Pity system for token pulls

Chirus

What do people think about a pity system being implemented for token pulls? If you go x number of pulls without pulling any 5* heroes, your rate goes up to 100% for the next pull before reverting to the original pull rates. We all know that the pull rate is roughly 15% and when players complain about pulling zero 5* from 60-70 pulls, CS will respond by looking at every pull you've made over the lifespan of your entire account (sometimes over years) and say it's still 15% (which is still true, despite how ridiculous it is that they're doing this). Nevertheless, it still feels miserable as a gaming experience for droughts to remain a possibility in this game when many other mobile gacha games ensure you will never go too long without some sort of compensation. Introducing some sort of pity system would significantly improve the experience of pulling new characters while also indirectly improving progression speeds. 

HoundofShadow

They would need to change the current odds from 1:7 to something worse than that.

Anyway, based on past experience of tracking pulls, going 100 pulls without a single 5* is rare.

HisReptilianMajesty

From what I remember in the past, pulls are pre-determined a significant ways out and should allegedly meet the 1:7 (or whatever other odds for whatever other tier) threshold. I can't recall the exact reasoning for that, but it was to mitigate an exploit, and I don't know if it's still the case off-hand.

I don't know how you square that with a pity pull system. In a sense, the pre-determined pulls -are- a pity system, since if you hit a stretch of 70 with zero 5* pulls, you're likely going to hit several in a small window eventually.

dianetics

Seemingly there is a pity system in place for shards, just not cover pulls

HoundofShadow

I think the number of pulls needed to trigger pity timer for bonus shards is about 50 to 60. And you'll get 50 shards most of the time. A full 5* cover = 500. That probably explains why they are fine with pity system for bonus shards. I pulled 500 5* shards only once since its existence. 

jsmjsmjsm00

Shards ARE the pity system. You get guaranteed progress on your characters, incrementally, from each pull. 

Godzillafan67

HoundofShadow said:

They would need to change the current odds from 1:7 to something worse than that.

Anyway, based on past experience of tracking pulls, going 100 pulls without a single 5* is rare.

Actually, you don't have to change the odds from 1:7. Change the predetermined sequence to one that never has a 21-token stretch* absent any 5*s. Once the player hits 10 pulls without a getting a 5*, a "pityplier" appears with a randomly seeded value that increments for each 4* pulled. Eventually and as predetermined , the 5* is pulled and the pityplier goes invisible again. The devs don't have to give out more rewards; everybody is receiving an equal number of 5*s; and we the sheep enjoy our endorphins as we are fooled into thinking that the game is rooting for us.

Honestly, a true pityplier that increases our odds from 1:7 would be awesome. (Please don't lessen my rewards elsewhere as a punishment for giving me something good.) My biggest issue is that the final 5* pull rate needs to be equitable for everyone; otherwise, those with long 4* stretches in their predetermined sequence would get more 5*s in the long run.

*Arbitrary number. Ditto for 10.

KGB

@Godzillafan67

Any pitiplier increases the odds to better than 1/7 as Hound said.

Imagine that the game has it so that after say 1000 pulls your rate will be 15% (150). If someplace in that 1000 pulls there is a long 0-fer streak, if the pitiplier forces a 5* to appear then by the time you reach 1000 pulls you will have 151 5* (the 150 that are there + 1 pitiplier 5*).

No one likes long 0-fer streaks but the truth is that it's more WHEN you get such streaks rather than the fact you get them that matters. If you have a bad run over say 100 tokens it matters way less if you are pulling in a store / latest legends that contains dud's/mediocre characters than if you are pulling in a store that contains meta ones. In other words, if you pull in latest legends when KK/Thoress are there and have a bad run over 200ish tokens so that you don't cover them it will matter way more than if you missed covering Big Wheel and Gamora. That's why evening out in the long run is a silly argument because not all 5* are created equal.

KGB

WilliamK1983

No.  Stupid idea.  Just because you don't get 10 5*s in 10 pulls isn't cause to start changing the game.  

Godzillafan67

KGB said:

@Godzillafan67

Any pitiplier increases the odds to better than 1/7 as Hound said.

Imagine that the game has it so that after say 1000 pulls your rate will be 15% (150). If someplace in that 1000 pulls there is a long 0-fer streak, if the pitiplier forces a 5* to appear then by the time you reach 1000 pulls you will have 151 5* (the 150 that are there + 1 pitiplier 5*).

No one likes long 0-fer streaks but the truth is that it's more WHEN you get such streaks rather than the fact you get them that matters. If you have a bad run over say 100 tokens it matters way less if you are pulling in a store / latest legends that contains dud's/mediocre characters than if you are pulling in a store that contains meta ones. In other words, if you pull in latest legends when KK/Thoress are there and have a bad run over 200ish tokens so that you don't cover them it will matter way more than if you missed covering Big Wheel and Gamora. That's why evening out in the long run is a silly argument because not all 5* are created equal.

KGB

I implied the same. My "fix" was to update the predetermined sequence so that the 5* deserts would be smaller and add an element to the UI to make it seem like a pityplier was working in your favor.

