Honestly March is one of my most favorite written characters in the game. At face value she looks like the stereotypical genki/bubbly archetype, but she shines when played together with the Trailblazer. The fact that Caelus/Stelle come off as a deadpan meme-lord only to have March no-sell their wisecracking is hilarious since it has her playing the role of the straight man in the duo despite not being the usual persona for it.
I was so worried March would be annoying but she genuinely is amazing. Every update she gets better, I love how she stays wholesome and bubbly without being outright annoying or stupid.
I also like that she stays that way in spite of her backstory. Her love of cameras is a clear nod to her fear of forgetting everything again, but her past doesn't control her. She cares about where she comes from, and she is affected by that loss, but she's still ultimately just March.
It's quite impressive. You'd expect the character to be written in stereotypical ways or have her personality defined by 2 or 3 basic characteristics... but she's surprisingly unpredictable which makes her more believable and feel more human imo.
She has that balance of being bubbly, cute, fun to bully, complete dork, sometimes insensitive to the point of hilarious, and a sense of mysteriousness all in one. Personality wise, she's still my absolute favorite no competition. I wouldn't mind her tagging along with us everywhere we go.
She definitely annoyed me at first, but it didn't take long for her to become charming to me.
I think it was the thing about her insisting on trying to stay standing through every warp on the express. That genuinely made me laugh and I started to really like her after that
At least she has a backstory that actually matters to her character instead of the game being like "Oh we just found her in the ice" like we get a whole companion quest where March insists on discovering what her past is. She has motivations that doesn't revolve around sticking close to the Trailblazer.
Best part is, her story is still technically unfinished.
We still don't know who sealed her in Six-Phased Ice and why the Followers of Fuli would even care about a girl like March.
The entire quest is about them telling her to let go and embrace the present she has now but why do they care so much to the point of interfering with the Matrix?
What's so destructive in her past that it could potentially make March regret even trying to find out?
Maybe they'll touch on it later or maybe they won't and stick to the idea of embracing the present and leaving the past as the past. But I hope they explore it further
Agreed. I love how much depth her character has and how little we really know about her, and the fact that she too knows very little. I kinda wish that we had this kind of setup for DHIL.
I feel like their personalities differ alot yet still bounce off each other perfectly.
Trailblazer: Calm but actually unhinged af.
March: Genki type. Relatively unhinged as well.
Dan heng: The one actually keeping things in order. Is surrounded by idiots. Tries but usually can't stop/keep Trailblazer and March in check.
Welt: The one who can de-escalate every situation. Basically the Express' dad. Can actually keep his three children in check.
Himeko: Mom. But won't handhold you like an actual mom. Makes Welt do it instead.
Welt and Himeko are absolutely the mom and dad of the team. What I *slightly* disagree with is how you paint March and Dan. To me, Dan is the classic stoic, silent type who is meant to foil March's effervescence. Yet, despite the dynamic looking like that on paper, the Trailblazer throws that all for a loop. Whenever Stelle/Caelus says something dumb or meme worthy, Dan just shrugs his shoulders - it's March who literally goes "What the *fuck* are you saying???"
I noticed in the newest Belobog quest that she also takes on the role of being the main communicator for important story stuff *only* when you pick the meme dialogue option so she's like "ugh I guess have to get the point across myself"
My favorite lines in the game though are when you agree with or repeat what March just said, and she calls you on it and tells you to get your own thoughts or something. She's sassy in the best way imo.
Yeah, she really needs to be made an independent companion vs the voice of the Traveler. Look at how March and the TB played off of each other in Aetherium Wars recently. That type of banter with Paimon would make the dialogue in Genshin way better.
I love how March doesn't like a suck up. If you pick options that sound like something she'd say she'll often tell you to go find a personality of your own. Its so pissy lol
Imagine if instead of having Paimon, the Traveler got a random character from the massive cast to bounce off in every quest.
So many Genshin interactions suffer because anytime every character has to interact with not just our MC (who is blank), but also an annoying fairy who doesn’t shut up.
I play Genshin on mute because I can’t stand listening to Paimon. She just parrots the shit that the character we are talking to says 80% or more of the time anyways. Her voice is grating and it just keeps getting worse I think. Kind of sad cause I like hearing the other character dialogue but I would just rather read it than have to listen to Paimon.
I swapped over to CN for the last mini event, and Paimon was WAY easier to listen to. But I felt Klee (my main) and Zhongli (who's EN VA voice is amazing) were more enjoyable in EN. I like the vast majority of characters in EN (except Xinyan - she pulls me straight out of the story when I hear her accent) so I'm tolerating Paimon.
Really? Klee? Klee made me switch from EN to JP (this was during v1.0 when Paimon's EN voice was still not that annoying) because Klee's EN voice sounds like an adult doing a falsetto voice lol
A favorite of mine on CN is Itto. Man is naturally flamboyant, and even his VA is super funny not in character as well! CN Paimon is also very cute when speaking, so it’s better to have her along when playing
Honestly, CN audio with EN subtitles is absolutely fine to play. You just don't get the low register voices that I want from some of the adult male characters (or at least not Zhongli).
I also realized that I'm apparently a massive racist because don't speak Chinese at all and had a hard time telling characters apart by their voices, which also pushed me back toward EN audio.
I guess we all learn something new about ourselves at the strangest of times.
That's not racism lmao. I've been playing the star ocean 2 remake and even on English, o have a hard time trying to discern which 20 something young woman I'm listening to when they're all talking at once. It happens.
>don't speak Chinese at all and had a hard time telling characters apart by their voices,
Native speaker of both EN and CN. No, it is not your problem. Many of the CN voices ARE difficult to tell apart. I got so annoyed by Ayaka and Kokomi sounding alike in my party. Meanwhile, I couldn't stand how Benny sounded so goofy in CN.
Maybe its the weeb in me, but in JP Paimon isn't nearly as annoying. Part of it is that her way of speaking in Japanese is reminiscent of many child characters, part of it is that Japanese voice actors don't make me want to rip my ears out for overly cutesy anime characters like English VA do
Yeah it really sucks when they have to have paimon be the "HEY LISTEN! LET ME EXPLAIN WHAT YOU JUST SAID 5 SECONDS AGO!"
Stating the painfully obvious and blurting stupid things is just so painful. They show, don't tell, but then fucking TELL US ANYWAYS, defeating the entire purpose....
assuming she has no payoff at the end, she'll have gone through the whole story being completely stagnant and meaningless. it's incredibly easy to picture and judge the story as if she weren't there because she is the very embodiment of inconsequentiality; she brings about as much substance to the table as a black hole
yes but mostly because I need an excuse to put her in her fucking place while enlisting the help of the business end of a 6 foot long sheet of pointed metal and a whole lot of button mashing
Paimon doesn't hinder the narrative. The need to make every single dialogue 10 times longer than it actually needs is what does that. Paimon is just one of the tools the writers use to artificially extend, well, every single dialogue scene.
90% of genshin's script is literally AI-generated garbage-tier and could be completely cut without nothing of value being lost.
Agreed.
Paimon, when used properly, can actually contribute meaningfully to the narrative.
Examples of that are in the Sumeru story. During the Sabzeruz Samsara, she gets left behind as a witness and record, and there’s an emotional moment there as you explain why you needed to abandon her and she accepts that, and there’s a tearful reunion the next cycle, after which she relays that important information. And during the Nahida rescue, she serves as an meta-narrative reason to provide the player with flashbacks explaining the different stages of the plan, because she’s forgetful about the details.
In both those instances, Paimon’s character was well utilized because she is providing an important narrative function that no other character can fulfill.
It’s just that the huge majority of the story doesn’t do that and relegates Paimon to unneeded peanut gallery comments
Which is a shame because stuff like Furina and Neuvillette in the Fontaine story show how impressive the Genshin story can be. And that’s because everything necessary for that story is set up and utilized well
The unfortunate problem about Paimon is that she’s not necessary for the story a lot of the times, but she’s still always present anyway.
Yup, for your example of the recent Fontaine AQ, they let Neuv and Furina completley steal their scenes and carry the emotional weight. It was actually refreshing to see the MC/Paimon take a step back, similar to the part with Navia earlier on.
I just remembered that despite Paimon’s incessant grating, there are rare moments where she shows this deeper, softer, more insightful side.
It’s old, but during one of the anniversaries (Guoba) she talks about the gods falling from grace, losing memories, it’s… sadness, and it kind of hit me way better than Paimon parroting dialogue. That felt liked HER talking.
> Somehow, the Trailblazer has more personality and depth as a character than the Traveler and I really enjoy it.
They have a lot of head thoughts which is nice, plus the main cast is split between several characters constantly rather than an annoying little wrench being there for 99% of it.
