Genshin Impact: Pity and Soft pity systems explained

What is Pity and Soft pity in Genshin Impact? (Image via Sportskeeda)
What is Pity and Soft pity in Genshin Impact? (Image via Sportskeeda)

Genshin Impact regularly features limited-time 5-star characters and weapons based on the Gacha system. Players can spend their real money or in-game currencies to unlock characters they desire to acquire with predefined drop rates. The Pity system in Genshin Impact guarantees that the featured item will be obtainable after certain attempts in the game.

Knowing the pity and soft pity system can be helpful for players with eyes set on obtaining a particular character or weapon.


What are Pity and Soft Pity in Genshin Impact?

Here's an in-depth explainer of Pity and Soft Pity in HoYoverse's popular gacha game:


Pity System in Genshin Impact:

The pity system in Genshin Impact assures players that they will get featured 5-star weapons or characters upon a certain number of attempts. In other words, if the pity for Hu Tao's character banner is 90, then the players are guaranteed to get at least one 5-star character within 90 attempts. The pity count for each banner can be carried and is usually mentioned by HoYoverse in every banner description.

Pity system for standard and time-limited character's banner (Image via HoYoverse)
Pity system for standard and time-limited character's banner (Image via HoYoverse)

The Pity count for the Standard/ Permanent banner and time-limited character's banner is at 90 wishes. However, on the weapons banner, the pity is set at 80 wishes. If a player is unlucky enough to not get 5-star item in 89 attempts, then they'll have a 100% chance to obtain it via the pity system on the 90th attempt.


Soft pity system in Genshin Impact:

Similarly, the soft pity system is the assurance of obtaining a 5-star item slightly before the actual pity count. Basically, if the pity count for a banner is 90, players can obtain the 5-star character at around 75 wishes due to the soft pity system. The 75-ish count is called the soft pity. However, HoYoverse does not mention its existence officially, but it does exist. As of now, Genshin Impact geeks have figured out the soft pity count for each banner available in the game.

Pity system for weapons banner (Image via HoYoverse)
Pity system for weapons banner (Image via HoYoverse)

According to some research by the community, the soft pity for permanent and event-exclusive characters starts at 74 wishes. With each unsuccessful attempt after this, the chances of getting the 5-star character increase significantly until it hits 100% on the 90th wish. Similarly, the soft pity count for the weapons banner starts at 65 wishes and increases significantly after 70 tries.

The terms Pity and Soft Pity have not been officially defined by Genshin Impact but made by the gacha gaming community. There are other games like Fire Emblem Heroes where the term is used widely.