Image: HoYoverse
Jingliu and Seele mains, rejoice!
Honkai: Star Rail developer HoYoverse announced on Wednesday (5 February) that it's working on implementing buffs and improvements to older playable characters in the roster in an effort to address issues with powercreep in the game.
HoYoverse made the exciting announcement in the latest Developer Radio blog post, saying that the buffs to older characters “are already on the schedule."
“Issues close to Trailblazers' hearts, including difficulty deploying older characters on the battlefield and the strengthening of these older characters, are already on the schedule. Stay tuned for future content updates, Trailblazers!” said HoYoverse.
Powercreep has become a real issue in Honkai: Star Rail with the game's more recent updates, as older characters that were previously on top of the metagame are now having trouble effectively clearing endgame content compared to their newer counterparts. Some of the characters most players consider to have been powercrept include the likes of Seele, Jingliu, and Blade.
With that said, other older characters like Jing Yuan and Himeko have managed to keep up, and even excel in the meta at times, thanks to new support characters, relics, and mechanics. However, this has only exacerbated the powercreep issue for characters that have not received the same treatment.
HoYoverse did not elaborate further on what kind of improvements are in store for Honkai: Star Rail's older characters. And since no precedent exists in other HoYoverse titles like Genshin Impact, these potential buffs can be anything from increased multipliers, the implementation of higher level and Talent caps, or even straight-up ability kit reworks.
As for when players can expect these improvements to arrive, it's anyone's guess, as HoYoverse did not give a specific timeframe either. With the game currently at the start of the second half of its Version 3.0 update, it's unlikely for the buffs to arrive in version 3.1. The earliest we can expect the improvements to arrive may be Version 3.2, which is expected to arrive sometime in April.
But based on HoYoverse's statement that the buffs “are already on the schedule," there is reason to believe that these will arrive sooner rather than later.
Aside from announcing that buffs to older characters are already in the works, HoYoverse also revealed that it is working on improving the gameplay experience in the Version 3.0 Amphoreus Trailblaze Missions, including the ability to skip certain puzzles with a combat encounter instead.