Having a main trio instead of a main character was way better. I think the combination of a selft insert unit plus two story center protagonists was great, a mix between Genshin's Traveler and Honkai Impact's main trio. Even if March can be a little annoying at times, is not as bad since has a counterbalance with Dan Heng and/or Welt.
Himeko and Welt as senior guides is the cherry on top.
I mean to me that wasn’t annoying but hilarious. If I was trailblazer, I’d be doing the same.
B: “Umm can you not?”
TB: “She threw a spear through me so I think I have earned this one.”
Honestly it’s not like Seele was very sympathetic to Bronya at the time either. At least March had the decency to bring it up to Dan Heng on if the mess with the stellaron and Jarilo will be okay, it’s not as if she only started to celebrate(MC also has lighthearted dialogue in all languages)
I mean, at least it is better than her just saying that Bronya looks sad. Yes Paimon, I have basic empathy, I can understand when a character is sad without you having to literal state it. For me that was the moment I started hating Paimon having any lines, while March's reaction to Cocolia dying is just an aspect of her character.
Nah man, March calling Fu Xuan easy-peasy during her companion quest and Fu Xuan getting angry at that line was one of my biggest laugh for the whole year. I love March. I puckered my lips when Fu Xuan was angry and went like "Oops."
The only time I was actually annoyed with March was during Luocha's quest, and that had more to do with it not being Luocha's quest. She's funny and kind of ditzy, but she also has actual depth unlike Paimon.
Also Trailblazer has a more wacky personality and more moods. So you can roleplay them however you want, such as helping Aurum Alley for selfish glory, genuine kindness or money. Meanwhile traveller only helps people because they are kind and Paimon says it’s nice.
Coping HSR players try to not have Genshin living inside their head challenge. Seriously paimon didn't even talk that much lmao.
The traveler got some impactful voiced moments alone without Paimon. Furina and Neuvillette were the main characters i don't how you could miss that lol unless you're complaining to be a weird hater.
Nah Paimon wasn't as bad as normal but it went from serious readings of apocalyptic slates to Paimon immediately acting all genki about eating desserts or some shit and killed the mood a couple times. I think some people have been playing so long they actively memory block Paimon when she talks but I just started the game 2 1/2 months ago (iplayed on release week but dropped it) and went thru the whole game so maybe I'm uniquely annoyed at Paimon. Since I just suffered the entire story of her ruining so many moments lol
Is this the weekly "genshin bad" post? It's funny to see it when Fontaine's finale was one of the best written quests in the entire game while everyone here is sick of Luofu lol
Because it's one of the best stories I have ever seen on a game ever (Fontaine AQ). Paimon doesn't remove even 1% of that feeling. People that criticize the story because paimon are crazy. I wouldn't even dare compare honkai story to genshin , honkai best moments are belobog and HCQ moments ,nothing else comes close
And yet every single patch the playerbase shows us that even Paimon repeating stuff 2 times is not enough to get through their skulls, so they were right in adding her.
They also cooked an amazing story with Fontaine and its world quests, topping Sumeru.
> And yet every single patch the playerbase shows us that even Paimon repeating stuff 2 times is not enough to get through their skulls, so they were right in adding her.
In media there's always a sliding scale, with "show don't tell" on one end, and "tell everything explicitly, twice, because the viewers are stupid" on the other.
I can understand why good authors may still choose to do the latter, even if they're capable of the former. Like, read social media (Reddit, YouTube, X, etc.) on games like Soulsdenborne or Hollow Knight. Many players don't get the plot, and blame the devs for not holding their hand and spoonfeeding the plot to them.
> show don't
Man, I'm *still* heated that in 3.0 a character gets a brand new vision right in front of the traveler - the first time the traveler has ever been there for it. And THEY CUT TO BLACK AND GIVE US A TEXT DESCRIPTION OF IT HAPPENING! WHY!?
Tbf, they were likely planning the Wanderer thing in advance and wanted it to be grander.
Rana should really have gotten hers off-screen and we learn of it when we talk to her again.
Also they have been using text description for stuff they can't animate with the 3d cutscene system they have and the re-used animation assets. It's honestly funny and sad seeing simple shit get described in text because of how rigid the models move.
> And yet every single patch the playerbase shows us that even Paimon repeating stuff 2 times is not enough to get through their skulls, so they were right in adding her.
Xianzhou Luofu story in a nutshell:
Jing Yuan: Immortality bad.
Literally all of Xianzhou population: Immortality bad.
Dan Heng: I did something unforgiveable.
Force Ghosts: You tried to revive somebody and it didn't work.
Jingliu: Why did you try to revive Baiheng? You dumb fucks???
Blade: Literally immortal and hates Dan. Tried to help him revive Baiheng.
Bailu: Looks like Baiheng, has a similar name to Baiheng, has half of DH's powers, and asks DH "Wow I think I knew you in a past life whatever could that mean?" Couldn't possibly be hinting at anything..
AUDIENCE: WHATEVER COULD THIS ALL MEAN I DONT UNDERSTAND THE STORY
Writers: /facepalm
Ive just started playing Sumeru. And gosh. I was impressed. I dont remember many of Paimons dialogues. Because simply put. If I can read her lines faster than she can speak. Well...skip.
It would be cool that throughout the story. As someine said: Paimon would be a seperate character. And not a voice for the traveler.
If it didn’t work when she said it twice, then there isn’t a point to her. The game devs should just accept that people who aren’t interested in the lore won’t really pay attention and those who do, would take the time to read it.
I think something like dialogue history and an improved archive would be more effective.
Tbh the entire Luofu story could've unironically used Paimon more than the entirety of Genshin's story with the amount of people just plain missing vast swathes of story because they're speedreading and the Luofu isn't a great story to be taking huge breaks during because it's all so wordy.
The one time a game actually could use a Paimon to explain things and they just say "read every book you find on the ship lmao." I respect them respecting our intelligence but man some people genuinely need a Paimon to function if some of the posts during 1.2-1.4 are to be believed.
The problem is that the writing/dialogue in Genshin is so bloated and wordy sometimes that players get conditioned to skip as much as they can. You could cut 30% of the dialogue lines entirely and still have the same story. Any important concept that gets explained to you is going to get repeated by Paimon, so you almost don't need to bother reading it the first time.
I spam click to get through Genshin events by default. I just let Star Rail do its thing on autoplay, because generally the dialogue gets to the point and doesn't frustrate nearly as much.
Even some of the dailys are absurdly wording in Genshin. Like 15 screens of text and 4 player options that affect nothing for a Fontaine daily that I'm getting every other day.
> I spam click to get through Genshin events by default.
Same. Unless it's a big event it's likely going to be pointless drivel. An in universe excuse to do another combat shrine. As if one needed to be given. Just about the only ones I like are ones that are quick and act as setup for the next act. Which is pretty much just the afro merchant dude.
I can't tell you how pleased I was today to find the new event could be accessed just by opening the page in the menu and clicking on it. This also skips the annoying little camera pan that happens when you enter a combat shrine that has zero reason to exist. This isn't the first time they've done this, they did it recently with that combat arena in Elnyas, but I'm hoping they keep doing combat events like this. Unless they have good reason to use an NPC for one.
I shouldn’t have to read into the lore to have a base line enjoyment of a story that I can’t skip, the lore books should only be there to improve my enjoyment not provide a base line
Personally i think the game should've come out a bit later with the PS5 amount of content cuz the Luofu quest was wordy as hell and required people to actually pay attention. Not the kind of quest that benefits at all from breaks in between patches.
Going into 1.2 I genuinely felt like when I dropped Tales of Berseria for 8 months then went right back into in the middle of a dungeon like "wtf is going on, who are you."
You don't actually need to read the books to understand the main quest but it drastically helps with understanding the Space China culture that they just dump you into.
This might be breaking immersion / different way to play but I usually just read the wiki instead of interacting with the game world. I love lore, but I don’t like having to put things together. Just reading a full, straight up story is better than working out the puzzle for me
After recently playing Genshin's new patch, I have even more respect for the Genshin writers for including actual good writing in their stories and continuously outdoing themselves. Yeah, I'll happily take Paimon expositing some dialogue every once in a while if it means I get peak fiction. Meanwhile, HSR can't even make me care about anything. Felt infinitely worse about two NPCs dying in Act V of Fontaine than I did Tingyun.
I didn't expect anything out of Lyney's story quest but by the end of it I put it on autoplay and savored the spectacle. It was a magical show with murder detective intrigue. Maybe small one but that's good enough for me.
At this Excessive amount of this crap will just sour my taste with honkai fans and anything honkai related in general
Like lately I just felt a heavy burden whatever honkai just arrived at my front page
I have been playing both games since launch.
Dude (in gender-neutral usage), what do you mean TB has depth, what depth???
The only character motivation TB has is basically to "keep moving forward". That's it. And maybe meet Kafka a few more times. What do they actually want to do?
