English Version of FGO to get Pity System Early

Players of the English version of Fate/Grand Order received some good news at the game’s Anime NYC Panel. According to Director Yoshiki Kanou, the FGO pity system will debut alongside the Heian-kyo story chapter (a.k.a. Lostbelt No.5.5). The chapter goes live on November 21, 2022, and the pity system will apply to its limited summon banners. The system arrives early compared to the Japanese edition of the game, which received it in January 2022.

Here’s a shot of the presentation slide detailing the new FGO pity system. You can also see it in the stream archive at about the 1:30:00 mark.

Formally titled the “Guaranteed Summon” feature, the FGO pity system is similar to those implemented in other games with gacha or loot box mechanics. Also known as “safety net” systems or “bad luck protection,” pity systems are a way to guarantee a desired outcome within a certain number of rolls on the gacha. Prior to this, FGO had no real safety net, meaning that a player could, in theory, spend extremely high amounts of Saint Quartz (and potentially money to buy it) and still not receive a character they were looking for.

Now, the system will guarantee a copy of the featured SSR (5-Star) character within the first 330 Summons (rolls) on a given banner. The use of Paid and Free Saint Quartz, as well as Summon Tickets, counts towards this limit. So, starting from zero, and assuming the player has no luck at all, one could receive the banner SSR character by using 900 Saint Quartz (or 30 11-roll summonings) at current rates.

The FGO pity system does have some limits, though. It only applies to the first copy of the featured character, and only on banners with an end date (so there’s no pity for the permanent Story Summon banner). The “counter” for rolls also resets when the banner ends or the summon lineup changes. Thus, in the case of “daily pickup” banners where the featured Servant can change day-to-day, players will have a pretty short time to roll for a character if they’re trying to take advantage of the pity threshold.

Fate/Grand Order is available on iOS and Android. The Heian-kyo story chapter and FGO pity system go live on November 21, 2022.