Revision 1

Overview

Volley Star is a two-on-two beach volleyball activity added to Neverness to Everness in Version 1.3 "Rising from the Moonlit Fog", which went live after maintenance on August 19, 2026. It is filed under Hethereau Hobbies rather than a temporary event panel, and it stays in the game permanently once its launch event window closes.

The limited-time reward track runs from August 19, 2026 (after the update) to September 30, 2026 at 05:59 (UTC+8). Matches keep paying out afterward, but the event frame, the namecard, and the one-off milestone rewards stop once the window ends, so they are worth clearing before the closing date.

Modes

Volley Star splits into two ladders. The first teaches the game, the second is where the money is.

How Matches Work

Your side of the court is the character you pick plus an AI partner. The partner repositions itself automatically in response to where you move, so you are never fighting it for space, but you also cannot direct it.

• Both the Rookie Series and the Weekly Match spend City Stamina per round, the same as other city activities.

• The rules follow real beach volleyball. A block counts as one of the side's touches, so a block, a receive, and then a spike is a legal sequence.

• Quitting partway through a match forfeits everything that round would have paid, including character and partner experience. Play a bad match out rather than backing out of it.

Aptitudes

Every playable character carries six volleyball aptitudes, and characters specialize rather than spreading evenly. Aptitudes govern both what a character can reliably do and how much margin for error the timing windows give you.

Character Specialties

The following characters have a confirmed standout aptitude. Anyone not listed here simply has no confirmed specialty yet.

Progression

Completed matches award experience that raises the character's volleyball level and stats. Beyond leveling, a consumable called "Talent Bread" raises individual aptitudes, and you choose which ones, so it can either patch a weakness or push an existing strength further. Talent Bread is limited, which makes it worth trying several characters before committing any of it.

Weekly Match

The Weekly Match runs on its own weekly reset and is played at a different venue from the Rookie Series. It is unlocked by clearing Warm-Up 10 in the Rookie Series, and it is the higher-paying half of the activity, so opening it early is the single most useful thing a new player can do here.

Each cycle allows at most five matches, and the reward is set by how far the run gets rather than by any single win.

Taking the championship additionally awards Talent Bread on top of the Fons above.

Tycoon Incentive Fund

Version 1.3 changed how several city activities pay out. The 1,000,000 Fons pool that Pink Paws Heist used to hand out each cycle became a shared allowance called the "Tycoon Incentive Fund". Weekly Match earnings in Volley Star draw from that same allowance, as does passive income from Collectibles Warehouse display cases in Going, Going, Gone!.

The allowance is capped at 1,000,000 Fons and resets every two weeks. Because it is shared, Fons banked in one activity reduces what the others can still pay out before the reset, which is worth planning around if you are chasing a City Tycoon milestone.

Perfect Spike and Power Serve

A spike timed correctly triggers a "Perfect Spike", which travels faster and harder than a normal one and can punch through a block. The timing cue is the moment your character fully extends the hitting arm. A second cue is the Spike Control indicator: when it lights up from grey, hit spike immediately, though that leaves only about a second to react.

Auto-spike does not guarantee a Perfect Spike, so leaving it off is the better default once you can read the timing yourself. Raising Spike aptitude widens the window, which makes the input far more forgiving.

"Power Serve", also called a perfect jump serve, works on the same principle and is easier to time. Toss the ball, then wait until the character fully bends and extends the arm before hitting. Higher Serve aptitude lowers the opponent's chance of receiving it cleanly.

Tips

• Early on, when Serve is still low, jump serves fail often. Stick with an underhand serve until the stat is high enough to make the jump serve reliable.

• Read the ball's shadow on the ground rather than tracking the ball itself. After an opponent's attack the shadow appears on your side of the court, so move to it and then decide between a pass and a spike.

• Against a jump serve or spike, stand center and tap pass repeatedly. If the ball lands wide of the middle, the pass input turns into a dive.

• If your partner is down after a diving save, they need time to recover. Setting to them while they are down concedes the point, so send the ball back over the net instead.

• Keep some distance from your partner. Standing too close can cancel each other's actions, and a collision costs the point.

• Feint when the opponent starts setting up a block. A blocked spike hands the point straight over.

Event Rewards

The limited-time track pays out against mission and star conditions across the stages. The full obtainable total for the launch window is below.

Separately from the limited track, stars earned on stages pay Annulith and Talent Bread as ongoing rewards, and those remain available after the event window closes.

Achievements

Volley Star carries its own set of Achievements, each paying Annulith on completion.

Not Yet Documented

Several parts of the activity have not been detailed anywhere yet, and are deliberately left blank here rather than guessed at:

• The per-star reward amounts on individual stages.

• The full Rookie Series stage list and where it is played.

• How the player recruiting referenced by the Going Pro and Full Roster achievements works, and where recruited players come from.

• Whether the world rankings reset on any cycle, and what placing on them pays beyond the two achievements.

• The numeric scale the aptitudes use, and the cost curve on Talent Bread upgrades.

Related Pages

• Hethereau Hobbies

• Surf Breaker

• Shipwreck Salvage

• Pink Paws Heist

• Going, Going, Gone!

• City Stamina

• City Tycoon

• Side Activities and Mini-Games