HSR patch 3.6 thoughts
Sep. 26th, 2025 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoThe new patch came out on Tuesday and I finished the main story mission last night. We finally get the patch dedicated to the new March 7 and Dan Heng banners! Yay!
First of all, to get it out of the way: Yes, the story telling this patch was well done. Top marks continuing on from the last few patches. It was mostly all dialogue and cutscenes, with very little battles or puzzles to interrupt the flow.
Focus very much stayed on our two banner characters. The story didn't sacrifice a lot of screentime for the older Amphoreus characters, even though they did show up in brief cameos. Cyrene, as the next patch's only banner character and the acknowledged dev favorite this whole arc, did get more screentime, but I feel like she didn't overshadow March and Dan Heng in terms of the story.
Regarding March 7's new form: Evernight turns out to be not technically March, but something like a... projection or secondary persona designed to protect her. Like, I find it really hard to mesh the two of them together as one. And of course, both Trailblazer and Dan Heng in story also refuse to equate Evernight as March in any shape or form. This is further proven at the end of update, when March and Evernight do "merge", it really just ends up with March's original personality wearing Evernight's design.
On her own, Evernight's own "personality" feels a lot more one dimensional. But this makes sense, and it's on purpose, since she was a creation with a one-track purpose. Anyway, what I am getting at here is... while I kinda like Evernight's visual character design, I am really meh about her personality. And given she's supposed to be "only" sup-DPS for Castorice, I am wibbling on whether or not to pull for her...
There's also the fact that Cyrene's v1 build is out. It's long and wordy, but basically she buffs all Amphoreus characters. Which means while she's nice for the Amphoreus characters I already pulled, she's also not very future proof, unable to be used for future 4.x banners. Right now my thought is that between Evernight and Cyrene, I should only get one of them, and save the rest for Hyacine + Castorice eidolons. Hrm.
With that out of the way, let's get into my personal main focus of this patch, our dragon boi.
First of all, the new lore tidbits we learned this update:
* Dan Heng does have fragmented memories of Dan Feng's life (and possibly earlier Elders as viewed through Dan Feng's lens). This is due to the Perceptors meddling with his rebirth cycle, plus the forbidden medication Lingsha's master gave him while he was newborn.
* However, his reception of these memories are not first person experience, but rather more like watching them happen like a movie reel in his dreams. This is why Dan Heng doesn't *identify* with these memories as *his* or part of himself. It's like playing a VRMMO: you play the events of the story as the protagonist, but no one serious equates said PC to their real life self.
* "Dan Feng" sort of still existed as a separate split personality kind of thing deep inside Dan Heng's subconscious psyche. But it very rarely pops up... once during that PV where they dueled (triggered I guess by Dan Heng's excessive navel gazing post-Luofu arc), and now once more due to the explosion of Remembrance energy trying to swallow Amphoreus.
* Good thing is that since "Dan Feng" was triggered by outside power rather than internal problems, he's not an obstacle in the narrative this time. Dan Heng is more focused on the crisis in front of him than going too deep into philosophizing, so the two of them don't spend too much time doing heart to heart. :p Dan Heng straight up and lays out his current views on Dan Feng, indicating that he's already finished internally dealing with that part of his past. "Dan Feng" makes some occasional commentaries to give the player exposition, but otherwise don't contribute to the segment any more than the ghost of Hysilens did. >.>
* On nature vs nurture... Dan Heng sort of acknowledges that part of his and Dan Feng's nature is that they are unable just let the death of a dear friend go. So Dan Heng can understand why Dan Feng did the whole Sedition attempting to raise Baiheng. In the same shoes he'd do the same for other Astral Express family. That said, this life time, he is closest to the Astral Express crew. I feel like he looks at the former Quintet folks as more Dan Feng's old friends. (Yeah, more knives for the Jing Yuan ship.)
