Held off writing a review until the new gacha system rolled out in JP and I can safely say that the new changes killed all my enthusiasm and love for the game overnight, logged in everyday for 2 years and missed my first day yesterday and almost didn't log on today either. All of my clanmates also share a similar sentiment and I know a lot of those guys have been playing since day one logging in everyday with stacked accounts so you know its bad.
Having played other gacha Like ZZZ and Arknights Endfield, Blue Archives gacha is uniquely tailored to the game. Most games like the two I referenced having played before almost always run single banners, meaning you're only pulling for one character at any given point, In that scenario 50/50 is OKAY at best, it still feels terrible to lose don't get me wrong but after you get the character either at the 50/50 somewhere sooner if your lucky or at hard pity your done until the next banner you want to pull for, ofc in a game like Endfield they have weapon banners as well but that use a different currency loosely tied to the main gacha so its a bit different, and in Endfield's case run for 3 months instead of 1 like the character banners. In Blue Archive a 50/50 system WILL feel terrible (And looking at JP right now that is the sentiment) BA ALWAYS runs multi banners meaning a minimum of two banners at the same time meaning you have to go through the slop 50/50 potentially two times if you were trying for a duel banner and this gets even worse the more banners such as during a FEST when there are potentially 4 Limited FEST banners.
To clarify the 50/50 actually wouldn't be a bad addition at all in fact I think most would welcome it, if not for one caveat; the removal of spark. Previously had you say been pulling for two banners and you got banner A's student at 110 pulls you could then pull 90 more times and get banner B's student with spark/pity through recruitment points that accrued after pulling (1 point per 1 pull/ 10 points per 10 pulls and 200 points to spark/pity for a student) , now your points are reset to ZERO after getting a banner student, now if I lost at 100 pulls when you get the 50/50 every following pull has diminishing returns because the pity will just reset and there wont be any recourse like with Spark, and after getting the 50/50 at 100 pulls there is no system in place to improve your odds or anything along those lines just hard pity at 200 so every pull after the 50/50 feels awful (there is technically a rebate system where you can get free pulls after like 200 pulls but the wording is vague on how this even works or if its permanent or temporary because people are mad, either way it doesn't do much in the way of helping sensei's if anything it would just push them to pull more because "if i pull 10 more times ill get a free ten pull even though I already got the student I wanted so might as well" or something along those lines, just Nexon trying to damage control and is not an improvement over the old system regardless).
Previously in a scenario like this had I pulled banner A's student at lets say 160 pulls it would only be 40 more to get banner B's student, this is where the "save 24k pyro" comes from because 24k is 200 pulls enough for one spark, now though if I were to pull Banner A's student at 160 I could realistically pull 100 more times instead of 40 to get the 50/50 for banner B and if you were to lose the 50/50 that would mean you could hit hard pity before getting the other student. Soft cap was 200 pulls, get okay luck and pull banner A's student before 200 pulls then spark banner B's student having spent 24k pyro for both students, now that soft cap is gone and you will now more likely than ever pull well over 200 times for multi banners meaning in the scenario I laid out before, Student A at 160 pulls then lets say you win 50/50 for student B at another 100, You have now pulled 260 times spending 31,200 pyro for both students.
This is where the main problem lies. Sensei's have long been used to this 24k "soft cap" or "Safety net", allowing us to engage with the gacha without worrying much about the possibility of pulling getting out of hand, and while still possible as it has certainly happened to me a handful of times, it would only really be under "bad luck" that you would go over 200 pulls for two banner's, as with even decent luck you would often get at least one banner student before spark. and with decent luck meaning (Especially for global) we could save for that magic number and pull without much stress, now there is no magic number or safety net like what spark offered making the gacha exponentially more stressful as you could pull an additional 200 MORE TIMES. And this is all without even mentioning the increase in microtransactions and the addition of ADS for the in game store popping up after pulling for a limited banner student promoting the purchasing of Eleph's (the currency used to "level" students) from the store and other frankly scummy practices that had for all this time not been a thing in this game.
Still REALLY hoping they roll this new system back but this is surely a smoking gun for what's to come...
TLDR: Removal of SPARK = significantly more predatory and stressful gacha = people not engaging with gacha = people losing interest and leaving the game = NEXON screwing there players yet again
TLDRTLDR: DO NOT PLAY OR INVEST YOUR TIME IN A NEXON GAME, IF THEY CAN MESS UP A GAME LIKE BA THEY CAN MESS UP ANYTHING ITS NOT WORTH IT.
