Steel Front Gacha Caught Swallowing Pity Counters — Zilong Games Pulls the Same Trick Again After Tian Di Jie Scandal

Zilong Games strikes again. After the Tian Di Jie gacha probability scandal, the infamous publisher known for milking wallets of 'financially comfortable middle-aged professionals' has pulled the same stunt in their mecha gacha game Steel Front (钢岚) — and this time, they confirmed it themselves.

Steel Front uses a "corpse parts" gacha system: each mecha requires four components (head + left arm + right arm + legs) to assemble. Mechas are the backbone of the game's power progression, built through repeated dupes and massive amounts of fodder (gacha byproducts). Fully maxing a single mecha of a specific weight class takes over 600 pulls in the targeted banner.

The gacha features two pity systems: an individual part pity (guaranteed gold part at 55 pulls) and a full mecha pity (guaranteed rate-up mecha at 90 pulls). On paper, this sounds reasonable.

But the real issue hides in the fine print. As early as a few weeks after launch, some players noticed that triggering the full mecha pity would swallow the individual part pity counter — though it didn't gain much traction at the time.

Then on February 20th, a Zilong-affiliated content creator posted a detailed breakdown exposing the mechanism. He analyzed from the perspective of a 'monthly card player' why some casual spenders seemed to have way more resources — it was because they'd unconsciously avoided this pity-swallowing trap.

Here's the concrete example: a player starts from 0 pity, pulls a guaranteed gold part at the 55th pull, then triggers the full mecha pity on their 9th ten-pull. Under normal expectations, they should get another guaranteed gold part when reaching 110 pulls (two more ten-pulls later). But because the full mecha pity silently resets the part pity counter, that guaranteed piece won't show up until pull 145 at the earliest.

When players asked customer service for clarification, they got official confirmation: yes, the full mecha pity does reset the individual part pity counter.

After the post went live, the comment section became a Zilong roast session. A top-voted reply stated: 'Full mecha and individual parts clearly use two different pity systems, yet the part pity gets swallowed by the full mecha pity — Zilong's gacha description is straight-up misleading.'

Another user tried explaining it more simply: 'Basically the banner has two main outputs, A and B. The description makes them look independent, but A's pity actually resets B's pity.' — only to get roasted back with 'I understood it less after your explanation.'

In the face of Zilong's 'signature moves,' the community is split between the resigned and the fed-up. One commenter quipped: 'You chose to play a Zilong game — weren't you already pre-accepted into the gacha gulag?' Another fired off: 'You and Zilong are heart-to-heart, but Zilong's just playing mind games with you.' Someone else joked: 'Don't they say Zilong players are financially successful adults? Surely they won't mind losing a few bucks.'

Many commenters pointed to the Tian Di Jie precedent: 'Fixed weapon substats on launch gacha would be instant death in any other game, but Zilong got away with it just fine.' 'After the Tian Di Jie fiasco, I wouldn't touch a Zilong game with a ten-foot pole.'

One player who'd been around since the beta test revealed: 'The trap was always hiding in the line "a full mecha counts as 4 parts." Getting a full mecha means 4 consecutive S-rank parts, which wipes your part pity. I saw the gacha mechanics during beta and noped out immediately.'

As of this writing, the pity-swallowing mechanism in Steel Front remains unpatched. With March 15th (China's Consumer Rights Day) right around the corner, the timing couldn't be more awkward. Real money is on the line here — the pity reset can cause massive variance in spending depending on a player's pull strategy. Whether Zilong will respond or make changes? Long-time players already know the answer: 'Nothing will come of it. Zilong players either don't care or are already used to it.'