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We need to talk about Unlocking Characters in Smash Ultimate.
- Thread starter KillstealWolf
- Start date
Sure, Smash has a competitive audience, and Nintendo knows that. But the competitive audience isn't the only audience, and it's never been Sakurai's number one concern even with his shifts in design approach. That the game doesn't make concessions to make the entire roster available for a tournament on the day of release was never of concern to him or to the dev team (or else they would have made such options available).
I'd also argue that the comparison to a game like Nier is flawed, as well. The first Nier has notoriously awful sidequests. They are absolutely not the reason any sane person would play the game and even the most diehard fans will tell you this. But there's a difference between a game being loaded with bullshit sidequests seemingly designed to frustrate the player with little meaningful reward, and like, thinking it's Bad Game Design to not have your whole fighting roster available from the get-go. But that's part of the tug-of-war between making a game that can be played in a tournament setting, and that has features geared toward that, but is optimally designed for playing at home with friends, and with plenty of content meant to be played by oneself or a single partner.
I meant like achievements. I was arguing that 'I paid $60 for this game I should have access to everything whenever I want' was ridiculous as you could use that same argument to say you're owed the ability to get achievements without ever actually winning them. In the same way a code to unlock everything at once in Smash would say that you completed everything without you actually having completed anything.
When I was a newbie at Smash I found certain characters to be better for certain challenges. Bowser/DK are pretty strong so you don't have to land a ton of hits to knock people off the stage, Kirby and Pikachu's down B tends to work well against the computer players. Getting better will obviously make things easier, but don't feel bad figuring out ways to spam attack the AI to death to unlock more of the roster.
World Of Light is also a good bet, as you can set it to easy mode. I know it's not two player but you could take turns with the challenges as you unlock characters and get a little better as you go, until you're confident you can beat the regular challengers outside that mode (you do get to keep anyone you unlock in WoL for regular modes, and you can use Spirits in their versus battles in WoL which means you can enter the fights with extra weapons or powers to make it easier).
That's bizarre. Doesn't single player have a story? What's being gained by being able to play it totally out of order from the get go?
My prediction: the character unlocks in the game are so catastrophically ill-conceived that not only will Smash 6 not have character unlocks, but neither will any major fighting game of the next five years. "All characters available from the start!" will be used as a selling point.
Achievements aren't like characters at all. This is a really bizarre comparison. Smash has a bunch of other stuff to unlock and collect in the form of spirits and the trophies that you're alluding to (they're called Challenges in this game). Nobody is asking for a code to unlock all that stuff. Just access to all the advertised characters so that they can hop into the main mode they want to play and use the character they want. I don't understand what's unreasonable about this expectation.
This is already how other fighting games work.
This is already the case for most games in the genre.
Large #s of locked characters hasn't been the norm since the original version of Street Fighter IV (2009). Super Street Fighter IV (2010) had everyone available from the jump, and the norm ever since then has been either no or very few locked characters -- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U included.
It's the reason why I had to reach back as far as Skullgirls to come up with an answer to a question about fighting games with unique unlock situations; it's just something that people normally don't have to put up with the first place anymore.
Someone already mentioned the PS1 port of Street Fighter Alpha. Dragon Ball Z Super Butouden 1 and Final Bout also did this.
Games like Gundam VS Gundam Next separated their single-player unlockables from the the multiplayer modes, which is another option that people have already said here.
I was arguing with someone else that was saying, because they paid $60 for the game, they should be able to do anything they want with it. I wasn't saying that unlockable characters and achievements are the same thing, I was bringing their argument to its logical conclusion to show that it was faulty.
Pretty sure that most fighting games already work like this.
Maybe I'm not reading the same websites as everyone else, but this is literally the only place online I've seen this written about as an issue. Codename S.T.E.A.M. having enemy turns that lasted too long felt like it got more visible press coverage this soon after the game released.
For example, it's been five days since the game launched. There isn't a single article on Kotaku concerning this 'issue.' I can see Sakurai having less unlocks next time around, but I really don't think this is as big a concern as people here seem to think it is.
The only way if I would ever play Zelda Skyward Sword again is if I could directly go to all the dungeons. It is great having options and the assumption that you have to "beat" a game first to make options available is not a good one because as soon as you lose your save file, the options you got by beating the game are gone, so you would have to beat the game like you did the first time again.
