Street Fighter 6 | PS/XB/PC | Out now

These are TMNT costumes, had they not added them nobody would have given a gooseberry fool.

All of the ACTUAL content is reasonably priced. And 90% of the gameplay content updates are free. There's old Capcom arcade games like puzzle fighter, streets of rage, Alpha 2. You can just sit down and play them without purchasing anything, I think that's really cool.

It's weird people are still mad after this fortnite cosmetic model after it being around so long and basically every game using it. In the context of all of the free stuff this game gives you, I can only assume that the people kicking up a fuss over these costumes either haven't played the game or don't understand it's economy.

All of the stuff that actually matters is reasonably priced or free. Where's the issue?

The issue is that it's absurdly over-priced. I should point out that I wouldn't pay a single penny for a cosmetic enhancement in a game. I'm not into dressing up digital dollies. I also have no affection for TMNT. But for those who do, and were perhaps excited about getting this cosmetic tat, the price is obscene. £4 for a single bandana. You could buy a real one for less.

I don't like Fortnite's monetisation at all, I think it's unethical. But "at least" it's free to play -- Street Fighter 6 costs £50.

In the fighting game space, I think Guilty Gear Strive (£40) handles this better -- they release characters (and stages) regularly and you pay £6 (£2) for the ones you want, or packs of 4 for a slight discount. It's simple to understand, appropriately priced, and the purchase is directly linked to what you get without an intermediary game-coin.

Melty Blood Type Lumina (£40) goes the other way, giving you free access to new characters, but with purchasable trinkets (like the £20 art book, or £3 announcer packs) to support the game's ongoing development. Again, there's no game-coin. I think this is fairly tasteful and respectful to the community playing the game.

Street Fighter 6 is clearly a very aggressively monetised game. It's a full price game to begin with, then it has all the premium coin stuff going on, and purchases like the "turtle costume" are very expensive for what they give you with the added psychological element of being time-limited.

It's going far beyond what they "have to do to be profitable" -- they're trying to gouge you.

(P.S. I've had some fun with the Street Fighter 6 base game and think it's decent value for £50. That's not incompatible with the above...)

site23 wrote:I don't like Fortnite's monetisation at all, I think it's unethical. But "at least" it's free to play -- Street Fighter 6 costs £50.

In the fighting game space, I think Guilty Gear Strive (£40) handles this better -- they release characters (and stages) regularly and you pay £6 (£2) for the ones you want, or packs of 4 for a slight discount. It's simple to understand, appropriately priced, and the purchase is directly linked to what you get without an intermediary game-coin.

Melty Blood Type Lumina (£40) goes the other way, giving you free access to new characters, but with purchasable trinkets (like the £20 art book, or £3 announcer packs) to support the game's ongoing development. Again, there's no game-coin. I think this is fairly tasteful and respectful to the community playing the game.

Street Fighter 6 is clearly a very aggressively monetised game. It's a full price game to begin with, then it has all the premium coin stuff going on, and purchases like the "turtle costume" are very expensive for what they give you with the added psychological element of being time-limited.

It's going far beyond what they "have to do to be profitable" -- they're trying to gouge you.

(P.S. I've had some fun with the Street Fighter 6 base game and think it's decent value for £50. That's not incompatible with the above...)

Those games have good monetisation strategies. Too bad they're bad games.

Winckle wrote:

site23 wrote:Guilty Gear Strive, Melty Blood Type Lumina

Those games have good monetisation strategies. Too bad they're bad games.

site23 wrote:I don't like Fortnite's monetisation at all, I think it's unethical. But "at least" it's free to play -- Street Fighter 6 costs £50.

In the fighting game space, I think Guilty Gear Strive (£40) handles this better -- they release characters (and stages) regularly and you pay £6 (£2) for the ones you want, or packs of 4 for a slight discount. It's simple to understand, appropriately priced, and the purchase is directly linked to what you get without an intermediary game-coin.

Melty Blood Type Lumina (£40) goes the other way, giving you free access to new characters, but with purchasable trinkets (like the £20 art book, or £3 announcer packs) to support the game's ongoing development. Again, there's no game-coin. I think this is fairly tasteful and respectful to the community playing the game.

