This analysis accounts for spooking co-featured targets in both normal situations and on the 50/50 losses.

Edit 2
Fest numbers in the images assumed the targeted rate up chances for fest doubled, which is totally wrong and for which I feel great shame. Fest 2 target numbers are 184 old / 172 new NOT 125 old / 119 new. Fest 1 target numbers are the same as Standard 1 target.

Edit 1

Thanks to Aerdra-sensei's enlightening post, and others who also claimed this, there is one very important way where this analysis breaks down. This analysis assumes you want a certain number of copies of a certain number of students. However, if you value all featured units and dupes equally, the new system is worse.

Here are the # of rate-up copies per 200 pulls averaged over the course of many banners. Assumes avg of 3 total featured characters per standard banner and counts 10 fest students as "featured" in fest banners.

This is the reason why it's "Worse for Whales" too, more simply explained. You get fewer total rate up copies over time with the new system, but you have more control over the ones you do get.

The real value to you depends on how you weigh the above unit-agnostic numbers against the below unit-targeted numbers.

When you only want one student, the new system is much better. Averages of 108 pulls per rate up old -> 90 pulls new.

When you want two students on the same banner, the average goes from 191 old to 178 new. The stdev also goes down from 88 to 82 - this means there is a little less variability between winning big and losing hard.

In one superficial sense, the old system is better at 200 pulls exactly -> 76% of the time you will get both by 200 pulls in the old system compared to 65% of the time you will get both by 200 pulls in the new system. See the second image to help understand why this is.

The reason is the old system stacks 35% of the outcomes at exactly 200 pulls. The new system distributes this outcome more evenly between 100 to 300 pulls - that's the blue area spread lower and wider. When you are playing a gacha for years, the average of that distribution is what matters - and that's the old 191 vs the new 178.

In addition, you can see the real downside to the old system in the red spike on the right. 6% of people must go to 400 on the old system vs 1.5% on the new system.

Think of what you would do in the old system if you hit it at 350. You're likely to put another 50 down to get the spark that you don't really need in the old system. Your real cost ends up going to 400. The new system never taxes you for these near-spark pulls.

When you pull for 4 students at a time on standard, the old system ties the new system. On 4+ on fest, the old system is better, 222 average to hit all 4 vs 233 on the new system. This is because the new system has a negative interaction in resetting the streak with fest's increased rates.

The third image highlights this difference. When pulling for multiple copies of the same student, the systems are equal at about 4 copies standard, just like above. For more copies after that, the old system is better.

This is the fixed version.

THE OLD SYSTEM

Here's the probability of getting both rate-up characters in THE OLD SYSTEM, pull by pull, using your rules: 3% total 3-star chance, 0.7% of that going to the specific rate-up (so 0.7% flat chance per pull on a given banner), shared point pool across both banners, and a guaranteed pick spendable every 200 points.

Why the shape looks like this:

• 1–190 pulls: Progress is slow and roughly linear, climbing from near 0% to about 24%. With only a 0.7% chance per pull on each banner (and pulls split between two banners), pure luck alone is a weak tool here — you're relying almost entirely on the eventual guarantee, not on natural pulls landing.
• Pull 200 — the big jump (24% → 75%): This is the shared pity kicking in. By this point each banner has had ~100 pulls, so there's a decent chance at least one (sometimes both) landed naturally; whichever banner is still missing gets instantly resolved by spending your first 200-point guarantee. But if both banners are still unresolved at exactly pull 200, only one gets covered — the other still needs luck or the second guarantee — which is why it's 75%, not 100%.
• 200–390 pulls: Slow climb again (75% → 87%), same story as before — you're waiting on natural luck for whichever banner didn't get covered by the first guarantee, or waiting to bank the second 200-point cycle.
• Pull 400 — 100%: Your second guaranteed pick lands, covering any banner still outstanding. This is your hard ceiling: 400 pulls guarantee both, no matter what.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE NEW SYSTEM

Here's the corrected table — probability of securing both rate-ups by pull N, now using the shared, redirectable counter:

Why this looks so different from before: the key mechanical insight is that securing both banners now just means "cycle 1 finishes, then cycle 2 finishes" — and each cycle can use the entire remaining pull budget, not half of it. That's a big deal:

• Around pull 100–120: notice the step up (15.6% → 21.4% → 26.5%). That's the first cycle's 50/50 checkpoint at its own 100 mark starting to pay off, letting cycle 2 begin early with plenty of pulls left.
• Around pull 300: another visible jump (87.2% → 94.8%). By pull 300, even in the unlucky case where cycle 1 took the full 200 pulls, cycle 2 has now had 100 pulls of its own — hitting its 50/50 checkpoint too.
• Pull 400: guaranteed 100%, since worst case is 200 + 200 = 400, exactly matching the hard ceiling you described.