I still own Skyward Sword but I don't know if I have my save game still around, probably not, so I would love it if the game gave me an option to start right at the 1st dungeon even though the game thinks I technically never beat it since I start a fresh save file. I mean SS doesn't have that option anyway even if you did beat it, but it would be cool. I remember having a save game in Zelda OOT right at the beginning of the Spirit Dungeon (my favorite) and then just copying it whenever I wanted to play the dungeon again.
This is why the passwords in the old Mega Man games are so cool. You can just create whatever password online to start wherever you want.
Ah, that shows how out of date I am with fighting games. I thought all unlocked from the start was the most common, but not ubiquitous with the genre.
100% agreed.
Even in single player story games, have all chapters there from the start. Not everyone has the 10 hours required to reach a certain level, nor should they.
The player will still have the option to play the game 'in order' or 'as intended' by the developer. But all the content should be there from the start to appeal to as many different audiences as possible. Somebody buying Smash just to play as Snake or Sonic shouldn't have to unlock them.
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It does have a story, yes. It just allows you to play any chapter you want from the start. I really don't think this is an odd opinion. If I bought a movie, I could skip right to my favorite scene and watch it. Using the Call of Duty reference, let's say I typically play MP only, but maybe I just wanted to see the "No Russian" level and that's it--what's wrong with having access to that?
My thoughts are anything involving the local experience should be open either through options or codes. And that includes things like God Mode and what have you. I really don't understand the point of locking it.
Yeah, but, neither of the examples you're describing exist on purpose. Passwords and save files exist for progress, not to be reused to return to older levels. It just feels like such a weird thing to complain about here, in this topic. If people feel so strongly that games shouldn't have any progression someone should make a 'We need to talk about how we should be able to play video game levels in any order we want to at any time' topic.
Directors don't intend for you to watch a movie out of order when you buy the DVD. They want you to watch it normally at least once. The scene select is there so you can watch a favorite scene again or pick back up where you left off. It's not the same thing as the Call Of Duty example.
Wonder if after purchasing the DLC characters, they will have to be unlocked or just immediately available? Kinda can't wait to find out.
well in fighting games unlocking characters is not progression, it's a requirement to start playing actually. The progression in fighting games is the player getting better at the game. It's like saying "ok we play chess but before you can use anything but pawns and kings you have to play 50 matches".
Right, of course, but can you not just skip to whatever scene you want? I certainly get what you're saying, but the important part is I don't care. It's not important to me. I don't understand why it would be important to others, either; yet, this thread is 30 pages long about unlocking Smash characters.
You really wanted the unlocking process to be even longer? If this was a Brawl or Melee sized roster, then sure. But having to due a classic run every time to unlock all 60+ unlocks sounds terrible.
I quite like the unlocking of new characters popping up as I am going but I also think there should be a way to just work through them in your own preferred order, so you can get the characters you want to play.
With how bad the online has been for me, I can't complain that the game is forcing me to play single player while I pray that things are ironed out re online.
I haven't touched ultimate yet, but I did enjoy playing SSB4 on launch with my friends and unlocking some characters with them. I also loved doing it in melee as a kid. I totally get how fun unlocking stuff is, but I think it's weird to not have the option at least to just like..turn it off if you want to play with friends.
A party or fighting games' intended loop should never be to "unlock the next character"--that implies once you're done unlocking characters the game is done and it no longer has a purpose. I highly doubt that was Sakurai's intended goal. The fun should primarily be centered on the actual fun of playing with friends or getting good at the game (depending on if you see it as more of a party game or a fighting game). Forcing you to play with about a tenth of the final roster, whether it's with friends or to unlock the ability to play competitively, seems like a bad choice.
I don't think unlocking should go away totally--I understand what people mean by saying it's fun. But having the option to just input a code and play with all the characters for that play session seems intuitive to what the feedback loop of Smash is designed to be.
??? I don't really think this argument is equivalent to people asking for the option to play with all the characters for one off sessions without going through unlocking. As has been mentioned smash is a party or fighting game--these types of games are about 1) having fun or 2) getting better at the actual game. A lot of the other games have these focuses but there's also other ideas behind them, so it's just a weird comparison to me.
A party or fighting games' intended loop should never be to "unlock the next character"--that implies once you're done unlocking characters the game is done and it no longer has a purpose. I highly doubt that was Sakurai's intended goal. The fun should primarily be centered on the actual fun of playing with friends or getting good at the game (depending on if you see it as more of a party game or a fighting game). Forcing you to play with about a tenth of the final roster, whether it's with friends or to unlock the ability to play competitively, seems like a bad choice.
