An eye-opening study has debunked the long-assumed 50/50 pity system in Honkai: Star Rail.
Honkai: Star Rail, the latest sensation from HoYoverse, has been making waves in the gaming community. This space-faring adventure combines strategic gameplay with a compelling story against expansive galactic exploration. However, it’s not just the game’s story that’s been drawing attention; its gacha system, particularly the mechanics of character acquisition, has been a hot topic among players.
The game’s pity system, which is supposed to help balance the odds of acquiring 5-star characters by guaranteeing one after a certain number of unsuccessful pulls, was widely believed to operate on a 50/50 basis. This means that after hitting the pity threshold, players had an equal chance of getting the banner character or a different five-star character. However, recent findings suggest that this is not the case.
A detailed study conducted by a player 一棵平衡樹 (OneBST) has unveiled surprising results about the actual mechanics of this system. Using a tool called GGanalysis, developed specifically for this purpose, OneBST analyzed over 15 million pulls from the game. The findings indicate that the chances are skewed at 56.4% for the banner character (winning) and 43.6% for the standard five-star character (losing), not the even split players who were led to believe.
The study went further by categorizing data to test for various biases and correcting for regression errors. Initially, the uncorrected data suggested an even more skewed distribution of 57.52% to 42.48%, but subsequent adjustments brought it closer to the final figures. The robustness of this data was also confirmed through statistical testing, including the Ljung-Box test, which it passed, reinforcing the reliability of the findings.
OneBST delves deeper into these findings, discussing potential hidden mechanisms within Honkai: Star Rail’s pity system and other games like Genshin Impact that share a similar system.
These revelations could significantly alter player strategies, particularly for those who rely on the pity system to manage their resources, now knowing their actual chances of success are different than previously believed.