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[DrArchon]

I've been ruminating on this for a while now, and haven't been able to gather my thoughts into a coherent form, but I feel like I have something to work with now.

Basically, I'm at the point where I no longer want to pay $60 for a fighting game, and it has nothing to do with story modes, production values, or anything like that.

I just know that, with a few exceptions, for any given fighting game, I'm not going to be able to seriously play the game at a competent level with any more than 1 or 2 characters. And yet, I'm paying $60 or so for a full roster of characters that I know I'll never use seriously.

Fighting games are complicated beasts. The amount of time it takes to even learn 1 character is incredibly daunting, and for games complicated inputs (basically everything that isn't Pokken or Smash) it's incredibly difficult for a casual player like myself to learn more than 1 character and remember the inputs for all of their moves, not to mention actually learning combos for that character that aren't just super basic "Jumping medium kick -> crouching medium kick -> Hadoken" nonsense. Then amplify this by tenfold for any team-based game where I now have to learn team specific combos, and suddenly it starts to look impossible to be able to freely switch around from character to character on a whim and still be expected to play seriously.

And yet, as is the point of this thread, I'm still buying all of these characters. There are characters there that I will never play. There are characters I'll play once in training mode and then say "eh, not for me". There are characters that I'll run through Arcade mode once, barely remembering how to do their special moves, and then never touch them again. And in the era of F2P games, that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It seems like an incredibly waste of value for me as a consumer to spend so much money on content that I'll never seriously interact with.

Wouldn't it make more sense if fighters were Free-to-Play? Where you could try out every hero in training mode or arcade mode and then purchase the ones that you actually want to use for online VS mode? It just seems weird to me to spend $60 on a game knowing that there's a roster of 30+ characters and I'll end up using not even a tenth of it online.

TL;DR
-Learning characters in fighting games is hard
-I'm never gonna be able to play well with more than 1-2 characters online
-Shouldn't I just buy those characters and not the whole roster?

 

[Duchess O'Death]

Didn't Killer Instinct do this?

 

[JayEH]

KI and DOA5 have it right with their f2p models. I’d like to see others follow suit. Would help the genre grow as well.

 

[hampig]

Dead Or Alive did this and I thought it was nice.

 

[raven777]

DOA5 had great F2P solution for people like you. You could just buy single character instead of buying the whole roster.

I do understand your point since I also play 2~3 characters out of the entire roster.

 

[Domstercool]

As long as it doesn't change the fact that I can buy a fighter at full price and have all its content. I like randomly deciding to play another character for a bit before going back to my main.

Same for local play as well when my friends are around.

 

[KHlover]

DOA5...has already been mentioned, I see

 

[Chojin]

I agree. It should be extended to other genres. I don't want to pay for cars I'll never drive. I dont want to pay for playable characters in RPGs I'll never use. I don't want to pay for Luigi and Lance or Jimmy Lee I'll never use. I don't want to pay for crops I'll never plant in farming sims.

 

[Hatefilled Vengeance]

Killer Instinct did it pretty much perfectly.

 

[DrArchon]

Didn't Killer Instinct do this?

It did, but unfortunately that was dropped for the Steam release where you gotta pay full price.

 

[Ratrat]

I agree. It should be extended to other genres. I don't want to pay for cars I'll never drive. I dont want to pay for playable characters in RPGs I'll never use. I don't want to pay for Luigi and Lance or Jimmy Lee I'll never use. I don't want to pay for crops I'll never plant in farming sims.

I want a refund for the optional bosses I skipped in Dark Souls.

 

[Liethe]

I don't really understand the logic here. How will the rest of the development for said game be funded then? I know it's not a fighter but i've been playing alot of Ys VIII lately... now, that game has 6 playable characters... but if I only ever want to use Adol, should I complain about the price because of these other options?

 

[Eumi]

So long as you are able to fight against the other characters you don’t ‘own’ online, you’re still using the content. For your argument to actually work logically, you’d also have to be locked out of fighting against any characters you don’t own.

Not that the idea wouldn’t be great for the end user. There just isn’t a strong argument to be made that it’s a fairer pricing model.

