Smash Bros 4 (For Wii U and 3DS)

[Princess Ana]

Cloud and Bayonetta look really cool as characters. Very excited for both.

[Lady Kuno]

WHO WANTS MORE FIRE EMBLEM CHARACTERS?

NOW WITH MORE FE CHARACTERS THAN AN ACTUAL FE GAME

[PikaGod]

You've played some weird arse FE games

[Princess Ana]

Corrin is actually pretty cool for a FE guy, but yeah I was kinda surprised we got more FE rep.

[Lindz]

Originally Posted by Emi

Corrin is actually pretty cool for a FE guy, but yeah I was kinda surprised we got more FE rep.

I mean they could've made the female version the default one, had her on the character select screen an as an amiibo...

Nah need more dudes for Sakurai's sausage festival!

[Jerichi]

>More FE Characters

Meh, at least this one seems interesting.

>Bayonetta

Not surprised and wasn't super hype at first but man she seems really cool.

[biggggg5]

I guess Banjo and Kazooie will have to wait for 5mash

[Talon87]

Is there anyone else who checks in on this thread and is turned off by the frequency of DLC roster updates? I'm really turned off by not just the number of DLC characters but by how they're released one or two at a time every time. As an outsider, it feels like this game's roster has almost doubled since you guys were first playing the demo on 3DS, and I don't like that. A company that withholds 50% of its planned characters from a fighter for future DLC is totally in it for the cash grab. (I realize: all companies are in it for the money. But some more than others. You know what I'm talking about. ) Only way this isn't true is if 90% or more of these bonus characters are free DLC instead of the usual for-money DLC.

When the next game comes out, I seriously hope that most or all of these Sm4sh characters are in it on Day One. If not, and they're deliberately withheld yet again for planned quarterly DLC releases, it'd be the sort of thing that would make me want to boycott the Smash series the same way that Loki boycotted Capcom's fighters a few years back.

[Lindz]

I dun even got the game but if/when I do I'll be annoyed at all the character slots on the screen with a big $ infront of 'em. But either way 7 characters is nowhere near half the roster. The costumes like in any other fighter are ignorable an most stages come with a DLC character or free. Only a few paid standalone ones.

On the bright side Nintendo hasn't locked characters behind pre-orders. MvsC3 / UMvsC3 did that an I noped right outta buying 'em. They haven't locked 'em behind toys either thank goodness! This is just the way of fighting games these days I think? When arcade versions got characters and things added, they would have to release a new version of the game on console. Now instead of charging $50 a year for updates they just go the DLC route. Getting all the characters + stages would cost about that much.

I'm still hoping for a complete edition myself someday as big of a dream as that is!


edit!
http://www.smashbros.com/us/dlc/

Ya characters + stages = like $45.


I doubt 3rd party costumes will be available in vanilla Smash 5. That stuffs promotional an the publishers may not be interested in having them specific series represented at the time. I'd say its iffy that we'll see Ryu / Cloud / Bayonetta as standard, or even returning as DLC. Ryu is most likely to come back in some form the others may be Snake'd.

[Zelphon]

I don't dislike that there are characters or stages that need to be paid for before use because their inclusion has required additional work and that work needs to be pay off.

But I will say the price of said things is a bit too high and the lack of a "try before you buy" option makes coughing up the rather high amount of cash per character being asked that much less appealing.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Zelphon

{The DLC} has required additional work and that work needs to be pay off.

Nintendo pushes this same rhetoric with Nintendo Badge Arcade, an app that prompts children to spend money for attempts at digital decorations. The app is a scam meant to part the feeble-minded and impulse buyers from their money. Even a physical claw machine would be a better use of your money than Nintendo's digital ones. So we know from this, right off the bat, that the pure rhetoric of "I put effort into making this, ergo I deserve money" isn't without problems and that we need to refine our approach to business sales models to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Questions that matter to this discussion ...

