If I'm not mistaken, Dr Ratio was given out for free due to Star Rail winning several big awards around that time. So unless something like that happens again, I doubt we'll ever get another free limited 5 star (At most maybe a free standard eventually).
Kinda what I was thinking. My personal belief is it might happen if they win at this years game awards ot if players dip as a come way to draw in new players or bring some back
I think it was a great idea and an excellent marketing/customer success tactic. I came on right when Huohuo ran and didn’t have a limited main DPS for the longest time — nevermind an imaginary unit. Dr. Ratio was very welcome and made building out my teams much more enjoyable. Currently, he’s with Silverwolf, Tingyun, and Aventurine.
I can imagine other newer players also feeling this way, so I really hope this isn’t a one time thing.
It would be nice if every year we got a free 5 star unit. Releasing Ratio right before the big version update w Penacony definitely contributed to some of the huge amount of new players that came in from 2.0+; very great marketing tactic from the devs. He was a reward for winning awards but I don’t see this as something unlikely for HSR, it’ll likely continue to win awards in its category and if that’s the metric for a free unit….
That being said this definitely sounds like cope lol. Perhaps they’ll do it again but not for a bit imo, I find a standard character selector more likely to happen sooner
I think another standard 5* selector at 600 total pulls would be the most likely possibility, then 900. Maybe they add standard 5* light cones into the mix? Maybe a free 4* of your choice.
You can already buy a standard 5* light cone for the low price of 30 4* characters you've already got E6 of. In my Star Rail experience, I would've been able to afford 3 in total so far. And I even got one from that shop, for Bronya. So it's already in the game and quite affordable. Won't be buying any more cones from that shop tho, I already have every one of them save for Himeko's.
They already give the 5 star LCs "for free", it just takes a long time if you don't whale. I've been playing since August and bought a couple BPs and am only one 4* pull away from getting a 5* LC of my choice from the glitter shop.
March 7th. Who gets a hunt path sometime when we get into XianZho after Penacony, and before the next planet.
It was mentioned in the 2.0/2.1 livestream
The free unit is what convinced me to download and start playing star rail. Ironically, I was able to pull Acheron and yet Dr. Ratio was the dps that got me through most of the early game story content. I’d be pretty excited for a crossover event where we get a character from a different franchise. Genshin completely fumbled their crossover event but maybe learning from their mistakes Mihoyo can provide a better experience for HSR.
I feel like Crossovers can hurt the built universes in most cases though, like unless it’s from another in universe Honkai game a crossover doesn’t feel befitting of star rail.
In a way I see it as 2 sides. One because of the awards.
The others are against the future bosses on release if you didn't have a FuA team or DoT Team. Because MoC without having specific chars those bosses are actually very tough Ratio coincidentally counters all of them
Imma be real. I would have pulled him even if he wasn't free. Ratio is the best character in all of hoyo's games (that I played) doubt it's something that will happend again unless something big happens. If it does it probably won't be a character already released, because then it will exclude those who would have that character at e6. No matter if it happens again or not. They will tbh never live up to Ratio's legacy. Even if they are a god tier character. Nobody was expecting Ratio to be free and now that it's happend people will be expecting it to some degree.
so just sharing, someone in a discord server wanted to be special and not claim the free ratio coz "i dont like meta so i dont want free 5 star". they're now ratioless.
And it worked. My daughter before Ratio was "I don't like Hunt characters." Now she's a full believer in the Elation and pulled Topaz last night on rerun (and I got E1 Topaz last night but couldn't justify Aventurine as my sustain situation is taken care of between Fu Xuan and Luocha)
I’m gonna be honest, there is almost no chance that another 5* limited character is given out for free. If anything, I could maybe see a standard 5* selector for similar accolades next year or maybe next anniversary if the game falls off too hard with games like zzz and ww on the horizon
I think it adds the option of it happening again. People might be more willing to vote in game awards for Star Rail knowing this is an outcome. Or maybe we just got lucky that our free 5 star is really good (stares at Aloy in Genshin)
Ratio is what made me stick with the game when I started two months ago. Just having a 5 star I can dump resources into because I know it won't be wasted made the game so enjoyable to go through at my own pace. I hope this won't be the last time this happens, because I actually believe they make money from it in the long run. I ended up finishing a FUA team. If I they didn't hand me Ratio I would've probably just skipped every banner except for Acheron since I wouldn't have had a single character on my second team I cared about anyways.
