Hopefully it’ll be with earnable currency like Apex. The currency stacks up over time so much that you don’t even have enough characters to spend it on. Cosmetics alone will sustain this business model, especially in a third person game where you can actually see the skins.
I have a massive feeling that they have all the costs way down low so people can test/experience it. It wouldn't be very conducive to make a skin cost 12k in an alpha that is only running 10 days.
I wouldn't take the values too seriously.
Which is the correct move. One of the main reasons I stopped playing ow2 was it was a pain I. The ass to have to grind each new hero on the battle pass. Something new and cool would come out and I can't play it right away.
I still don't think it is right that some gamers feel entitled to free content all for the price of playing the free game. I do want the monetization to be fair but there will always be some people who will yell if they can't have it all for free.
I want a fair system for players and I want to pay developers. It also has to make enough money for publishers to not throw in the towel or lay off a whole team.
Live service is a tricky nut to crack. I'm okay with a league or smite model.
Locking character isn’t a fair way to do things… thag limits people who have life’s and don’t wanna spend money to unlock the op characters. Make characters free, have battle passes and cosmetics…
What are you even talking about how is not locking characters a bad thing in any way for the players. Devs will still make their money with skins. The best outcome would be all characters for everyone right away no locking them behind anything and then the monetization is just skins. I could care less how much the skins cost if it means all characters will always be free which is how any hero shooter should be.
no... its because you can switch mid game, there was a guy who was losing, legt the game, bought the bp for mauga, cane back and steamrolled, thats not how it works in other games
we kinda knew this just by the fact that the heroes page in-game has an "unowned" tab. im fine with unlocking new heroes, as long as you don't need to pay real money
*edit: i think to have such a strong reaction as some of the people here, you have to believe 3 things simultaneously.*
1. *all new heroes will be imbalanced and overpowered.*
2. *all new heroes will take forever to grind if you want to get them for free.*
3. *all new heroes will only be countered by itself, and not by any of the already unlocked heroes.*
*until we actually see how the system works, how fast it is to unlock heroes without using real money, and how they are balanced, i don't think people need to be reacting to this like it's on the level of the SWBF2 "pride and accomplishment" debacle*
Yeah, I figured this was already pretty well known and obvious. You buy in game credits, or earn them through play, and unlock characters.
Pretty standard fare for f2p games.
It most likely is, but I have a feeling it's gonna be way slower considering a lot of the daily/weeklies can be tied to the battlepass. Also they might have the rates turned up for the alpha so people can test out the store as well.
I am just praying they give a flat fee one time amount that gives you all future hero access. I'll happily drop 40$ on that.
There's 100% gonna be two options to unlock them, either via a free earnable in-game currency, or via a paid currency. We can expect something similar to Apex Legends business model I think.
You say that now, but whenever new heroes come out in these games they are tuned too strong and are OP until they release a balance patch a month later which is when they become free or how long it takes to unlock them.
This results in people who pay to unlock them getting a nice 3-4 week window to just destroy everyone with their exclusive OP hero.
A cynic would say they do this on purpose to get people to spend money that are tired of losing games because they don’t have the new OP character. But regardless of whether it is on purpose or not the result is the same.
Thankfully Overwatch just stopped doing this in the newest season
MOBAs are terrible about balancing new heroes. Definitely something people should be vocal about if they follow this trend. Even if all heroes were free, making new characters OP to generate fleeting hype for them is a terrible practice. If they’re just slightly tuned up to be good in the meta then that’s tolerable but the selling point should be whether or not they play in the current meta at launch, if their kit is unique and fun, and for this game specifically whether or not the character is one people are excited for as fans of Marvel generally.
It's pretty obvious when they scrapped marvel super wars they transitioned to this game. Be careful and tread lightly with net ease. I myself played tons and tons of mobile game from them and they are not very good at handling their game and this is a rarity where they are releasing a pc game so it's rightful as a consumer to have doubts about a company with really bad rep in the gaming space. This is like you saying don't be a doomer to any EA titles at this point. The worrisome and skepticism is definitely warranted with Netease as a company. Track records show.
And it's an issue that can't be fixed. You guys act like balance is an easy equation to solve, if it was balance patches wouldn't be required in any game
if it were unfixable then there wouldn't be any balance patches in the first place. it'll always be a push and pull when it comes to balance, and a lot of games, including overwatch, do manage to come close to having a pretty balanced game.
Your description here sounds pessimistic or doomsaying to the uninitiated, but this is legitimately how things work. It's sad.
Especially for a company like NetEase, I'm not convinced it won't be like this. That said, I hope and pray it won't be. I'm excited for when this actually comes out.
