When you first land on Jarilo-VI or wander the Loufu’s bustling streets as a new Trailblazer, you’ll quickly realize you don’t have to go it alone. There are tons of active players ready to lend you their strongest characters for tough boss fights, send you free stamina gifts, and even join you for limited-time event challenges. Figuring out how to friend people in Honkai: Star Rail is one of the first small wins that makes your entire playthrough feel far more connected, and far less grindy. I remember struggling to beat the Echo of War on my first month of playing until a random player I added lent me a fully built Seele that wiped the floor with the boss in two turns. That’s the kind of value a good friends list brings to the game.
How to Friend People in Honkai: Star Rail – Exact Step-by-Step Process
You don’t have to dig through 10 different menus to find the friend system, it’s actually surprisingly accessible once you know where to look. First, tap the phone icon in the top right corner of your screen (or press ESC on PC) to pull up your main menu. You’ll see a little icon that looks like two people standing next to each other labeled “Friends” – tap that to open the friends interface. From there, you have two options: send requests to other players, or accept requests that other people have sent to you.
If you want to add a specific player, head to the “Search & Add” tab at the top of the friends menu. You can type in their 9-digit UID (you’ll find your own UID listed under your profile name on the main menu) to pull up their profile directly, then hit the “Add Friend” button. You can also add a short custom message if you’re adding someone you played with in co-op, to let them know where you met. If you don’t have a specific UID to add, the menu will also show you a list of recommended active players that are around your same Trailblaze Level, so you can send requests to people who will be useful for your current content difficulty.
- Only send requests to players with Trailblaze Level within 5 levels of yours, so their character builds match the content you’re tackling
- Add a short note if you played co-op together, like “Loved your Jing Yuan in the Calyx run!” to make them way more likely to accept
- Avoid sending requests to players who haven’t logged in for 7+ days, as they won’t send you gifts or accept your request any time soon
Once you send a request, the other player will get a notification in their friend menu, and you’ll get an alert when they accept. If you get incoming requests, you can preview the sender’s profile, their highest level characters, and their last login time before you accept, so you don’t end up with a friends list full of inactive accounts. Once you’ve got the hang of how to friend people in Honkai: Star Rail, the whole process takes less than a minute to send 5-10 requests to relevant players.
Top Perks of Building a Large, Active Friends List
A lot of new players skip adding friends because they think it’s just a cosmetic social feature, but that’s a huge mistake. There are tangible, game-changing rewards you get from having an active friends list that make grinding far easier. First, you can borrow a support character from any of your friends for almost all PvE content, including Calyx runs, Echo of War fights, and even Forgotten Hall stages. If you’re missing a key DPS or support character for a specific fight, a friend’s well-built unit can be the difference between clearing the stage and wasting 20 minutes trying over and over.
You also get daily rewards from your friends list. Every day, you can send and receive Stellar Jades and stamina gifts from up to 30 friends. That adds up to hundreds of extra Jades a month, and enough extra stamina to run an extra 2-3 Calyx runs per week. That’s free resources you’d otherwise have to spend real money or premium currency to get, so it’s absolutely worth taking 30 seconds every day to send out gifts to all your active friends.
For limited-time co-op events, having a pre-made list of active friends means you don’t have to wait for random matchmaking to fill your lobby. You can just shoot a quick invite to friends you know are online and jump right into the event, which saves you tons of time and makes the whole experience way more fun, especially if you’re trying to beat the highest difficulty tiers for exclusive rewards.
How to Keep Your Friends List Active and Useful Long-Term
It’s easy to build up a friends list full of players who stop logging in after a month, or who have characters that are useless for the content you’re running. A little regular maintenance makes sure your friends list is always working for you, not just taking up space. First, set a reminder once a week to go through your friends list and remove anyone who hasn’t logged in for 10 days or more. Unless it’s a real-life friend you know is taking a break, there’s no reason to keep inactive accounts on your list, since they won’t send you gifts or let you borrow their characters.
You should also prioritize adding players who have built characters you don’t have on your roster. For example, if you don’t have a built imaginary DPS, keep an eye out for players with high-level Welt or Dr. Ratio characters on their support slot, and send them a request. That way, you always have a wide range of character types to pick from when you run into a fight that your own roster can’t handle easily.
If you play co-op often, make a point to add players who have good team builds and are easy to play with. I keep a running list of players I’ve had good co-op runs with, and I always prioritize accepting requests from people I’ve played with before over random requests. It’s way more fun to play with people you know are reliable, instead of rolling the dice on random matchmaking every time you want to run a co-op stage.
Common Friend System Mistakes to Avoid
If you’re still learning how to friend people in Honkai: Star Rail, avoiding these small mistakes will help you build a high-quality list far faster. First, don’t set your support character to a low-level, unbuilt unit. Your support character is the first thing people see when they get your friend request, so if you have a level 20 Asta as your support, most people will ignore your request entirely. Pick your strongest, highest built character as your support, and update it every time you get a new 5-star or build a new strong unit.
Don’t spam friend requests to every player you see in the open world, either. Most players who are just wandering around doing their own quests don’t want random requests from people they haven’t interacted with, and you’ll end up with a ton of rejected requests. Stick to adding people you’ve played co-op with, or recommended players that are around your level with good support characters.
Finally, don’t forget to send out daily gifts. A lot of players only accept gifts, but never send them out, and other players will notice that. If you never send gifts to your friends, they’re far more likely to remove you from their list to make space for someone who does. It only takes 30 seconds to click the “Send All Gifts” button every day, and it keeps your entire friends list happy and active.
At the end of the day, Honkai: Star Rail is meant to be a shared experience, and the friend system is one of the easiest ways to make that experience more fun and more rewarding. Taking a few minutes to figure out how to friend people in Honkai: Star Rail, build an active list, and maintain it regularly will save you hours of grinding, get you tons of free rewards, and make even the toughest boss fights feel manageable. You don’t have to fill your list with hundreds of people, even 20-30 active, reliable friends will make a world of difference to your playthrough, no matter what level you’re at.
