I feel like Sakurai got it backwards. Characters should have been unlocked from the get go, while stages should have been the unlockable stuff.
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We need to talk about Unlocking Characters in Smash Ultimate.
- Thread starter KillstealWolf
- Start date
I feel like Melee and/or Online should definitely have everyone unlocked from the start. Needing to unlock each character in something like World of Light or the other single player modes is fine though.
I unlocked all the characters last night. I got into a groove of just playing three matches online, backing out, playing a quick stock match, then repeating. I don't have an exact time it took, but it wasn't super substantial, I remember it taking me a lot longer to unlock everyone in Melee, even with the "leave the GameCube on all night to get Mewtwo" exploit.
I'm confused on this. 66 Characters to unlock. 10 minute timer in between matches to trigger the next unlock. Even if everything else goes perfectly, that's 66 X 10 minutes = 11 hours of playtime if you do it legitimately?
I'm not adverse to them locking most of the roster, but I do take issue with having to then battle the character to unlock them. It can get extremely frustrating when you face a character you want and you just can't beat them. At least have them be on a lower CPU!
I should note that I'm not all that great at Smash. I know the basic mechanics, but I'm more into it as a spectacle of game characters than a fighting game.
I should note that I'm not all that great at Smash. I know the basic mechanics, but I'm more into it as a spectacle of game characters than a fighting game.
The frustration of seeing the blank online challenge board was enough to get me to try the Nintendo Online free trial. Hopefully I can bust most if not all of these challenges before the trial period elapses because what I've played so far is not convincing me to give Nintendo my money.
Overall though, the challenge board seems a lot easier this time round so I may have a few hammers spare if I can't grind the 200 matches needed.
Edit: Oops, wrong Smash thread.
Overall though, the challenge board seems a lot easier this time round so I may have a few hammers spare if I can't grind the 200 matches needed.
Edit: Oops, wrong Smash thread.
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Just adding my own two cents, I like having to unlock the full roster. Makes me feel like I've earned it!!
Not to mention the single payer campaign is fantastic. Tore into that for a few hours last night and was loving every minute of it.
Not to mention the single payer campaign is fantastic. Tore into that for a few hours last night and was loving every minute of it.
Well, the anecdote made it seem like 6-7 hours of play time total was a normal experience for unlocking all the characters without any exploits. Other people just asked how long it'd take to unlock everyone (with the implied "if you played the game it was supposed to be played").
Obviously I don't care if people use exploits to have unlocks faster. It just goes against the argument that unlocking characters is fun and we should all play the game "the way it was designed."
Same exact feelings here.
I started playing with 8 characters all items, and I kept getting a new challenger every 3 fights. Even though I know all fighters, it was always awesome to see who was next.
Exactly! And it got me to try characters I would never play before. Everytime I unlocked a new character I would play that one. Helped me learn their movesets and figure out counters if I played against them.
It's literally genius what they did. It's a informal training session without it being called training.
If you sit down and play it 11 hours straight, maybe that might be true. However, the cool down timer also works whether you're playing or not. So if you pick it up to play, you almost immediately get offered a new character every time. So if you play a few, go out, the next time you play you get a new character immediately. This is essentially at least two characters every period; one when you start, and one before you stop. That can cut down the time in half. Also I'm not even sure it's 10 minutes because I've done just 2 or 3 matches before and got offered a new character well before 10 minutes is up.
Pretty sure that I clearly said people interested in MP, BUT SURE, IGNORE THAT TO QUOTE ME WITH A POINTLESS RESPONSE!
Maybe the timer is less when playing with four people? I know for a certainty that in many cases we had a challenger show up after every round or every other round, and that only really slowed down toward the end of the roster. Our matches didn't take ten minutes so having more people playing at once must do something to the timer. None of our unlocks came from WoL and the last few unlocked when I did some classic mode runs. The vast majority was just playing smash with my family.
I'm not claiming everyone will have it as easy, but unlocking happened frequently and quite painlessly for us. I don't have a horse in this race, so all I'm giving is my experience with it. Being able to re-challenge after a match or two also helped if we messed up with a challenger fight.
