Intro

Star Rail has managed to retain my interest as a gacha game with multiple interesting-feeling gameplay archetypes (think Damage-Over-Time or Follow-Up Attacks) and quite a bit of variety within each archetype, too (compare Boothill gameplay to Firefly gameplay, for instance).

This humble post of mine attempts to cover some gameplay design space that I feel could be explored further. Inevitably my insight will be limited, so I welcome y’all to add any ideas you think I might’ve overlooked, also. This might’ve ended up as a really long post; for a tl;dr, simply read the bolded entries under each heading.

Enemy Boosting

Currently, there are no characters that provide “benefits” to enemies. However, I think there could be a number of interesting gameplay possibilities revolving around this.

Consider, for example, a character who could advance enemy actions, potentially in exchange for, say, lowering their damage and Effect Hit Rate. This would open up obvious synergies with Damage-Over-Time teams (assuming their DoT application rate can keep up with the sped-up enemies) and with counter-based units such as Clara and Yunli. There would also be interesting less-obvious synergies, such as speeding up Acheron ultimate generation in conjunction with Jiaoqiu or the Trend of the Universal Market LC, improving Aventurine’s follow-up generation (could make him an even stronger sustain option if the enemies took frequent-but-weak actions), or providing additional energy regeneration to characters via getting hit.

Consider, for example, a character who could buff enemies (e.g. increasing their damage or defense or anything else). This kind of effect could be paired with an exceptionally powerful upside (for example, powerful debuffs or damage on the same ability), and would open up synergy with buff-removing units such as Pela, Luka, or Luocha (or the Return to Darkness Hunt Light Cone, I guess). It could allow the birth of a new gameplay niche altogether, where characters gain benefits against enemies that have many buffs active (e.g. a character who talent gives them +X% damage for each buff on the target).

Consider, for example, a character who could restore enemy health (or provide them with shields). Again, this kind of effect could be paired with a compensatory upside, and could even have interesting mechanics built in, such as effects proportional to enemy health restored (e.g. applying a DoT that ticks for 50% of the restored value each turn), or applying a strong, frequent heal at the cost of it also healing enemies. Moreover, this could allow the creation of characters with specialised abilities (such as a reducing enemy healing received, or dealing extreme additional damage to enemy shields) without dooming them to be irredeemably matchup-dependent.

Targeting Manipulation

Currently there exist a few characters that manipulate enemy targeting (such as Yunli and Preservation Trailblazer applying Taunt, or Clara, Lynx, and Gepard boosting chance to get hit, or a number of Hunt units having effects that make them less likely to be attacked). However, I feel like this niche hasn’t been fully explored, and there is a lot of room for more development here. Notably, I think that Moze’s ability to disappear from the battlefield was a very clever invention due to how it changes enemy targeting options.

Consider, for example, a character who could guard another character, redirecting attacks that would target their protegee to themselves. This could create interesting not-quite-sustain characters like Preservation March 7th (who could then have some of their power budget moved from sustain to buffing or damage or something else), would open up an interesting way to defend against crowd control (build Effect Res on the guarding unit), and would encourage tactical use of redirection abilities against critical enemy attacks (like with Yunli’s ultimate). One of my early hopes for Yunli (before we knew any kit info) was as this kind of defender unit - not only would that have gone well with her aesthetic, it could also have given her incredible synergy with Yanqing, who is defined by wanting to not get hit.

Consider, for example, a character who could force enemies to attack a given ally, or at least greatly increase the odds for that. While folk like Lynx and Preservation March 7th already do something like this, there is certainly room for a more pronounced version of the effect, potentially paired with buffs rather than sustain. There exists an obvious niche in empowering units such as Clara, Yunli, or Blade, while also opening up interesting alternative avenues such as targeting a Trend of the Universal Market holder for debuff application, or providing pseudo-sustain by controlling enemy attacks towards more resilient allies.

Consider, for example, a character who could reduce the chance for an ally to be attacked, or even eliminate it altogether (hiding them away like Moze). This would have strong synergy with Yanqing, and would allow the birth of a new niche of characters who provide high value at the cost of being very fragile or disruptable if hit. It could also function as pseudo-sustain in a team where the rest of the characters are built for survivability, while leaving enough room in the character’s power budget for non-sustain benefits as well.

Death and Revival

Currently, there are a few mechanics that interact with characters being downed, such as Bailu or Gepard bringing back downed characters, or Simulated Universe blessings with similar effects. But I think there is room for some more interesting mechanics in this direction. (Although their implementation would perhaps have to take into account the way Memory of Chaos awards stars for having no characters downed).

Consider, for example, a character who cannot heal allies but can revive them instead. While this would be a very powerful sustain ability (the team cannot be truly defeated while the revival character survives), drawbacks such as the Action Time lost while the target is downed or the loss of buffs and energy might plausibly make regular sustain characters competitively appealing. On the other hand, a such character could be a strong safety net in situations like Memory of Chaos or high-difficulty Simulated Universe, and the mechanic is simply a very cool mechanic.

Consider, for example, a character who naturally goes through death and rebirth, for instance by having their ultimate cause them to be downed, then reviving themselves after a given Action Time has passed. Like the above, this could create some unique drawbacks, while also serving as a unique form of self-sustain and self-cleanse. It would also be a sneaky form of targeting manipulation, given that enemies will not target downed characters.

Consider, for example, a character who provides a powerful effect when downed, such as a high burst of damage, or a team action advance, while also featuring a high-output playstyle that sacrifices survivability. This could provide for an interesting rush-style gameplay, while also having unique synergy with revival-style characters such as the currently-underutilized Bailu. (It would be important to consider quality-of-life aspects on a such character, though - having to revive them after every overworld or Simulated Universe battle could prove upsetting.)

Sacrifice / Power-at-a-Price

Currently, there are a few characters whose abilities contain drawbacks, primarily in the form of HP drain from units such as Blade, Arlan, Jingliu, and Jade. (Some Simulated Universe Curios like the Thalan Toxi-Flame that might count, too, and are more interesting). Imbibitor Lunae and Qingque might also count with their extreme SP expenditure. Still, I think there is much room left for creative drawbacks in exchange for power.

Consider, for example, a character who needs to charge up for a while before unleashing a powerful ability (e.g. via going into a special charging state akin to Robin’s ultimate). Such a character could be made exceptionally potent on account of their back-loaded nature, and their inability to interact normally with action advancing effects could encourage greater support diversity in their teams. Moreover, they could benefit from increased buff uptime as a result of taking significantly fewer turns than their supports (much like how buffs expire much slower on a low-speed Clara than on a high-speed Seele), opening up synergies with lower-buff-uptime supports.

Consider, for example, a character with strange or inflexible targeting, such needing to attack the enemy unit with the most HP / least HP / most debuffs, or more exotic restrictions such as having to target the same unit last targeted by an ally, or not being able to target the same enemy twice in a row, or going berserk and targeting automatically without player input. While care would need to be taken to not make the restriction crude and abrasive, it could be turned into an interesting tactical minigame if well-executed, and the drawbacks would allow the character to be stronger than average in exchange.

Consider, for example, a character that slowly degrades in performance over time, such as receiving a minor but stacking penalty to their damage whenever they act. This would create a fro…

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On Unexplored Gameplay Design Space