Hear me out before you go nuts. Yes, this game is different since you don’t have to pay 60 dollars up front. But, now that the character roster is much bigger than when the game came out I think it’s a good idea. Every f2p game has to have something that keeps the player population as high as possible and encourages each player to play a lot.
A lot of kids and people in 3rd or 2nd world countries might not have the extra cash to buy character packages right off the bat, but they might some time in the future. Even if they never buy a pack more players means quicker search results for matches, more competition, etc… One free rotating character is alright but leaves much to be desired to get you into the game.
I mean, you can’t even use shadow mode. You learn a character then all you’ve learned is lost when the free character switches. Keep in mind these are people who don’t have the extra spending money to buy a character or maybe one or two a year. So, saying just buy that character is not a solution for them. They’re going to stop playing the game and go play something like Dota2. lol
Here is what I suggest. Make all the original characters unlockable with xp. All other characters have to be bought with real money. The amount of xp required to unlock a character should be something like the average amount of xp someone would earn playing the game 3-4 hours every day for a month.
An alternative could be to only have them unlocked offline. So, if they want to use the characters online they have to pay at some point, not the best solution but would retain players longer and entice them to buy a character.
Another alternative/compromise a certain number of season 1-2 characters can be unlocked with xp. IG and MS would decide how many but the player could chose the ones they want from that amount.
I think being able to use KI Gold to buy characters would be cool, but then you need an in-game way of earning the gold similar to SF’s Fight Money.
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Yea, that would give gold a real use too. 
This has been talked about before, but so far it doesn’t seem like it was ever received very well.
I think the biggest difference between this and your traditional Free To Play game (like MOBAs, for example) is that KI should probably be labeled “free to download” or “free to try,” because while it is technically free to play, it’s free form is different than the “standard” F2P model.
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Wasn’t received well by who? lol The moneybags at Microsoft? Well, they can be very shortsighted sometimes and not see the big picture.
By the forum community in general. In the various other threads from before you joined.
Particularly now, with the $60/$50 three season Ultra bundles, KI is effectively at the cheapest it’s ever been. Something like this, in my opinion, would hold more weight if you still had to buy all three seasons separately at $40 a pop as a brand new player.
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To be fair, the community’s opinion doesn’t really matter since a majority are bound to be salty by such a change having already paid for the content. The game started off at 20 bucks, so I don’t see how 60 is cheaper than 20. That math doesn’t add up to me. If IG and MS want to ignore a potential very large player base segment that will pay dividends down he road, that’s their choice.
So you’re saying that Microsoft’s opinion doesn’t matter, and the KI community’s opinion doesn’t matter… on the Microsoft-run, official Killer Instinct forums. I’m struggling to see whose opinion or backing you’re looking for here, then.
Obviously $20 is less than $60; 8 characters is also lower than 21, not counting Shadow Jago (25/26 by the end of Season 3). On the same token, someone wanting to always have access to a single character (or a few) can buy them for $5 per character. There are lots of options for how to access KI’s content, but it’s up to the individual to decide how much they want to spend, and whether having the full range of characters available is worth the $60 price tag.
Like I said, KI is not using the same model as a “standard” F2P game, and should be labeled differently, in my opinion.
I never said MS opinion doesn’t matter. It’s their choice to make. Technically their opinion is the only one that matters, IG can’t even go against what MS says. If MS says do this we don’t care if you disagree with us IG, IG has to do it or individually they can decide to quit their job or try to find a way out of their contract with their publisher MS.
The opinion of new players and players or potential players who don’t have much money to spend on games at this current moment in time but may have some to spend down the road. Many of them are not going to be here to speak on the subject for obvious reasons. I reiterate saying they should just by a character for 5 dollars isn’t an option for them, they don’t have five dollars right now, they may have 5-15 dollars a year to spend on games. I’m sure MS would rather have them spend that 5-15 bucks on this game than on another f2p game.
I would be all for it but not the way SFV does it.
If you clear all the story you get enough fight money for 1 characters. Great. After that most real sources of fight money come from the survival difficulties hard and hell. It is ■■■■■■■ TORTURE to run those things.
I love SFV was but I really mad when they acted like you could reasonably unlock every character without cash and then they lock a majority of the cash behind the harder survival difficulties.
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the only f2p games that actually make money are ones that feature random draws, grinding, paying for overpowered stats, where the devs regularly find ways to make higher max stats every month. Or I guess Kim Kardashian proves you can pay for stamina.
right now KI is as monetized as is reasonably possible. Anything else would definitely be a plus for poor gamers, but KI isn’t at a point where it should be gifted. I’m sure at some point 2 or 3 years down the line the whole game can be $5 (like any other old fighting game during a Steam sale) and people with thin wallets can pick it up.
I always did wonder, what is the dirtiest way to overmonitize KI like it’s a mobile game- why stop at characters, $5 for each shadow move, combos start out at max of 5 hits, then you have to pay $5 to incurease your combo max, $10 for combo breaker ability, $20 for counter breakers… there I think that covers it. And then to wrap it up all nice, just introduce an ubalanced stats system, where you characters raw stats can be leveled up in… I guess Shadow Lords? Doesn’t some chinese SNK ripoff game already do this (XDW…Z… something?). Well i don’t know how bad their monetization is, but I’m sorta certain there’s character levels involved.
The above paragraph is the only way any more aggressive f2p would be worth it.
$5 per character in the current setup is lookin pretty affordable
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Its already pretty affordable and cheaper than any other AAA fighting game on the market.
Some people would probably grind for new chars, but I’d personally just rather buy them. I’d buy them in SFV too if I liked it at the moment.
That’s not true at all, not every f2p game nickle and dimes you for everything. They way that would make money is the same way they make money now, people buy more characters. Affordable for you isn’t affordable for everyone, you are not everyone.
Not really, if you want access to everything in the game, it’s 70 bucks now. That’s more than any AAA fighting game. lol
We rotate characters on a regular basis that are free to play / try. Much like League, you can either just roll with the free choice, or purchase one or more (a-la-carte or via a bundle). You even earn achievements with the free character(s).
I’m unsure how your proposed solution leads to someone that “doesn’t have $5” will somehow spend $15? If they don’t have $5, how will they ever have $15?
While having more people playing is always great (in biz terms that’s usually called “widening the funnel”), you’ve not actually explained how someone that can’t afford $5 will suddenly spend money… when they now have more ways to not spend money.
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KIs model is buy the characters you want to play with, you could buy 2 or 3 for £12 making it cheaper you expect it to be free and just unlock everyone for free? or i know make it the price of a full game and include everyone, like street figher does, which is not free what so ever, also acting like street figher does it right, you forget they made you pay for colour pallets (not costumes simple pallets, then we have 46 different versions that come out costing £25 a time with SF4 so that ended up costing a fortune. if you dont like it dont buy it or play it.
wasnt you the same guy complaining people jump about and you dont know what to do because you havnt practiced? maybe you should play and learn before saying crap like that
If you want to access everything in SFV without grinding it is $60 + the season pass.
if you wanted to access everything in MKX it would be $100+ or wait two years and get MKXL.
Also, wasn’t the Supreme edition $50 on PC? And Shago is just $10. So in total its just $60.
It is, he’s just being cheap and expects a free game. hardly anyone else has complained abuot the pricing untill it was released on PC and everyones all like oh no I can’t buy this because i can’t get mom to give me my pocket money ,