Pity system for token pulls

Chirus

Bowgentle said:

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.

See, this statement directly contradicts what bad just posted, in that every 300 pulls, you're more or less guaranteed all 13 covers for the three latest heroes in latest legends. 

HoundofShadow

I've tracked my pulls for the past few times and posted them in the forum. You got to have one terrible luck not to champ them within 300 pulls. On top of that, Scl 10 can give you up to 1500 5* shards. In reality, those extra 60-90 pulls out of those 300 pulls are just buffers.

If you want guaranteed cover, spend 250 or 500 cp to buy the cover.

Bowgentle

Chirus said:

Bowgentle said:

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.

See, this statement directly contradicts what bad just posted, in that every 300 pulls, you're more or less guaranteed all 13 covers for the three latest heroes in latest legends. 

Bad is not great with math.
He made a whole thread where he argued against everybody else who tried to prove that he was wrong.
Take his opinions with a grain of salt.
More or less guaranteed I can agree with.

Chirus

Bowgentle said:

Chirus said:

Bowgentle said:

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.

See, this statement directly contradicts what bad just posted, in that every 300 pulls, you're more or less guaranteed all 13 covers for the three latest heroes in latest legends. 

Bad is not great with math.
He made a whole thread where he argued against everybody else who tried to prove that he was wrong.
Take his opinions with a grain of salt.
More or less guaranteed I can agree with.

Okay, in that case, I'll respectfully maintain my position that the drop system needs to have some stopgap measure so players aren't left to the whims of RNG. I'm okay with the 300 value as long as 300 is the absolute limit of pulls to pick up 13 covers for three heroes. That's still a lot of pulls, and asking for a safety net of some sort for the tiny fraction of players who get screwed even after that many attempts isn't a big request imo.

HoundofShadow

What the dev should do is to make sure every new player watch a video about laws of large number so that they understand how probability works.

jsmjsmjsm00

There are no players that would get screwed by statistics because that's not how statistics work. They will keep pulling and their overall 5s rate would be expected to improve. 

The random chance of loot boxes is literally their point. People love to high roll. Dry spells encourage people to keep trying. 

Removing the rng and adding pity timers turns it into more of a grind. It would be less enjoyable. I do not believe that you hate the current system for the reason of dry spells, I believe the complaints are due to the perception that you are somehow being robbed of 5s, which is just straight up false. 

Bad

My arguments are there for to read them, believe it or not, and maths won't explain it.
Just a single detail here, my thread got closed and others 2 about that topic were deleted. Take that info with a grain of salt or with 5 lbs.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

I’ve been pulling at 22% the past few months . (I know if I say I have a system I’ll get flamed so I won’t .) But my point is if the pull rate was increased to that then yes you can easily champ every new 5.* release. The downside is once you champ it I’m stuck as a hoarder until the next release, which I despise personally.I enjoy pulling 1 or 2 LL a day . At 15% I still had 10-11 covers by the time it was banished into classics. And if I spent ( which is the devs’ goal ) on more tokens then I probably would champ them all at that rate . So the system seems to be operating perfectly as a business model .

Chirus

HoundofShadow said:

What the dev should do is to make sure every new player watch a video about laws of large number so that they understand how probability works.

I don't think you quite get the point of the thread. The law of large numbers states that over the course of the total number of attempts (this value stretches onward to infinity), you will trend towards an expected value. In our case it's 1/7 or roughly 15%. I'm not making the argument that this is false. I'm saying instead of relying on probability to establish the boundaries of a player's pull results, we should set absolute limits so that we don't have to go all the out to infinity for the results to bear out. There's nothing scientific or magical about the 15% value. It's just an arbitrary number that the former devs decided upon. Given the probability that the overwhelming majority of players will fall into that 15% rate within 300 pulls, still some small number of people will fall outside that window. And it's never impossible for one to fall so far outside that window that they experience a freakish occurrence. All I'm suggesting is that there be some sort of safeguard in place so that freakish occurrences are not simply highly improbable, but outright impossible.

I'm not asking for the devs to give me a statistics lesson through their lootbox scheme. I'm asking for them to make a game that feels good to play over a predictable period of time. You can do this without significantly hurting the monetization system, as can be observed from countless other mobile games that use a gacha system. I'm not asking you to prove to me that the drop rate is indeed 15% when you stretch out the number of pulls on to infinity. I already established that this value is believable from the outset of my first post. I never challenged that claim. I'm not sure where this idea comes from. 

