SOTF-TV Gacha Game Discussion

[MurderWeasel]

So, the idea of an SOTF-TV gacha game has come up several times in chat over the past year or so, and it's something that would almost certainly exist in universe, so this is the thread to sketch out what that looks like.

I'm not incredibly gacha versed, but as I understand it, the basic gist is that these games are usually free but make their money by offering random draw elements. Often you get a certain amount of these for free, but have to pay to exceed that. Rarity levels of the in-game content you draw from varies, so that the really rare (and usually desirable) stuff is gated behind high odds. This can get pretty exploitative!

What the actual gameplay is like can be varied. Often it's at least partially multiplayer, with opportunities to show off your painstakingly-assembled collection to other players. As far as I know, there also tends to be at least some level of solo content, often built around keeping you logging in regularly to get rewards (and keep the habit up).

For SOTF-TV, I think the core of the game would almost certainly be built around collecting characters, as TV has a wide, wide roster of contestants. While the game has likely been around a while, it makes sense to me that it would've probably been heavily overhauled/revamped around Season 65, with the addition of the team mechanic. Probably nowadays, players create their own dream teams.

I'm thinking that, probably, a good chunk of contestants (at least from Season 65 on) get at least a basic character included in whatever release wave corresponds to their season. Alternate costumes are probably also pretty popular and prominent, as they're a piece of actual SOTF-TV.

I imagine that some contestants get a whole bunch of exposure. This can be the obvious picks (winners/escapees, fan favorites from the actual seasons) but also some weird choices; maybe some lower profile contestant had good stats, or became a meme specifically within the gacha community, and as a result got a whole bunch of iterations even though the wider fandom doesn't particularly care. I see each new season likely bringing primary focus on its cast, with a slice devoted to alternate versions of older contestants or simply contestants who just never got picked up. And, of course, whatever's most desirable is probably obnoxiously rare.

I figure likely there's some sort of set mechanic to let you draw from certain pools (because otherwise it'd be incredibly unwieldy due to sheer size) but also a bunch of time-limited stuff to keep people hooked.

Anyways, part of the fun here is to discuss what characters (our own and others') situations are within the theoretical TV gacha game. So that's what can happen in this thread!

[MurderWeasel]

And, to kick us off, some musings from me:

Jewel Evans almost certainly has really heavy exposure in the gacha for a few reasons. She has a notable fan following, has remained active within the TV sphere, and is friendly to video games—she's very willing to do voice work, model outfits, do promotions, etc. primarily for the fun of it. As a bonus, unlike SOTF Champions, she doesn't actually play gachas herself and is thus less prone to "helping" with design as a condition for cooperation.

Jewel got the standard normal version/actual costume version in 66, but also has other stuff since. Her mentor outfit from 67 is probably in there somewhere, but the swimsuit/socks combo and the Sidney Rice cosplay are probably the ~special rare~ options. In general Jewel gets a lot of fanservicy stuff because she thinks it's funny and will play along instead of siccing her lawyers on the devs. People probably complain about geting yet another Jewel alt before whatever favorite old season character has been totally neglected for a decade.

Karen Ruiz is a tricky situation for the gacha folks because she's really notable and iconic as the first ten-kill winner, but has precisely one distinct look and precisely zero interest in engaging with the fandom beyond whatever level of phoning it in gets her paid. This means that, unlike Jewel, she's not doing any promo work, not voicing herself, and has probably outsourced most interactions. And yet, she can't be ignored because the fans care.

Karen has very little voice work, partially because it's accurate and partially because that's easier. In terms of outfits, she has her iconic trench coat look, and probably a lazy alt with bandannas on her sleeve. The devs infamously gave her some sort of revealing/fanservice-themed outfit as a rare pull and very quickly discovered that the vast majority of fans realized that was incredibly unfitting for her. There was a lot of hubbub and criticism and flamewars within the community about it, though Karen herself never said anything about it and doesn't even seem to be aware that it happened. A more "cool" alternate was rushed out, and that's been the direction her development has taken since.