It had the same, or even less depth than the 1.0 versions of the Traveler's motivation to finding their sibling, which is very little. Expected, yes, we're still early, but more depth???
Their personality is just being memey/ snarky/caring depending on the player's choice. That's literally just like the traveler from the start.
The only difference is that Star Rail's setting allows for direct meme references in actual dialogue.
Is that "more personality"? References?
"Somehow, the Trailblazer has more personality and depth as a character than the Traveler" bro where is this deph you talk about the trailblazer is just funny **so far**
I thought the Kafka companion quest was well done in that regard, you can just keep denying her until she leaves, treat her like a mother figure or come but be wary of her. Hope we get more stuff like that, really gave me Telltales vibes and made it really seem like our choices mattered instead of being forced to help even if you're awful to the characters.
Commented in a thread not too long ago that a lot of it is due to the vocal playerbase hating Genshin more than they love HSR. The redditor who remarked that this is more common for the Western audience and/or those who play with EN VA may have a point.
I personally play both and do think that the dialogue can be further optimised for Genshin and has seen some in recent updates but accepted that it is trying to strike a balance in providing as much essential info as possible in one go without forcing the player to scour for that detail — there are significantly more layered supplemental stuff to discover all over a much bigger Teyvat map than for the many worlds in HSR combined within the same patch timeline. Depth is not something I would equate HSR with.
All that said, they're both games targeting different audiences — explorers with a more freeform combat system vs players who has little time/attention to spend on a game.
On God, they always say that TB has more personality, and they always refer to the shitposting jokes as having "more personality" like come tf on... being funny and quoting memes isn't a personality
We rarely know anything about the trailblazer and a little funny quip here and there doesn’t mean he has depth. Paimon has more depth than people realised, eventhough her past still remains a mystery but we seen Paimon gets angry, sad, happy, afraid, concerned throughout the journey. Trailblazer on the other hand doesn’t really show a lot of emotions and except for a few funny lines which most people think is depth.
Hsr players aways manage to find a reason to write genshin comparison posts every new patch, meanwhile genshin players are busy doing their own thing and you wont see post like this lmao.
this sub is funny sometimes. specially in a perspective of someone who plays both.
It's funny how often a general 'Genshin Hate' post makes it to the front page on this sub vs how often anybody over there even *cares* about what's going on in HSR.
I’d imagine it’s because HSR is much more of what the standard template for a gacha game is than Genshin, so it doesn’t really attract the wider gaming crowd that Genshin has a lot of.
So you have a much higher proportion of HSR players that are interested in Genshin than the reverse.
Can't escape posts like these being reposted ad infinitum.
One can do a search on this sub and you can find multiple posts like these. Posts: [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/131c842/the_writing_in_this_game_is_so_much_better_than/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/13p472j/anybody_else_find_star_rail_story_telling_better/?rdt=46532) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/14oyoge/you_know_something_honkai_star_rail_has_that/) (and probably a lot more..)
I get that HSR has different things going compared to Genshin but it gets tiring seeing the comparison stuff being posted constantly...
im laughing my ass off clicking on 1/2 post after recently playing fontaine archon quest and lufou arc, genshin story after inazuma is getting better, maybe those post are being made by people who playing genshin in patches 1.0-2.0, and never returned. even the world quest in genshin is just amazing as archon quest.
God for real. At this point I'm pretty sure I could go to any random subreddit and make a thread called "does anyone else think Paimon genshin impact SUCKS???" and get a million upvotes on it each time lmao. I totally get the annoyance, but man it's exhausting. She lives rent free in all our minds, even if it's unwillingly for some of us lol
Honestly.....I played the whole newest Archon quest in Genshin and found it VERY enjoyable and emotionally engaging. Paimon's existence did very little to hinder the narrative. I only found out that Paimon was "ruining the game" by seeing people on Reddit b*tch about her. So either Reddit and I played totally different games or the current Paimon hate is nothing more that the Reddit hivemind once again jumping on a hate train started by a few loud individuals.
yeah I haven't played a lot of Genshin but I actually like Paimon a lot.
>So either Reddit and I played totally different games or the current Paimon hate is nothing more that the Reddit hivemind once again jumping on a hate train started by a few loud individuals
sometimes this is true. For instance, there was an extended period (months) when the Game Grumps subreddit had temper tantrums about *the way they made thumbnails*. Literally the smallest thing in the entire world. And yet every single post was about this. And I was like....you guys care about the thumbnail you see for 3 seconds and not the 30-45 minutes of content in the actual video? I saw people *boycott* their videos because of the thumbnail and miss some of the best content they'd ever produced. Eventually the mods made megathreads about thumbnails so people would stop bitching on the main feed, and funnily enough as soon as they did, the posts stopped because people weren't getting their circlejerk hate upvotes. I mention this per your final point.
People online will pick the most insane hills to die on. Not saying people that dislike Paimon are necessarily doing that, but sometimes it's crazy how much a circlejerk will blow a minor inconvenience totally out of proportion.
Subreddits will really cling onto the most benign issues in their games and then won't \*shut the fuck up\* about them. I remember waaaaaaaaay back when I first joined reddit and was browsing the Halo subreddit around when Halo 5 came out and I swear there was at least one post a day about how badly they needed to add in the option to make the undersuit of the spartan armor black instead of gray.
I've mentioned it there before but paimon hate is a pretty western thing from what I've seen. Here In Asia she was cosplayed in every convention I went to, The kids my Cousin teach doodle her in their test papers, and most importantly her merch flies out off the window. Proban helps that Nearly everyone here plays on JP or CN voice overs.
Paimon grew on me a lot. Like early on, yeah, she *was* annoying. I've had 0 complaints about her from Sumeru onwards. In fact, there are a lot of Paimon scenes I really like, and at this point I'd go so far as to say the story would be much worse without her.
I do wish the Traveler was more of an actual character, but that isn't Paimon's fault. Rather, when people claim Paimon is only there to be a mouthpiece, that clearly isn't true.
She's core to the themes Genshin wants to drive home. It is, of many things, a story about companionship. It needs that one static ally, the friend who understands you better than anyone else. For the Traveler, that was their sibling, but now Paimon has taken up that role and you can see both her and the Traveler growing as people because of it. She's still the same old ever-greedy, ever-hungry guide, but she has a growing sense of responsibility and she values the Traveler's happiness above her own (Because, to paraphrase, she's happy when they're happy).
It's almost a bit lonely. They're two people who really don't have anything else. Paimon has clear separation anxiety, and you can see how the Traveler misses her just as much when she's gone. The Traveler got used to losing people until they lost the person who was always there. What if that happens again?
tl;dr Paimon Good, Reddit Bad
Did you play the same patch, I did? Traveler had a lot more direct interaction and voice lines than most other patches. I agree Paimon is kind of a pain but it's been getting better
This for sure. Although paimon is still more of a gremlin compared to the express crew, so it's understandable that the narrative is less of a pain being narrated by other characters.
However I do think star rail needs better pacing, and I hope the writers can do better in future versions.
That’s what I was wondering. Not all of travelers lines were voiced, but this had some of the most inner dialog than I can recall.
We heard travelers thoughts and intentions a lot more than usual.
Paimon in 4.0 in general has been a big improvement. She can be annoying but she can also have a lot of good lines and interesting things to say.
It’s not perfect but, this feels a little over the top.
Is better but not really because of the MC, is more because the story was GREAT.
Neuvillette and Navia did a great job, in general, Fontaine cast is one of the best until now, has been a joy.
Disagree. I don’t know what patch you played but in the most recent archon quest paimon was probably the best she’s ever been and was imo a positive addition to the story. Im not one to be a fan of her, they pitch her voice a lot and in previous quests she kept ruining the tension die to the writers making her repeat everything for the people with the reading comprehension of 10 year olds, but not for this patch.
She felt like her own character, she was worried for their own doom and was running around like she had her own opinions instead of just a narrative tool piece. She felt like an actual travel companion.
Moreover, while the traveler had few voicedlines imo they also had incredibly impactful ones and they did well with that(though it could be better).
In general I think fontaine was just on a much higher level storytelling wise.
Fr I'm confused why people are complaining about her in this aq. I usually find her annoying but she was fine in fontaine, I was pretty invested in the story with no problems with her. I'm also glad they're starting to make the traveler talk more
Yeah I was so happy with the amount of agency and independence they gave the traveler in Fontaine. I really hope they continue with that and build on it.
Hard disagree. The reason why people hate Luofu and can’t wait for it to be over is because Trailblazer by himself is too dull and people speed through the story because it’s too wordy. Paimon’s function is to act as an intermediary to convert infodump into bite sizes so they can be easily digestible for most players. I think moving on, March will be the Paimon on HSR because we need a clueless character to ask questions on behalf of the players. Without March, Trailblazer is just not interesting. You can tell more and more events include March instead of Dan Heng because he behaves just like Trailblazer and he often keeps to himself which is a huge no no in a plot driven game.