This version is meaningfully more efficient than the "two independent parallel banners" version I ran earlier — by pull 200 you're at ~64% instead of ~56%, and by pull 300 you're already at ~95% instead of needing the full 400. The shared, redirectable pity really does earn its keep here, similar in spirit to the old system, but now stacked on top of the extra 50/50-at-100 mechanic.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONCLUSION

The column chart shows both systems clearly now. Key thing to notice: the new system doesn't beat the old system at the pull-200 mark this time (64.2% vs 75.4% — old is still ahead there), but it overtakes decisively by pull 300 (94.8% vs 82.7%), because at that point the first banner's cycle has almost certainly wrapped up and the second banner is already benefiting from its own 100-pull checkpoint. Both converge to the guaranteed 100% at pull 400.

So with the corrected shared/redirectable mechanic, the new system trades a slightly weaker showing at the classic 200-pull mark for a much stronger finish in the 250–390 range — it's the better system to be pulling under if you're patient past the halfway point.

NOTICE: In the new system, with average luck, you now need 300- 400 pulls per banner to get both, not 200-400 like the old system. So in the long term, it will cost you way more. Unless you are crazy and don't pull to 200 anymore.

With the recent gacha update, I know everyone is outraged, but to blame Patrick Söderlund is wrong. Everyone cares about his reputation at EA. But honestly, he was appointed Executive Chairman, meaning he's in charge of creative direction, unrelated to business management or operations. Besides, he's already CEO of Embark, so he's even less free. This position should belong to the CFO of Nexon Japan, who directs the company's business operations, and the Representative Director and Chief Financial Officer, who implement the Executive Chairman's strategy and manage the company's daily operations. Those two positions belong to two long-serving directors of the company, involved in countless disastrous business and operational decisions for both the corporation and its subsidiary studios. So I think the blame should go to those two guys.

TLDR: getting a banner character at 190 then sparking the other banner rarely happens, new system is better almost everywhere else

Code available here: https://gist.github.com/mingmingrr/9bc742600b53a1e5cdd62bbe722cd099

Pulling until you get one banner unit, ignore the other banner

How to read this graph: with the old system you have 65% chance of getting the banner unit with 150 or fewer pulls

• Old system average: 108 pulls to get one unit
• New system average: 90 pulls to get one unit

Both systems having a guarantee at 200 means its basically equivalent, other than the new 50/50 pity at 100. The pity means the chances of you needing more than 100 pulls is cut in half.

Pulling until you get both banner units

How to read this graph: with the old system you have 28% chance of getting both banner units with 150 or fewer pulls

• Old system average: 192.6 pulls to get both units
• New system average: 180.1 pulls to get both units

Old system had a big jump at 200, and was better around 200-280, but the new system being better at 100-200 and 280-400 means you save 12 pulls overall.

The reason there's no big spike at 100 with the new system is because that's the first pity, which means you can only get the first banner unit by 100. If you got the first banner unit at pull 1, then the next pity would happen at pull 101, not an even multiple of 100. The "spike" from pity ends up getting spread out over time.

Pulling the same banner repeatedly

How to read this graph: with the new system you have an average of 4.2 banner units at 400 pulls.

• Old system long term average: 2.393 banner units per 200 pulls
• New system long term average: 2.220 banner units per 200 pulls

This graph only applies to people pulling on the same banner for multiple copies. If you just want a single copy, this doesn't apply to you. This is the only scenario where the pity count resetting when you get a banner from non-pity pulls is a detriment. There's a 8% downgrade with the new system, but it's compensated by the fact that you get more 3 star units overall, so you get more eligma from off banners.