* This part is a bit more of my interpretation: When Dan Heng took up the Earth Coreflame, it seems to have burnt out / overwritten the "Dan Feng" part of his subconsciousness.
* Note: What this coreflame is, is a creation by the powers of Erudition + Destruction, a data backup for ALL non-human life in Amphoreus. Essentially a couple thousand years of data on all plant, animal, magic critters, meant to be able to recreate this entire living world after its destruction.
* So Dan Heng ups and shoves this thing into his subconscious mind, relying on his native powers of The Permanence to hold it all without going crazy like its previous host Terravox did.
* Then he later relives(?) a thousand years worth ofdata Remembrance to search for the Trailblazer. It's kinda hazy whether he actually experienced a thousand years in this search; or since it was part of a dream, whether or not he actually felt the impact of searching for a thousand years. (Ref: EN Trailblaze log)
* In the aftermath narrative, we also see that even after leaving Amphoreus, Dan Heng will occasionally drift into dreams or "waking dreams" immersed in the Life of Amphoreus. So in other words, I feel like this huge data dump has probably overwritten some of the memory buffers where his Vidyadhara elder reincarnation memories were being stored (or restored). And now instead of dreaming of past lives, he dreams of Amphoreus lifeforms. Which I guess is a good thing for Dan Heng's progression as a person?
* Dan Heng's transformation into his new form was immediate on getting the Coreflame, including the increase in height. As well, we now know that neither the Trailblazer nor Dan Heng ever set foot in Amphoreus physically; their actual bodies are still floating out there on the borders of the world; only their psyches were projected into Amphoreus in 3.0. So, in other words, Dan Heng's adult height model is "just" the result of a power up, and not like the potential growth of his natural physical body.
(...as an aside, this whole time, their physical bodies never went anywhere bit makes it hard to explain the entire 3.2 update where they say the Trailblazer actually died on arrival and is now only a Remembrance construct. But in actuality, both of them are Remembrance constructs upon arriving in Amphoreus. So the whole "dead" shitck in retrospect seems to be a big lie...intended to force the Trailblazer to go to Styxia with Castorice and further plot I guess.)
* One more footnote in Dan Heng's new form. So apparently, after everything is over and he's returned to the Express...he's now finding data bank entries on Amphoreus lifeforms from other planets. Not the exact critters, but similar ones, which weren't there before. It's like...they've been retroactively written into evolutionary existence. Dan Heng is also occasionally dreaming of The Permanence (the Aeon) itself. Yeah, so this lends credibility to the theory that our boi is on the path of becoming the new heir of The Permanence. (Just like we find out this patch that March 7 is actually one of the candidates for becoming The Remembrance.) Food for thought.
Whether or not he's becoming closer to The Permanence, this change also means Dan Heng is also one more step in cutting away his ties to the Vidyadhara...which, I guess, could also be a good thing (been reading a few villain!Preceptors fics lately). But I also feel like the Jing Yuan/Dan Heng ship is pretty much dead at this point without going AU. *sigh* I have moved on, so it's just a slight twinge of regret at this point. But not sure I feel like I want to ship Dan Heng with anyone else at this point yet. Especially the contrast in his new form makes it hard to imagine. *shrug* Oh well, we'll see.
As for my banner plans. Like said above, I am still dithering about pulling Evernight or later getting Cyrene. The new Dan Heng sp is free, and I am probably going to get his LC. The rest of my saved up pulls is going to wait out for Hyacine, and probably getting Castorice E2.
The Amphoreus arc is predicted to end in the next patch 3.7, which will also need to contain the aftermath and tie up loose ends. Thus, it's not likely going to introduce any further plot twists. Likely we will get a new climax boss fight, and then a bunch of aftermath stuff. After that, 3.8 arc is supposed to go back to Penacony. Then after that, the 4.0 arc will start introducing the new Japanese themed setting. I feel like I am probably not going to pull much in 4.x, so might as well invest more for gameplay aspects in 3.x (hence going for Castorice E2). We'll see.