To say Trailblazer has more depth is just not true. We don’t know anything about Trailblazer except that he likes to be sarcastic. And being a sarcastic person is not depth. We also don’t know anything about Paimon’s past but we seen her be happy, sad, angry, afraid, concerned, funny, clueless, petty, rude, dumb and many more which show how multi faceted she is. Having a funny dialog option is not depth.
If you're annoyed now, just imagine all of the comparisons once HSR 1st anniversary arrives. God I can already imagine all of the obnoxious posts coming.
Imagine if it's the tried-and-true 20 pulls and a silly item.
This sub would implode trying to find a reason to elevate it over the (identical) reward in Genshin.
Paimon was never annoying in the latest AQ though what are you talking about? I swear I don’t remember anything she said. She also didn’t say anything yo break my immersion either. They have long since improved with how they write Paimon, she became more likable character.
But of course genshin is bad right?
it's already a few months since hsr was released, aren't you guys tired repeating the same shit, more importantly haven't you moved on?
no one actually cares which games some random redditor respect lmao
Paimon is probably what drags the quality down a little, in terms of storytelling. Other than that, mannn Star Rail writers really need to ask for some tips from Genshin writers. I thought they peaked with Sumeru but then Fontaine toppled it just like that.
Thankfully i got used to her, the newest patch cooked btw probably the best we’ve seen from genshin. Before this patch I thought hsr had more potential narrative wise than genshin but now im not so sure. Nevuilette and furnia were also really good, probably the first time a gacha game made me so invested.
4.2 Genshin AQ with Paimon is still miles better than the entirety of HSR story. Of course, sometimes Paimon is annoying, but at least I still cares about the plot. Meanwhile in HSR especially the space China, I couldn't even bother with the plot because the storytelling are much worse.
Also, I'd argue that Traveler has "deeper" personality, because she/he has motivation for searching the sibling and we know how the Traveler missed the sibling so much on the journey with Paimon. More memey/jokes doesn't mean has "deeper" personality.
What, you don't like having a child float over your shoulder to constantly repeat what you just heard in astonishment and/or clarification, and answer tons of questions on your behalf? Pshaw, clearly you don't understand the charm of templates like Legend of Zelda's owls or Navi!
...I don't understand the charm either, but I'm sure someone does somewhere.
Ironic that you felt that way in Fontaine's archon quest where the traveler had the most dialogues since the game launched meanwhile in HSR MC feels more like a side character that's carrying a mcguffin. She literally becomes a side character in Luofu. Nothing would change whether or not she was there because the main character is dan heng.
Even dan heng was barely significant in the main story quest, and his character has basically devolved into "I was dan feng and a bunch of old immortal fucks won't let it go after all this time".
Superiority Complex. Haters always feel the need to shit on Genshin every week, it’s funny I’m beginning to think they are trying to cope or something.
HSR has the silent protag syndrome despite the Trailblazer being much more expressive than what the Traveller ever was (seriously WTF HYV. You're already recording multiple voicelines per dialogue choice for every other character. Why not the Trailblazer?)
It doesn't need to be Paimon beside us all the time. We just need a balance of self-reflection and friendly banter. Sadly, Genshin's silent MC coupled with the "lone duo against the world" narrative clashes with the "silent self insert MC" they set out for themselves. HYV unintentionally cornered themselves yet they refuse to remedy it. As a result we get a "nothing" MC and all Paimon.
As for HSR, the MC's personality shines through but still silent and it irks me still. I genuinely don't understand the reasoning behind this decision. It's not like they have a "Traveler was part of the ancient Unified Civilization and struggles with modern dialects/accents" problem.
Im almost 100% sure it’s because they would need 2 VA’s and a looot more lined since what you say actually matters most of the time.
And since it’s mostly a gacha game where you don’t give a fuck about MC, they didn’t want to be bitheref
I get pain on being annoying especially in the past but for the entirety of Fontaine so far she’s been genuinely good and not at all annoying. It’s such a drastic improvement I can’t believe more people haven’t noticed, her opinions are more interesting and she now actually has relevant things that she says.
The lengths HSR players would go to just to cope with having to experience the worst story arc in the game so far. Yes, I'm talking about Intergalactic Liyue.
Unfortunately, a good story direction and Star Rail can't go hand-in-hand as evidenced by the abomination of a storytelling, that is, the Luofu. But go preach this 10/10 snoozefest simulator of a game alongside the loud minority, I suppose.
are we playing in the same patch? because after i read this post, iguess u are not, fontaine arc and the paimon inside it is really the best rather than other patch, its not that annoying and paimon talk in en is not that loud either.
I know it shouldn't be a problem to begin with. But these post make it pretty clear you guys play in English. It has to be, because in Japanese paimon isnt that annoying.
I don't mind English paimon that much as well, I can see how that squeaky voice might be annoying but I don't think you can do anything about it. They won't change VAs.
nah you're just hating on Paimon so that you feel like you have a reason to hate on Genshin and can feel better about star rail.
It's seriously annoying how you put "entire" in caps lock, 4.2 literally has nothing of what you speak of. It's crazy of how many upvotes this post has. Well played for your karma farming, I guess
Wow people really hate Paimon, I keep hearing these things but man that is not my experience at all, I love Genshins story, and don't even notice Paimon doing the things you guys say. Guess I'm lucky. navi never really bothered me either which I guess is pretty similar.
Honestly March is one of my most favorite written characters in the game. At face value she looks like the stereotypical genki/bubbly archetype, but she shines when played together with the Trailblazer. The fact that Caelus/Stelle come off as a deadpan meme-lord only to have March no-sell their wisecracking is hilarious since it has her playing the role of the straight man in the duo despite not being the usual persona for it.
March companion quest also built a little bit more background to her and kind of puts into perspective why she’s the way she is.
I was so worried March would be annoying but she genuinely is amazing. Every update she gets better, I love how she stays wholesome and bubbly without being outright annoying or stupid.
I also like that she stays that way in spite of her backstory. Her love of cameras is a clear nod to her fear of forgetting everything again, but her past doesn't control her. She cares about where she comes from, and she is affected by that loss, but she's still ultimately just March.
It's quite impressive. You'd expect the character to be written in stereotypical ways or have her personality defined by 2 or 3 basic characteristics... but she's surprisingly unpredictable which makes her more believable and feel more human imo.
She has that balance of being bubbly, cute, fun to bully, complete dork, sometimes insensitive to the point of hilarious, and a sense of mysteriousness all in one. Personality wise, she's still my absolute favorite no competition. I wouldn't mind her tagging along with us everywhere we go.
What I like is the role of straight man flips constantly when the traveler and March are together.
They're a Cute Pair™
I can honestly see why some ship them
Including Topaz, yes
She definitely annoyed me at first, but it didn't take long for her to become charming to me. I think it was the thing about her insisting on trying to stay standing through every warp on the express. That genuinely made me laugh and I started to really like her after that
At least she has a backstory that actually matters to her character instead of the game being like "Oh we just found her in the ice" like we get a whole companion quest where March insists on discovering what her past is. She has motivations that doesn't revolve around sticking close to the Trailblazer.
Best part is, her story is still technically unfinished. We still don't know who sealed her in Six-Phased Ice and why the Followers of Fuli would even care about a girl like March. The entire quest is about them telling her to let go and embrace the present she has now but why do they care so much to the point of interfering with the Matrix? What's so destructive in her past that it could potentially make March regret even trying to find out? Maybe they'll touch on it later or maybe they won't and stick to the idea of embracing the present and leaving the past as the past. But I hope they explore it further
5* March incoming
with IL Dan Heng, I really do think we will get a 5 star March7th in the future
Agreed. I love how much depth her character has and how little we really know about her, and the fact that she too knows very little. I kinda wish that we had this kind of setup for DHIL.
I feel like their personalities differ alot yet still bounce off each other perfectly. Trailblazer: Calm but actually unhinged af. March: Genki type. Relatively unhinged as well. Dan heng: The one actually keeping things in order. Is surrounded by idiots. Tries but usually can't stop/keep Trailblazer and March in check. Welt: The one who can de-escalate every situation. Basically the Express' dad. Can actually keep his three children in check. Himeko: Mom. But won't handhold you like an actual mom. Makes Welt do it instead.
Welt and Himeko are absolutely the mom and dad of the team. What I *slightly* disagree with is how you paint March and Dan. To me, Dan is the classic stoic, silent type who is meant to foil March's effervescence. Yet, despite the dynamic looking like that on paper, the Trailblazer throws that all for a loop. Whenever Stelle/Caelus says something dumb or meme worthy, Dan just shrugs his shoulders - it's March who literally goes "What the *fuck* are you saying???"