Street Fighter 6 is clearly a very aggressively monetised game. It's a full price game to begin with, then it has all the premium coin stuff going on, and purchases like the "turtle costume" are very expensive for what they give you with the added psychological element of being time-limited.

It's going far beyond what they "have to do to be profitable" -- they're trying to gouge you.

(P.S. I've had some fun with the Street Fighter 6 base game and think it's decent value for £50. That's not incompatible with the above...)

Street Fighter's characters are also like £6 each? And you can also get all the new moves for free for your character.

I don't understand how that's drastically different from the other two games you talked about.

The fighters coins bit is a bit annoying but it also makes it easier for them to do promotions and stuff. Plus it allows them to make their battle pass system free if you always complete it.

Sure, if Street Fighter 6's monetisation model was just "we make characters and sell them for £6 each" I wouldn't be criticising it. But it's not. It's "we sell new characters for 350 fun-coins each, so buy some fun-coins in packs of 250 for £4 or 610 for £9.50, and make sure you pick up their costume for just 750 fun-coins before the promotion ends and you miss out forever...!" I think the latter is a lot more aggressive, and I find the former more palatable. You've got to admit that Capcom are squeezing harder than ArcSys there.

I don't have an inherent problem with buying expansions for a game post release. I just want it to be a simple purchase, made with actual money, for a fair price, without the overt psychological manipulation.

I think I'm done with this.

I don't know if it's because I learned most of my street fighter stuff already when playing 4 or 5

But I'm just really not finding this very engaging to play. There's no mechanics to mix anything up. And it can be very very slow when you play against high skilled players. You spend 15 seconds walking backwards and forwards so you can land the same combo for the 100th time.

I kinda get why team fighting games are so popular in the long termz they're far more engaging and allow you to express yourself more.

I'm the kind of player who would rather lose doing some cool gooseberry fool than win doing something lame. So this doesn't really feel like a game I can enjoy like I used to, which is a shame.

Unbelievably I've made it to Silver Rank with Cammy.

Modern controls are an absolute godsend.

Having said Modern Controls are a god send I can see why some moderate to good Classic players would get pissed off at them. At Silver rank I’m surprised how many people are vulnerable to very basic tactics and very transparent move sets and combos. I almost feel scummy using the auto combo because I would say 50% of players at this level just don’t know how to counteract Cammy basic Level one combo. I’m not deluding myself into thinking I’m good by beating people using it as I can see myself vulnerable to the same tactics from other Modern players who just rely on the one thing they know how to do and execute it pretty well over and over again. I do try to be more mixed up than them but I’m hardly sophisticated.

Just now I fought a Silver Ryu who used Hadouken and Dragon Punch (I think) and that’s all. He just spaced you out with it and that’s all he did. Because I’d never encounter it before I didn’t know how to deal with it so I lost. I rematched and wanted to see what would happen if I forced him to attack me and guess what he did? Nothing, he just sat at the edge of the screen and fired Hadoukens, which I blocked, until the round timed out in a draw. I was left rather dumb founded and wonder if this is how Classic people feel playing me, though this is definitely not how I play.

You lot who are on Gold, Platinum and Master tiers, how do you feel about this stuff and how do you counteract it. I guess naturally as I get better I will know how to naturally respond to this kind of tactic and break through someone’s defences who has found one thing that works for them and then just rinse and repeats.

Personally, I would like an option to toggle 'Classic Only' in matchmaking. I use classic controls and I want to get better at the game by playing against other classic users. I don't think I'm too bad at the neutral game or reading opponents but it's the punishment that I need to improve on. I do find it frustrating when an opponent whiffs and I fail to make them pay as much as I should, only for me to whiff and they pull out an amazing combo effortlessly with modern controls.

I do think that a modern player and classic player in the same tier are not necessarily of equal skill level.

It's a difficult call and depends what you mean by skill level but I think I would agree.

If you take modern controls away from me and get me to practice in Classic for a few hours then my ability to win matches drops off massively. You do the inverse to a Classic player and I think they'll be fine.