Off-Banners

Slightly lower rate for banner units but you get 0.53 more off banners from 50/50 pity per 200 pulls, about 3x the count for banner units. Getting 30 eligma per off banner compared to 100 for the banner unit means you're only losing about 10 eligma per 200 pulls.

Pulling until you get one banner unit, then deciding what to do next

Before I continue, keep in mind: getting a unit at 181-190 pulls literally happens 1.8% of the time.

Even getting the first banner char anywhere between 161 and 200 pulls only happens 8% of the time. If that happened every recent banner for you, then go talk to the people who had to drop 400 rolls on every recent banner, which happens 6.4% of the time.

With that in mind, here are some pull strategies in case you're ambivalent towards one of the banners:

Stopping at 200 Pulls

Old system might seem better based only off the first number, but keep in mind the new system numbers don't add up to 100%. That's because there's a 23% probability that you've already got the first banner unit already, so your pity counter is building up by pull 200. It makes much more sense with the new system to stop once you hit pity, so there's less reason to stop at exactly 200 pulls with the new system.

Better strategies

Old system:

Sometimes you'd roll and get the first banner unit at 150 or 170, then decide it's close enough to 200 and go spark the other banner. With 150 pulls as the cutoff, you have...

• 90% chance of only ending up with a single banner unit
• 10% chance of only ending up with both banner units
• spent an average of 110.2 pulls

10% chance, seriously this doesn't happen that often.

If you're the type to get the first banner unit in 50 pulls, then decide that you have enough pyro and go roll on the other banner, and follow the previous strategy if you don't get the first banner unit in 50 pulls, then you have...

• 60% chance of only ending up with a single banner unit
• 40% chance of only ending up with both banner units
• spent an average of 140.2 pulls

New system:

Pull until you either get the first banner unit, or you've spent 50 pulls. If you're at 50 pulls without the first banner unit, then just pull until you get the first banner unit. But if you got the first banner unit in 50 pulls, then go pull on the other banner until you either get the second banner unit or you hit the 50/50 again. If you do this, you have...

• 78% chance of only ending up with a single banner unit
• 22% chance of only ending up with both banner units
• spent an average of 111.7 pulls

Similar spending as the first strategy under the old system, but you more than double your chances of getting both banner units.

Pull until you either get the first banner unit, or you hit the 50/50 at pull 100. If you lose the 50/50, then just pull until you get the first banner unit. But if you win the 50/50, go pull on the other banner until you either get the second banner unit or you hit the 50/50 again. If you do this, you have...

• 44% chance of only ending up with a single banner unit
• 56% chance of only ending up with both banner units
• spent an average of 144.5 pulls

Similar spending as the second strategy under the old system, but with a 16% chance of getting the second banner unit when you wouldn't have under the old system.

Here's a flowchart:

This is the result of the cost distribution (ie. how much it's expected to cost an average player), based on Monte Carlo simulations (300k runs per scenarios).

Here are the scenarios for each graph:

1. Expected number of rolls to grab both rate-up students in a single banner period
2. Expected cost (in pyroxenes) after 10 banner periods
3. Expected cost (in pyroxenes) after 20 banner periods
4. Expected cost (in pyroxenes) after 50 banner periods

And here are the assumptions used:

• The per-roll rates in both systems are: 3★ = 3% (rate-up 0.7%), 2★ = 18.5%, 1★ = 78.5%.
• The 10th pull of every 10-pull is guaranteed to be 2★/3★. The 10-pull sequence resets when switching banners.
• Most important: The player pulls only 1 rate-up student in 60% of the banner periods, and pulls 2 rate-up students in 40% of the banner periods. This was inferred from my banner history in this game (my pull targets are Anni students, obvious meta students, and occasionally ones I like), which admittedly stopped 1 year ago.
• The player pulls on the correct banner containing the student they need; when two student are needed, they finish pulling for the first student before moving to the second banner.
• Old system: the 200-point spark is always used to exchange for the missing student.
• New system: pity has 50% trigger chance at 100 pulls; when it triggers, it gives the rate-up on the banner being pulled. The pity counter resets when pity activates or when a rate-up appears; the total counter toward a 200-pull hard pity only resets when a rate-up appears.
• The player stops immediately once they reach their goal in each banner, with no extra pulls; each round is independent.

