Pity system Ideas

[Thesmellofman]

Implementing a pity system for relics in Skullgirls Mobile could be a beneficial addition, especially given the increasing number of unique fighters. Here are some reasons why a pity system might be necessary and how it could be implemented effectively:

Why a Pity System is Beneficial​

1. Reducing Frustration: As the number of unique fighters grows, the chances of pulling a specific desired fighter decrease. A pity system helps mitigate the frustration of continuous bad luck by guaranteeing a high-value pull after a certain number of attempts.
2. Encouraging Engagement: Knowing that there is a guaranteed reward after a set number of pulls can motivate players to keep engaging with the game, spending resources, and participating in events to earn more relics.
3. Player Retention: A pity system can help retain players by providing a more predictable path to acquiring powerful or favorite fighters, thus maintaining interest and investment in the game.
4. Fairness and Balance: It adds a layer of fairness to the gacha system, ensuring that even the unluckiest players eventually get rewarded, which can enhance overall player satisfaction.

How a Pity System Could Be Implemented​

1. Incremental Guarantees: Introduce a system where players are guaranteed a specific rarity or better fighter after a set number of relic pulls. For example, guaranteeing at least one diamond fighter after 100 pulls.
2. Progress Tracking: Implement a visible tracker that shows players how many pulls they have made and how many more are needed to trigger the pity system. This transparency can boost player confidence and planning.
3. Multiple Levels of Pity: Create different pity levels for various rarities. For instance, a silver fighter might be guaranteed after 20 pulls, a gold fighter after 50 pulls, and a diamond fighter after 100 pulls.
4. Event-Specific Pity: During special events or limited-time offers, a separate pity counter could be used, ensuring that players trying for event-specific fighters have a fair chance of obtaining them without affecting their general relic pulls.

Considerations for Implementation​

• Economic Impact: The pity system needs to be balanced to avoid overly inflating the availability of high-rarity fighters, which could impact the game's economy and balance.
• Resource Management: The developers should ensure that the pity system complements existing reward structures and does not render other methods of acquiring fighters obsolete.
• Player Communication: Clear communication about how the pity system works is crucial to avoid misunderstandings and ensure players know how to maximize their pulls effectively.

Conclusion​

Given the increasing number of unique fighters in Skullgirls Mobile, a pity system for relics would be a valuable addition. It would reduce player frustration, enhance engagement, and provide a fairer gameplay experience. Implementing it thoughtfully and transparently can help maintain the game's balance and keep the player base satisfied and motivated.

 

[Dusty00]

Nicely written! It’s rare to see a balanced suggestion taking into other economy and resource balancing. I hope the devs find this as helpful as I have.

 

[MDude]

Incremental Guarantees: Introduce a system where players are guaranteed a specific rarity or better fighter after a set number of relic pulls. For example, guaranteeing at least one diamond fighter after 100 pulls

Love it, I've always wondered why SGM doesn't have this kind of system into place while most other gatchas have.

Progress Tracking: Implement a visible tracker that shows players how many pulls they have made and how many more are needed to trigger the pity system. This transparency can boost player confidence and planning.

This is a very well thought idea

Multiple Levels of Pity: Create different pity levels for various rarities. For instance, a silver fighter might be guaranteed after 20 pulls, a gold fighter after 50 pulls, and a diamond fighter after 100 pulls.

This ties up with the above suggestion nicely, good call.

Event-Specific Pity: During special events or limited-time offers, a separate pity counter could be used, ensuring that players trying for event-specific fighters have a fair chance of obtaining them without affecting their general relic pulls

Love it, nothing like grinding hard only to lose your hard earned shards/relic by pulling either a Chameleon Twist or a Souls Sister and having to start all over again. Good stuff hopefully it gets picked up on.

 

[SvenZ]

Would really appreciate that, even more so since it'll probably apply to character specific relics too. I've pulled so many Dahlia relics and still don't have a Red Rider, yet I've seen lv 30-40 players with multiple copies

 

[Goofball]

First off would like to say, despite many calls for a pity system, you’re probably the first one I’ve seen that has made an effort to explaining what it might look like, good on you.

Secondly, I have a few questions/concerns.

Reducing Frustration: As the number of unique fighters grows, the chances of pulling a specific desired fighter decrease. A pity system helps mitigate the frustration of continuous bad luck by guaranteeing a high-value pull after a certain number of attempts.

Multiple Levels of Pity: Create different pity levels for various rarities. For instance, a silver fighter might be guaranteed after 20 pulls, a gold fighter after 50 pulls, and a diamond fighter after 100 pulls.