First of all, to get it out of the way: Yes, the story telling this patch was well done. Top marks continuing on from the last few patches. It was mostly all dialogue and cutscenes, with very little battles or puzzles to interrupt the flow.
Focus very much stayed on our two banner characters. The story didn't sacrifice a lot of screentime for the older Amphoreus characters, even though they did show up in brief cameos. Cyrene, as the next patch's only banner character and the acknowledged dev favorite this whole arc, did get more screentime, but I feel like she didn't overshadow March and Dan Heng in terms of the story.
Regarding March 7's new form: Evernight turns out to be not technically March, but something like a... projection or secondary persona designed to protect her. Like, I find it really hard to mesh the two of them together as one. And of course, both Trailblazer and Dan Heng in story also refuse to equate Evernight as March in any shape or form. This is further proven at the end of update, when March and Evernight do "merge", it really just ends up with March's original personality wearing Evernight's design.
On her own, Evernight's own "personality" feels a lot more one dimensional. But this makes sense, and it's on purpose, since she was a creation with a one-track purpose. Anyway, what I am getting at here is... while I kinda like Evernight's visual character design, I am really meh about her personality. And given she's supposed to be "only" sup-DPS for Castorice, I am wibbling on whether or not to pull for her...
There's also the fact that Cyrene's v1 build is out. It's long and wordy, but basically she buffs all Amphoreus characters. Which means while she's nice for the Amphoreus characters I already pulled, she's also not very future proof, unable to be used for future 4.x banners. Right now my thought is that between Evernight and Cyrene, I should only get one of them, and save the rest for Hyacine + Castorice eidolons. Hrm.
With that out of the way, let's get into my personal main focus of this patch, our dragon boi.
First of all, the new lore tidbits we learned this update:
* Dan Heng does have fragmented memories of Dan Feng's life (and possibly earlier Elders as viewed through Dan Feng's lens). This is due to the Perceptors meddling with his rebirth cycle, plus the forbidden medication Lingsha's master gave him while he was newborn.
* However, his reception of these memories are not first person experience, but rather more like watching them happen like a movie reel in his dreams. This is why Dan Heng doesn't *identify* with these memories as *his* or part of himself. It's like playing a VRMMO: you play the events of the story as the protagonist, but no one serious equates said PC to their real life self.
* "Dan Feng" sort of still existed as a separate split personality kind of thing deep inside Dan Heng's subconscious psyche. But it very rarely pops up... once during that PV where they dueled (triggered I guess by Dan Heng's excessive navel gazing post-Luofu arc), and now once more due to the explosion of Remembrance energy trying to swallow Amphoreus.
* Good thing is that since "Dan Feng" was triggered by outside power rather than internal problems, he's not an obstacle in the narrative this time. Dan Heng is more focused on the crisis in front of him than going too deep into philosophizing, so the two of them don't spend too much time doing heart to heart. :p Dan Heng straight up and lays out his current views on Dan Feng, indicating that he's already finished internally dealing with that part of his past. "Dan Feng" makes some occasional commentaries to give the player exposition, but otherwise don't contribute to the segment any more than the ghost of Hysilens did. >.>
* On nature vs nurture... Dan Heng sort of acknowledges that part of his and Dan Feng's nature is that they are unable just let the death of a dear friend go. So Dan Heng can understand why Dan Feng did the whole Sedition attempting to raise Baiheng. In the same shoes he'd do the same for other Astral Express family. That said, this life time, he is closest to the Astral Express crew. I feel like he looks at the former Quintet folks as more Dan Feng's old friends. (Yeah, more knives for the Jing Yuan ship.)
* This part is a bit more of my interpretation: When Dan Heng took up the Earth Coreflame, it seems to have burnt out / overwritten the "Dan Feng" part of his subconsciousness.
