Star Wings Speedruns Greed: 2 Limited Banners in 12 Days, No Pity Carryover, and the 'F2P-Friendly' Monthly Card Is a Scam

Launching two limited banners within two weeks and scrapping pity carryover — that's the kind of move that screams 'we don't want to survive past month one.' Star Wings, a game barely a month old, managed to speedrun its way onto NGA's front page with just a 12-day gap between limited banners.

Let's rewind to April 18. That's when Star Wings officially launched, and the first limited character banner went live simultaneously. Fast forward just 12 days to April 30, and boom — the second limited banner drops. Players wasted no time pulling up receipts with crystal-clear timeline screenshots.

For reference, even miHoYo's gacha banners (lovingly called 'mi-chi' or 'mi-pool' by CN players, notorious as they are) run on a 21-day cycle. Star Wings compressed that to 12. As one commenter put it bluntly: 'Even miHoYo gives 21 days — you've got 12? Impressive production capacity. You're not planning to dip after selling your inventory, are you?'

The banner mechanics themselves are what really set the community off. Players broke it down: Star Wings has four types of banners — standard, standard rate-up, limited WITH pity inheritance, and limited WITHOUT pity inheritance. You guessed it — the new banners use the last kind. Soft pity hits at 70 pulls, but there's zero crossover between banners.

One player did a deep dive into the entire gacha and currency economy, noting that hard pity isn't even mentioned in official communications. Someone in the official Discord went 150 pulls across both new character banners without getting either. And now the event banner pity doesn't carry over? Players are calling it straight-up 'retconning' (chi shu / 吃书) of the previously implied system. One commenter warned: 'Half-anniversary limited, anniversary limited, collab limited — bet none of those will carry pity either.'

If back-to-back limited banners and zero pity carryover already feel like a double gut-punch, the monthly card fiasco is the cherry on top. For weeks, 'organic supporters' (zi lai shui / 自来水, a term for seemingly grassroots promoters) had been hyping Star Wings' monthly card as incredibly generous — 'three max-constellation characters for free every month!' Sounds amazing on paper.

Except the reality? A player confirmed with screenshots in the comments: the monthly card's free max-constellation characters are limited to the standard pool only. Limited banner characters? You'd have to wait until they eventually enter the standard pool. When will that happen? The official statement only says 'when the character roster reaches a certain size, some characters will be added to the monthly card pool' — no specific timeline given.

Another commenter laid out the shard exchange economy in brutal detail: every character costs 60 shards to unlock, gold-rarity characters need 90 shards per duplicate, purple needs 20. But the exchange shop only has launch-day characters — not even the first rate-up unit has been added. The monthly card nets you roughly 20 pulls' worth of currency at most, making the gap between paying and F2P negligible.

Faced with overwhelming backlash, the devs released an official statement. Players called it 'wishy-washy and full of typos.'

The top-voted response nailed the subtext perfectly: 'Translation of the official statement: miss this limited banner and who knows when it'll rerun or enter the standard pool. Better swipe now, folks. Game hasn't even been out a month and they're already this desperate. A PvP game daring to run limited banners with no pity carryover — they must be tired of living.'

The comment section's masterpiece has to be the 'Clown Paradox' around the monthly card — one user wrote: 'If you CAN get limited characters as F2P with the monthly card, whale spenders are clowns. If you CAN'T, monthly card buyers are clowns. Absolute perfection.' Either way, players lose.

Beyond the gacha drama, the game's technical state is equally dire. One commenter tacked onto a long analysis: 'The game still crashes on both PC and mobile to this day. Ask about it and the response is "I've never crashed, maybe it's your problem."' Multiple players also reported that the official community Discord aggressively suppresses any discussion about the banner controversy — post about it, and community mods (she guan / 社管, slang for hired moderators who police discussion on behalf of the company) shut you down.

Perhaps the most ominous take came from a player who warned: 'Their first limited banner character was a fake limited — they said it'll enter the shard shop eventually. That was bait to drain your pulls. And after this event rate-up, next they'll do ultra-limited rate-up, mega-limited rate-up... God bless anyone still playing.'

As of the post date, Star Wings' developers have offered no meaningful response regarding pity carryover or the misleading monthly card claims. Community sentiment has shifted from frustrated venting to genuine concern about the game's longevity. As one commenter put it with a mix of sarcasm and resignation: 'I wish them luck — maybe someday they'll get to eat the pie the devs keep promising.' Bittersweet, darkly humorous, and painfully relatable for anyone who's ever loved a mobile game that didn't love them back.