Banner split to perserve rarity.

[Silith13]

Every two weeks we get 4-6 new characters which is good since we obviously want the entire crew to join us in heroes eventually so no one's favorite (Vika) gets left out. But with a growing roster comes a new problem. The chances of pulling that one favorite character becomes smaller and smaller.

Now there are three solutions that come to mind.

A - Drop older characters in rarity making them available as 4 and even 3 stars a while after their debut.

B - Remove characters from the pool. It works but I really hate this solution as it will make it impossible to pull a character you want if it gets picked for removal.

C - a banner split. Make two banners available at a time. They could even have the same focus characters. Just an A and a B set of the same banner with a different selection of characters in the 3 and 4 star slots.

[TheWill]

That's just the nature of gacha games. I don't think we'll ever see banner units become 3 star units. I feel like people would be insulted if the Ninian they spent a hundred dollars for suddenly became a 3* unit that everyone can pull easily. I think we'll only get four star drops. Personally, I wouldn't mind them going to 3*'s if they were introduced to the banner already as a 3* available (so, if they wanted to put a new unit that is likely unpopular such as Tomrod, if he's available as a 5* focus AND a 3* base, people wouldn't be wasting their money looking for him). This is what FFBE done before the Gacha changes (the changes were positive though, so don't mind that). 

[GinRei]

2 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

That's just the nature of gacha games. I don't think we'll ever see banner units become 3 star units. I feel like people would be insulted if the Ninian they spent a hundred dollars for suddenly became a 3* unit that everyone can pull easily. I think we'll only get four star drops.

Obviously the "main draw" ones like Ninian should stay as 5 stars.  But what about ones that are either "partially SI fodder" (Karel, who even if you want to keep him as him you have to admit a LOT of units would want his sword) or "meh" (Rebecca)?  They should probably have a rarity drop.  Even Eirika is available at 4-star, and she's good enough that she could have stayed a 5-star exclusive.

[r_n]

Yeah like it's not saying EVERY banner needs to become a 3-4 star. So far as big popular/important characters go the only one who dips into 3 stars is Robin, after all. But like ginrei says, there's plenty of characters  that could easily be new 3-4 fodder especially moving forward.

 

Also, I guess while we're on that subject, I don't see the issue with say Ninian or whoever being an easy pull? The appeal ofa 5 star is that you have one with their full kit unlocked, at a higher stat range, without needing to spend any time and 22000 feathers upgrading one. Person A still got a rare 3-6% version of their favorite character that they spent hundreds of dollars on, but now Person B with their 3 star version can still have her and put the time in if they really want. Or swap Ninian out for whoever, personally Ninian is fine being a 5 star, you get my gist.

[TheWill]

6 minutes ago, GinRei said:

Obviously the "main draw" ones like Ninian should stay as 5 stars.  But what about ones that are either "partially SI fodder" (Karel, who even if you want to keep him as him you have to admit a LOT of units would want his sword) or "meh" (Rebecca)?  They should probably have a rarity drop.  Even Eirika is available at 4-star, and she's good enough that she could have stayed a 5-star exclusive.

Some characters were indeed strange choices to remain 5* (Karel, Olwen), however it's not all about popularity. Male Robin is extremely popular and is a three star base, they made Camilla a four star base even though she has the popularity for a five star, etc. I think it's too late to change people like Jaffar and Rebecca. I personally do think Rebecca and Priscilla should be three star bases and Jaffar/Karel four star bases, but they keep choosing to make half the banner remain five stars and half the banner lower to four stars. 

[BANRYU]

I definitely do find it a problem that more and more characters are being added to the 5* pool with each banner, mostly for the reason that it then becomes more difficult by extension to pull a specific 5* character-- the more characters of the same color get added, the smaller your %chance of pulling a specific one gets (correct me if I'm wrong math folks but... yeah I think so...?). 

I'd like it if there different * rates for non-focus characters among multiple banners, IE how with the starting banners, Robin could be obtained as a 5* via the Awakening/SD focus but also as a 3-4* in the Elibe/Fates focus. 