 

[JayEH]

I don't really understand the logic here. How will the rest of the development for said game be funded then? I know it's not a fighter but i've been playing alot of Ys VIII lately... now, that game has 6 playable characters... but if I only ever want to use Adol, should I complain about the price because of these other options?

You can pay for the full game if you want Still in Ki and DOA5. It’s just another option for those who want it. There’s also costume dlc and such.

 

[MoogleMan]

Honestly, I'd rather the opposite, where you pay once for everything, instead of being nickle and dimed to death with character passes, microtransactions, etc.

 

[Chojin]

I want a refund for the optional bosses I skipped in Dark Souls.

I got scammed out of Smash Bros TWICE on WiiU and 3DS. I only main Peach and therea a bajillion extra fighters I'll never play. Nintendo shouldn't have charged me so much.

 

[Manu]

And how would this even work? How can you know in advance what character you're gonna end up using so that you only buy those ones? It doesn't make sense.

 

[DrArchon]

I don't really understand the logic here. How will the rest of the development for said game be funded then? I know it's not a fighter but i've been playing alot of Ys VIII lately... now, that game has 6 playable characters... but if I only ever want to use Adol, should I complain about the price because of these other options?

Well, the rest of the game would be funded the same way other F2P games are. Customization MTs. And people who do want to buy every character because they're just that good at fighting games.

I think a situation like this is completely different from stuff like RPGs. In fighting games, the fighters ARE the gameplay. Full stop. It's not like Dark Souls were if I skip Ash Lake I still have a bunch of other stuff to do in the game. If I only play Juri in SSF4, I miss out on a TON of gameplay.

And how would this even work? How can you know in advance what character you're gonna end up using so that you only buy those ones? It doesn't make sense.

You get every character in training mode, but to go online with a character you have to buy them (or they have some rotating free character like KI has).

 

[Irishmantis]

I like having every char so I can practice against them

 

[DarkConfidant]

Assuming more people would buy an ala cart fighting game:
Would the increase in customers offset that people are each paying less, and that the developer is essentially creating the same amount of content?

Seems like something publishers might be too afraid to bother trying.
In a post-App Store world, I could also see publishers being incentivized to buff the least popular DLC characters to gain revenue back.

It's an interesting idea. I once thought of what Street Fighter would be like if they released a free version that only had Ryu, but could play online with anyone else, and they kept Ryu in the higher tiers.
Casual people would be able to learn a decent character, and those who get hooked would definitely want to try out all of the other strategies in a full version. So mine would be a $0 and a $60 version, rather than F2P necessarily.


Side note: I'd hate to go to someone's house and they got like 5 out of 50+ Smash Bros characters. XD

I like having every char so I can practice against them

Yeah, I definitely think that having the full roster (or at least most of it) is a part of the training package, let alone learning the game.

If someone doesn't ever plan on learning more than 1 or 2 characters, they probably won't be playing for long anyway, which makes me wonder if complexity is the bigger issue rather than pricing.

 

[selo]

It did, but unfortunately that was dropped for the Steam release where you gotta pay full price.

Not $60 though

 

[Eidan]

I don't think I should have to pay for content I think is difficult or uninteresting.

 

[KarmaCow]

It just sounds like you're asking to pay less money to effectively get the same game.

 

[Neoxon]

To be fair, you may also want to train against other characters, invite friends over for locals, or set-ups for tournaments.

I can see where you’re coming from for those who only play online, but that isn’t always the case.

 

[DrArchon]

To be fair, you may also want to train against other characters, invite friends over for locals, or set-ups for tournaments.

I can see where you’re coming from for those who only play online, but that isn’t always the case.

I mean, the option for buying the whole roster would still be there, just like with KI.

But people setting up tournies aren't exactly the majority of the potential customers for fighters I wouldn't imagine.

 

[Pompadour]

Fighting games should adapt an F2P model. I've mentioned this multiple times but if SFIV had adopted SFV's model I would have saved a good deal of money as I played Dudley almost exclusively. Instead of buying SF4, SSF4, SSF4: AE, and USF4 I could have spent $6 and bought Dudley and still would be able to continue playing with everyone.