In my passing thought regarding an actual, working pityplier, I voiced my concern that it would not be equitable. Unlike some people, I really like that the new devs have opened the spigot on character covers.

HoundofShadow

The ex-dev team shared their thought about pity timers before and they mentioned that doing that without changing the odds is highly unlikely or something to that effect.

A lot of players are happy that the new dev team is generous with 5* covers and shards. For example, increasing the number of Odin shards from 15 to 75 in his Introduction... rerun, giving 250 KK shards, ran boss events with 2 latest 5 covers, beginning from Gargantos. If giving latest 5* covers in boss event is a permanenent change from now on, the number of covers needed for players (in good alliances) to champ 5* would be reduced from 13 minus 1000 shards via pves - 2 covers from boss events = 9, which means players need to pull ~189 LTs to champ all 5*. Assuming 10 more covers needed, it's around 210 LTs and its equivalent.

Given that 5* covers are end game contents and the new dev team is handing them out easily, it means big change is coming. For example, making Supports the pseudo 6* in the game so that playerd have something else to chase. If there isn't any other tradeoff for the generous 5* covers, then I don't know what they are doing then. Maybe they are shifting to new monetising items like Supports or Costumes.

DyingLegend

I'm just curious from a Devs standpoint on when they think a 5 star is viable to use in the game.

Bad

The drawing system on this game it's too peculiar for to change it. Also it's not needed.
It shuffles the cards in a predetermined way in order to ensure the 3 characters will get a close to similar proportion on their powers in a given number of pulls.
Originally was 300 pulls, thanks to shards on pve and pvp now is 250, and if they continue with those awesome boss events it will turn in 200 pulls.
Given the hard to obtain nature of those pulls the player is interested on that predetermined sequence landing all the 5*s early, and long dry spells will happen and will anger the player, but if pulling as I said all the goals will meet.
Imo the reason to give 2 covers is a clever monetisation on itself, turning more players into collectors type.

jsmjsmjsm00

There is really no need to force 5s to drop in exactly 1/7th of the tokens. Just pull more tokens and your result will approach 1/7.

The whole point of tokens is the randomness. People feel good about pulling higher than expected. Any change that does not affect the odds will simply reduce the frequency of lucky streaks. Any change that does affect the odds is just you asking for more 5s.

CharlieLima

Maybe statistically, players are pulling 5* at a higher rate than 1/7? But long dry spells give us the impression that we’re not.

jsmjsmjsm00

We all pull at the same rate.

Nobody is getting **** by the pull rates. If you have a dry spell, you will also hit a lucky streak. Keep pulling tokens and your odds will approach the expected outcome (law of large numbers). 

If you choose to focus only on the dry spells (negativity bias), that is your problem. 

Chirus

Bad said:

The drawing system on this game it's too peculiar for to change it. Also it's not needed.
It shuffles the cards in a predetermined way in order to ensure the 3 characters will get a close to similar proportion on their powers in a given number of pulls.
Originally was 300 pulls, thanks to shards on pve and pvp now is 250, and if they continue with those awesome boss events it will turn in 200 pulls.
Given the hard to obtain nature of those pulls the player is interested on that predetermined sequence landing all the 5*s early, and long dry spells will happen and will anger the player, but if pulling as I said all the goals will meet.
Imo the reason to give 2 covers is a clever monetisation on itself, turning more players into collectors type.

I had not known that the 300 number was derived from a predetermined system that distributes all powers equally over the course of said number of pulls. My question is, are we still talking percentages or is there some stopgap mechanism to ensure that there isn't a 1% of players who only get one color across all 300 pulls? I realize this is a hyperbolic example, but statistically speaking, there should be some mechanism to prevent freak occurrences, even if the overwhelming majority of players will not experience this over the lifetime of their play.

Bad

It's impossible, I repeat, it's impossible, to get all covers of one color or on the same character if you do 250 pulls.
My previous comment is one of the most insightful comments a MPQ player can ever read, so pay close atention to it.

Chirus

Thanks. Just trying to understand the system here. Does the game pick a random set of 300 pulls, then randomly distribute 13 covers per character for the 3 characters across those 300 before selecting a new bag of 300 pulls? Is this system specific to 5* only? I see the 300 value used a lot in community posts. Your 250 is new, so apologies for my skepticism regarding the latter value. 

Chirus

Dry spells do contribute, but aren't my primary issue. I'm not exactly married to the 1/7 value either, like it has to drop a 5* every 7 pulls. I just want to ensure this drop system isn't based on a percentage value so that there aren't any players, however small they may be, who end up getting royally screwed as a result of statistics. 

Bowgentle

Chirus said:

Dry spells do contribute, but aren't my primary issue. I'm not exactly married to the 1/7 value either, like it has to drop a 5* every 7 pulls. I just want to ensure this drop system isn't based on a percentage value so that there aren't any players, however small they may be, who end up getting royally screwed as a result of statistics. 

The pull rate will give you 15% over the long run.
Which can mean thousands of pulls.
It's not guaranteed you'll hit those numbers for every 5* released, so you'll totally end up with very bad builds.