Just as the 15% value was arbitrarily determined, I think an equally arbitrary value like 300 is a fine number within which you will always end up with 13 covers for the 3 heroes featured in the latest legends store. You guys are treating this thread like I'm asking for sweeping changes to the reward system, when all I was asking for was a nuanced stopgap that was not already in place.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

HoundofShadow said:

What the dev should do is to make sure every new player watch a video about laws of large number so that they understand how probability works.

I think every student in America got that lesson in high school . ( Unless you graduated over 11 years ago, I can’t speak for older people ). 

CharlieLima

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

HoundofShadow said:

What the dev should do is to make sure every new player watch a video about laws of large number so that they understand how probability works.

I think every student in America got that lesson in high school . ( Unless you graduated over 11 years ago, I can’t speak for older people ). 

Don’t forget to account that some people didn’t even go to American high school! …since they’re not American.

Chirus

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

I’ve been pulling at 22% the past few months . (I know if I say I have a system I’ll get flamed so I won’t .) But my point is if the pull rate was increased to that then yes you can easily champ every new 5.* release. The downside is once you champ it I’m stuck as a hoarder until the next release, which I despise personally.I enjoy pulling 1 or 2 LL a day . At 15% I still had 10-11 covers by the time it was banished into classics. And if I spent ( which is the devs’ goal ) on more tokens then I probably would champ them all at that rate . So the system seems to be operating perfectly as a business model .

Arguably, there is an artificial bump to the pull rate as a result of the boss events awarding 2 covers each month. If this remains a permanent feature, it's like we start each window of pulls with 2 guaranteed covers, each a different color. So this could mean we could practically see the rate as higher than 15% for the purposes of pulling one of the featured 5* heroes. How much higher I'm not sure. But I do sense that champing a 5* hero is a lot more feasible with boss events becoming a part of the equation.

Bad

Of course. 2 organic covers on different colors is a lot and 5* characters can be easily champed before entering classics with 2 colorless covers thanks to shards, even if pulling for the LLs without any system.
That means boss event rewards are crucial for any type of player.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

Chirus said:

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

I’ve been pulling at 22% the past few months . (I know if I say I have a system I’ll get flamed so I won’t .) But my point is if the pull rate was increased to that then yes you can easily champ every new 5.* release. The downside is once you champ it I’m stuck as a hoarder until the next release, which I despise personally.I enjoy pulling 1 or 2 LL a day . At 15% I still had 10-11 covers by the time it was banished into classics. And if I spent ( which is the devs’ goal ) on more tokens then I probably would champ them all at that rate . So the system seems to be operating perfectly as a business model .

Arguably, there is an artificial bump to the pull rate as a result of the boss events awarding 2 covers each month. If this remains a permanent feature, it's like we start each window of pulls with 2 guaranteed covers, each a different color. So this could mean we could practically see the rate as higher than 15% for the purposes of pulling one of the featured 5* heroes. How much higher I'm not sure. But I do sense that champing a 5* hero is a lot more feasible with boss events becoming a part of the equation.

I forgot the 2 newer characters will now be easier with a plus 2 cover bonus that was previously unavailable . I was speaking of the last 2 on the classic bubble , Crystal and Moon Knight. Those didn’t get alliance event bonus covers . But you’re right they just made it possible for even daily casual players to more easily champ the new releases 

TheEyeDoctorsWife

HoundofShadow said:

I've tracked my pulls for the past few times and posted them in the forum. You got to have one terrible luck not to champ them within 300 pulls. On top of that, Scl 10 can give you up to 1500 5* shards. In reality, those extra 60-90 pulls out of those 300 pulls are just buffers.

If you want guaranteed cover, spend 250 or 500 cp to buy the cover.

Another change is the decrease in PvP to reach max rewards . I’m now getting an extra 54 CP a week ( 2 pulls ) and that on average will also give you an extra 5* cover per month in LL.  For the first time ever I hit 1000 CP hoarded.

HoundofShadow

If you want to change the way pull works such that every player will not be screwed by probability, be prepared for worse pull rate. There's already a precedent: Bonus Hero --> Bonus shards.

I'm not sure if you were around when Bonus Heroes was around but the rate was 5% for 5* cover. Statistically speaking, for every 140 pulls that you made, you get 1 bonus 5* cover. However, when Bonus Shards replaced Bonus Hero to guarantee that all players got 1 bonus 5* cover, the number of pulls needed to get 1 bonus 5* cover is 167, which is an additional 19.3% pulls needed.