Mandy Gross rated attention due to her proximity to major players in the season—she was accomplice to both Seo-yun and Fisk. She got two versions: her starting outfit, even though she ditched that very quickly, and the panda onesie/mangled hair situation. She's played up as humorous, and sounds especially young/possibly annoying.

Keegan Garcia mostly is included due to being part of The Respects, but if there's ever a partial set/a founding member skipped for something, he's probably the one to be missed. Mostly there to fill out the numbers for The Respects, he's probably real common and thus annoying to players. I'm thinking he shares a rough silhouette with someone far more rare and popular, to bait people on pulls. Just how he'd want it.

Arthur Lam (from Season 28) and Victor Frazee (from Season 47) are both absent, despite their status as winners. This is from a combination of unpopularity and various issues (Arthur's death and Victor's prison stint) making their inclusion seem insensitive.

Catherine Cody was popular enough that she did get included as a retrospective addition at some point in there, and remains relatively popular. As she fell off pretty quickly after her season, her depiction is based entirely on in-game stuff, and voiced by an actress who manages a remarkable approximation of her. People probably complain that the only reason she doesn't have any alts is she's from such an old season and doesn't have much enduring presence.

[Yonagoda]

I feel as if Leah is a character that's about R rareity/three out of five stars. She's a decently difficult character, released mostly to pad the numbers out, almost not making the cut. Mechanically, she might actually be rarer than she is due to the lack of presence on any rate-up banners accompanying rarer characters. Now, this is where the fun comes in. Due to Leah's relative rarity in players and her difficulty to play as a support (you have to be really clever with debuffs) she isn't played that much, but because of a specific quirk of her design, she got picked up by a whale and professional streamer and it was discovered that she had a *lot* of secret dps potential. Since then, ''Leah Mains'' became a growing niche in the community, specifically amongst more try-hard yet slightly memey players willing to farm and level her up for her unconventional 'troll build', despite the lack of any attachment to her character. Fandom-wise, there is a joke in the dissonance between her dps potential and her milquetoast personality, and her janky first-release glitched which made her hair and dress clip. It doesn't help that she synergizes well with Fisk, Ivan, Anthony, etc...

Because of how difficult she is to build, she is found often at the endgame, with higher level players. Also gaining prominence in the professional scene. Unfortunately because most people don't use her casually she isn't really in any spotlight. No events, skins, anything... but her fans don't complain. They don't care about her, just her hard hitting crits.

Vasily is a glass cannon DPS, 4 stars/ SSR rarity. He suffers from the distinct problem of being mechanically similar to many other mid-range dps characters, though Theyre a medium-beginner friendly main dps/hard carrier if you don't have anyone else due to their easy build... but that could be said for a dozen or more other characters. Many fans accuse him of powercreeping. Vasily has a reputation for toxic mains. I'm thinking of like... a combination of wraith and octane mains on apex, and reaper mains on overwatch- edgy, 'selfish,' tryhard. This isn't helped by the fact that they often excells at large team, especially in co-ops, with their mains screeching at you to pick a shielder or a healer for them... And let it be known that, despite the game being largely about teams, Vasily mains are truly MAINS. Entire teams made to keep him alive so he can deal big damage.

Vasily mains are at first despised unironically, and then ironically- there is still an ongoing joke that they need you to be a pocket healer in coop, and that they're 'narcissistic.' He has a common respects mask skin as well as a mariner's skin. They're not unpopular but not super polular either. As a reference to him and his sisters' ballet, he had a very fancy attack string, which the fandom actually loves, a lot. Most memes are sbout vasily mains, and also his animations. Someone on r/vasilymains made a joke about playing with one hand and now it's also a common joke about why 'baby vasilies' who just started playing sucks. I think if he could see this he'd love that. There's also the option to switch their pronouns- his sister requested ir.