• How much effort was put in?
• How much money do you want for it?
• How do your demands compare with business practices in the 1990s (i.e. before DLC)?

Taking a look at Sm4sh, specifically, and its roster of DLC characters, I find these asking prices ...

• Bayonetta: $6
• Corrin: $5
• Cloud + Midgar stage: $6
• Ryu + Suzaku Castle stage: $6
• Roy: $4
• Lucas: $4
• Mewtwo: $4

Summing it up, we're talking $35 just for these seven characters. $35 to have what feels to you like it's "the full Sm4sh package." Now tell me: is Sm4sh really worth $95 + tax as a game to you? If I asked you to give me $95 for it up front, would you? Or would you say, "No, that's not really a fair price. Plenty of other studios make fighters just as fun and only ask $50 to $60 for them"? If you think the $95 is fair, then it's fair. If not, then it's not.

Compare this with fighting games in the past too. Did Mortal Kombat surcharge for the inclusion of the secret character Reptile? Did Capcom surcharge for the inclusion of the secret character Akuma? Even if we turn our eyes to the immediate predecessor to DLC, those CDs or DVDs that used to come with gaming magazines or pre-orders and would give you bonus content, the deals were much more favorable than what Sm4sh is offering. Dead or Alive 3 had a bonus content disc which was only available to subscribers of the official XBox magazine, but that disc not only unlocked the hidden character Ein, it also had lots of bonus costumes for all the characters, especially the most popular girls.

So putting the total costs on the one hand and the comparison with past fighters on the other hand together, I feel like what Sm4sh is asking you guys to do is already wrong. If you're willing to do it, well then do it. Free market forces, guys. Vote with your dollar-votes. But personally, I'd much sooner support a fighter that has everything on board Day One and if, if, it offers DLC content down the road then it does so at no additional charge. Factor those costs into the up-front cost of the game if you have to. If you want to argue, "No, that's too difficult. The way we're doing it is better," then fine, but you've gotta lower your initial starting price. What you''e doing right now, Nintendo & Co., is wrong. You're trying to have your cake and eat it too. "Pay full price for an incomplete game, and then also give us money later to help complete the game." No. Either incomplete upfront price for incomplete upfront game or else complete upfront price for complete upfront game (or incomplete game with later free add-ons).

[biggggg5]

Honestly if i had the money i probably would pay $95+ for smash. I would save up and get as soon as i could because Smash isnt a game im going to play through once and then let it sit on my shelf. I'm going to come back to the game time and time again. I'm going to play it with my friends. I'm going to practice by myself. And the dlc can make it easier to get rather than buying it all up front. I might not be able to buy all the dlc at once but if i have some extra cash this month i can get Roy and then get Lucas next month.

Plus Smash is by no means incomplete without the dlc like the new Battlefront is. All of the features work and you still have plenty of characters and stages to choose from. the dlc is just extra stuff for extra money that you dont have to spend money on if you dont want to. And it is compatible if you play online with people who do happen to have the dlc.

Additionally with things like Bayonetta and the Genos costume they can probe the community for what we want even after the game has come out and supply us with that. Someone had to have said "We want lucas and mewtwo back" or "How cool would it be if we added Ryu." We aren't stuck with the characters we have at launch until the next game, if they added every single character they could, development would take forever. This way we have a game to play while they work on new characters. Although a try before you buy feature would be a smart inclusion.

[Heather]

See bigggggg the thing is that because they're charging for these characters, they've got to be objectively somewhat more powerful than the vanilla roster, otherwise they won't sell. So people that spend the money get better fighters-and people unable to get DLC for whatever reason, but want to play online, are thrown against a wall of DLC players with no way to opt out of having to fight a Mewtwo player. It's not that Smash is incomplete, but the fact that online play, the best way to really have fun with the game, becomes unfun when you're on an unequal playing field.

