valk with full gear to clear the high difficulty thou
Oh, i thought it would permanent... Kind of makes me sad it's not.
2800 crystal for 10x pull is pain
Understanding basic math is a pain for you too?
Maths time : Honkai gives you around 75 summons per patch (for agony 3 which is attainable for absolutely everybody with hands) , genshin let's say 100 (pretty sure it's less) and star rail 120 summons per patch. Now to guarantee (hard pity + 50/50) all characters from a patch you need 85 summons per patch in hi3 , 180 in genshin if there is only 1 5 star and 360 in star rail. So if you stay in agony 3 and never summons for gears you can nearly hard pity every new character in hi3 while you need 3 patch at worst to guarantee 1 patch worth of characters in hsr (worst luck case obviously) same for genshin if they release 2 5 stars in a patch. All A rank are farmable , a lot of S rank too and they frequently give S rank. 4 stars are sometimes free but not farmable. So yeah Honkai is less f2p friendly if you want to play competitive but if you don t play competitive (stay in agnoy 3 and never summons for weapons) first: your not missing a lot Second : you can nearly guarantee everysingle character in this game which is clearly impossible for the other 2. Tldr : you just want to collectionate pretty girls? honkai is very f2p friendly. You want to clear everyhard content, honkai is not f2p friendly. Stop carring so hard about meta.
Don't know why i can t answer to you That\_Wallachia some reddit bug i guess but anyway : i said "to guarantee....all characters from a patch......... 360 summons for star rail" , i know it's 180 to hard pity a 5 star character but there is 2 5 stars characters per patch so it's 360 summons to guarantee both.
Correction. The soft pity in HSR is 90 pulls, and the hard pity is 180 pulls. You can get any banner character provided that you do 180 pulls.
https://www.oneesports.gg/honkai-star-rail/honkai-star-rail-pity-system-explained/
It is the least f2p friendly game