I don't think unlocking should go away totally--I understand what people mean by saying it's fun. But having the option to just input a code and play with all the characters for that play session seems intuitive to what the feedback loop of Smash is designed to be.
??? I don't really think this argument is equivalent to people asking for the option to play with all the characters for one off sessions without going through unlocking. As has been mentioned smash is a party or fighting game--these types of games are about 1) having fun or 2) getting better at the actual game. A lot of the other games have these focuses but there's also other ideas behind them, so it's just a weird comparison to me.
It seems like I unlocked everyone.
I really liked the way unlocking characters were handled. The option to fight them again was a nice touch. I lost a lot but my daughter cheered every time we successfully got one. She was ecstatic when we got Pichu, Isabelle & Jigglypuff. For me, it was Richter & Mega Man. Those are my boys.
I really liked the way unlocking characters were handled. The option to fight them again was a nice touch. I lost a lot but my daughter cheered every time we successfully got one. She was ecstatic when we got Pichu, Isabelle & Jigglypuff. For me, it was Richter & Mega Man. Those are my boys.
How they worked in the 3DS and WiiU versions was that DLC characters once purchased were automatically unlocked along with their stage.
I thought I was losing my mind when I got fucking wrecked by Viillager last night. Thank god it's not just me.
I was like, "This feels way, way harder than the CPU is usually, I'm not that bad at this."
Not a fan of the unlock structure, considering Peach is my main and I don't have her yet. No Daisy either. :(
I was like, "This feels way, way harder than the CPU is usually, I'm not that bad at this."
Not a fan of the unlock structure, considering Peach is my main and I don't have her yet. No Daisy either. :(
I see a lot of people here branching off to complain about anything being locked in a game. Someone else responded to me to complain that Skyward Sword didn't have a password system that would let them play any part of the game whenever they wanted to. I pointed out that was not what password systems were actually for to begin with, so complaining about games not offering it was silly, especially in this topic.
I don't know why it's this long either. It should have ended after the first person said 'there should be an UNLOCK ALL button for tournaments.' That was an oversight. I like unlockables. It challenges you to learn characters you otherwise wouldn't. I think people being mad about it is overblown. I imagine most of us will have them all unlocked by the end of the week, and then we'll be playing with a full roster for the next five years. It seems like a silly thing to be upset about.
I like having the carrot, personally, so this is a bit of a selling point to me. But it is pretty shitty that there's no way around this. I'd be okay if this involved only unlocking characters for specific singleplayer modes. You should be able to play simple versus without having to worry about this.
You'll definately know for sure when you unlock everyone as the game alerts you when you do with a pop up message.
When a lot of the characters are from Smash 4 and play very similarly it feels like the carrot is a bit regurgitated. A kind of attempted demand by forced scarcity by taking away what you had before and slowly giving it back to you.
You obviously don't run tournaments, but the difference in turnout from a Week 1 tournament and any other tournament can be MASSIVE. Tournaments need entrants to be sustainable. The difference from Week 1 to Week 2 could easily be ~50+ players Week 1 to <20 Week 2.
I was playing last night and had a few egg nogs. I must've clicked past it and not noticed.
OP
OP
Correct me if I'm wrong since I don't have online to test this.
https://en-americas-support.nintend...id/27394/~/how-to-transfer-user-and-save-data
But If I'm reading this correctly, you don't actually copy the saves over, you transfer them over from one console to another. Then the original save on the first console is deleted.
So... yeah, you still only have one unit set up.
I enjoy the unlocking characters method of Smash Ultimate. I tried every character out in Classic Mode and at the end there would be a new challenger waiting for me.
I probably wouldn't have given every character a fair shake if they were all available from the get go, not to mention how overwhelming it would be for people are new to be bombarded with 70+ characters first time they start the game up.
I probably wouldn't have given every character a fair shake if they were all available from the get go, not to mention how overwhelming it would be for people are new to be bombarded with 70+ characters first time they start the game up.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say right there, the only half-baked artifitical progression system that prevents anybody(who owns the console) to play the game is either downloading the game or inserting the cart in the slot, boot the game and voila. f they don't like playing the game then they should just move on to something else.
That doesn't change that you have to play the game to unlock characters.