Lucia- a defensive, R/3 star character suited for front lines- she's an archetypical tank, buffer, and shielder. She's pretty versatile and interchangable with most other characters. The game tends to ignore her a lot, unless Olivia is involved, with not much presence in lore, trailers, etc... though she is surpisingly popular as an *unit.* Lucia mains are often seen as either really good or really bad, no inbetween- she's easy to get and play for beginners, gets dropped for stronger charactaers, but a well-built Lucia makes fighting the entire team a headaches.

The implementaton of her abilities are all pbad martial arts animations- they water her personality to that, to the chagrin of her fans. Memes are spawned about Lucia taking so much damage in game but dying pretty easily in actual SOTF. She pairs well with fragile, glass cannon or ranged builds. r/luciamains (a poorly modded subreddit with a stagnating 11k population) prohibit any lewding of her, and they pray that her first released alt wouldn't be fanservicy.

[Polybius]

Five star swimsuit Gene, S tier

[Namira]

I definitely think that a big part of the appeal on TVcha would be to Catch Em All so you can be the pokemon master of anime-style sotf jpegs. (perhaps the rare pulls would have anime art that flips over into photorealistic renders?). Naturally, this would make some folks endlessly salty when there were ommissions from the rosters of new seasons, especially if/when characters got multiple versions before some characters were included at all. The detractors are like wtf come on you know that Carla Latendre would be a common with like three voice lines and the completionists are like YEAH SO IT WOULD BE SUPER EASY TO ADD HER INSTEAD OF REMASTERING SEASON ONE and this goes on for all time.

Parker has regular Parker because you have to, Battle Medic Parker because of the SOTF Champions crossover meme (everyone on the level featuring him when he dropped is constantly yelling "SHUT UP PARKER" for sure), and then an aged up super rare Parker circa Season 66 that people hate/love becsause he was a terrible mentor but the art of him + the husky voice actor are, as some put it, "distractingly DILFy".

Nura al-Tarek I could see as a starter character if you started playing in TV3 era, like, one of the commons you get to start with prior to building up a proper roster of more powerful pulls. With some effort you could probably use her as a back up but tbh she probably ends up being one of those types of characters you just sacrifice to the XP throne and feed to your more important characters without even thinking about it. That said, if there was a beach themed banner, I think Nura would get to be a dark horse inclusion thanks to her wearing her swimsuit and the unique design of what she had. The art would be infuriatingly cute.

Stokely Keeper continues her in game theme and gets to show up in whatever the hub for actually pulling from the gacha is, once S67 characters get released. It's like a themed update for the game that applies a S67 style skin and one of the additions is having Stokes doing her thing. After that she might get to stick around as an easter egg, maybe shows up in place of the normal shopkeeper one in every twenty times you access the store, that kind of thing, or maybe there's a cosmetic option you can apply to just toggle her on. Gets chased by a lot of rumours as to whether she's going to be actually factually added because people datamined and she existed in the code at some point as playable but this was never pushed live and the developers are really evasive about whether she was intended.

People also probably get supertitious/tinfoil hat about whether Stokeshop has better or worse pull odds.

[Dogs231]

Cory Cartwright is impossible to acquire in normal gameplay. Intended as a frequent character drop in the Season 67 update, an error in the tables prevents him from being pulled. The error has not yet been resolved.

[carduinal-cyn]

Olivia del Rio has lasted a fair bit of time on the show proper, so it's likely that she gets a high-rarity card. Her stats are decently balanced, but focus more on fast offense as a nod to her impulsive, aggressive style. Although paired most frequently with Lucia for promotional art, she also gets screentime with Ivan as the two last Selkies alive, along with Anthony for starting the infamous groin-kicking gag.

In-game, her energy and competitive spirit get played up a lot, and the "Little Joe" crossbow is her weapon of choice. She's a fast, long-ranged attacker with decent stats, but her defenses are a bit low, and she suffers during close-range fights. Perhaps more infamously, during the summer after TV3, a swimsuit-clad alternate version of her will be made available in the gacha. This version of Olivia is meant to coincide with her updated look on the final day, and it features more fanservicey voice clips that allude to her "happy-go-lucky heartbreaker" persona from school. As a result, she has amassed a sizable male fanbase. She is also the subject of much shipping discourse.