According to an Oct. 4 Reddit post, we now know that next month shall be a little tougher on Honkai: Star Rail players keeping their pursestrings tight. Version 1.4 will distribute the least amount of Premium Star Rail Passes to date.
Allow us to offer a bit of background information. Star Rail Passes are your tickets to new characters and character enhancements known as ‘Light Cones’. Regular passes are earned through completing tasks such as Simulated Universe runs and leveling up. Premium passes are a little harder to come by but, as Genshin Impact players will hasten to add, more plentiful than other titles developed by miHoYo.
Across its release window, Star Rail players were able to pull some 214 times on average through completing the story, side quests, and various events. That number settled back into the 90s for versions 1.1 and 1.2. The most recent update, 1.3, produced a very well-received 119 pulls on average although—as Reddit user No_Yogurtcloset is keen to point out—this number shall drop drastically for the upcoming content.
Their graph demonstrates that all sources are predicted to produce just 76 pulls. Let’s put that into perspective—a five-star character is guaranteed only on pull 90 without prior success. Even then, the “pity” is only fully in your favor if you previously received a non-featured character. Otherwise, it’s a literal coin flip. To be assured of a banner’s headline act, a player could require as many as 180 pulls.
I’m sure you’re beginning to see the issue.
Fellow user SilentMix was on hand to try and offer some explanation for the sudden shift. “I guess they’re trying to balance out the fact that 1.3 gave us more,” they surmised, “plus 1.4 is a week shorter.” This is as good an explanation as any. Version 1.3 was more generous than the norm, and its successor will be the shortest-lived update so far, lasting only five weeks.
This could potentially be the norm that we settle into, however. We are none the wiser on events yet to be announced or, indeed, when the next major addition to the Trailblaze missions shall arrive. Some believe this could be early 2024 with version 1.6 deemed the likeliest stage upon which our next destination of Penacony could debut. Why not 1.5? This particular patch will almost certainly take us across the Christmas period, coming to a close in time for Chinese New Year—a prime moment to drop the biggest content update since release.
In conclusion, the majority of Star Rail collectors will have a difficult choice on their hands. To spend, or not to spend? Jingliu and Topaz are both really exciting additions, but it isn’t like any of the previous offerings have bombed by comparison. Quite the opposite. Plus, with recent news of Seele’s first re-run, we should expect the same treatment will be offered to all past and upcoming characters.
May good luck shine upon us all in these trying times.