There hasn’t been a silver fighter release aside from new character releases (Black Dahlia and Marie) in quite a while despite me asking here on the forum if this is a thing that will continue into the future and not really getting a response and given the new variant release schedule, I think the days where we might get new genuine silver variants are potentially gg. I say this to ask if there’s any need to include silver fighters into this pity system given their relative stagnation in growth in the game and accessibility (PFs, CoC, 10+1 guaranteed on Premiere Relics, getting Bronzes, Lowest Rarity in Jackpot/Monthly/Spotlight relics)?


In regards to the pricing, I’ve been a bit skeptical of the pricing (not just here, but in game overall) in relation to how Golds are treated in modern day SGM. To elaborate on what I mean by this, it feels as if the number of really good/standout golds has been on the decline a bit and yet, despite being the second rarity type in the game, it doesn’t feel like many are worth investing into other than polishing up your collection with shiny diamond borders. I’ll explain a bit later why this is important. For now though, let me shift focus to the list of gold variants that are being released as timed limited exclusives to the BP (as it seems mostly every gold going forward is being released this way). This list in question is as follows:

Cosmic Rebel (Good w/ support/meh w/o support)
Red Rider (meh)
Scare Giver (meh)
Noble Mogul (rough)
Curl Scout (“Good”)
Hell’s Belle (?)
Grin Reaper (Good niche)
Furmidable (eh*)
Primal Prodigy (meh)
Buffer Zone (meh)
Indomitable (Really Good)
Demon Artist (meh)
Palace Plunderer (Debatably Good/Really Good niche)
Psykid (Really Good)
Final Fang (Good)

(eh*) = very iffy, contextual, exploitable. In this case, charge attack SAs are vulnerable to DPs and BBs, + the benefits for even getting the SA aren’t that great. Inverse Polarity is good, Precision is good, but on a multi hit character like Ms. Fortune???

Now, to be clear, you are free to approach this game however you see fit, whether for casually or for semi competitively, to fully competitive. I’m not here to tell you how to play the game, and I also understand that if the BP started releasing broken variant left and right, the game would be a lot more P2W heavy and super grind heavy in order to compete even in a semi casual sense. However, as a Fighting RPG Game, there is some level of understand what works and what doesn’t that players need to understand because who plays games just to lose? Out of 14 variants released, 6/14 are worth investing in. Not bad numbers, right? Except for the fact that 1 of them is a defense variant that isn’t gonna get you active advantage (aka defense variants aren’t typically meant for use, and more to beef up your Rift/PF. Also keep in mind that for most of the game modes like PFs, Parallel Realms, Stories, etc. you’re going to primarily be using attackers) , 1-2 out of them are niche (with 1 being debatable as they aren’t “fully” out yet for a good consensus) which leaves about 3/14 widely useful variants, and now, finally onto why that’s important.

The reason I bring all this up is the very fact that time, resources + its management are very limited and as such, you want to invest in variants that give you some level of mileage so you can actually win. Why would I spend 2.9m~ coins on a skill tree, 3.9~ SP, 11m~ coins on a full moveset for a variant that isn’t gonna get me much juice for the squeeze? (To be fair, in relation to the moveset, most players probably aren’t maxing out their moves, as I’d wager to guess that a majority of 15 move makers are end game players/whales.) Millions of coins can take weeks/months of grinding. Theonite is a rare commodity and never-ending endeavor with consequences for misallocation of resources (foreshadowing). If you aren’t going to release variants worth investing into, why would I try to get them? What is the value being brought to the player if they don’t help me win except maybe getting your favorite palette/character reference? With better and better diamonds that are being released that actually impact the meta, the power/usefulness gap between the Golds and Diamonds are evermore separate and continuously growing. (+ many older and newer variants are being powercrept out of the meta)

Should Diamonds take 100 pulls to get a guaranteed? I question because I wonder how useful that actually is. Let’s say you grind out every mode. Let me even be more charitable and say you’re a Diamond 4 rifter (pretty rare for your average player, but I digress), 10% every Diamond PF (also relatively rare for your average player), top 10%/top 100 relics (rare), how long would it take you to actually hit the pity? To be clear, I don’t mind that it’s decently hard for players to hit the Diamond pity as they’re a) end game and b) highest rarity, stronger than most by default. Just questioning how difficult it should be to hit it. Especially considering the cheapest relic costs 100 (singles) and 1,000 (10+1, which is usually much more worth)

Also, how exactly would Event Specific Pity work? If you grind everything out, you gain about 3-5k theonite a month, Event Relics cost 500 (singles) and 5,000 (10+1), meaning if you pull for an Event specific variant ONCE, you clean out your theonite for the month. Also, considering that it’d take 50 pulls for a gold fighter which rounds out to 5k theonite, why would someone pull for a singular 10+1 Event Relic when they could potentially have better odds with a premiere relic?

