#Should all characters in Supervive be immediately unlocked and available instantly, for free?

14 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

spring hill
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I have not purchased any of the supporter packs but felt that characters are unlocked at a reasonable rate, which is good. The fact that they cost 800 in game currency (the equivalent of $8.00usd) feels off-putting especially when you can only purchase in increments of 500, so no one is buying new characters and for the majority of the playerbase it feels like a natural progression for unlocking new characters for free. This seems to work now, but what will happen when the new characters are released?

We expect the new characters to bring some old players back to the game, but far and away the most important aspect of this is accessibility of the new characters to the returning players; however, while it is not clear what will be required to unlock the new characters, unless you have purchased the supporter pack, you will not be able to access the new characters immediately upon returning to the game. This will be a huge turnoff for most players excited for the new season, even if they had no intention of playing the characters initially. This is exacerbated by new releases of popular games such as Marvel Rivals touting that all their characters will be free immediately on release, and all subsequently added characters will continue to be free and immediately available.

Counterarguments: the benefits of having characters be unlocked over time are as follows (if anyone feels these are strawman arguments please respond on what you think I am overlooking).

  1. New players are not overwhelmed by the number of choices they have to make when they first start playing if most of the roster is inaccessible.
    I think this point is rendered moot when the player completes their first battle royale game and is immediately prompted to unlock 1 out of all the remaining characters, forcing them to make a committal choice right then and there on characters they are unfamiliar with.
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  1. A sense of progression will keep people playing the game.
    I think the new character progression rewards and other content like it will do a much better job at giving a sense of progression and retaining players.

In a similar model of unlocking characters over time, Apex Legends, players accrue in game currency over time which can be used to spend to unlock characters. The important distinction is that players can choose to unlock a character at any time, and even when they have unlocked them all, they will continue to accrue the currency by playing so that when a new character is released they can by the character immediately. Using myself as an example, I have accrued enough of that currency that if a new character was announced for the game that I found really appealing and wanted to try, I could jump on Apex when the character is released, immediately buy it, and start using it my very first game back. If I needed to play even a handful of games to unlock the character, I probably wouldn't bother returning to the game.

Therefore, although the issue could be alleviated by reworking character unlocks like Apex has, I feel the current model of unlocking characters overtime is only to the detriment of player retainage and needs to be adjusted so that all characters are unlocked immediately, permanently, for free, including all subsequent characters. Regarding those who have purchased supporter packs, I think there should be something added in leiu of this (not sure what, would love to see people's suggestions). It is a big ask to change the packs since they have been announced, but I think it will have a significant positive impact on player retention.

solemn rain
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Having all characters unlocked is overwhelming for a lot of players (imagine loading up league of legends for the first time and having 170 characters to pick from) I do agree they need to be clear with how new characters will be unlocked and I also think there should be a “later” button when you unlock a character but making every character unlocked is just unreasonable from a business standpoint and overwhelming to new players

prime temple
keen stone
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There is no defence for the monetization of this game. It's disgusting, greedy, manipulative and should not be acceptd.

distant pond
solemn rain
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And that’s why I said that they should be able to skin the choose a hunter screen

spring hill
# solemn rain That’s an expectation for the future especially if they’re adding one character ...

Given that we are very far away from supervive's cast being that size, i feel that is an issue we can kick down the road to figure out later because sticking to 1 character per month release for years would imply supervive has succeeded. Nevertheless, with the current system players will still have decision paralysis when given an unreservable unlock token to use on a character, and on a roster of 50+ characters that will feel more overwhelming than if they are all already unlocked because the decision to pick a character and start a game is much less commital than picking a character to permanently unlock with no choice to switch to one you have not unlocked the next game if you dislike the one you unlocked.

manic vortex
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I, personally, would probably not have stuck with the game if I did not have freedom from the moment I installed to play whomever I wanted and instead had to grind unlocks to figure out who I actually want to play in actual matches.
I'm a Void OTP now, yes, but I bounced around between hunters when I started. That's not something I could've, let alone would've, done if everything was locked except for the few hunters that TC says are "beginner friendly".

Edit: before someone inevitably asks.
Yes, I have played League.
No, I did not play League on my own. I only ever played because I had friends that played it and I stopped playing when those friends stopped playing it.
No, I do not think having to unlock champions in that game is a good idea either, regardless of unlock rates.

shrewd elbow
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^ half of the hunters that are marked as such, feel like a complete lie

nova oak
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what's the point of a free to play game when you have to pay to play in the end anyway (or grind a lot). The only thing it can do, besides making the occasional whale invest early, is fuck up player retention. If someone gets bored with the heroes they have unlocked, why would they keep playing them for who knows how long to get to something they enjoy?

uncut jungle
solemn rain
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There really is no excuse for that there should be some reward for people who bought the founders packs unlocking characters