However there's a difference between being able to beat an opponent and press the buttons. Modern controls let me do things with a speed and fluidity that Classic players at my level don't know how to deal with and even when they're very basic and repetitive even if they know it's coming they can't prevent it. Whereas if a Modern player was doing it to me I'd be much better equipped to counteract.

I'm not all over SF forums and social media but I'm surprised I've not seen more discourse about it online as it's an interesting balancing act.

I'd love to play one of you vets to see how I get on. When I said I was quitting a few weeks ago because I wasn't prepared to grind that was true. I think what I've found interesting though and why modern controls have been great for me is that they've allowed me to completely negate any grinding. I play maybe a dozen hours a week max and when I boot up I do a quick blast in combo trials then am straight into ranked matches. Rather than feeling like I'm grinding I feel like I'm puzzle solving seeing interesting approaches to fights and different styles I've not encountered. I like the game if oh this person's doing X I'll do Y to counteract it, oh now they're doing A how do I adjust again. That's what I've gotten better at. Pressing the buttons and getting stuff out I'm basically the same as I ever was

I prefer modern controls as for me a fighting game is how you respond to a situation. Someone jumps, dragon punch, someone does a super, parry, etc, the old style controls are a barrier to me doing a dragon punch, it slows the game and puts a skill ceiling so it's not about who is the better tactician it's about who has the fastest wrists.

Modern controls mean I can play for 30 minutes and my wrists don't feel like I've just discovered babestation.

Going back to MK1 after playing SF6, having to do multiple taps before a single dragon punch, it's so off putting and slows everything down.

Captain Kinopio wrote:You lot who are on Gold, Platinum and Master tiers, how do you feel about this stuff and how do you counteract it. I guess naturally as I get better I will know how to naturally respond to this kind of tactic and break through someone’s defences who has found one thing that works for them and then just rinse and repeats.

I'm only in Silver rank myself so not particularly good at the game, but I don't really mind coming up against someone who keeps using the same combo/strategy etc. If it works then I feel it's on me for not being able to effectively counter it.

sawyerpip wrote:

Captain Kinopio wrote:You lot who are on Gold, Platinum and Master tiers, how do you feel about this stuff and how do you counteract it. I guess naturally as I get better I will know how to naturally respond to this kind of tactic and break through someone’s defences who has found one thing that works for them and then just rinse and repeats.

I'm only in Silver rank myself so not particularly good at the game, but I don't really mind coming up against someone who keeps using the same combo/strategy etc. If it works then I feel it's on me for not being able to effectively counter it.

Yeh I agree. The only thing that I felt was off was that the guy literally refused to change it up. He was quite happy to stand still and just draw a round rather than come out to attack.

Re: control types:

If you're in e.g. Silver and using Classic Controls, and you come up against someone playing Modern Controls, it's true they may be stronger at e.g. anti-airs, or using the autocombo to secure a set amount of damage. But they're still at the same rank as you, so to be at the same rank, they must be weaker in something else -- like their footsies, or knowing when to block, or just their overall gameplan is weaker. If you can figure out where they're lacking then you'll be able to exploit that weakness.

I'm not posting this to say anyone's wrong to find it frustrating btw, just throwing out another way to think about it that might be less frustrating.

That's a good way of looking at it!

I'm not really complaining about it, it's more of an observation. Finding out a way around the opponents defenses is my favourite thing about the game.

site23 wrote:Re: control types:

If you're in e.g. Silver and using Classic Controls, and you come up against someone playing Modern Controls, it's true they may be stronger at e.g. anti-airs, or using the autocombo to secure a set amount of damage. But they're still at the same rank as you, so to be at the same rank, they must be weaker in something else -- like their footsies, or knowing when to block, or just their overall gameplan is weaker. If you can figure out where they're lacking then you'll be able to exploit that weakness.

I'm not posting this to say anyone's wrong to find it frustrating btw, just throwing out another way to think about it that might be less frustrating.

I feel like my problem is that my mood. When I'm rested I'm a lot better, but I usually pretty tired when I get a chance to play. Also to get better you kind of have to play worse to learn new strategies.

I just got to Gold with Ken. I actually can't believe that I have gotten to Gold.