HoYoVerse, formerly known as MiHoYo, has made a name for itself with its action RPG live-service game known as Genshin Impact. The game stars a pair of traveling twins who get separated in the land of Teyvat and need to be guided by Paimon, a strange being who acts as the player's companion throughout their adventure. While Genshin Impact is known for its large, expansive fantasy world, it's also known for its large cast of playable characters.
Indeed, there's a rather lengthy roster of 68 playable characters in Genshin Impact. While this may seem like it offers plenty of viable options for fans to create their dream teams to tackle story quests and daily commissions with ease, it comes with a very big catch. Genshin uses a gacha system that has made a name for itself over the years in controversy and criticism. What some Genshin Impact players might not know, however, is the gacha mechanics come with a "pity" system that benefits players with bad luck. However, this comes with flaws of its own.
How Genshin Impact's Pity System Works
The game's wishing system involves players paying Primogems in Genshin Impact to pull from a pull of five-star or four-star characters and four-star or three-star items and weapons. The rates for the items are the highest, coming at around 95% of the drop rate. Characters have a rough, rounded-out 5% chance of being pulled, and these rates change on the banner in question. However, Genshin Impact has a rule that if a player reaches a total of 90 overall pulls across any character banner, then they're guaranteed to receive a five-star character, even the limited rate-up ones.
There's also a rule that anytime a player manages to net a five-star character at their 0.6% drop rate, they have a 50-50 chance of getting either the limited character or a standard Genshin Impact character like Diluc. If fans "lose" this 50-50 gamble by getting the standard character, then the next time they pull a five-star will be guaranteed to be the limited character. The weapons banners apply a similar pity system as well, but players will need to lose two 50-50 chances before getting the rate-up weapon with pity.
Genshin Impact's Lofty Promises and Their Problems
When looking at Genshin Impact's pity system and guarantees, some gamers may understand why Genshin fans and loyalists consistently pull for characters or gather free Primogems without much thought. With the idea that it only takes 90 pulls to get a limited character like Genshin Impact's Yoimiya, saving up to get a new character sounds easy enough. However, this can still hurt fans just like other free-to-play gacha games can.
The phrase "there is always a chance" is associated with gambling addictions for good reason, and while Genshin Impact having a 90-pull guarantee is good, players will likely keep pulling until they reach the guaranteed thresholds. This is a huge problem due to the fact that Primogems in-game are hard to come by, and 90 pulls worth of Primogems costs over a hundred dollars if one is to purchase the premium currency with real-world money.
On top of that, these guarantees are only in place for the five-star characters, and while the five-star Genshin Impact characters are widely desired for a reason, this reason is not enough for the four-star ones. While there's a 50-50 in place between limited and standard four-stars, these pulls can be as far apart as possible. There have been many times when players have managed to get duplicates of a limited five-star and none of the four-stars in a banner. Ultimately, HoYoVerse should look into balancing the pity mechanic just a bit more as the flaws greatly hold back what might serve players well with enough support.
Genshin Impact is available on Mobile, PC, PS4, and PS5.