Because yeah, if every character that gets added after each banner is over is just added to the 5* pool, that's gonna become a rather wide pool of options that's more or less inaccessible to a LOT of people pretty fast. 

[GinRei]

2 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

I think it's too late to change people like Jaffar and Rebecca.

Didn't datamining show they had the ability to do 4-star foci, rather than just 5-star?  They could theoretically have a 4-star focus for characters (honestly this is what the BATTLING banners should be), and then after that banner drop their normal rarity floor to that.  Wouldn't help with getting people to 3-stars, but helps make them more available.

[TheWill]

3 minutes ago, GinRei said:

Didn't datamining show they had the ability to do 4-star foci, rather than just 5-star?  They could theoretically have a 4-star focus for characters (honestly this is what the BATTLING banners should be), and then after that banner drop their normal rarity floor to that.  Wouldn't help with getting people to 3-stars, but helps make them more available.

There was something like that actually. Hopefully that's something to alleviate the increase of five star focus units without changing their base rarity in the normal gacha banners. Although really, I do think Heroes summoning system has very strange design principles. New banner units should be introduced with their base rarity, not be demoted later (eg. Eirika should've been a four base from the start whilst still being a focus unit, thus not misleading people who would've spent possibly more than a hundred orbs for her only for her to get demoted next banner and pull two or so of her the next time they're aiming for a red unit).

As someone said earlier, there is the appeal of getting the unit with all their skills accessible even if they're later demoted, but any day of the week, I'd rather get a five star base purely because of their rarity over a five star version of any three star base that I can promote with feathers which will always be an ongoing resource. 

[Othin]

It seems like the solution is to wait for them to (re-)appear in a banner, whether through a GHB or a Voting Gauntlet or any new type of banner. Which isn't ideal, but it's something.

[Thor Odinson]

If we keep on introducing new character through 5* focus banners---and that seems to be the trend, alongside GHB (which has a specific pattern for units chosen), then eventually there will be a point where the 5* and 4* pool is larger than the 3* pool. It might be useful to add directly into the 3*-4* pool at some point. Hopefully when we get non-paralogue, main story chapters.

I also think it would be nice to split up the pools when the roster gets large---what we have now is fine given the roster, but eventually if we add all 700+ characters the pool will be too large to ever even have a reasonable probability of rolling any of your favorite characters, 3* or not. 

[Ice Dragon]

Eventually, they're going to have to add in a new set of 3-star characters. That just goes without saying.

When they do, it makes sense that they'll create a new pool for them instead of adding them to the existing pool. The existing pool will probably be used for re-runs of old banners, but any new banners from that point on will use the new pool.

[TheTuckingFypo]

Yeah, if it stays as it is, I'll never get Leo.. ;__;

Maybe increase the chance of puling a 5* from 3% to 5%

As for dropping rarity of heroes, There's not many heroes that are strictly 5*... I say make a few 4-5* strictly 4*, and a few 3-4* strictly 3*... Some could be boosted too...

Like, M!Robin. After the first banner ended, it was an upset he dropped to a 3-4* only. I'd boost him to a 4* pull.

[Kiran]

Most likely they are going to add in a new pool of 3*units instead of dropping the rarity of current units. I'm hoping that it's going to be added when we get new story chapters. 

[BestFriendJ0]

A new pool of 3* characters may mean new normal Hero Battles, I could certainly use more of those. We've been sitting on the same ones for a while now.

[Roflolxp54]

Currently, the only protagonist characters that are possible 3* pulls are male Robin, female Corrin, and Eliwood.

The bigger problem right now is that the variety of 3* pulls is... rather lacking in comparison to possible 4* and 5* pulls.

[xchan]

This gacha system won't be sustainable for long. The lack of new 3* and the exponential increase of the 5* and 4* pool will reach a point where pulling for something other than the focus units would be a miracle.

I would prefer a second permanent banner with the regular units (the ones from release) on it. They could have no focus, just have the 5* at 6% rate. No changes would be made to this banner at all during a year or so, unless some kind of promotions in special dates (decreased pulling costs during Black Friday or something, or even the one cheaper pull per day other gachas use).