Would a guaranteed Diamond mean non-dupe or just a guaranteed Diamond? This is pretty important. If non-dupe, then I think it’s fine if it is 100 pulls (especially for the SUPER end gamers that have 100+ hoarded Diamond relics), if not….

Would non-pulling characters (i.e. PF variants, Inner Pieces, etc.) affect the pity system?

How would this pity system exist beside the new Relic Shard Exchange program?

Despite any questions or criticism, I want to re-emphasize that I love this idea greatly and have advocated for a pity system before. I recently just wasted 30k theonite on pulling for Death Wish on Umbrella’s b-day, just to get a bunch of golds I already have and Raining Champ ;-;, this would be awesome and make me not want to commit uninstall.

 

[SvenZ]

Red Rider (meh)

Curl Scout (Really Good)

I can't really agree on this one. For one, Red Rider herself works good vs Curl Scout, which albeit an annoying defensive variant, can be easily countered by a wide range of characters and gimmicks. Red Rider also has pretty decent stats, along with very consistent SA effects. The effects are pretty much permanently active, with only immunity being your real deterrent. Comparatively, there are better Dahlias, but as a whole Red Rider is better than a lot of other gold fighters.

My comment here isn't to downplay Curl Scout, but more to elevate Rid Rider. I think she's pretty good.

 

[Goofball]

I can't really agree on this one. For one, Red Rider herself works good vs Curl Scout, which albeit an annoying defensive variant, can be easily countered by a wide range of characters and gimmicks. Red Rider also has pretty decent stats, along with very consistent SA effects. The effects are pretty much permanently active, with only immunity being your real deterrent.

I fully disagree with (almost) everything said here. Firstly, she is NOT good against Curl Scout. “But wait, she does Heal Block, doesn’t Curl Scout heal?” She’s also a debuff wiper that…wait for it…wipes on Combo hits.

Her SA for reminder is:
Remove up to 2 DEBUFFS, gain 2 stacks of ARMOR for 15 seconds and gain 30% BLOCKBUSTER METER after every 5th COMBO HIT suffered.
Gain 10% HEALTH and inflict WITHER for 6 seconds every 4 seconds while benefiting from a BUFF.

“B-but Dahlia has a move that can do armor break” Yeah, one singular move, that’s a BB, that has to be charged through hits…

Also, you only get Red Rider’s SA to go off if you hit a bullet and that’s only consistent if you get in in a combo. I’m pretty sure Dahlia’s Dash Attack alone does 3 hits lol. Also, Red Rider’s Element is a weaker against Curl’s and while it’s arguable the the decrease in ATK is relatively negligible, I’d never tell someone to use Red Rider vs. Curl Scout.

The only part I really regret is thinking Curl Scout is (Really Good) when the truth is, she’s more of a skill check. She can’t become really annoying in the context of a team (like Starlight Rose, Surgeon General, Rose Tinted, Model Leader, etc.), and if you fall asleep at the wheel and don’t strategize around her, she will clap you, but she def has more losing MUs solo than a (Really Good) might imply.

 

[SvenZ]

I fully disagree with (almost) everything said here. Firstly, she is NOT good against Curl Scout. “But wait, she does Heal Block, doesn’t Curl Scout heal?” She’s also a debuff wiper that…wait for it…wipes on Combo hits.

Her SA for reminder is:
Remove up to 2 DEBUFFS, gain 2 stacks of ARMOR for 15 seconds and gain 30% BLOCKBUSTER METER after every 5th COMBO HIT suffered.
Gain 10% HEALTH and inflict WITHER for 6 seconds every 4 seconds while benefiting from a BUFF.

“B-but Dahlia has a move that can do armor break” Yeah, one singular move, that’s a BB, that has to be charged through hits…

Also, you only get Red Rider’s SA to go off if you hit a bullet and that’s only consistent if you get in in a combo. I’m pretty sure Dahlia’s Dash Attack alone does 3 hits lol. Also, Red Rider’s Element is a weaker against Curl’s and while it’s arguable the the decrease in ATK is relatively negligible, I’d never tell someone to use Red Rider vs. Curl Scout.

The only part I really regret is thinking Curl Scout is (Really Good) when the truth is, she’s more of a skill check. She can’t become really annoying in the context of a team (like Starlight Rose, Surgeon General, Rose Tinted, Model Leader, etc.), and if you fall asleep at the wheel and don’t strategize around her, she will clap you, but she def has more losing MUs solo than a (Really Good) might imply.