[Kindrindra]

Well, no. That's a false assumption; People can and will buy for the novelty factor. In the first place, SSB has always been a series about players getting to use their favorite characters from their favorite franchises against other player's favorite characters of their favorite franchises- A FF player with fond memories will likely get Cloud, regardless of how he stands up as a character. They don't need to unbalance the rooster at all to make sales. Your worries assume Pay-To-Win which is just... Not necessary at all. As long as the new characters are at least on a comparable level, players are likely to buy them just to have the option.

[biggggg5]

Like Kin said, I got mewtwo purely for the reason that I never got into melee and wanted to play as one of the most badass Pokemon, but he isn't inherently stronger if you would glance at any of the current, still up in the air atm mind you, tier lists. I main a mii gunner and got good at him not because he top tier but because that's what I like to use. Smash is about playing as your favorites and adding dlc just gets to add more peoples' favorites.

[Ironthunder]

Ask anyone. Mewtwo is not great. Roy's very good, Ryu's amazing if you know the inputs, but both can be played around easily if you know roughly what you're doing. Mewtwo and Lucas... They're rarer iirc, mainly because mewtwo dies stupidly quickly and can't really punish a roll-through, and Lucas... IDK. I think the comp aspect favors speed over range these days.

Also yes I have got Cloud, and holy shitestacks is he a weird one. I mean, I expected him to be really dependent on his Limit Breaks for kills, but... nope. His utilt, usmash and dsmash could be better though.

[Lindz]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Summing it up, we're talking $35 just for these seven characters. $35 to have what feels to you like it's "the full Sm4sh package." Now tell me: is Sm4sh really worth $95 + tax as a game to you? If I asked you to give me $95 for it up front, would you? Or would you say, "No, that's not really a fair price. Plenty of other studios make fighters just as fun and only ask $50 to $60 for them"? If you think the $95 is fair, then it's fair. If not, then it's not.

There are tons of people that play games which would and have said yes. See: Game + Season Passes. Many of those combos push well past the $100 mark. Have ya seen the pricing on fighting game DLC outside of Smash?

- Guilty Gear Xrd
Characters: $7.99 each
Alt Colors: $0.99 each
System Voice: $2.99 each

- Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Bonus Movies: $2.49 - $3.49 each
Bonus Music: $2.49 each

- Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Additional BGM: $1.99 each
Characters: $4.99 each
Additional Colors: $1.99 each
Various Unlocks: $2.99 each
Glasses Pack: $1.99 each
Lobby Avatars: $0.99 each
Character Announcers: $2.99 each
Persona 4 Arena Story Mode: $9.99

- Dead or Ali... let's not even get into this.

And on an on an on.

The difference here being that many of these extra characters in other fighters were locked behind pre-order stuff. They were done an ready to go Day 1. Same really can't be said for Smash characters. Keep in mind that the more expensive of Smash's ones are brand new characters, and come with stage+music+whatever else. Other games characters? Just them an nothing more. Nintendo's also charging less for full blown costumes than other games charge for literal pallete swaps. An remember when pallate swaps were free just like hidden characters were? Times have changed.

[Talon87]

Hmmmmm ... that is disappointing to hear. Admittedly, my newest consoles are a Wii and an XBox Original, so it's not like I've been intimately involved with the fighting game scene for quite some time. (Doesn't feel like it's been that long though, but it has. :\ About ten years already now since the 360's launch, geez ...) If they really are charging people for pallet swaps, that's wrong of them to do but is hard to prove when people are willing to pay money for them.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just too old-fashioned, but I feel like the gaming companies are ushering in the next great video game market crash. The whole pay-to-play thing really turns me off, but Myles's generation which has grown up thinking it's okay to give pay-to-play iPhone apps real money is now in the driver's seat with most gaming purchases and they seem perfectly happy to throw $20, $30, $50 extra a title at the newest video games for mere table scraps. Say what you will about the work that's put in to making new characters for a fighter, but in no way, shape, or form does it come anywhere near 50% of the budget costs for making the original title from scratch. The graphics engine's already made (or licensed), the physics engine's already made (or licensed), you've already made 95%+ of your soundtrack, you've already made 50%+ of your characters, so on and so forth. I'm not going to say you had to put in no effort to make the new seven, but I just cannot accept that the actual cost of making them came anywhere near 50% the rest of production.

