The Blue Archive Gacha Update

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

The 5.5 anniversary livestream was a disaster, instead of just being a fun event announcing the new summer alts for Pandemonium Society, all excitement was taken out with a singular announcement.

An announcement so bad, they had to cut the live chat.

To the uninformed Senseis, here is what happened.

Nexon announced that the gacha system will have a "QoL" update.

The new system is similar to hoyogames, with 100 pulls giving you a soft pity of 50/50 chance of getting the banner character, if you miss that, then at 200 pulls you guarantee the character.

If at some point in the pulling session you get the banner character, then, pity resets to 0 regardless, ergo, the spark system will be removed.

The only positive of this system being, that pity can carry over between banners of similar nature, regular pick up banners share pity, limited banners share pity, I am not sure if FES banners share pity with limited or if they will be their own.

A helpful JP player did a graph showing this in practice.

In simple terms, statistically speaking the only way the old and new method equalize, is at 400 pulls, and the floor for worst case scenario has been increased.

Lucky moments of getting all 4 banner units in 200 pulls during FES will become almost impossible, statistically speaking.

The new system is aiming to normalize 400 pulls or bust gacha.

To say that the community is livid, is an understatement.

The fact this happens during Nexon's new CEO's reign (a former vice president of EA), is quite suspicious.

And, with Astrae Oratorio (the competitor game by the thieves who sabotaged Blue Archive), is about to be released.

It ain't looking good Senseis.

Your thoughts?

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

ONE WORD.
Greed.

Which is the motto for Nexon. They took our GiTS online game now this!

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

I am convinced that the Battle Pass was a litmus test.

And I fear, that its the evidence that this change will not be reverted.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

The new VP has big goals so it was only a matter of time before his tyrannical changes ruin another service game.

 

[Macaulay Kong]

I enjoy gacha and service games by thinking of myself as a humble country bumpkin who spends a lazy afternoon watching mayflies pass by, their fates sealed and their beauty soon to pass as they reach the great End of Service in the sky. The pennies in my pocket could extend their lives but they know it would be delaying the inevitable and so they ask only that I see them off with a smile. I pick myself up and move on, looking forward to another lazy day ahead of me.
But for serious, sucks that this stuff happens so much. I feel like BA might be able to survive it, though considering how huge and popular it seems to be. I know of gacha games with vastly worse reputation that refuse to die and keep trucking along so it feels like it would take something truly catastrophic to bring some of the top-guns like it or Genshin or even Nikke down. But they might not be completely unscathed if backlash is strong enough

 

[wobblysquidwobblysquid's icon]

I like the idea of gachas--lootboxes, special drops, chance encounters... It's the greed that turns me away--gambling with real money for a digital thing. I can only imagine how people who have put so much time and effort into the game feel. It's just gross. That's just too many tries for a drop.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

The thing with BA, is that it actually isn't one of the top dogs in the gacha ecosystem, it almost went EOS once already. It doesn't have a massive player base, it has a dedicated player base. If anything we share that characteristic with the GFL players.

It is almost unheard of, of a gacha game changing its gacha system years after release (I think there was another gacha game that did it, but I don't remember the name, and it did die because of it).

There was also what happened with Love Nikki, it was THE gacha game for women, until it killed itself in 1 update.

There is also THAT elephant.

project RX (@project_RX_EN) on X

Nice to meet you! Welcome to the official X account of Project RX.

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And its likely Nexon wants to use BA's earnings to fund this UE5 garbo.

There is precedent, which is why we BA players are worried.

I don't know about the other gachas, but I do know that Genshin is almost always bleeding players, although Hoyogames cannibalize themselves, by having to compete with themselves. So Genshin players moved on to either HSR or ZZZ, or jumped ship completely to WuWa or Endfield.

Although, I also know that hoyoverse players like to switch between games during update drought.

The problem is, that if Blue Archive dies, the classic style of gacha game dies with it, only og Arknights will remain, and it almost never gets new players due to the hefty investment it requires... And Endfield.

If it dies I still have Limbus (although I am growing very sick of how lackluster the story is getting), and I keep hoping for a global release of Codename Cedar. Or maybe I will finally cave and play Stella Sora.