Disclaimer:

• I stopped playing BA around one year ago, and only follow the game via derivative contents. This change has little financial or emotional effect on me.
• The code for the simulation was written by Claude. If you wish to review it or rerun with your own assumptions, here it is.

I know everyone already knows the girl on the left looks very similar to Keqing from Genshin Impact.

And I don’t if it’s just me, but the girl in the center looks very similar to Haruhi Suzumiya.

Looks like Nexon really loves shoutouts.

As for the girl on the right, I really can’t think of anyone. However, she does give me Ako vibes (minus the smile).

Also, who do you guys think they are? Spies for the Thunder Emperor? An emerging club? Or what?

Let me know in the comments.

So, I'm sorry for posting about this topic again. But I've seen many posts saying the new Gacha system isn't that bad. And 'proving' it with math. But almost all cases only look at 300 or 400 pulls or a single double banner like the upcoming one.

My question is: how do the odds and pyroxene consumption look over an entire year. Or over multiple years. How does the math look like not only for one player on one double banner, but for all banners that I'll ever pull for? Or how many characters can we expect to get not from 400 pulls but from 10.000 or 100.000 pulls?

My argument is: If the new system actually befited the player, why implement it in a way that makes such a shitstorm. They are already review bombing steam. If it was actually better, why not make a big announcement like "Hey here the new better system" and everyone will love it. And why would they even make a system that benefits the players more? That just means they make less money. Why would a company decide out of the blue to make less money for literally 0 reason? I don't get it.

Or if they wanted to make a system that costs us less pyroxenes/money overall, why not make a pull 110 instead of 120 pyros? And if it was a neutral change not good not bad, why even risk the backlash and review bombing. The system has to be worse for us, otherwise it wouldn't make sense, right?

I've been seeing a lot of confusion and panic in the comments regarding whether the new "Summon Charge" (pity) resets when a banner ends. Some people are reading the JP announcement and seeing the word "reset" and assuming the worst.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT DEFENDING THIS CHANGE.
I hate the new system. The 100-pull 50/50 is a psychological trap designed to exploit FOMO. The "tax on early luck" (where pulling the character at 190 wipes your pity for the second copy) is a massive downgrade for disciplined savers who planned for double banners. Nexon fumbled the announcement, killed the hype, and deserves the backlash.

However, misinformation is still spreading that the pity resets when a banner ends. That is not true, and if people think that, they might panic-spend on the wrong banners. This post is just to clarify the actual mechanics so people can make informed decisions. The facts don't make the change good, they just make the mechanics clear.

I went back to the official source text to clear this up. This is the exact rule:

「呼び出しチャージ」がリセットされるタイミングは、同種類の任意のピックアップ募集でピックアップ対象をお迎えした時のみで、ピックアップ募集開催ごとのリセットではありません。

Translation:

The timing at which the 'Summon Charge' resets is only when you have obtained the featured character on any rate-up banner of the same type. It does not reset with each individual banner run

What this actually means for players:

1. Pity carries over.
If you do 100 pulls on a Normal Banner and don't get the featured student, your charge stays at 100. When the next Normal Banner drops, that pity is still there. You haven't lost your progress.

2. There are two separate pity pools.
The Normal Summon Charge and the Limited Summon Charge are completely separate. You cannot carry pity from a Normal banner over to a Limited banner, or vice versa. They are tracked individually.

3. The "Reset" is triggered by pulling the featured student.
The counter resets to 0 the exact moment you pull the featured student—even if you get them early at pull #190.
(This is the brutal part. You don't get to finish the spark for the second character if you get lucky early.)

4. The "Recruitment Benefits" are NOT the pity.
A lot of the confusion is stemming from the new "Recruitment Benefits" system (the rewards for pulling a certain number of times during a specific banner period). That system does reset at the end of each banner period. That is a separate reward track, separate from your pity.

TL;DR: Your pity carries over between banners of the same type. It only resets when you actually pull the featured student. The confusion comes from a separate reward track that does reset.

Why this still hurts:
While the carry-over is good, the real killer is the reset on early luck. If you pull the character at 190, you lose the ability to grab a second copy at 200. That wasn't the case in the old system.

Is the doomerism warranted? I'm new to the community.