If by genius you mean an archaic throwback that used to be standard practice within the genre then yes, it's 'genius.'
Calm down son, it's just video games.
You referred the the multiplayer as the actual game as if only the multiplayer is the real game, and that's not true at all. You should have said 'the part of the game I want to play'.
This is a ridiculous stance to take. If I don't like unlocking characters, I'm not a "true" fan? Get out of here.
I see. It's my fault for not taking your meaning in your poorly worded angry post (assuming you aren't simply backtracking). Got it.
Are these fights based on the difficulty you have been playing at or are they a set difficulty?
I'm a Smash noob so I've been playing on lower difficulty and can do OK with most fighters, but with challengers I can pretty much only win with Samus. I haven't installed the new update yet though and I hear that lowers the difficulty some.
I'm a Smash noob so I've been playing on lower difficulty and can do OK with most fighters, but with challengers I can pretty much only win with Samus. I haven't installed the new update yet though and I hear that lowers the difficulty some.
pretty sure they're set, although the patch that just went live made them much easier so it shouldn't be as much of a problem for people that were struggling.
OP
OP
1.2.0 has made the challenge approach fights easier. Which is a step in the right direction. But I still argue for an unlock code to be put into the game.
You can basically do this by seeing which classic mode path unlocks who. Ok so maybe not in the first few unlocks but you could have anyone specific you want within AT MOST like 6-8 classic mode runs and quite possibly many fewer.
The easiest solution to this would be to have an "All-Out Brawl" mode or a cheat code where you can play as anyone in the roster without having, to say, play the game for 20 hours or clock in 1,000 matches to unlock everyone. This series has never been particularly friendly to more casual consumers and fighting game fans but the absurd time sink that is "90% of the roster needs to be unlocked" easily takes the cake. I did a video on this recently expanding upon this because this has been an issue i've had with the series for some time that I needed to get off of my chest.
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"Absurd time sink" is quite the hyperbole. If you just play the game naturally you will unlock everyone. People expect to play this game for years, a few hours to get every character isn't some insane hurdle. A quick-unlock would be great for TOs but otherwise I don't really see the point. The majority of people I know unlocked everyone over the first launch weekend.
Update on my situation: I put in about 8 hours, and still have a couple characters I want not yet unlocked (about 50 characters unlocked now). This was my first smash, so thank god for the patch that lowered unlock fight difficulty. From the rest of the roster I thought my friends, whom I will see this weekend, would appreciate playing as Cloud or Mewtwo. But unlocking those 2 in WoL, unlock via order, or classic mode all take too much work (not to mention I had to google for guides to even know all this).
WoL mode is already great for people that want meaty single player and goals to work towards, or, maybe even have a separate Classics Mode roster. Not being able to jump in with preferred characters on quick play is a bizarre hurdle for very casual fans.
WoL mode is already great for people that want meaty single player and goals to work towards, or, maybe even have a separate Classics Mode roster. Not being able to jump in with preferred characters on quick play is a bizarre hurdle for very casual fans.
"People expect to play this game for years" is a highly presumptive statement since I can easily see people getting turned off by how much time they spent trying to get Simon Belmont or whichever character Nintendo advertised as playable to avail. Spending a weekend on a JRPG is a standard amount of time one would invest to start things off. It is obscene in a fighting game when, again, said time is used to unlock the vast majority of characters. Additionally, that assumes one has spent any time with the game at all with the game to get any of the characters unlocked; if someone just picked up the game on the way to their friend's house, they're going to be disappointed that they're stuck with a meager 8 characters for the next few hours of their playtime.
Smash Bros. has always been wholly inconsiderate of the player's time and presumptive as to one being willing to continue to play through it to unlock everything that has been deliberately locked away (see: most of Melee's unlockables, albeit you can simply copy over a file from a friend onto your memory card), but Ultimate is far worse because of the sheer quantity of characters that need to be unlocked, assuming one can unlock them since, while I was able to do so without much of an issue, I found the challenger fights to be much more difficult than previous entries and could understand people giving up after the fiftieth try against any character. Quite frankly, the player's time is more valuable than any sentimental jargon about the roster showing how far Smash has come over the years in terms of how many series have been represented in its various entries.