How important are the four most requested optimizations from players?
To be honest, when the game's first-day downloads exceeded 20 million across the network, I anticipated a flood of optimization suggestions. A massive player base means a collision of various gaming habits and needs. After long discussions within the community, four core features stood out: one-click sweep, ultimate skill cancellation, gacha countdown, and an annual pass system.
Interestingly, the three development principles mentioned by miHoYo's Chief Game Designer, An Chengnan, at GDC 2025—immersion, simplicity, and scalability—happen to provide theoretical support for these optimizations. I noticed that the official announcement in May 2023 already confirmed receipt of relevant feedback and began preparing optimization plans.
A content team of hundreds of people, plus over 12 months of new world development cycle, indicates that the official team indeed has sufficient technical reserves to continuously optimize. As the Honkai Star Rail top up player base continues to grow, experience optimization has become key to maintaining long-term competitiveness.
One-Click Sweep: It's here, but not yet perfect
Based on my observations, one-click sweep has actually been partially implemented for returning players. Using a 'fuel + stamina' consumption model, players can directly claim material dungeon rewards—which is a blessing for those who run several dungeons daily.
Regular players can now enjoy the 'Quick Clear' function in Forgotten Hall, directly claiming rewards for the first six stages. However, stages after the seventh still require manual challenge (presumably to maintain some challenge). The 'One-Click Dispatch' function implemented in Version 2.1 simplifies the original 8 steps into a single action, proving that the official team is quite adept at simplifying repetitive operations.
Compared to sweep systems in other mobile games, Honkai: Star Rail's design focuses more on balance. By limiting usage conditions—requiring a three-star clear—and resource consumption, it prevents players from completely skipping game content. From a technical perspective, the core of the sweep function is the automation of combat result calculation, and the game already has a complete damage calculation formula, including a complex numerical system with 7 damage multipliers.
Ultimate Skill Cancellation: A savior for accidental touches
I completely understand the core pain point of this feature—accidentally activating an Ultimate can completely disrupt the planned action sequence, sometimes even leading to combat failure. The community's suggestion to add a cancel button during the 'target selection' phase, referencing the character 'Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae's' skill enhancement mechanism, is quite clever.
Starting from Version 2.3, enemy Toughness values are now digitally displayed (e.g., '90/90'), which shows the official team's proactive attitude towards combat UI optimization. High-intensity players report that prolonged gameplay causes visual fatigue from repetitive Ultimate animations—I've felt this myself after farming dungeons for several hours.
The official team has already addressed the 'light pollution' issue of some character skills in eye-care mode, indicating technical reserves in animation optimization. Specific implementation can be divided into two levels: a cancellation confirmation mechanism at the operational level, and animation simplification options at the visual level.
Gacha Countdown: Bidding farewell to manual calculations
Honestly, having to manually calculate pity counts by checking gacha records before each pull is not a great experience. Players expect to see 'pity remaining' directly on the gacha page. This demand was inspired by the Fate collaboration banner's '200 pulls to get an exclusive Light Cone' design—that kind of intuitive progress feedback is truly excellent.
The 'Banner Timer' tool created by Bilibili Wiki records all character UP history, showing Seele's longest rerun interval at 638 days. What does this data indicate? How strong the market demand is for the official team to provide clearer gacha information.
A countdown system could use a progress bar + numerical display, allowing players to grasp their gacha progress at a glance. Combined with the 300-pull self-select mechanism for the Standard Warp, this visual design would greatly improve the gacha planning experience. A clear pity countdown can reduce gacha anxiety—which is important for both wallets and mental health.
Annual Pass System: A win-win business model
With the addition of long-term rewards like Light Cones to the Monthly Pass, an annual pass system is seen as a win-win solution. Players can acquire Monthly Pass shop rewards faster, while the official team can increase stable revenue. The successful implementation of the Nameless Honor (Battle Pass) proves player acceptance of high-value subscription services—purchasing it immediately grants 680 Stellar Jades, with additional Self-Modeling Resin at Level 50.
Annual pass pricing needs to find a balance between player acceptance and commercial value. I suggest a tiered design: a basic annual pass offering Monthly Pass equivalent rewards, and a premium annual pass adding exclusive content such as character skins and exclusive Light Cones. Through Honkai Star Rail Stellar Jade top up channels, players can more conveniently participate in long-term subscription services.
Based on positive feedback from optimizations like the stamina cap increase from 180 to 240 and overflow stamina storage, players are open to paid solutions that improve the long-term gaming experience.
Implementation Timeline: My Prediction
Based on my observation of miHoYo's development pace, the implementation of these optimization features mainly involves UI improvements and logic optimization. Compared to new content development, resource investment is relatively controllable. Major feature optimizations are usually implemented in X.1 or X.3 versions—Version 3.1 already implemented the story skip function, Version 3.3 increased the Relic cap to 3000, and Version 3.5 plans to merge Relic synthesis materials.
Based on technical difficulty and player demand priority, I believe the Ultimate skill cancellation feature is most likely to be implemented in a recent version, mainly involving UI interaction improvements. The gacha countdown system has low implementation difficulty and is highly likely to be implemented in Version 3.4 or 3.5.
The one-click sweep function may require a longer design and testing cycle due to game balance considerations. The annual pass system, as a business model innovation, is expected to be launched no earlier than Version 4.0.
Competitor Comparison: Honkai: Star Rail's Optimization Strategy
The official team has established a multi-level feedback collection mechanism, from in-game feedback to social media interaction. One-click sweep and Ultimate skill cancellation have the highest discussion热度, directly impacting daily game efficiency. While gacha countdown and annual pass discussions are relatively fewer, the players participating in these discussions are often high-spending users—their opinions hold significant reference value for official decisions.
Honkai: Star Rail's 240 stamina cap + overflow storage mechanism already surpasses Genshin Impact's 160 stamina limit. Sweep functions have become standard in strategy and RPG mobile games, and annual pass systems have been successful in games like 'Onmyoji' and 'Honor of Kings'.
I've noticed that Honkai: Star Rail's optimization strategy focuses more on gradual improvements rather than disruptive changes. By enhancing convenience while keeping the core gameplay intact—this steady approach is indeed more suitable for long-term operation.
Players' Most Concerned Questions
When will one-click sweep be fully available? It's currently implemented for returning players, and regular players can use 'Quick Clear' in Forgotten Hall. Based on the official gradual optimization strategy, I estimate that full availability will require 3-6 months of testing and balance adjustments.
Can Ultimate animations be skipped? Currently, they cannot be skipped directly, but eye-care mode helps alleviate visual fatigue. The technical difficulty of Ultimate skill cancellation is low, so I think its implementation in a recent version is quite likely.
Will there be a gacha pity countdown display? Currently, you still have to manually check gacha records to calculate pity. Community tools already provide similar functionality, proving it's technically feasible. It's highly probable to be implemented in Version 3.4 or 3.5.
Will an annual pass be introduced? Currently, there are Monthly Pass and Nameless Honor systems. An annual pass is indeed a win-win solution. Considering that business model innovation requires caution, an annual pass might be introduced no earlier than Version 4.0.
Want to experience the exciting content of the current version? Top up Honkai Star Rail Oneiric Shard now to get more resources and support the official team's continuous improvement of the game experience.