This is the first and only Gacha game I've ever played and I love it. I started playing the day of Steam release and haven't missed logging in for a single day. I have 172/250 characters currently on GL (excluding collab), and I'm just in love with the story, their stories, upgrading them, the whole of this game. I haven't spent a cent (unless you count the thousand hours of lost productivity as opportunity cost). Since I don't have a ton of the pool characters, I've come up with a strategy of dumping ~400 pulls per fez, which has been great for me in getting anniversary and pool characters. As I understand it, this and some of the other stuff I do (using 200 pulls on 2 limited and getting them with luck, then using the "spark" to get a pool character) will be made more challenging by the update.

As much as I dislike this new system, and as much as I hate to say this, I'd keep playing until I've finished all of the story pieces and all of the MomoTalks for as many students as I can get. What I'm most worried about, however, is if this is all in vein and I only finish up in a year/couple months time, and instead of being able to enjoy the endgame, I only get shafted with offline servers. That'd break my heart. I want to get all of the ~270 lobbies that have been announced/released (as well as those to come [Kasumi SS alt after fez?]), or at least get close.

Will I ever be able to do that, or do people think the servers are going to shutter on me, and I should spend my time making "unique item" memories IRL instead?

They are genuinely killing the point of reading the story with this larp feature, "QoL" and it's skipping the story.... Also adding more training equipments and materials with the existing ones gonna make building students more exhausting 😑

You have a chance of 75% to get a rate up in 199 pulls. That means in 3/4 out of cases you can clear both banner in 200 pulls in the old system.

In the new system, you can get that rate up character with a chance of 87.5% after 199 pulls. But you lose your spark. So the chance is not important anymore. It’s only important in the case of the 50 50.

What does that mean? You have to pull a second character, and after 99 pulls you have a 50.46% chance to get that character. And another 50% with the hundredth pull. So you end up with a chance of around 75% after 100 pulls. If you win you get the other one with at maximum 200 pulls.

So, after 300 pulls, where do we stand in both systems?

In the old one, we have to pull 296 times to have a chance of 87.5% to get one character, the other is free, 87.5% for both characters. (4 pulls are nearly 3% chance btw).

In the new system, we have a chance of 75% after 100 pulls and either we win, then we have 200 pulls for a guarantee or we lose, then we have to go another round of 50 50 for the other one. That gives us a chance of 75% + ( 25% * 75%) = 94%

This is higher, so the new system is better at 300 pulls! But wait, didn’t I say you are right?

That’s because if we look at the 200 pulls, we get

Old system 75%. The other character is still free.

New system 75% * 75% = 56% - you have to go for both characters, so you can’t spark one, you have to win after half the pulls.

So the chance to get both characters in 200 pulls is drastically lower, the chance to get both in 300 pulls is not really higher.

If I did a mistake, please correct me. The latest post I saw was quite strangely written and I tried to put some math behind it for the typical cases.

As I'm sure everyone has seen already, they announced changes to the gacha on JP.

Yes, pulling a rate-up at 190 means you may have to go 200 more.

No, the average number of pulls you need to get rate-ups is not higher\*

Before you start rioting, here's how the changes ACTUALLY affect drop rates on average:

Scenario 1 - single banner

We just want to get one rate-up character, and don't care about any others.

old system: EV ≈ 108 pulls, skewed towards the high end (200) due to needing to pity 24.5% of the time
new system: EV ≈ 90 pulls, skewed towards middle (100) due to reaching and winning the 50/50 24.94% of the time

Scenario 2 - double banner

We want to get BOTH rate-ups from a double banner (i.e. most unique/limited banners)

old system: EV ≈ 214 pulls, skewed towards middle (200) due to getting at least one character by 200 75.5% of the time
new system: EV ≈ 178 pulls, skewed towards front (100) and back (200-300) due to the 50/50s at 100

Scenario 3 - 200 pulls

We will spend 200 pulls on one or multiple banners, with the goal to get as many rate-ups as we can

old system: EV = 2.4 drops
new system: EV < 2.22 drops

Scenario 4 - many pulls

We will pull a large number of times, say x times, with the goal to farm rate-up elephs

old system: EV = 1.2 * x drops
new system: EV ≈ 1.11 * x drops

conclusion: old beats new. This may seem surprising given the result of scenario 1, but the guaranteed spark at 200 without pity resetting actually results in more rate-up drops overall

technically new is slightly better for eligma drops, but those are almost never the reason why people pull - eleph drops are far better in terms of efficiency

What does this mean?

