I think this is key. The poll has no cost associated - be it real money, time delaying the game, loss of other features etc. Of course people are going to choose to have more if there is no cost associated.
I get where youāre coming from. Itāll be disappointing to see Mira and Gargos not having their own stages. At the very least, Iād like to see Kan Raās stage have a Gargos recoloring and Mayaās stage have a Mira recoloring. Something that tells the player that this is their stage. If every other character in the game can claim a home turf (even if the two bonus characters share a recolored stage), itās odd that these two KI characters, one of whom is an original in Gargos, cannot.
That said, at some point, the argument of a prior precedent being set where every character has their own stage, as it pertains to KI1 and KI2 starts to lose merit now that weāre up to twice as many characters as either of those games had.
So when I hear āthatās how itās always been,ā Iām willing to cut MS & IG a little slack. I mean, if this game actually gets a 4th season, which Iām personally hoping for, weāre talking a roster size in the mid-30ās. Iām trying to think of a fighting game of this caliber that has 30+ stages. I mean, what did MKX have, 10, maybe 12? As much as I dislike it, I think this uncoupling of character and stage was somewhat inevitable.
Final pivot here thoughā¦ I do think that there should at least be a compromise between everyone gets a stage and some characters simply get no stage. Itās a completely psychological thing on my part, but a character not having at least some sort of homeā¦ I dunno, it makes them seem like they themselves are tacked on since everyone had the same thing (character/music/stage).
If weāre not getting all new original stages for characters, then I really think the recoloring of existing stages for characters should be the compromise. It might not make everyone jump for joy, but it still satisfies the precedent set in this specific game that every character has their own place.
As much as MS & IG donāt want to sell us something that was sacrificed to do other things, if there was a way to recolor some stages without breaking the bank (and I have no idea how feasible it is), then thatās something I think a lot of people would want to see in a community fund, as evinced by other threads on the topic.
Iāve always been more about quality over quantity, and would quite happily accept Season 3 being the final Season, if having a Season 4 is going to result in an even more disjointed, and unfinished feeling game. That for me, is the most important thing, is the end product actually feeling like a finished product. The disjointed feeling was already there, due to having Season 1 characters having an inferior story mode to Season 2 characters. And if what Ive been hearing is true, this gap in quality regarding story mode is only going to widen with Season 3. In the end, I feel consistency throughout the seasons, is much more important, than constantly bringing in new modes, which most people never asked for, and many wonāt use (at least long term). And ārebalancingā the game for the millionth time, which always invites as much derision as it does praise. And sometimes more so.
I feel a stage recolouring would be an okay compromise, but I would be against a community funded campaign for that. And Im sure far fewer people would be willing to help fund that, than fully-fledged, proper new stages. Simply recolouring an existing stage clearly requires considerably less work, and less money, than an entirely new stage. So, I think any community funded campaign regarding stages should be for all-new stages. Iām sure many more people would be willing to contribute to that, than to to simply re-colour existing stages. And that is the case for me personally. I would contribute to a community fund for brand new stages, but definitely wouldnāt to simply recolour an existing stage.
I think the best way to go, would be to have a āgoalā system in place, where if a minimum amount is reached, brand new stages just for KI canon characters (returning and new) will be created. But if the larger target is met, then all characters without a stage, including guest characters, will have a new stage made for them.
Yeah, I think that this is a major downside to the seasonal model that Iām not sure anyone really accounted for when this project was undertaken initially. Not just the fact that IG might have a different vision for characters, but how they might perceive certain modes and how they might improve upon them.
To me, the season one characters all feel like they could use more moves and more mechanics. Iām not saying that every character has to be Aria or Cinder or Aganos or whatever, and there IS something to be said for some characters having more of a simple approach, but if thatās the goal with these characters, then it makes the seasons feel a bit disjointed. Iām trying to think of a fighting game where thereās so much deviation between what some characters can do versus others. Is that a good thing? I donāt know.
Same goes for story mode. The lack of symmetry between season one and season two is downright jarring and I feel like itās really a victim of the seasonal model. We have 7 of the core characters of KI and their stories are barely told through the game. Sure, we got some awesome character bios on this site, but even those started out with a small amount of text for the earlier characters before growing and growing in to excellent narratives.
Itās rather symbolic; like this whole KI venture has improved over time and while thatās great for the game, the downside is that earlier work seems to be getting left in the dust to varying degrees, whether itās move lists, retro outfits, story, etc.
I agree that consistency is important, but the victim there might be ambition. Itās a strange balance IG has to keep right now. They want to keep improving the game in every way possible and forge ahead, but they still have to keep the older content as good as possible because, even though itās a seasonal model, itās seasons within the same game.