I couldn't care any less about any of that. Keeping the game alive in the public eye, if I feel like I'll play the game anytime regardless of the public eye.
So no DLC either?
Looking at this from a perspective of an online player, I do see the complaints. You can't unlock anything playing online, and if you wanted to jump in and just start playing the character you want, you'd have to fish around solo for a not-insignificant amount of time to unlock your guy. It wouldn't take too long following one of the unlock "ladders" that are floating around, but I get the complaint.
This game really wants you to be smashing with a bunch of buds when you first get it. To reiterate my earlier post, I thought that the unlock method worked great playing with a bunch of people casually who weren't dead set on having their mains immediately. Challenger approaches were hype! But if you happen to be not doing this it can take a little while. Luckily there's no esoteric requirements for unlocks so at least that's good.
It'd be nice for TOs to have the option too I suppose, sucks that it's such a pain in the ass. Some kind of LAN/Tourney mode or something would be perfect.
This game really wants you to be smashing with a bunch of buds when you first get it. To reiterate my earlier post, I thought that the unlock method worked great playing with a bunch of people casually who weren't dead set on having their mains immediately. Challenger approaches were hype! But if you happen to be not doing this it can take a little while. Luckily there's no esoteric requirements for unlocks so at least that's good.
It'd be nice for TOs to have the option too I suppose, sucks that it's such a pain in the ass. Some kind of LAN/Tourney mode or something would be perfect.
I like the system.
I play a little adventure mode, then I take a break and get a new challenger. Afterwards, I go back to adventure. Sometimes I unlock a character in adventure that isn't already available, so it works out. Link is pretty damn good for taking out challengers. A few arrows and boomerangs to soften the opponent up, and then forward+A (the double hit slash) to knock them out.
Unlocked close to half the roster in a few hours.
I play a little adventure mode, then I take a break and get a new challenger. Afterwards, I go back to adventure. Sometimes I unlock a character in adventure that isn't already available, so it works out. Link is pretty damn good for taking out challengers. A few arrows and boomerangs to soften the opponent up, and then forward+A (the double hit slash) to knock them out.
Unlocked close to half the roster in a few hours.
To a great many people, playing multiplayer with their favourite characters is what they will spend 99% of the playtime in this game doing. When playing locally isn't always an option, especially when you're my age and people are often busy, your main way of playing other people is the online mode which is both questionably implemented and does not unlock characters.
We got a lot of characters through vs and some classic mode in the 2 local sessions we had, but still missing a bunch of characters (including a few of our favourites) because we just don't enjoy classic mode the 10th time going through it, and im not going to tell someone "hey, want to keep resetting the game for a few hours so we get everyone?" because its a chore and would have been the entire time they visited.
"go play something else" is redundant when we enjoy the multiplayer for smash and just wanted to start using our limited time playing multiplayer.
While I personally like unlocking the characters this way, I do feel there should be a code so that people that don't want to can just skip it.
I feel like it's a simple matter of giving you a recommended set of beginner friendly characters, and giving you the option of picking 3-5 characters of your choice to unlock at the start and have to work to unlock all of them.
Alternatively you can set that option for MTX for tournament holders.
Alternatively you can set that option for MTX for tournament holders.
Couldn't they just include an unlock all code, or are passwords and codes just completely dead :(
Are the people who bought the game to play online with randos/their friends not playing the game? What's the logic here?
I'd be fine with an "unlock all" code or something for those who want it, sure.
But the process of unlocking characters was actually really fun for me. This is the best it's ever been done in the series. Especially since I've been losing myself in WoL remembering to pop out every once in a while for an unlock. You almost always get one after a Classic run. I dunno, seeing that Challenger Approaching screen is just so exciting and fun for me, and it's very "Smash."
Actually unlocked my last fighter last night and was a mix of excited to finally have everyone and a little sad I couldn't keep unlocking haha
But the process of unlocking characters was actually really fun for me. This is the best it's ever been done in the series. Especially since I've been losing myself in WoL remembering to pop out every once in a while for an unlock. You almost always get one after a Classic run. I dunno, seeing that Challenger Approaching screen is just so exciting and fun for me, and it's very "Smash."
Actually unlocked my last fighter last night and was a mix of excited to finally have everyone and a little sad I couldn't keep unlocking haha
I just wanna let you know you're making an awful point by comparing a single player game with a fighting game.