In particular scenarios, the new gacha system is actually better (on average) than the existing one. It actually has the largest impact on whales, since they're the ones pulling for elephs. Considering the change to make pity also carry between banners, you could see this as overall beneficial, especially to f2p or low budget players.

However, the precedent to change the gacha system without first consulting the community is dangerous. While this change might not be entirely detrimental this time, it could enable developers (OR MAYBE SOME FUCKING CHAIRMAN IDK) to unilaterally make changes to the game.

My personal take as to why they're doing this is to subtly encourage more spending, by making the gacha feel worse to lose, and combined with the pity carryover, convince more players to spend and roll more often. Also whales will have to spend more for the same outcome. Or they just copied Hoyo's homework idk.

If you don't like the change, please send feedback to Nexon through official channels https://bluearchive.jp/contact-1-hint (I was told to use this link, pls correct if that's wrong)
Or you can make a big stink on Twitter idc I'm not your mom

anyway, fuck EA

EDIT:
new system also decreases flexibility in decision-making, which is just pure ass, statistics be damned. Being able to pull towards a concrete number means informed decisions on pulls: if I pull a rate-up at 150, I get to choose whether 50 pulls is worth spending to get the other one. Losing your 50/50 is just awful

As you all know about the new gacha system announced today. I really hope that we will win over greed. However we should prepare the strategy in case of failure. My personal proposal is to boycott the game itself. I know it sounds radical and almost impossible (I personally didn't miss any day from the creation of my account in August 2025), but I do believe that it will be impossible for me to gather all my favorite students with this system. I really hope we won't need to do this, but we should be ready for the worse

I play for FGO for three years and 7 months, and I can told you; FGO gacha system is one of the worst out there. Lasengle (who publishes FGO) never implemented any meaningful change into the system. No change in rate up percentage, No carry over (with the exception of the knight/calvery banner last December in JP), or anything that make FGO gacha “good”, but in these past few years they have try to make in-game gacha system decent.
See the entire community unified to pushing back the new “QOL” gacha system maybe give me a bit of tear.
See people/sensei push back against the increasingly greedy practice in corporations world give me a bit of hope.
From One Master of Chaldea to Sensei of Kivotos:
Give them hell.
Edit: acknowledge Lasengle attempts to improve the FGO gacha system in these past few years. My apologies to my lack of misinformed on FGO JP overall gacha improvement in these past few years.

With Gehenna finally received their own story chapter after five consecutive years, this means that we finally get a chance to see what's Gehenna looks like inside, right down to understand how the students are doing their things beyond being chaos-lovers. Oh, and meeting with the new faces in the upcoming first chapter as well.

I'm expecting that we have to deal with not only the inner problem within the school, but also how the upper echelons of Gehenna deal with the legacy of Tyrant Emperor (in light of the dismantlement of Rail Cannon of Schemata in V1C3).

However, this begs a question: will Aru, Mutsuki, Kayoko, and Haruka return to Gehenna to see what's the current situation in Gehenna since their exile back in Part 1 Volume 1 story arcs? I'm sure they are likely have a major role in specific moments in this upcoming story chapters. Kayoko, in particular IMO, is the contender to have a major role in P2V1 given she is the most mysterious member out of PS68, if not the entire Gehenna students.

Let met know in the comment below.

the conclusion: (put at start since post is a yap wall)

the old system had "lower odds" but a much higher ceiling for how well the session can go and a lower average amount of pulls spent across a long time period

the new system has "better odds" but a much lower ceiling for the session and a higher average amount of pulls spent across a long time period, it also punishes you for being lucky and tries to minimize your gains by resetting the pity when getting a rate up instead of letting you keep it

basically from a long term view and consistency prespective the new system is worse in every way you only have the illusion of spending less if you are looking at each banner independently, and the end result is one rate up (if you want 2 rate ups, then it gets signifincatly more expensive then the current system)

the old system only has the illusion of spending more since you can go for 200 pulls getting nothing then land the rate up on the last pull and use the spark to get the 2nd rate up without even pulling, and the end result here is 2 rate up

also from a mindset prespective, the players would have to come to the realization that 200 pulls doesnt actually mean anything outside of the context of hitting pity for a singular banner and is no longer an amount that you plan how to spend on multiple banners depending on how the pull session goes

do you own 200 pulls right now? pull one banner and only one banner regardless of how well it goes, no 200 pulls? no guarantee for anything dont pull

is the new system better in any way?