At the end of the day, DLC is to fountain drinks what video games are to restaurants. 10¢ per cup in real costs, $1 or more being what the customer is charged. Someone happily pays $3.29 for a large soda and the restaurant makes $3.19 in pure profits off of that sale. The same way I wouldn't allow a restaurant to guilt me into believing that $3.19 is a fair price for soda "because we worked to make it, to stock the cups and syrup, to place the truck orders," etc, I'm sure as hell not going to allow Nintendo or others to guilt me into thinking that the effort to make a $5.99-priced DLC character came anywhere near 10% the development costs of the total game.

[Lindz]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I'm sure as hell not going to allow Nintendo or others to guilt me into thinking that the effort to make a $5.99-priced DLC character came anywhere near 10% the development costs of the total game.

http://kotaku.com/5986592/it-will-bl...-fighting-game

I'm not gonna be guilted either, an I don't buy DLC period (no Cloud for me ;.;), but at least in the fighting game realm characters seemingly cost alot of money to make. Remember you're not just tossing a new character into the game, you're also testing said character against every other currently existing one. Skullgirls vanilla roster size was really small so just imagine how much more one would cost for Smash with its huge roster an additional variables like stages & items, plus whatever cut 3rd party ones take. Plus plus taking into account that not everybody who still owns & plays the game will buy any/all characters.

Horse armor, car decals, golden guns, thats all trash DLC. A new character to a fighting game can at least reasonably be expected to cost the devs some dough and time. That these games come at the price they do with as many characters they do is pretty great.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilty...dated_versions
An its hard ta think about the good ol' day when examples like Guilty Gear X2 abound! It was re-released 5 times! Assuming each version was $40 thats $200 for updates, plus the $50 the original version was! Ya didn't have ta buy each subsequent release just as ya don't gotta buy DLC. At the very least these days the balance updates are free if nothing else.

One bright shining star of hope & goodness in the near future is Street Fighter V. Capcom has said their will be paid DLC characters, but these characters will also be obtainable with in-game currency. We all know this will lead ta grinding but heys. If the masters of iteration an super turbo rereleases are trying an approach like this maybe some others'll follow?

[Kindrindra]

Following up on that, with the expectation of quality these days, the character models have to be exceedingly high quality. For your standard DLC character, you need not just model the character (hard enough work on its own), but also create all the attack effects (tbh I know little about FX so I can't weigh in on this), animate the model (such intensive work that this generally requires a worker separate from the modeller, who specializes just in this), balance game design (hitboxes, frames, damage, knockback, other drawbacks and benefits, all matched up against the other characters and all the character's other options, and the hardest part is that you have to make the character 'fun'), marketing (eugh, but it's neccesary), create alternative models, and many other things besides.

And this is all in addition to the fact that Sm4sh regularly releases free rebalancing updates. Honestly, it's kinda overwhelming, and I'm extremely grateful that we get the characters (along with the music- which requires a composer) for such a comparatively low price, especially when you consider all this cuts into the most important resource of all: Time, which they could be using to move towards producing their next game.

[Mercutio]

I fucking hate you Nintendo.

[Jerichi]

Baeyonetta <3

[Lady Kuno]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

Baeyonetta <3

Agreed 100%. Tempted to get Bayo 2. Is that fun?

[Jerichi]

I still haven't finished 1 but I'm enjoying it so far!

[SoS]

Originally Posted by Princess Kuno

Agreed 100%. Tempted to get Bayo 2. Is that fun?

It's awesome, and I believe it's on sale on the eShop.