Gacha Game Odds and Pity: How RAID, Genshin and Star Rail Compare

A gacha game being free to download tells you very little about what its random character draws will cost, or how predictable they are. The randomness is what matters. What are the actual odds of the character you want? Is there a guarantee if luck goes against you? Does it carry over between banners? And can you find all this out before you spend, or only once you are inside the game?

Apple’s App Store and Google Play both require games to disclose the odds of purchasable random items. In the UK, Ukie’s industry principles ask for clear probabilities and for technological controls that stop under-18s buying loot boxes without a parent’s consent or knowledge. Those are industry principles, not a legal ban. Belgium’s Gaming Commission went further and found that paid loot boxes in three games it examined (FIFA 18, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) broke gambling law. That finding is not a universal rule for every game or every country.

The three systems below show why a headline rarity percentage is only part of the rulebook. RAID runs separate Mercy counters, while Genshin and Star Rail publish rarity ceilings for their character banners. What you can usefully compare is the outcome each rule actually covers.

This compares published rules. It is not a league table of the most generous games. A game can disclose its odds clearly and still make a particular character expensive to get, and a useful free character can cut how much you need to summon at all. Treat the rulebook and the experience of playing without paying as two separate questions.

So start from a target: any high-rarity character, one featured character, or an upgrade to a team you already have. Those are different outcomes, and a guarantee that covers the first may not cover the other two.

What to check in the summoning rules

These features explain a system. They don’t measure how generous its free rewards are, or how easily a free player can get a particular character.

Keep three numbers apart when you read a banner. The base rate is the stated chance before any guarantee kicks in. A consolidated rate folds those guarantee effects in across the whole system, so it is not your personal chance on the next pull. The guarantee is the longest you can be made to wait for the named result under that banner’s rules. You need all three to see what a headline percentage leaves out.

Also read the noun after “guaranteed”. A guaranteed 5-star, a promotional 5-star and the exact character you picked are three different promises. Equipment banners, standard pools and limited character banners shouldn’t be lumped into one reassuring pity number either.

RAID: Shadow Legends: rising odds per shard type

RAID: Shadow Legends is a collection RPG whose Mercy system raises your summoning odds once you pass a threshold, with separate counters for different shard types and rarities. Ancient and Void Shards track Epic and Legendary results separately. Plarium’s own example: after 20 Void Shards without an Epic Champion, the Epic chance goes up by 2% with each further shard until an Epic drops. The default odds sit in the summoning portal, behind its “i” button. The official Mercy explanation covers how the counters work and when they reset.

Strength: separate Mercy counters for each shard type and rarity. Watch for: Plarium says these counters are not shown in the game. Keep your own record if you want one; third-party trackers are independent of Plarium.

How the increase adds up matters. Plarium calls it additive, not multiplicative: its own example takes an 8% chance up by 2% to 10%, not to 8% times 1.02. Put another way, each step adds two percentage points. Plarium also says a Legendary from a Sacred Shard does not touch your Ancient Shard Mercy counter, so a record that lumps every shard you open into one total will mislead you.

A rarity guarantee is still not a guarantee of one named Champion. Before you treat an event as a shortcut, read its actual summoning conditions next to the shard’s default odds and Mercy rules. Don’t carry a rule over from one shard type to another, and don’t assume a rate-up headline means your target is guaranteed. (Plarium)

Genshin Impact: a documented character guarantee

HoYoverse’s help centre promises a 5-star character within 90 Character Event Wishes and a 5-star weapon within 80 Weapon Event Wishes. If a character-event 5-star turns out not to be the featured character, the next one is guaranteed to be. Capturing Radiance also applies: HoYoverse puts the consolidated chance that a 5-star character is the promotional one at 55.000%, with that mechanic included. The current banner’s in-game Details page has its exact rules.

Strength: a stated ceiling for a character-event 5-star. Watch for: getting any 5-star is not the same as getting the featured character, and weapon-selection rules work separately.

For a cautious saving target, the character rules allow up to 180 wishes from a fresh count with no featured guarantee in hand: as many as 90 for the first 5-star, then up to 90 more if that one isn’t featured. That is a ceiling worked out from the published rules. It isn’t an average spend, and it doesn’t predict your next result.

Capturing Radiance does not make every wish a 55% shot at the featured character. The 55.000% figure applies once a 5-star character has already dropped, and describes how often that 5-star is the promotional one. Whether you get a 5-star at all is a separate stage of the draw.

HoYoverse says the two Character Event Wish banners share their pity count and guarantee status, so your current count and guarantee are worth knowing before you decide where to save. Note them down before you look at weapon wishes, whose 80-wish rarity ceiling on its own says nothing about getting one particular weapon. (HoYoverse; HoYoverse 2)

Honkai: Star Rail: odds published in full

HoYoverse’s help centre lists a 0.600% base rate for a 5-star character on the Character Event Warp, and a 1.600% consolidated rate once the guarantee is counted. A 5-star character is guaranteed within 90 Warps. Other Warp types have their own rates and counters; the Light Cone Event Warp, for one, guarantees a 5-star Light Cone within 80. Check the selected banner’s View Details screen.

Strength: clear overall odds that include the effect of the guarantee.

The consolidated rate sums up a system that includes guarantees. It doesn’t replace knowing your own banner and count. For planning, the 90-Warp ceiling answers a different question from the 0.600% base rate: the percentage describes chance, and the ceiling caps how long that result can stay away. Neither number tells you on its own whether the 5-star you get will be the featured character.

Ten pulls don’t create a 5-star guarantee just because you repeated a low-odds draw, either. The published limit for a Character Event 5-star is 90. If your record shows 70 Warps in a row on that banner type without one, you need at most 20 more for that rarity, as long as the count hasn’t reset. That is arithmetic on the rule, not a result from a test account.

Character Event, Light Cone Event and Regular Warps each keep an independent counter. Pulling on a Light Cone banner does nothing for your Character Event guarantee. If you are saving free currency, switching between categories spreads your progress across several goals instead of bringing one character closer. (HoYoverse)

The common gaps

Across the genre, these are the things to check before you spend:

A simple saving example shows the limits. Say you have 50 Character Event Warps saved and expect to earn 20 more before the banner ends. From a fresh count, 70 falls short of Star Rail’s 90-Warp ceiling. If instead you already have 70 Warps in a row without a 5-star and 20 saved, those 20 cover what is left of the ceiling, provided the count hasn’t reset. Neither case gives you a featured-character guarantee, and neither is a forecast of free rewards.

For a paid budget, work out the cash you would actually need to add after using what you have saved, then hold that against your spending limit. Bundles, first-purchase bonuses and currency left over from earlier purchases all change the conversion. A single price per character would hide those differences, so this comparison doesn’t invent one.

How the three compare

How to play gacha games without regret

Gacha odds and pity FAQs

Where the information comes from

We compared official publisher explanations and banner-detail guidance current at the time of writing. The worked examples are arithmetic on those rules, not recorded pulls, simulations or independent tests of drop rates. The store-policy and regulatory references explain what has to be disclosed; they don’t show that a particular game is affordable or suitable for a particular player. If an event uses different conditions, the live banner details win.

Featured image: Genshin Impact’s Skirk. Image: HoYoverse, from its PlayStation Blog update; no draw odds are shown. Source

Additional primary sources: developer.apple.com · support.google.com · Ukie · koengeens.be · HoYoverse · HoYoverse 2 · HoYoverse 3 · Steam announcement · RAID · support.apple.com