The only issue with launching a fighting game as an F2P title is that fighting games need
are expensive to make at a basic level. Sure, we can theorize a cheap fighting game with limited characters that heavily share animations but the basic expectations for a fighter is a launch roster around 8 characters with unique moves and animations. KI had only 6 characters but that game seemed more like an experiment so I don't begrudge them.

I'm not interested in paying money for superfluous modes and crap I'm not interested in. I'd rather pay less or buy a $60 fighting game that spent that money on characters, stages, visuals, and audio.

 

[Anne]

A ton of F2P character based online games already do this, and it works well. I don't get the posters ragging on this idea. Have they literally never seen a major MOBA or game like that before?

The only real cons to this is missing characters in training mode. Iirc Killer Instinct actually just let you use them as training dummies even if you didn't own them.

The other con is sometimes you want everybody or need them for tournaments or locals or whatever. Time to get some bundles or unlocked accounts or whatever method works best for that.

I mean, honestly, KI's model is almost perfect for how you should be doing it. The only thing it really needs is more ways to get stuff/

 

[friskykillface]

I like trying out multiple characters, especially in smash brothers
In unranked games I play as anyone

But I do see your point OP, killer instinct did that method, thought it was cool

 

[Pompadour]

Assuming more people would buy an ala cart fighting game:
Would the increase in customers offset that people are each paying less, and that the developer is essentially creating the same amount of content?

The other issue is you're selling a fighting game a la carte there's not a lot of incentive to develop characters or playstyles that aren't popular. F2P SFV wouldn't have FANG or Dhalsim and probably would've replaced with Evil Ryu and Violent Ken. Half the cast would be shotos and the other half popular female characters so they can sell skimpy DLC outfits for them.

 

[DrArchon]

The other issue is you're selling a fighting game a la carte there's not a lot of incentive to develop characters or playstyles that aren't popular. F2P SFV wouldn't have FANG or Dhalsim and probably would've replaced with Evil Ryu and Violent Ken. Half the cast would be shotos and the other half popular female characters so they can sell skimpy DLC outfits for them.

I haven't played LoL, but I'd imagine they have some oddball and less popular characters there, right? There's always going to be those players that gravitate towards off the wall characters.

 

[Anne]

I haven't played LoL, but I'd imagine they have some oddball and less popular characters there, right? There's always going to be those players that gravitate towards off the wall characters.

They do. A lot of F2P games have those characters in there for a lot of reasons and it's generally a good idea to have them in there. At the same time, a lot of those characters don't get a lot of love later in the form of skins or cosmetics.

 

[Pompadour]

I haven't played LoL, but I'd imagine they have some oddball and less popular characters there, right? There's always going to be those players that gravitate towards off the wall characters.

Probably but fighting game characters are more expensive to develop than MOBA or FPS characters.

 

[SciencePilot]

But don't you want to fight against the other characters? That's content that makes sense to pay for.

Consider another genre, like action platformers, where you play a single character that fights again against multiple boss characters. That's all content you pay for. That seems like the same logic to me.

 

[Anne]

But don't you want to fight against the other characters? That's content that makes sense to pay for.

Are posts like these elaborate trolls or do people not actually get how F2P works.

 

[Futaleufu]

I don't think you understand how this "fighting game" thing works.

How are you supposed to learn the match ups for every character if you are unable to use them?

Do you settle on the first character you choose?

How would this work for something like King of Fighters? 50 characters out of the box.

I think it's a terrible idea.

 

[Master Milk]

If I only play Juri in SSF4, I miss out on a TON of gameplay.

that's not how this works

characters in fighting games are extremely important and a huge resource for the devs and focal point for the players, but you're not missing out on a ton of gameplay by not playing all of the characters

the characters in a fighting game are just a vehicle to get to play the actual game. they're like a door to get into the house, not the house itself. the important part of a fighting game is that you're actually playing, because that's where the fun is, in learning how to play the game and challenging others' knowledge of the game against your own, and finding out who is the best at any given point in time, and you can do that with any character, all characters, or just one character

so if you're only using one character you're not missing out on a ton of gameplay, you're limiting and changing what your options are in a match. the only way to miss out on a ton of gameplay is to not learn how to play the game in the first place

 

[Pompadour]

But don't you want to fight against the other characters? That's content that makes sense to pay for.