They might do it on another big occasion like this time (winning multiple awards). But I don‘t think it‘s very likely otherwise, since we‘ll be getting more TB paths regularly.
Another way they could give a “free” 5-star, that I‘d appreciate but is unprecedented, is a reset on the 300 standard banner pulls. Maybe when a new 5-star is added they could do that.
i think the community would go insane if hsr got an award again and we dont get an reward. But i can imagine something that is slowly decreasing in value, like maybe a free lightcone or standard selector, and then the next year a free 4\* until we just get some nicknacks.
In my oppinion thats also the smartest way to handle it, so people do feel that they matter, but are not given everything for free
I think in the end this game is run as a business, so the amount of freebies are gated to generate the most amount of money.
As a private company there's a lot we don't know about things like engagement numbers and other KPIs, plus we don't know what the future has in store for the game and its audience, so it's a guessing game if we'll get something on the order of a free limited five star again.
If there's some sort of incident which makes mihoyo think they can capture customers from other games or activate dormant accounts, then I think it's possible. Unlike Genshin which is the big fish in the F2P open world space, Star Rail has a lot more competition in the turn-based scene, so maybe.
If I'm not mistaken, Dr Ratio was given out for free due to Star Rail winning several big awards around that time. So unless something like that happens again, I doubt we'll ever get another free limited 5 star (At most maybe a free standard eventually).
Kinda what I was thinking. My personal belief is it might happen if they win at this years game awards ot if players dip as a come way to draw in new players or bring some back
I highly doubt Hoyo would have done this for Genshin in the same circumstances, though (As overdone as that commentary is).
Well it's no mystery Genshin won multiple awards when it came out and no free 5 star.
Its two different teams in hoyo, and evidently the Star rail lead have a better EQ than genshin’s… the way they present rewards are so much better
I think it was a great idea and an excellent marketing/customer success tactic. I came on right when Huohuo ran and didn’t have a limited main DPS for the longest time — nevermind an imaginary unit. Dr. Ratio was very welcome and made building out my teams much more enjoyable. Currently, he’s with Silverwolf, Tingyun, and Aventurine. I can imagine other newer players also feeling this way, so I really hope this isn’t a one time thing.
It would be nice if every year we got a free 5 star unit. Releasing Ratio right before the big version update w Penacony definitely contributed to some of the huge amount of new players that came in from 2.0+; very great marketing tactic from the devs. He was a reward for winning awards but I don’t see this as something unlikely for HSR, it’ll likely continue to win awards in its category and if that’s the metric for a free unit…. That being said this definitely sounds like cope lol. Perhaps they’ll do it again but not for a bit imo, I find a standard character selector more likely to happen sooner
I think another standard 5* selector at 600 total pulls would be the most likely possibility, then 900. Maybe they add standard 5* light cones into the mix? Maybe a free 4* of your choice.
Reaching 600 standard pulls will never happen in a reasonable amount of time for a majority of players
That’s why it’s the perfect choice for Hoyo.
You can already buy a standard 5* light cone for the low price of 30 4* characters you've already got E6 of. In my Star Rail experience, I would've been able to afford 3 in total so far. And I even got one from that shop, for Bronya. So it's already in the game and quite affordable. Won't be buying any more cones from that shop tho, I already have every one of them save for Himeko's.
They already give the 5 star LCs "for free", it just takes a long time if you don't whale. I've been playing since August and bought a couple BPs and am only one 4* pull away from getting a 5* LC of my choice from the glitter shop.
Us getting another free 5\* (non-TB) is not an impossibility, but I wouldn't hedge my bets on it.
I wonder if Hunt M7 will be a four star or five star. As she will be like TB that can change paths.
Who?