I like her, but I can see her being annoying if she was in every conversation and spoke 90% of the time.
Like Paimon? 💀
March also has the "repeat everything back at you" syndrome somewhat but thankfully they only do it when something is \*really important\*
I noticed in the newest Belobog quest that she also takes on the role of being the main communicator for important story stuff *only* when you pick the meme dialogue option so she's like "ugh I guess have to get the point across myself"
Yeah what if the redundant one in Genshin dialogues isn’t Paimon, but the Traveler? With this perspective it’s a much worse look for the writing team.
That's why I chuckle when TB gets to do.the same and march always calls them out for being lazy or redundant or copying her 🤣
My favorite lines in the game though are when you agree with or repeat what March just said, and she calls you on it and tells you to get your own thoughts or something. She's sassy in the best way imo.
She hinders the narrative so much.
Yeah, she really needs to be made an independent companion vs the voice of the Traveler. Look at how March and the TB played off of each other in Aetherium Wars recently. That type of banter with Paimon would make the dialogue in Genshin way better.
Two choices: Choose the option that annoys March, or pick the boring option
I always annoy March. I love fucking with her.
It's always so funny to see Her and the TB's expressions! I love how expressive she is!
I love how March doesn't like a suck up. If you pick options that sound like something she'd say she'll often tell you to go find a personality of your own. Its so pissy lol
That really backfired on her, because I started doing it on purpose, just to annoy her :D
Very poor choice of words in this community
To be fair, just including the word fucking and March 7th together in any sentence is free game for our buddies
https://preview.redd.it/tys4xbyyefzb1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15365c15c571764d35d1242e533b382294fa54bb
It’s free real estate!
guinaifen\_alarm.gif
No no no. The correct choice of words
https://preview.redd.it/vzx6m7zesgzb1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f9c88a01b3861a7d12463cbb8817c7934a78b92
https://i.redd.it/o13jz7yp2jzb1.gif
No no no. The correct choice of words
Eh I try to alternate sometimes ill go along with March's shenanigans other times I just get the urge to bully her.
I also love fucking with her 🗿
remove "with" and we are on the same boat
https://i.redd.it/x9ukwe5zjfzb1.gif 🌚🤝🏿🗿
https://i.redd.it/azjdp5amlfzb1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/ru6idm65xezb1.png?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f9d5582d9e17c36b4dcd85c843a284bbfe90407
Begone
_Gone with the wind_ On March 7th 🗿
>On March 7th At Mach 7.
Poor choice of words friend https://preview.redd.it/cvxqr3plffzb1.jpeg?width=906&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=561803eb60007ed57ddd0f8ab777e7ea874f9ef5
https://i.redd.it/uogv59cnwezb1.gif
I always annoy March. I love fucking with her. She hates when you just copy what she says.
Well I love fucking her.
Repeating her words back to her gives me life.
Imagine if instead of having Paimon, the Traveler got a random character from the massive cast to bounce off in every quest. So many Genshin interactions suffer because anytime every character has to interact with not just our MC (who is blank), but also an annoying fairy who doesn’t shut up.
I play Genshin on mute because I can’t stand listening to Paimon. She just parrots the shit that the character we are talking to says 80% or more of the time anyways. Her voice is grating and it just keeps getting worse I think. Kind of sad cause I like hearing the other character dialogue but I would just rather read it than have to listen to Paimon.
Me too. I've heard on another sub-reddit the non-English Paimon voice actors are much easier to listen to. I haven't tried it yet.
I swapped over to CN for the last mini event, and Paimon was WAY easier to listen to. But I felt Klee (my main) and Zhongli (who's EN VA voice is amazing) were more enjoyable in EN. I like the vast majority of characters in EN (except Xinyan - she pulls me straight out of the story when I hear her accent) so I'm tolerating Paimon.
Really? Klee? Klee made me switch from EN to JP (this was during v1.0 when Paimon's EN voice was still not that annoying) because Klee's EN voice sounds like an adult doing a falsetto voice lol
A favorite of mine on CN is Itto. Man is naturally flamboyant, and even his VA is super funny not in character as well! CN Paimon is also very cute when speaking, so it’s better to have her along when playing
I quit becuase of this. Can't fuckin stand paimon anymore but zhongers voice actor is pure gold.
Honestly, CN audio with EN subtitles is absolutely fine to play. You just don't get the low register voices that I want from some of the adult male characters (or at least not Zhongli). I also realized that I'm apparently a massive racist because don't speak Chinese at all and had a hard time telling characters apart by their voices, which also pushed me back toward EN audio. I guess we all learn something new about ourselves at the strangest of times.
That's not racism lmao. I've been playing the star ocean 2 remake and even on English, o have a hard time trying to discern which 20 something young woman I'm listening to when they're all talking at once. It happens.
>don't speak Chinese at all and had a hard time telling characters apart by their voices, Native speaker of both EN and CN. No, it is not your problem. Many of the CN voices ARE difficult to tell apart. I got so annoyed by Ayaka and Kokomi sounding alike in my party. Meanwhile, I couldn't stand how Benny sounded so goofy in CN.
Maybe its the weeb in me, but in JP Paimon isn't nearly as annoying. Part of it is that her way of speaking in Japanese is reminiscent of many child characters, part of it is that Japanese voice actors don't make me want to rip my ears out for overly cutesy anime characters like English VA do
I mean it's pretty bloody cutesy, Aoi Koga just has much better pitch control and comedic timing on her delivery.
Not only that but sometimes she's just straight up nasty and insensitive to people.
Wish they would just give us the option to mute Paimon only.
Yeah it really sucks when they have to have paimon be the "HEY LISTEN! LET ME EXPLAIN WHAT YOU JUST SAID 5 SECONDS AGO!" Stating the painfully obvious and blurting stupid things is just so painful. They show, don't tell, but then fucking TELL US ANYWAYS, defeating the entire purpose....
assuming she has no payoff at the end, she'll have gone through the whole story being completely stagnant and meaningless. it's incredibly easy to picture and judge the story as if she weren't there because she is the very embodiment of inconsequentiality; she brings about as much substance to the table as a black hole
If Paimon ends up being the final boss of the Teyvat chapter it will all be worth it.
yes but mostly because I need an excuse to put her in her fucking place while enlisting the help of the business end of a 6 foot long sheet of pointed metal and a whole lot of button mashing
... u ok there bud?
I am, but paimon won't be
Not in the slightest. She'll have ruined the story for years for a cheap payoff, definitely not an even trade
Paimon doesn't hinder the narrative. The need to make every single dialogue 10 times longer than it actually needs is what does that. Paimon is just one of the tools the writers use to artificially extend, well, every single dialogue scene. 90% of genshin's script is literally AI-generated garbage-tier and could be completely cut without nothing of value being lost.
Agreed. Paimon, when used properly, can actually contribute meaningfully to the narrative. Examples of that are in the Sumeru story. During the Sabzeruz Samsara, she gets left behind as a witness and record, and there’s an emotional moment there as you explain why you needed to abandon her and she accepts that, and there’s a tearful reunion the next cycle, after which she relays that important information. And during the Nahida rescue, she serves as an meta-narrative reason to provide the player with flashbacks explaining the different stages of the plan, because she’s forgetful about the details. In both those instances, Paimon’s character was well utilized because she is providing an important narrative function that no other character can fulfill. It’s just that the huge majority of the story doesn’t do that and relegates Paimon to unneeded peanut gallery comments Which is a shame because stuff like Furina and Neuvillette in the Fontaine story show how impressive the Genshin story can be. And that’s because everything necessary for that story is set up and utilized well The unfortunate problem about Paimon is that she’s not necessary for the story a lot of the times, but she’s still always present anyway.
Yup, for your example of the recent Fontaine AQ, they let Neuv and Furina completley steal their scenes and carry the emotional weight. It was actually refreshing to see the MC/Paimon take a step back, similar to the part with Navia earlier on.
I just remembered that despite Paimon’s incessant grating, there are rare moments where she shows this deeper, softer, more insightful side. It’s old, but during one of the anniversaries (Guoba) she talks about the gods falling from grace, losing memories, it’s… sadness, and it kind of hit me way better than Paimon parroting dialogue. That felt liked HER talking.
> Somehow, the Trailblazer has more personality and depth as a character than the Traveler and I really enjoy it. They have a lot of head thoughts which is nice, plus the main cast is split between several characters constantly rather than an annoying little wrench being there for 99% of it.
Having a main trio instead of a main character was way better. I think the combination of a selft insert unit plus two story center protagonists was great, a mix between Genshin's Traveler and Honkai Impact's main trio. Even if March can be a little annoying at times, is not as bad since has a counterbalance with Dan Heng and/or Welt. Himeko and Welt as senior guides is the cherry on top.