Consider another genre, like action platformers, where you play a single character that fights again against multiple boss characters. That's all content you pay for. That seems like the same logic to me.

You would be able to fight against any character. That's how fighting game DLC works now.

 

[DrArchon]

But don't you want to fight against the other characters? That's content that makes sense to pay for.

Consider another genre, like action platformers, where you play a single character that fights again against multiple boss characters. That's all content you pay for. That seems like the same logic to me.

You'd still fight against all of the characters in the game whenever they popped up online. That's how it already works in fighters. If you don't buy the DLC characters, you still fight against them.

We've already solved this problem.

 

[Anne]

.

I don't think you understand how creating a F2P model for multiplayer games works.

 

[pizzacat]

How would you learn matchups against other characters?

 

[nick_b]

I'm not going to be able to seriously play the game at a competent level with any more than 1 or 2 characters. And yet, I'm paying $60 or so for a full roster of characters that I know I'll never use seriously.

So don't buy the game. If you're not far off from buying it and never unwrapping it then why spend the money if you can't justify the price. Also these pricing types are already happening.

 

[Pompadour]

I don't think you understand how this "fighting game" thing works.

How are you supposed to learn the match ups for every character if you are unable to use them?

Do you settle on the first character you choose?

How would this work for something like King of Fighters? 50 characters out of the box.

I think it's a terrible idea.

Fighting games have DLC characters so this "problem" already exists to an extent.

But even so, I think this issue is greatly exaggerated. I'm fairly competent in fighting games and I've never had to play as an opposing character to figure how to beat them. I just play against that character repeatedly until I figure out how to beat whatever tool they're using to beat me.

I can see having all characters as being necessary if you're playing at a high level or you're one of those people who love discovering tech and counter tech. But at point it makes sense to pay more since you're already dedicating so much time to the game.

Using SFV as an example, I made it to Ultra Gold and I never did set ups in training mode where I'd program a dummy to do a specific action so I could develop ways to fight a character's shenanigans.

 

[warp_]

How would you learn matchups against other characters?

The same way you do in every other fighting game. Or like how you currently can in games like Killer Instinct or DOA5, where this model is already in use and successful.

 

[Heartskips]

F2P versions alongside the full game/retail/full price version: fine

Only F2P version: Please no.

I like using the whole roster.

 

[Spaced Harrier]

You'd rob yourself of the Joy of discovery.

And Local games would be a disaster.

 

[Liethe]

I mean, I'd be all for this if they could get it to work. Especially if you could still use the characters you dont own in training to check em out.

 

[warp_]

You'd rob yourself of the Joy of discovery.

And Local games would be a disaster.

Not really. This model exists and works just fine. Buy only characters you want or buy them all in a cheaper "all-in-one" pack a season at a time.

 

[luoapp]

I agree. Fighting game should follow the model of Dota2, now that it's proven to be vastly profitable.

 

[DrArchon]

How would you learn matchups against other characters?

I dunno, maybe playing against those characters a bunch online? Yeah, it's probably not "optimal" but I accept that I'm a casual player. I don't have time to learn every single character just to get good with one character.

I agree. Fighting game should follow the model of Dota2, now that it's proven to be vastly profitable.

Obviously that'd be the best case scenario, but that's a pipe dream because Dota's model is actually insane when you think about it.

 

[Gren]

As long as it doesn't change the fact that I can buy a fighter at full price and have all its content. I like randomly deciding to play another character for a bit before going back to my main.

Same for local play as well when my friends are around.

Agreed. It would be a nice option, but I feel this argument could be applied to almost any game with multiple characters that you aren't required to switch between (i.e. "I only pick my team, why do I have to pay full price for Madden, FIFA, etc?").