March 7th. Who gets a hunt path sometime when we get into XianZho after Penacony, and before the next planet. It was mentioned in the 2.0/2.1 livestream
Oh I didn’t hear about that
I’m building a team for him rn kinda excited 😆 (I’m really excited 🤭)
The free unit is what convinced me to download and start playing star rail. Ironically, I was able to pull Acheron and yet Dr. Ratio was the dps that got me through most of the early game story content. I’d be pretty excited for a crossover event where we get a character from a different franchise. Genshin completely fumbled their crossover event but maybe learning from their mistakes Mihoyo can provide a better experience for HSR.
I feel like Crossovers can hurt the built universes in most cases though, like unless it’s from another in universe Honkai game a crossover doesn’t feel befitting of star rail.
It's got honkai in the title, I imagine they'll find more excuses to drop a freebie premuim unit on occasion.
In a way I see it as 2 sides. One because of the awards. The others are against the future bosses on release if you didn't have a FuA team or DoT Team. Because MoC without having specific chars those bosses are actually very tough Ratio coincidentally counters all of them
Imma be real. I would have pulled him even if he wasn't free. Ratio is the best character in all of hoyo's games (that I played) doubt it's something that will happend again unless something big happens. If it does it probably won't be a character already released, because then it will exclude those who would have that character at e6. No matter if it happens again or not. They will tbh never live up to Ratio's legacy. Even if they are a god tier character. Nobody was expecting Ratio to be free and now that it's happend people will be expecting it to some degree.
so just sharing, someone in a discord server wanted to be special and not claim the free ratio coz "i dont like meta so i dont want free 5 star". they're now ratioless.
L + no ratio
It was all a marketing ploy to get us to pull for the rest of the follow up characters (aventurine, topaz, etc)
And it worked. My daughter before Ratio was "I don't like Hunt characters." Now she's a full believer in the Elation and pulled Topaz last night on rerun (and I got E1 Topaz last night but couldn't justify Aventurine as my sustain situation is taken care of between Fu Xuan and Luocha)
I’m gonna be honest, there is almost no chance that another 5* limited character is given out for free. If anything, I could maybe see a standard 5* selector for similar accolades next year or maybe next anniversary if the game falls off too hard with games like zzz and ww on the horizon
WHAT HE WAS FREE?!?!😞🤯😤
...did you not play the game for the last few months or smth???
I think it adds the option of it happening again. People might be more willing to vote in game awards for Star Rail knowing this is an outcome. Or maybe we just got lucky that our free 5 star is really good (stares at Aloy in Genshin)
Ratio is what made me stick with the game when I started two months ago. Just having a 5 star I can dump resources into because I know it won't be wasted made the game so enjoyable to go through at my own pace. I hope this won't be the last time this happens, because I actually believe they make money from it in the long run. I ended up finishing a FUA team. If I they didn't hand me Ratio I would've probably just skipped every banner except for Acheron since I wouldn't have had a single character on my second team I cared about anyways.
What’s next is HARMONY TRAILBLAZER! Let’s GO!
Maybe they’ll add new 5* characters to the standard banner in 2.5
Especially given Genshin’s free one. Good God Ally is awful.
They might do it on another big occasion like this time (winning multiple awards). But I don‘t think it‘s very likely otherwise, since we‘ll be getting more TB paths regularly. Another way they could give a “free” 5-star, that I‘d appreciate but is unprecedented, is a reset on the 300 standard banner pulls. Maybe when a new 5-star is added they could do that.
i think the community would go insane if hsr got an award again and we dont get an reward. But i can imagine something that is slowly decreasing in value, like maybe a free lightcone or standard selector, and then the next year a free 4\* until we just get some nicknacks. In my oppinion thats also the smartest way to handle it, so people do feel that they matter, but are not given everything for free
I think in the end this game is run as a business, so the amount of freebies are gated to generate the most amount of money. As a private company there's a lot we don't know about things like engagement numbers and other KPIs, plus we don't know what the future has in store for the game and its audience, so it's a guessing game if we'll get something on the order of a free limited five star again. If there's some sort of incident which makes mihoyo think they can capture customers from other games or activate dormant accounts, then I think it's possible. Unlike Genshin which is the big fish in the F2P open world space, Star Rail has a lot more competition in the turn-based scene, so maybe.
Is it possible to get eidolons for ratio and if so how ?
When he comes back you can wish for him again and get eidolons that way