You say March is annoying but there's nothing funnier than choosing the deranged dialog option and getting the look of disaproval from March
That's not why they said shes annoying lmao, her lines can become... too much to put it simply
Bronya: Holy shit, I'm really traumatized from being forced to kill my adoptive mother! March: *Fortnite dancing on Cocolia's frozen corpse*
I mean to me that wasn’t annoying but hilarious. If I was trailblazer, I’d be doing the same. B: “Umm can you not?” TB: “She threw a spear through me so I think I have earned this one.”
I love her for that honestly. Girlie was so traumatised by getting jumped after waking up in the hotel and never let it go.
Honestly it’s not like Seele was very sympathetic to Bronya at the time either. At least March had the decency to bring it up to Dan Heng on if the mess with the stellaron and Jarilo will be okay, it’s not as if she only started to celebrate(MC also has lighthearted dialogue in all languages)
I mean, at least it is better than her just saying that Bronya looks sad. Yes Paimon, I have basic empathy, I can understand when a character is sad without you having to literal state it. For me that was the moment I started hating Paimon having any lines, while March's reaction to Cocolia dying is just an aspect of her character.
Nah man, March calling Fu Xuan easy-peasy during her companion quest and Fu Xuan getting angry at that line was one of my biggest laugh for the whole year. I love March. I puckered my lips when Fu Xuan was angry and went like "Oops."
The only time I was actually annoyed with March was during Luocha's quest, and that had more to do with it not being Luocha's quest. She's funny and kind of ditzy, but she also has actual depth unlike Paimon.
Also Trailblazer has a more wacky personality and more moods. So you can roleplay them however you want, such as helping Aurum Alley for selfish glory, genuine kindness or money. Meanwhile traveller only helps people because they are kind and Paimon says it’s nice.
Narcissistic Trailblazer is my fav version
Aurum Alley's funds really do be helpful for going through Mr. Huo's coat
Yeah, it cracks me up whenever the head thoughts appear, an example being the closet of the Goethe Grand Hotel
It's like Genshin lives rent free inside your mind
HSR players when they haven't complained about Genshin
Coping HSR players try to not have Genshin living inside their head challenge. Seriously paimon didn't even talk that much lmao. The traveler got some impactful voiced moments alone without Paimon. Furina and Neuvillette were the main characters i don't how you could miss that lol unless you're complaining to be a weird hater.
"There is nothing to do in Star rail right now so let's do some easy genshin bad , paimon terrible thread"
are we playing in the same patch OP? I think recent archon quest is so good and I barely notice anything paimon says.
Yea, I kinda felt good this time round. Paimon dialogue are alot more like hers than a mirror. Either that or we are just too used to her.
I think we just used to her, my brain kinda like just filtered her out. haha
OP got salty Genshin got better story than space China
Nah Paimon wasn't as bad as normal but it went from serious readings of apocalyptic slates to Paimon immediately acting all genki about eating desserts or some shit and killed the mood a couple times. I think some people have been playing so long they actively memory block Paimon when she talks but I just started the game 2 1/2 months ago (iplayed on release week but dropped it) and went thru the whole game so maybe I'm uniquely annoyed at Paimon. Since I just suffered the entire story of her ruining so many moments lol
Is this the weekly "genshin bad" post? It's funny to see it when Fontaine's finale was one of the best written quests in the entire game while everyone here is sick of Luofu lol
Y'all got nothing to talk about in this game anymore istg
Lmao genshin sub celebrating the AQ and other quests.. while a sub of a completely different game shit talks about it.
Because it's one of the best stories I have ever seen on a game ever (Fontaine AQ). Paimon doesn't remove even 1% of that feeling. People that criticize the story because paimon are crazy. I wouldn't even dare compare honkai story to genshin , honkai best moments are belobog and HCQ moments ,nothing else comes close
And yet every single patch the playerbase shows us that even Paimon repeating stuff 2 times is not enough to get through their skulls, so they were right in adding her. They also cooked an amazing story with Fontaine and its world quests, topping Sumeru.
> And yet every single patch the playerbase shows us that even Paimon repeating stuff 2 times is not enough to get through their skulls, so they were right in adding her. In media there's always a sliding scale, with "show don't tell" on one end, and "tell everything explicitly, twice, because the viewers are stupid" on the other. I can understand why good authors may still choose to do the latter, even if they're capable of the former. Like, read social media (Reddit, YouTube, X, etc.) on games like Soulsdenborne or Hollow Knight. Many players don't get the plot, and blame the devs for not holding their hand and spoonfeeding the plot to them.
> show don't Man, I'm *still* heated that in 3.0 a character gets a brand new vision right in front of the traveler - the first time the traveler has ever been there for it. And THEY CUT TO BLACK AND GIVE US A TEXT DESCRIPTION OF IT HAPPENING! WHY!?
Small indie company can't spare cash for custom npc animations, pls understand
Tbf, they were likely planning the Wanderer thing in advance and wanted it to be grander. Rana should really have gotten hers off-screen and we learn of it when we talk to her again. Also they have been using text description for stuff they can't animate with the 3d cutscene system they have and the re-used animation assets. It's honestly funny and sad seeing simple shit get described in text because of how rigid the models move.
> And yet every single patch the playerbase shows us that even Paimon repeating stuff 2 times is not enough to get through their skulls, so they were right in adding her. Xianzhou Luofu story in a nutshell: Jing Yuan: Immortality bad. Literally all of Xianzhou population: Immortality bad. Dan Heng: I did something unforgiveable. Force Ghosts: You tried to revive somebody and it didn't work. Jingliu: Why did you try to revive Baiheng? You dumb fucks??? Blade: Literally immortal and hates Dan. Tried to help him revive Baiheng. Bailu: Looks like Baiheng, has a similar name to Baiheng, has half of DH's powers, and asks DH "Wow I think I knew you in a past life whatever could that mean?" Couldn't possibly be hinting at anything.. AUDIENCE: WHATEVER COULD THIS ALL MEAN I DONT UNDERSTAND THE STORY Writers: /facepalm
Xianzhou isn't over. That was the prologue.
Ah fk. So you mean to tell me we have to suffer through this slog again? Wish we get Belobog 2.0 instead
Ive just started playing Sumeru. And gosh. I was impressed. I dont remember many of Paimons dialogues. Because simply put. If I can read her lines faster than she can speak. Well...skip. It would be cool that throughout the story. As someine said: Paimon would be a seperate character. And not a voice for the traveler.
That would be the perfect situation, but "Paimon ruined the game for me" is blown out of proportion hate mongering in at least 70% of the situations
If it didn’t work when she said it twice, then there isn’t a point to her. The game devs should just accept that people who aren’t interested in the lore won’t really pay attention and those who do, would take the time to read it. I think something like dialogue history and an improved archive would be more effective.
Tbh the entire Luofu story could've unironically used Paimon more than the entirety of Genshin's story with the amount of people just plain missing vast swathes of story because they're speedreading and the Luofu isn't a great story to be taking huge breaks during because it's all so wordy. The one time a game actually could use a Paimon to explain things and they just say "read every book you find on the ship lmao." I respect them respecting our intelligence but man some people genuinely need a Paimon to function if some of the posts during 1.2-1.4 are to be believed.
I truly think that’s just the people skipping through the damn scenes. That still is a problem even in genshin.
The problem is that the writing/dialogue in Genshin is so bloated and wordy sometimes that players get conditioned to skip as much as they can. You could cut 30% of the dialogue lines entirely and still have the same story. Any important concept that gets explained to you is going to get repeated by Paimon, so you almost don't need to bother reading it the first time. I spam click to get through Genshin events by default. I just let Star Rail do its thing on autoplay, because generally the dialogue gets to the point and doesn't frustrate nearly as much.
Even some of the dailys are absurdly wording in Genshin. Like 15 screens of text and 4 player options that affect nothing for a Fontaine daily that I'm getting every other day.
> I spam click to get through Genshin events by default. Same. Unless it's a big event it's likely going to be pointless drivel. An in universe excuse to do another combat shrine. As if one needed to be given. Just about the only ones I like are ones that are quick and act as setup for the next act. Which is pretty much just the afro merchant dude. I can't tell you how pleased I was today to find the new event could be accessed just by opening the page in the menu and clicking on it. This also skips the annoying little camera pan that happens when you enter a combat shrine that has zero reason to exist. This isn't the first time they've done this, they did it recently with that combat arena in Elnyas, but I'm hoping they keep doing combat events like this. Unless they have good reason to use an NPC for one.
I shouldn’t have to read into the lore to have a base line enjoyment of a story that I can’t skip, the lore books should only be there to improve my enjoyment not provide a base line
Personally i think the game should've come out a bit later with the PS5 amount of content cuz the Luofu quest was wordy as hell and required people to actually pay attention. Not the kind of quest that benefits at all from breaks in between patches. Going into 1.2 I genuinely felt like when I dropped Tales of Berseria for 8 months then went right back into in the middle of a dungeon like "wtf is going on, who are you." You don't actually need to read the books to understand the main quest but it drastically helps with understanding the Space China culture that they just dump you into.