The downside of that is the rebalancing, which some people love and some people hate. People were tearing their hair out when the season 2 rebalancing was announced. Now, I think a lot of people loved the season 3 rebalance, partially because it was expected (where season 2ās wasnāt really, if I recall correctly). But still, youāre changing current stuff and people that have played those characters for a long time and got used to them might not love the idea of relearning their main. So yeah, I think itās rather tough for them.
As for the modes that nobody wanted, I tend to disagree here a bit. I want IG to try new things and give us new experiences. Just because I didnāt specifically say āmake me a mode like Shadowsā (which some people did want and some people really enjoy), doesnāt mean they shouldnāt try to stretch their wings and fly a bit in this regard.
I donāt think that the devs should be slaves to our whims, fixing only what we request and improving only what we request. Iām sure youād agree. At the end of the day, theyāre trying to make the best experience possible and I personally like that theyāre trying to constantly evolve this game, even if their vision doesnāt always coincide completely with what I want or asked for.
Iām not going to speculate on how much time and money goes in to recoloring a stage. I vaguely recall Adam Isgreen talking about how recoloring Jagoās stage to make Shadow Jagoās stage was not nearly as simple as some seemed to believe.
Now, does it take less time and cost less than building a new arena from scratch? Iād think thatās a fair assumption. But we really donāt know how much less and we donāt know what either of those numbers are. If we say a stage recoloring costs 70% less than a full, new stage, wellā¦ 70% of what?
From everything Iāve read, new stages are incredibly expensive, arguably one of the most expensive things in this game. Iād be very curious to know what number a community fund would have to hit in order get stages for just the KI characters or everyone for that matter. Are we talking hundreds of thousands? Over a million?
Thatās why, to me, a recoloring is an adequate compromise. Notice, Iām not jumping for joy over the idea, but Iāll certainly take it over nothing. If brand new stages is too time consuming, to labor intensive, and too expensive to the point where a community fund wonāt cover it, then if this is the next best possibility, itās something Iām open to.
But yeah, Iād really like to see what those numbers would need to be for this to happen, either a recoloring or new stages.
I think it is a victim of the seasonal model, for sure, but I feel these issues could have been forseen and accounted for, which Iāll touch on later.
I think the poblem with S3 rebalancing, isnāt so much those balance changes themselves, but because it does seem like total overkill when you take into account how many ārebalancingā changes the game has already undergone so far. And thereās always a risk when you do that, that you end up creating more gameplay issues than were originally there. People have already had to relearn certain characters due to changes up to 4 times by now, and that really is too much. Even MK9, which was notorious for the amount of patching and fixing it went through in the name of ārebalancingā, canāt match this reiteration of KI when it comes to that.
I do agree that the devs shouldnāt be slaves to the fans. The point Iām really trying to make, is that consistency between seasons so that the game will feel like a cohesive, and complete package, should have been prioritised above all else. You mentioned issues with the seasonal model before, and I agree to an extent, but I do think it is perfectly possible to evade those potential issues, if you make it a priority to tackle them, and make sure that the game feeling cohesive throughout is of paramount importance.
Now, see, there are things that I and many others have requested, such as ultimates/no mercies, which if the devs deem as unimportant and implement a new mode they see as being better for the game, then that is acceptable, and they should feel free to do that. It is harder to swallow though when things that are necessary to the gameās continuing cohesion, and a satisfying finished product at the end are being neglected in favour of the devs wanting to implement a new mode which isnāt needed to help the game be a cohesive whole. For example, not implementing things like ultimates is fine, no matter how much they are requested. Neglecting Season 1ās story mode, and allowing it to remain inferior to Season 2ās, is something I think is perfectly acceptable to take issue with the devs over. Iād also include the decision to stop giving every character their own stage in that.
I didnāt mean to imply that recolouring a stage was simple, or didnāt cost anything. I just meant that whatever work and cost goes into recolouring a stage, it is very safe to assume that in both instances, itās considerably less than making an entirely new stage from scratch. If that werenāt the case, they might as well have just given Omen a completely new stage, instead of giving him a darkened Tigerās Lair.
I think if enough fans want it to happen, then it can happen. The kickstarter campaign for the Friday The 13th game reached itās goal of $700,000 within 3 weeks. And that was to fund a whole game.
Thatās why I think a goal/target system regarding new stages would be perfect. But obviously for that to happen, devs would have to make it clear how much making a brand new stage from scratch is going to cost. But they should make targets, so that canon KI characters are given priority, but if a higher target is met, then even guest characters would get their own stage too.
As for recolouring stages, I do think that is an adequate compromise, and that could be included in any community fund for stages. With recolouring stages being implemented if only the lower target of funding is reached. That is how it could work:
Lowest target is reached= Recoloured stages for canon KI characters.
Middle target is reached= Brand new stages for canon KI characters
High target is reached= Brand new stages for guest characters as well as canon KI characters. 
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really nice ideas.
(my short post looks ultra short below yours)