* Note: What this coreflame is, is a creation by the powers of Erudition + Destruction, a data backup for ALL non-human life in Amphoreus. Essentially a couple thousand years of data on all plant, animal, magic critters, meant to be able to recreate this entire living world after its destruction.
* So Dan Heng ups and shoves this thing into his subconscious mind, relying on his native powers of The Permanence to hold it all without going crazy like its previous host Terravox did.
* Then he later relives(?) a thousand years worth of
* In the aftermath narrative, we also see that even after leaving Amphoreus, Dan Heng will occasionally drift into dreams or "waking dreams" immersed in the Life of Amphoreus. So in other words, I feel like this huge data dump has probably overwritten some of the memory buffers where his Vidyadhara elder reincarnation memories were being stored (or restored). And now instead of dreaming of past lives, he dreams of Amphoreus lifeforms. Which I guess is a good thing for Dan Heng's progression as a person?
* Dan Heng's transformation into his new form was immediate on getting the Coreflame, including the increase in height. As well, we now know that neither the Trailblazer nor Dan Heng ever set foot in Amphoreus physically; their actual bodies are still floating out there on the borders of the world; only their psyches were projected into Amphoreus in 3.0. So, in other words, Dan Heng's adult height model is "just" the result of a power up, and not like the potential growth of his natural physical body.
(...as an aside, this whole time, their physical bodies never went anywhere bit makes it hard to explain the entire 3.2 update where they say the Trailblazer actually died on arrival and is now only a Remembrance construct. But in actuality, both of them are Remembrance constructs upon arriving in Amphoreus. So the whole "dead" shitck in retrospect seems to be a big lie...intended to force the Trailblazer to go to Styxia with Castorice and further plot I guess.)
* One more footnote in Dan Heng's new form. So apparently, after everything is over and he's returned to the Express...he's now finding data bank entries on Amphoreus lifeforms from other planets. Not the exact critters, but similar ones, which weren't there before. It's like...they've been retroactively written into evolutionary existence. Dan Heng is also occasionally dreaming of The Permanence (the Aeon) itself. Yeah, so this lends credibility to the theory that our boi is on the path of becoming the new heir of The Permanence. (Just like we find out this patch that March 7 is actually one of the candidates for becoming The Remembrance.) Food for thought.
Whether or not he's becoming closer to The Permanence, this change also means Dan Heng is also one more step in cutting away his ties to the Vidyadhara...which, I guess, could also be a good thing (been reading a few villain!Preceptors fics lately). But I also feel like the Jing Yuan/Dan Heng ship is pretty much dead at this point without going AU. *sigh* I have moved on, so it's just a slight twinge of regret at this point. But not sure I feel like I want to ship Dan Heng with anyone else at this point yet. Especially the contrast in his new form makes it hard to imagine. *shrug* Oh well, we'll see.
As for my banner plans. Like said above, I am still dithering about pulling Evernight or later getting Cyrene. The new Dan Heng sp is free, and I am probably going to get his LC. The rest of my saved up pulls is going to wait out for Hyacine, and probably getting Castorice E2.
The Amphoreus arc is predicted to end in the next patch 3.7, which will also need to contain the aftermath and tie up loose ends. Thus, it's not likely going to introduce any further plot twists. Likely we will get a new climax boss fight, and then a bunch of aftermath stuff. After that, 3.8 arc is supposed to go back to Penacony. Then after that, the 4.0 arc will start introducing the new Japanese themed setting. I feel like I am probably not going to pull much in 4.x, so might as well invest more for gameplay aspects in 3.x (hence going for Castorice E2). We'll see.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-28 01:00 am (UTC)Welp. There goes any interest I have in this particular IP... Ugh.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-28 05:25 pm (UTC)The new planet next year is rumored also feature Yingxing, yes, old!Blade. I am...skeptical of how they're gonna float this from a sales & marketing perspective. In story it's Elation-focused world, so theoretically anything goes.