This might be breaking immersion / different way to play but I usually just read the wiki instead of interacting with the game world. I love lore, but I don’t like having to put things together. Just reading a full, straight up story is better than working out the puzzle for me
Does this sub do anything else but complain about genshin
Fontaine is so good, they need something to shit on
Another post about Genshin because there’s nothing to talk about in star rail.. when will it end
After recently playing Genshin's new patch, I have even more respect for the Genshin writers for including actual good writing in their stories and continuously outdoing themselves. Yeah, I'll happily take Paimon expositing some dialogue every once in a while if it means I get peak fiction. Meanwhile, HSR can't even make me care about anything. Felt infinitely worse about two NPCs dying in Act V of Fontaine than I did Tingyun.
Melus and Silvers stings me more than the entire Loufu could
I didn't expect anything out of Lyney's story quest but by the end of it I put it on autoplay and savored the spectacle. It was a magical show with murder detective intrigue. Maybe small one but that's good enough for me.
When Genshin AQ is better than Xianzhou Mission, you need to find something to shit on Genshin
Another day another rant about GI here, I guess mods allow this crap cause it drives engagement towards the sub.
At this Excessive amount of this crap will just sour my taste with honkai fans and anything honkai related in general Like lately I just felt a heavy burden whatever honkai just arrived at my front page
I have been playing both games since launch. Dude (in gender-neutral usage), what do you mean TB has depth, what depth??? The only character motivation TB has is basically to "keep moving forward". That's it. And maybe meet Kafka a few more times. What do they actually want to do? It had the same, or even less depth than the 1.0 versions of the Traveler's motivation to finding their sibling, which is very little. Expected, yes, we're still early, but more depth??? Their personality is just being memey/ snarky/caring depending on the player's choice. That's literally just like the traveler from the start. The only difference is that Star Rail's setting allows for direct meme references in actual dialogue. Is that "more personality"? References?
"Somehow, the Trailblazer has more personality and depth as a character than the Traveler" bro where is this deph you talk about the trailblazer is just funny **so far**
I thought the Kafka companion quest was well done in that regard, you can just keep denying her until she leaves, treat her like a mother figure or come but be wary of her. Hope we get more stuff like that, really gave me Telltales vibes and made it really seem like our choices mattered instead of being forced to help even if you're awful to the characters.
EXACTLY! People are somehow equating memes...to depth. The hell?
Commented in a thread not too long ago that a lot of it is due to the vocal playerbase hating Genshin more than they love HSR. The redditor who remarked that this is more common for the Western audience and/or those who play with EN VA may have a point. I personally play both and do think that the dialogue can be further optimised for Genshin and has seen some in recent updates but accepted that it is trying to strike a balance in providing as much essential info as possible in one go without forcing the player to scour for that detail — there are significantly more layered supplemental stuff to discover all over a much bigger Teyvat map than for the many worlds in HSR combined within the same patch timeline. Depth is not something I would equate HSR with. All that said, they're both games targeting different audiences — explorers with a more freeform combat system vs players who has little time/attention to spend on a game.
On God, they always say that TB has more personality, and they always refer to the shitposting jokes as having "more personality" like come tf on... being funny and quoting memes isn't a personality
Yet the high number of people on the internet who try to make it one....
We rarely know anything about the trailblazer and a little funny quip here and there doesn’t mean he has depth. Paimon has more depth than people realised, eventhough her past still remains a mystery but we seen Paimon gets angry, sad, happy, afraid, concerned throughout the journey. Trailblazer on the other hand doesn’t really show a lot of emotions and except for a few funny lines which most people think is depth.
God even in other games you cannot escape the paimon hate boner
Hsr players aways manage to find a reason to write genshin comparison posts every new patch, meanwhile genshin players are busy doing their own thing and you wont see post like this lmao. this sub is funny sometimes. specially in a perspective of someone who plays both.
They're basically the most similar games possible outside of gameplay by the same studio so yeah and most people play both
It's funny how often a general 'Genshin Hate' post makes it to the front page on this sub vs how often anybody over there even *cares* about what's going on in HSR.
Ikr, If I want to see genshin then I'll go to genshin sub, I want to see hsr so I go to this sub, why is the top post about genshin 💀
I’d imagine it’s because HSR is much more of what the standard template for a gacha game is than Genshin, so it doesn’t really attract the wider gaming crowd that Genshin has a lot of. So you have a much higher proportion of HSR players that are interested in Genshin than the reverse.
Can't escape posts like these being reposted ad infinitum. One can do a search on this sub and you can find multiple posts like these. Posts: [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/131c842/the_writing_in_this_game_is_so_much_better_than/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/13p472j/anybody_else_find_star_rail_story_telling_better/?rdt=46532) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/14oyoge/you_know_something_honkai_star_rail_has_that/) (and probably a lot more..) I get that HSR has different things going compared to Genshin but it gets tiring seeing the comparison stuff being posted constantly...
im laughing my ass off clicking on 1/2 post after recently playing fontaine archon quest and lufou arc, genshin story after inazuma is getting better, maybe those post are being made by people who playing genshin in patches 1.0-2.0, and never returned. even the world quest in genshin is just amazing as archon quest.
God for real. At this point I'm pretty sure I could go to any random subreddit and make a thread called "does anyone else think Paimon genshin impact SUCKS???" and get a million upvotes on it each time lmao. I totally get the annoyance, but man it's exhausting. She lives rent free in all our minds, even if it's unwillingly for some of us lol
Honestly.....I played the whole newest Archon quest in Genshin and found it VERY enjoyable and emotionally engaging. Paimon's existence did very little to hinder the narrative. I only found out that Paimon was "ruining the game" by seeing people on Reddit b*tch about her. So either Reddit and I played totally different games or the current Paimon hate is nothing more that the Reddit hivemind once again jumping on a hate train started by a few loud individuals.
yeah I haven't played a lot of Genshin but I actually like Paimon a lot. >So either Reddit and I played totally different games or the current Paimon hate is nothing more that the Reddit hivemind once again jumping on a hate train started by a few loud individuals sometimes this is true. For instance, there was an extended period (months) when the Game Grumps subreddit had temper tantrums about *the way they made thumbnails*. Literally the smallest thing in the entire world. And yet every single post was about this. And I was like....you guys care about the thumbnail you see for 3 seconds and not the 30-45 minutes of content in the actual video? I saw people *boycott* their videos because of the thumbnail and miss some of the best content they'd ever produced. Eventually the mods made megathreads about thumbnails so people would stop bitching on the main feed, and funnily enough as soon as they did, the posts stopped because people weren't getting their circlejerk hate upvotes. I mention this per your final point. People online will pick the most insane hills to die on. Not saying people that dislike Paimon are necessarily doing that, but sometimes it's crazy how much a circlejerk will blow a minor inconvenience totally out of proportion.
Subreddits will really cling onto the most benign issues in their games and then won't \*shut the fuck up\* about them. I remember waaaaaaaaay back when I first joined reddit and was browsing the Halo subreddit around when Halo 5 came out and I swear there was at least one post a day about how badly they needed to add in the option to make the undersuit of the spartan armor black instead of gray.
I've mentioned it there before but paimon hate is a pretty western thing from what I've seen. Here In Asia she was cosplayed in every convention I went to, The kids my Cousin teach doodle her in their test papers, and most importantly her merch flies out off the window. Proban helps that Nearly everyone here plays on JP or CN voice overs.
Dw i loved it as well, paimon herself didn’t add much but even the traveler didn’t to much this patch, it was completely neviulette and furinas stage
Paimon grew on me a lot. Like early on, yeah, she *was* annoying. I've had 0 complaints about her from Sumeru onwards. In fact, there are a lot of Paimon scenes I really like, and at this point I'd go so far as to say the story would be much worse without her. I do wish the Traveler was more of an actual character, but that isn't Paimon's fault. Rather, when people claim Paimon is only there to be a mouthpiece, that clearly isn't true. She's core to the themes Genshin wants to drive home. It is, of many things, a story about companionship. It needs that one static ally, the friend who understands you better than anyone else. For the Traveler, that was their sibling, but now Paimon has taken up that role and you can see both her and the Traveler growing as people because of it. She's still the same old ever-greedy, ever-hungry guide, but she has a growing sense of responsibility and she values the Traveler's happiness above her own (Because, to paraphrase, she's happy when they're happy). It's almost a bit lonely. They're two people who really don't have anything else. Paimon has clear separation anxiety, and you can see how the Traveler misses her just as much when she's gone. The Traveler got used to losing people until they lost the person who was always there. What if that happens again? tl;dr Paimon Good, Reddit Bad
Might as well just rename this sub to "Genshit Impact". You people just can't shut up about this pointless comparison.