The sarcasm in some of your remarks was uncalled for. Yes, I'm aware of the debuff clear, yes I'm aware that Dahlia's combos can easily trigger Scout's SA. Yes, I know that Red Rider's special attack is multi-hit which beats the purpose of the Armor Break. And yes her SA requires a hit. The latter being the easiest part, as shots are part of your regular combos, keep away tool vs dashing opponents or intercept a lot of special moves

You can build Dahlia around Pendulum and Trap spam, which can work vs Scout. Not the strongest I'm aware of that. And yes Dahlia in general is not the best at dealing with Scout, but my point is that Red Rider is not as bad you make her out to be. Not specifically vs Curl Scout, but in general. I consider her to be on the (good) tier of characters

 

[Goofball]

The sarcasm in some of your remarks was uncalled for. Yes, I'm aware of the debuff clear, yes I'm aware that Dahlia's combos can easily trigger Scout's SA. Yes, I know that Red Rider's special attack is multi-hit which beats the purpose of the Armor Break. And yes her SA requires a hit. The latter being the easiest part, as shots are part of your regular combos or keep away tool vs dashing opponents.

You can build Dahlia around Pendulum and Trap spam, which can work vs Scout. Not the strongest I'm aware of that. And yes Dahlia in general is not the best at dealing with Scout, but my point is that Red Rider is not as bad you make her out to be. Not specifically vs Curl Scout, but in general. I consider her to be on the (good) tier of characters

I didn’t necessarily mean to come off sarcastically, I usually just try to go through potential counter arguments before I assert a claim (and inject some light comedy). I just don’t think she has a good MU vs. Curl Scout.

You didn’t address the fact that Fire is weaker vs. Water meaning you have to deal with a worse version of RR and all of the implications that come with that.

To address the “building around around Scout” point: I mean I guess somewhat, but why would you “build around” something that you could just use another variant/character for without the need to do that. Also, you could maybe get away with leaving the trap on stage without a combo a few times before the AI wises up. In terms of a low count combo, the only one I can think about for Curl is Lancher > Trap > Pendulum (4 hits) and doing that combo over and over not only would need a decently heavy dose of Special Cooldown to actually be viable, you would have to make sure that the AI never adapts to this combo as even adding a single hit does would activate Curl SA.

To address the “keep away tool”, no. Dahlia’s shot in the Filia MU is only good in combos. If she dashes back, she evades, if she dashed forward, it’s nearly unreactable (especially if you’re trying to stop her from approaching with Dahlia’s shot, also Filia’s AI is probably not running into a Trap.) Since it’s only good in combos, it’s REALLY bad vs. Curl Scout.

Also I don’t think she’s “bad” per say, just not good. Heal Block is ok when you’re against variants that heal (which isn’t terribly often, mind you) and Wither is decent (contextual), and her self heal SA is…one of the SAs of all time but not enough to make her good.

Also, didn’t acknowledge that you originally said:

For one, Red Rider herself works good vs Curl Scout

and then kinda backtracked to:

You can build Dahlia around Pendulum and Trap spam, which can work vs Scout. Not the strongest I'm aware of that. And yes Dahlia in general is not the best at dealing with Scout…

Also, what do you mean by “Red Rider’s Special Attack” ??

Finally:

but my point is that Red Rider is not as bad you make her out to be. Not specifically vs Curl Scout, but in general. I consider her to be on the (good) tier of characters

I lightly touched on this in earlier points but I’ll try to be pretty concise into why I don’t consider her all that good. Her SA2 is bad. Her SA1 is mediocre at best. Her ATK stat is not good as she’s lower than many defense variants + is tied with the worst ATK stat for Dahlias with Unfazed and she has no SA to boost it. At least Unfazed is broken. She is quite easily the WORST Gold Dahlia is is arguably one of, if not the worst Dahlias period. She stops the opponent from pushing their advantage forward with no real way to push her own advantage over. The palette is cool tho.

 

[SvenZ]

I didn’t necessarily mean to come off sarcastically, I usually just try to go through potential counter arguments before I assert a claim (and inject some light comedy). I just don’t think she has a good MU vs. Curl Scout.

You didn’t address the fact that Fire is weaker vs. Water meaning you have to deal with a worse version of RR and all of the implications that come with that.

To address the “building around around Scout” point: I mean I guess somewhat, but why would you “build around” something that you could just use another variant/character for without the need to do that. Also, you could maybe get away with leaving the trap on stage without a combo a few times before the AI wises up. In terms of a low count combo, the only one I can think about for Curl is Lancher > Trap > Pendulum (4 hits) and doing that combo over and over not only would need a decently heavy dose of Special Cooldown to actually be viable, you would have to make sure that the AI never adapts to this combo as even adding a single hit does would activate Curl SA.