If you want to see the pull rate of MPQ become 1:9 or 1:10 just to guarantee that every player get a 5* cover by a certain number of pulls,  then hope the dev does this and watch chaos unleas. Maybe the dev is already planning to change the pull rate, which explains the generosity.

Chirus

HoundofShadow said:

If you want to change the way pull works such that every player will not be screwed by probability, be prepared for worse pull rate. There's already a precedent: Bonus Hero --> Bonus shards.

I'm not sure if you were around when Bonus Heroes was around but the rate was 5% for 5* cover. Statistically speaking, for every 140 pulls that you made, you get 1 bonus 5* cover. However, when Bonus Shards replaced Bonus Hero to guarantee that all players got 1 bonus 5* cover, the number of pulls needed to get 1 bonus 5* cover is 167, which is an additional 19.3% pulls needed.

If you want to see the pull rate of MPQ become 1:9 or 1:10 just to guarantee that every player get a 5* cover by a certain number of pulls,  then hope the dev does this and watch chaos unleas. Maybe the dev is already planning to change the pull rate, which explains the generosity.

This is actually not an unrealistic take. I've seen my share of out-of-touch developers (or stubborn bean counters) insisting on ruining a game's economy to the ground by progressively worsening the catch-up rate for new players such that it becomes practically impossible to play toe-to-toe without spending money. 

Now you should know that this is clearly not what I asked for, but I still concede that the potential for this to become reality is still very possible, given what they have done in the past with bonus heroes. 

That said, nothing about the roadmap from the new developers indicates that drop rates will be worsened. Only indications that the HP rewards will go up. And they seem responsive to feedback so far. So this is the best time imo to offer suggestions to improve the game in tiny ways. What I suggested is nothing more than a tweak, and largely nobody will notice anything has changed. I hope that much is clear.

HoundofShadow

If you read different articles about gamers vs developers, there will always be at least two angles to look at things:

1) The dev is out of touch or greedy/stingy.
2) Gamers are becoming more entitled.

Guaranteeing every single player a x number of 5* cover by a certain pull rate is not a  tweak. I'm not sure why you are aiming for a "perfect" experience for every single player when statistics will take care of them. Players who track their pulls over the years can attest that their rates are closed to the expected pull rates. Players who don't track their pulls will continue to think that the game is rigged against them. 

Again, I think it is an expectation problem where players think that 1/7 should be perfect. Perfection and Probability don't go together. Go flip a coin 100 times and let me know if you can get a perfect 50H/50T result on your first try. Repeat this experiment for another 10 times and see if you can get a perfect 50:50 for each try. 

The reason why the dev didn't bring that (worsen drop rate) up is because no one asked them about pity timers. They said they will hold a Q&A every month. So, maybe you might want to ask them whether including pity timers in CP pulls will worsen the current 1/7 pull rate in July Q&A.

Chirus

This is a good suggestion. Perhaps I will ask them this. As to whether my suggestion could be considered a tweak or not would depend on the window upon which it would trigger. The more pulls it takes to trigger, the less noticeable of a change it will be. I keep getting the sense that you think I want a guaranteed 5* every 5 pulls or something. I want to assure you it's nothing quite so drastic. Some systems take about 120 pulls to trigger the pity timer. It's really a last resort type of mechanism. It isn't intended to make the game rain 5* characters. You really ought to look at other games that include this system and see for yourself if they did this just to make things "perfect" or simply round out the play experience. You yourself were the one who introduced the law of large numbers into this conversation, wanting to drag out the sample size to infinity to prove your point. I'm just suggesting that a stopgap be placed at a point where there have been enough pulls to make it hardly noticeable, but not necessarily make it a theoretical infinity (no stopgaps). If a guaranteed 5* was introduced after, say, 100 pulls of drought, there would firstly be no noticeable impact to the company's bottom line, secondly, the drop rates could become a little more predictable, but not to the extent that suddenly everyone is champing the latest 5* within a week as a F2P player. FInally, those darn "entitled" players you go on about will have a value to hit before complaining about the game being rigged, which arguably very few players will actually reach given the drop rates already put in place.

HoundofShadow

It doesn't go to infinity but it will be around 300. Currently, players can already get a total of 2 to 3 covers worth of 5* shards from placement and progression rewards in scl 10. This has significantly reduced the number of pulls needed by as much as 90 pulls. As I said, your luck must be the worst in the game to not even cover all three latest characters with 300 pulls + 1000-1500 shards per 5* character. Those 2-3 extra covers of shards equivalent is as good as an extra 90 pulls, taking you to 390 pulls.