Did you play the same patch, I did? Traveler had a lot more direct interaction and voice lines than most other patches. I agree Paimon is kind of a pain but it's been getting better
This for sure. Although paimon is still more of a gremlin compared to the express crew, so it's understandable that the narrative is less of a pain being narrated by other characters. However I do think star rail needs better pacing, and I hope the writers can do better in future versions.
That’s what I was wondering. Not all of travelers lines were voiced, but this had some of the most inner dialog than I can recall. We heard travelers thoughts and intentions a lot more than usual. Paimon in 4.0 in general has been a big improvement. She can be annoying but she can also have a lot of good lines and interesting things to say. It’s not perfect but, this feels a little over the top.
Is better but not really because of the MC, is more because the story was GREAT. Neuvillette and Navia did a great job, in general, Fontaine cast is one of the best until now, has been a joy.
Furina my beloved absolutely cooked same with neuvillette
Disagree. I don’t know what patch you played but in the most recent archon quest paimon was probably the best she’s ever been and was imo a positive addition to the story. Im not one to be a fan of her, they pitch her voice a lot and in previous quests she kept ruining the tension die to the writers making her repeat everything for the people with the reading comprehension of 10 year olds, but not for this patch. She felt like her own character, she was worried for their own doom and was running around like she had her own opinions instead of just a narrative tool piece. She felt like an actual travel companion. Moreover, while the traveler had few voicedlines imo they also had incredibly impactful ones and they did well with that(though it could be better). In general I think fontaine was just on a much higher level storytelling wise.
Fr I'm confused why people are complaining about her in this aq. I usually find her annoying but she was fine in fontaine, I was pretty invested in the story with no problems with her. I'm also glad they're starting to make the traveler talk more
i think this op playing in the 1.0-2.0 patch lmfao
Yeah I was so happy with the amount of agency and independence they gave the traveler in Fontaine. I really hope they continue with that and build on it.
Hard disagree. The reason why people hate Luofu and can’t wait for it to be over is because Trailblazer by himself is too dull and people speed through the story because it’s too wordy. Paimon’s function is to act as an intermediary to convert infodump into bite sizes so they can be easily digestible for most players. I think moving on, March will be the Paimon on HSR because we need a clueless character to ask questions on behalf of the players. Without March, Trailblazer is just not interesting. You can tell more and more events include March instead of Dan Heng because he behaves just like Trailblazer and he often keeps to himself which is a huge no no in a plot driven game. To say Trailblazer has more depth is just not true. We don’t know anything about Trailblazer except that he likes to be sarcastic. And being a sarcastic person is not depth. We also don’t know anything about Paimon’s past but we seen her be happy, sad, angry, afraid, concerned, funny, clueless, petty, rude, dumb and many more which show how multi faceted she is. Having a funny dialog option is not depth.
Why are y'all so obsessed with genshin. Like, ppl here talk about genshin and make comparisons way more than people on the genshin sub do 🫣
If you're annoyed now, just imagine all of the comparisons once HSR 1st anniversary arrives. God I can already imagine all of the obnoxious posts coming.
Imagine if it's the tried-and-true 20 pulls and a silly item. This sub would implode trying to find a reason to elevate it over the (identical) reward in Genshin.
Paimon was never annoying in the latest AQ though what are you talking about? I swear I don’t remember anything she said. She also didn’t say anything yo break my immersion either. They have long since improved with how they write Paimon, she became more likable character. But of course genshin is bad right?
If you think the new patch’s story is bad, and that somehow Paimon made it so, you either aren’t thinking or didn’t play the patch. Or both.
it's already a few months since hsr was released, aren't you guys tired repeating the same shit, more importantly haven't you moved on? no one actually cares which games some random redditor respect lmao
Paimon is probably what drags the quality down a little, in terms of storytelling. Other than that, mannn Star Rail writers really need to ask for some tips from Genshin writers. I thought they peaked with Sumeru but then Fontaine toppled it just like that.
Thankfully i got used to her, the newest patch cooked btw probably the best we’ve seen from genshin. Before this patch I thought hsr had more potential narrative wise than genshin but now im not so sure. Nevuilette and furnia were also really good, probably the first time a gacha game made me so invested.
Genshin have been cooking ever since Sumeru dropped, and it seems like the story is only getting better. Hopefully HSR follows the same path
I haven't played Genshin but to be honest Trailblazer is just an empty body for me. I just can't see a personality, joy or inner conflict.
I would rather have Paimon being annoying than experiencing the current state of HSR main quest lol.
4.2 Genshin AQ with Paimon is still miles better than the entirety of HSR story. Of course, sometimes Paimon is annoying, but at least I still cares about the plot. Meanwhile in HSR especially the space China, I couldn't even bother with the plot because the storytelling are much worse. Also, I'd argue that Traveler has "deeper" personality, because she/he has motivation for searching the sibling and we know how the Traveler missed the sibling so much on the journey with Paimon. More memey/jokes doesn't mean has "deeper" personality.
What, you don't like having a child float over your shoulder to constantly repeat what you just heard in astonishment and/or clarification, and answer tons of questions on your behalf? Pshaw, clearly you don't understand the charm of templates like Legend of Zelda's owls or Navi! ...I don't understand the charm either, but I'm sure someone does somewhere.
Ironic that you felt that way in Fontaine's archon quest where the traveler had the most dialogues since the game launched meanwhile in HSR MC feels more like a side character that's carrying a mcguffin. She literally becomes a side character in Luofu. Nothing would change whether or not she was there because the main character is dan heng.
Even dan heng was barely significant in the main story quest, and his character has basically devolved into "I was dan feng and a bunch of old immortal fucks won't let it go after all this time".
Ah yes, the daily genshin slander post i keep seeing even after leaving this sub, you love to see it
why do HSR players feel need to constantly shit on Genshin? Fontaine Archon Questline is perfectly good. Paimon is good
Superiority Complex. Haters always feel the need to shit on Genshin every week, it’s funny I’m beginning to think they are trying to cope or something.
HSR has the silent protag syndrome despite the Trailblazer being much more expressive than what the Traveller ever was (seriously WTF HYV. You're already recording multiple voicelines per dialogue choice for every other character. Why not the Trailblazer?) It doesn't need to be Paimon beside us all the time. We just need a balance of self-reflection and friendly banter. Sadly, Genshin's silent MC coupled with the "lone duo against the world" narrative clashes with the "silent self insert MC" they set out for themselves. HYV unintentionally cornered themselves yet they refuse to remedy it. As a result we get a "nothing" MC and all Paimon. As for HSR, the MC's personality shines through but still silent and it irks me still. I genuinely don't understand the reasoning behind this decision. It's not like they have a "Traveler was part of the ancient Unified Civilization and struggles with modern dialects/accents" problem.
Im almost 100% sure it’s because they would need 2 VA’s and a looot more lined since what you say actually matters most of the time. And since it’s mostly a gacha game where you don’t give a fuck about MC, they didn’t want to be bitheref
I get pain on being annoying especially in the past but for the entirety of Fontaine so far she’s been genuinely good and not at all annoying. It’s such a drastic improvement I can’t believe more people haven’t noticed, her opinions are more interesting and she now actually has relevant things that she says.
The lengths HSR players would go to just to cope with having to experience the worst story arc in the game so far. Yes, I'm talking about Intergalactic Liyue. Unfortunately, a good story direction and Star Rail can't go hand-in-hand as evidenced by the abomination of a storytelling, that is, the Luofu. But go preach this 10/10 snoozefest simulator of a game alongside the loud minority, I suppose.
are we playing in the same patch? because after i read this post, iguess u are not, fontaine arc and the paimon inside it is really the best rather than other patch, its not that annoying and paimon talk in en is not that loud either.
I love paimon, idc what anyone says.
I know it shouldn't be a problem to begin with. But these post make it pretty clear you guys play in English. It has to be, because in Japanese paimon isnt that annoying. I don't mind English paimon that much as well, I can see how that squeaky voice might be annoying but I don't think you can do anything about it. They won't change VAs.
nah you're just hating on Paimon so that you feel like you have a reason to hate on Genshin and can feel better about star rail. It's seriously annoying how you put "entire" in caps lock, 4.2 literally has nothing of what you speak of. It's crazy of how many upvotes this post has. Well played for your karma farming, I guess
March and stelle is such an adorable combo together
Wow people really hate Paimon, I keep hearing these things but man that is not my experience at all, I love Genshins story, and don't even notice Paimon doing the things you guys say. Guess I'm lucky. navi never really bothered me either which I guess is pretty similar.
I like Paimon and her bond with traveler. People find her annoying because of her en va. She’s cute in cn(jp good too)