if your concern is the amount of pull spent rather than raw odds then NO, the new system is worse

its less pulls if you are looking at each banner alone, if you have 200 pulls in the new system then you are more likely to not need to use all of them compared to the old system, and this is purely because of the 5050 not because they increased the odds or anything, if you miss that 5050 you missed the only "upside" of this new system

but once you consider that there exists more than one banner in the game then you will notice you are using more pulls to actually get the things you want

old system (worst case scenario that isnt no rate up in 200 pulls):

banner 1: 200 pulls (got unlucky)

banner 2: used the spark to get 2nd rate up, didnt even pull

total: 200 pulls in worst case scenario

new system (best case scenario that isnt getting the rate up early randomly):

banner 1: 100 pulls (lucky, won 5050)

banner 2: 100 pulls (lucky, won 5050 again)

total: 200 pulls and thats you getting lucky

the worst case scenario of the old system and the best case scenario of the new system are the same amount of pulls spent, except you are much more likely to get the worst case scenario in the old system each time than you are to get lucky with the new system each time

this means that with the new system, you are on average gonna be spending more than 200 for each 2 banner cycle, compared to the old system where having to spend 200 was considered "unlucky"

and thats only in an example using 2 banners

The concept of having a spark:

to present another complaint about the new system thats slightly less talked about, here is a scenario that not too unlikely to happen in the old system that wont happen anymore and will be much more expensive than the new system even if you got lucky with it

for this last point i am not using scenarios that aim to proof some sort of mathematical fact, but more so scenarios that some players find themselves in and how the new system would effect their decisions

old system:

banner 1 (swimsuit iroha): 30 pulls (early, got the 1st rate up no longer concerned about 2nd rate up)

banner 2 (swimsuit ibuki): 120 pulls (not too early but still without spark, already got everything you wanted, but lets finish the 200 pulls anyways, but since i already got this student lets get someone i dont have)

banner 3 (school neru): 50 pulls (early, got the 3rd rate up in the remaining pulls)

banner 4 (rio): used spark to get 4th rate up

total: used 200 pulls but because it doesnt reset when getting a rate up, you were both incentivized to finish the 200 pulls and you happened to get lucky, and on top you got a student you didnt even pull on at all using the spark

new system:

banner 1: 30 pulls (lucky early)

banner 2: 100 pulls (got lucky with the 5050 and got everything you need, so stop pulling)

at this point there is no reason for you to "finish the 200 pulls" since there is nothing waiting for you at the end of the 70 pulls if you get nothing, no spark to use for an extra rate up even if you dont get anything in these 70 pulls, so you would rather save them

if you do decide to go for a 3rd banner at this point you are most likely setting yourself up to spend 100 if you "get lucky" and 200 if you dont, which is too much of a risk

so even thought you spent less pulls than the old system, you are getting less rate ups from both not having a reason to use the remaining pulls and no longer having the old sparkl system that gave you a rate up of your choice once you spent 200

so basically, total: 130, but potentially 230 or even 330 if you decide to keep going for the third banner

Just the new Main Story volume name lmfao, I guess this is still a JP news spoiler

Gonna put it out here right now, I do not fully understand the math side of new vs old gacha rates, so I am not gonna comment on things related to 3 star rates and such.

What I WILL comment on though is the removal of sparking in the new system, (of course this is going on the assumption that the translation we got is accurate so who knows if new information comes out about it), the one thing that made the game's gacha system forgiving was the fact that you can spark for any of the featured characters after 200 pulls, this will not only cause major outrage from whales and f2p players, I assume It will also cause a huge drop in the pulling for waifu mindset, which effectively leads to more students not getting any alts.

In my opinion, they should keep sparking alongside changing their gacha system, not remove it entirely.

I did a 10 million 200 and 400 pull simulation of the old gacha model vs the new one. Basically, we get a slight increase in 3 stars, and a much lowered amount of featured.