To address the “keep away tool”, no. Dahlia’s shot in the Filia MU is only good in combos. If she dashes back, she evades, if she dashed forward, it’s nearly unreactable (especially if you’re trying to stop her from approaching with Dahlia’s shot, also Filia’s AI is probably not running into a Trap.) Since it’s only good in combos, it’s REALLY bad vs. Curl Scout.

Also I don’t think she’s “bad” per say, just not good. Heal Block is ok when you’re against variants that heal (which isn’t terribly often, mind you) and Wither is decent (contextual), and her self heal SA is…one of the SAs of all time but not enough to make her good.

Also, didn’t acknowledge that you originally said:



and then kinda backtracked to:


Also, what do you mean by “Red Rider’s Special Attack” ??

Finally:

I lightly touched on this in earlier points but I’ll try to be pretty concise into why I don’t consider her all that good. Her SA2 is bad. Her SA1 is mediocre at best. Her ATK stat is not good as she’s lower than many defense variants + is tied with the worst ATK stat for Dahlias with Unfazed and she has no SA to boost it. At least Unfazed is broken. She is quite easily the WORST Gold Dahlia is is arguably one of, if not the worst Dahlias period. She stops the opponent from pushing their advantage forward with no real way to push her own advantage over. The palette is cool tho.

Hmm, maybe I'm at fault for conveying my first reply so briefly. Let me start from the beginning

For one, Red Rider herself works good vs Curl Scout

I still stand by that to a degree. With proper distancing you can trick the AI to do a charge attack which is a guaranteed opening for a shot. Drill, Hairball and Gregor Samson are also relatively easy to react to. Ringlet Spike is a bit tricky, but depending on the distance you can immediately retaliate with Pendulum + Shot. I think of the Heal Block as an alternative to Armor Break, just to stop Curl's healing in case she gets another buff. Fur Monger and Psycommander can comparatively burst her down better, even though they both suffer from being fire element and having fire shot. While Hex and Gunner have Precision at their disposal, and probably have the easiest time vs Curl. Thinking it again now, those are probably the better choices for the match up.

Red Rider also has pretty decent stats, along with very consistent SA effects. The effects are pretty much permanently active, with only immunity being your real deterrent. Comparatively, there are better Dahlias, but as a whole Red Rider is better than a lot of other gold fighters.

This part here entirely discusses Red Rider as a whole, and not specifically vs Curl Scout. I only touched Curl Scout in my second comment, because the match up was the focus of your reply. My core argument and reason for even bringing up Curl Scout was that Red Rider cannot be in (meh) tier while Curl Scout is in (good) tier.

Now as for Red Rider's strengths and weaknesses.
Reverse Polarity is definitely the better effect, but triggering the Heal Block with Rider is Ridiculously easy, and doesn't require any jumping through any hoops. Just hit the enemy with a standard shot, and it lasts 15sec. It's pretty much permanent if the opponent doesn't have debuff clear or immunity. Wither is not the most amazing effect, but you at least apply it very easily and can reach 5 stacks on your opening combo.

Damage is indeed on par with Unfazed as you mentioned. UHost also falls under that threshold, but she has consistent DoT via curse. If we exclude SAs and look at it in a vacuum, all 3 are on par damage wise (I know that's not true in reality). I think they probably designed Red Rider around being a defensive variant, with how SA2 works, but I think they're better Dahlias for that. Even so, the healing is pretty decent and can help you make a comeback, especially in Realms

Also, what do you mean by “Red Rider’s Special Attack” ??

Was referring to her "special shot" (fire shot) and Her Marquee which applies Armor Break. For most Dahlias, it allows you to bypass Curl Scout's Armor in certain combos, but Fire Dahlias can't follow it up because of its extra hits, since it'll trigger Scout's SA again


Now I will admit something, and I even said it in an earlier comment. I don't have Red Rider right now, and only got to play around with her in Parallel Realms. I'm aware that I have pretty high bias because of that, especially since her SAs deal with some variants I don't enjoy facing.

But to reel back why I even replied to you initially. Bias or not, I firmly think Red Rider is comparatively stronger than a lot of other gold fighters, and deserves to be in the (good) category


Edit: I think we derailed the thread a bit. If you want we can discuss more on DMs

 

[Goofball]

I don’t want to super derail this thread with another super long essay about the aspects of this MU that you might not be considering, feel free to DM me to get the convo started.

Sorry about this OP.