The event banner then would have a similar sized pool of characters but constantly changing. The new ones could stay as 5* only, but other 5* and 4* (maybe 3* too?) would include characters from previous banners. For example, if the current focus is from FE99, then previous FE97-99 characters could appear too. Those other characters could share a colour or not with the focused units, so fishing for a certain character could be more or less rewarding, depending on what IS wants.

This also helps with the current demoting process. Right now, we don't know what characters will stay as 5* and what will be demoted. Fishing for a certain character with hundreds of orbs, just to get them in multiples next banner as a 4* is not satisfying. A system like this will make those characters rarer, as they won't show up right after or again for a while, and when they do, is for a limited time, so pulling from a focus banner would be seen with better eyes.

[GinRei]

3 hours ago, xchan said:

This gacha system won't be sustainable for long. The lack of new 3* and the exponential increase of the 5* and 4* pool will reach a point where pulling for something other than the focus units would be a miracle.

Pretty sure that's literally every gacha game.

[NekoKnight]

What if they had a monthly event where you could set your own banner? I doubt they'd do anything so player-friendly how else will they ignite wallets but it would at least make the ever growing 5* pool more accessible. If that's too generous they could limit it so that you can only engage in your chosen banner until you draw a 5* and then you need to wait until the next "choose your banner" event.

Another idea is you could manually select 5* star characters you want downgraded to a lower tier. You'll be able to get those rare characters easier but you'll have to pay that 20,000+ feather charge to get them back to their original 5* strength.

[Rezzy]

22 hours ago, Thor Odinson said:

If we keep on introducing new character through 5* focus banners---and that seems to be the trend, alongside GHB (which has a specific pattern for units chosen), then eventually there will be a point where the 5* and 4* pool is larger than the 3* pool. It might be useful to add directly into the 3*-4* pool at some point. Hopefully when we get non-paralogue, main story chapters.

I also think it would be nice to split up the pools when the roster gets large---what we have now is fine given the roster, but eventually if we add all 700+ characters the pool will be too large to ever even have a reasonable probability of rolling any of your favorite characters, 3* or not. 

The 4* Pool is already the largest.  I'd be in favor of making some units only 3* as to not clog up the 4* Pool, since it's already the biggest.

I'd have to double check, but I think the 3 and 5* pools are already about the same for number of units, as well.

21 hours ago, TheTuckingFypo said:

Yeah, if it stays as it is, I'll never get Leo.. ;__;

Maybe increase the chance of puling a 5* from 3% to 5%

As for dropping rarity of heroes, There's not many heroes that are strictly 5*... I say make a few 4-5* strictly 4*, and a few 3-4* strictly 3*... Some could be boosted too...

Like, M!Robin. After the first banner ended, it was an upset he dropped to a 3-4* only. I'd boost him to a 4* pull.

I thought you already had Leo for some reason.  I know your pain, though.  My biggest whale day was trying to get Leo in the Prince Banner.

[Vince777]

I would be very surprised if Vika ever becomes available. 

I expect several revisits of the more popular characters (which they've already started after only 2 months..) before we get the more obscure characters from the least known/played games. There is no way they will release all of the Thracia characters for instance. I don't believe it.

We'll get the whole cast of Awakening/Fates/Archanea/Elibe though.


 

Edited April 15, 2017 by Vince777

[TheTuckingFypo]

On 4/15/2017 at 8:41 AM, Rezzy said:

I thought you already had Leo for some reason.  I know your pain, though.  My biggest whale day was trying to get Leo in the Prince Banner.

Nope, XD

If I did, he'd already be head of my team. All of them, maxed out and all. I spent all my orbs I had saved up on it. Out of all of them, I pulled Eirika. On the prince banner. Wasn't even 5*...

I have Takumi. Probably one of the first here to get him too...

On the bright side, I finally pulled a Cordelia, and a 5* too :O and she's +ATK/-HP :OOOOO

Regardless, this whole banner things gotta be fixed