Gacha terms, in plain language
Every word the planners and data pages on this site use, explained once. Mechanics only — what each term means, not whether a chase is worth taking.
Pity · Soft pity · Hard pity · 50/50 · Guaranteed · Spark · Rate-up · Banner · Base rate · Consolidated rate · Expected (average) · Copies · Overcharge · NP level
Pity
A count the game keeps of how many pulls you have made since your last top-rarity result. The higher it climbs the better your odds get, and in most games it eventually guarantees one. It does not carry between games, and in some games it does not carry between banners either.
#Soft pity
The pull at which your odds stop being flat and start climbing toward the guarantee. Most top-rarity results land in this stretch, which is why the average cost sits far below hard pity.
#Hard pity
The pull at which the top rarity is given to you outright. Reaching it is the most a single chase can cost, and it is where the pity count resets.
#50/50
When a top-rarity result is split between the unit you actually want and everything else in the pool. Lose it and you get someone else — and in most games that loss then guarantees your next top-rarity result is the one you were chasing.
#Guaranteed
The point where the game stops leaving it to chance and simply gives you the unit. Not every game has one: where a game guarantees nothing, the planners here say so instead of printing a number.
#Spark
A hard ceiling on a banner: pull a set number of times and you may claim the featured unit outright, however the rolls went. The count is per banner, and unspent progress usually expires with it.
#Rate-up
The units a banner boosts. A rate-up unit is easier to get than it is off-banner — but easier is not guaranteed, and where a banner boosts several units at once, the one you want is only a share of that.
#Banner
A time-limited pool you pull from. Which units are in it, and which are boosted, changes from one banner to the next.
#Base rate
The flat chance on a single pull, before pity has done anything. It is the smallest number a game publishes about its odds and the one most often mistaken for the real cost.
#Consolidated rate
A rate the game itself publishes that ALREADY includes pity — the long-run average, not the per-pull chance. It is far higher than the base rate, and confusing the two is the most common way to badly misjudge a chase.
#Expected (average)
The mean across every possible outcome, which is not the midpoint. Half of players reach the unit sooner than the 50% figure, and a long run of bad luck drags the average above the median. This is the single most misread number in any pull calculator, which is why these pages show the 50% and 90% marks beside it rather than an average alone.
#Copies
Pulling the same unit more than once. Games stack duplicates into a power ladder under various names, and each copy is a fresh chase: the planners here count the first from the pity you already have and every one after it from zero.
#Overcharge
In Fate/Grand Order, gauge beyond what firing a Noble Phantasm costs. Some of its effects grow with it — on a different axis from NP level, which is why this site lists the two separately.
#NP level
In Fate/Grand Order, the level of a Servant's Noble Phantasm. Duplicates of the Servant raise it, and it mainly raises the damage.
#Numbers for a specific game live on that game’s own pages — every rate here is deliberately described, never quoted, so this page cannot fall out of step with the data.