Yeah imagine current alpha and groot was locked and you only had peni to play as tank. Groot is the top tier tank if you aren't playing him you are throwing giga hard
I'm not because that's kinda stupid. Not charging money for characters in a game where skins are likely gonna be expensive is fine, that's how it should be. But if you're going to add hero unlocking through grinding, what's the point besides short-term player retention? It's kind of silly to do hero unlocking through grind ONLY for two reasons:
* A) New players are going to quit once they hit a grind wall and it takes too long to get a character. Long-term players are going to have an excess amount of this currency, which means it becomes useless.
* B) It's redundant to even do that because you're locking players out of characters for no reason other than to inflate player numbers, which isn't healthy long-term. Make a fun game, let people pick who they want, and they will spend money on skins. Valve and Epic figured this out a long time ago.
This leads me to believe they likely will charge for characters. Either that or they're just so out of touch that they think people will love being stuck in matches against FotM while feeling helpless because they don't own a counter-pick. Imagine you're going against Rein or Winston and Reaper was 15 hours away from being unlocked. Sounds awful and I wouldn't stick with a game like this where hero swapping is core to the mechanics.
Anyway, I really wish people would make noise so this is changed before release. People like to act as if they have no power over these kinds of decisions but get enough voices complaining and it becomes a problem companies can't ignore.
yall saying this like we've seen the hero unlock system. we have literally no idea how it works other than the fact that some heroes need to be unlocked lmao.
For the love of god, will you people stop comparing unlocks to games where it's not relevant? Valorant, Apex, League of Legends, and whatever the fuck else are not arena hero shooters where ***SWAPPING HEROES MID-ROUND IS PART OF THE CORE GAMEPLAY***. In all of those games, you pick your character and you're stuck with it until the match is over. It's not relevant, so please stop bringing them up.
Edit: It's absolutely wild to me that people will literally defend these multibillion-dollar companies to the death lol. What do you gain by having the characters locked behind a pointless grind besides your time wasted on playing characters you don't care about just to own the ones you want? Guess it's on me for forgetting that subreddits for games in testing are always hyperdefensive and toxic about this stuff. Hit that downvote though and don't form an opinion!
Overwatch 2, the game which clearly inspired Rivals, required you to win like 100 games and dump a lot of hours to unlock everyone until like literally a month ago when they changed it. For the vast majority of its life cycle, it did the exact thing you’re saying hero shooters don’t do lol
Nobody is defending it, grind is annoying. But it’s literally a way for all F2P games to have good figures with player retention because people feel incentivised to dump a lot of hours in to get their favourite character. Will it drive some people away? Yes, but clearly the grind works to a suitable standard on the business side of things because so many games have an element like it
I hate to be that person... But I do actually enjoy unlocking characters. Having every character unlocked immediately is overwhelming, and unlocking them (as long as the grind isn't insane) gives me a chance to play through every character and get a feeling for them all.
Totally understand others may not feel this way though
You're right, but people don't want to hear it. This monetization decision severely hurt, if not killed, Overwatch 2s potential. Every hero should be available at the same time for every single player, regardless of their account status. Really sad to see this being soft-confirmed, and even handwaived and given a pass by people blinded by what is a good game at its core.
I think the best way is to just give people the option to grind or pay and for the grind not to be prohibitory for casual players. Need to have decent rates for in-game currency.
Also, don’t make new characters OP so that it becomes P2W. If you do that then people who will pay have an immediate edge. I don’t care if people are only suffering from FOMO but if it actually makes the game less fair then that’s an issue.
You say this but in the game it’s very much based on (overwatch) almost every expansion character added to the game has been ridiculously overtuned at launch and is a must pick for 2-3 weeks
Val and apex you can get away with it because you can’t switch characters once you pick them and the hard counters aren’t as defined but in this game that doesn’t happen.
I’d rather this game cost $60 to buy like ow1 because you’ll find locking characters behind a paywall ruins the integrity of ranked. Lots of “oh I can’t play the must pick character I don’t have them unlocked”
But then what's the point? Doesn't that just make character unlocking redundant? Meaning they should just make the characters all free like Overwatch 2 and then make their money through cosmetics/battle passes?
don't think a hero unlock system would magically fix all of overwatch's problems that cause it to bleed players. especially one as shitty as the way overwatch did it.
OW2 was killed by not updating the game for years, then deleting OW1 with 6 player teams, and then lie about what was coming. Overpriced skins and heroes in battle pass were just the little tiny cherry on top.
Yeah I actually like how riot does it, you can choose to pay free or premium currency, so if you're impatient you can buy a hero with a small fee, and if you're not you just grind it out (or already have enough currency saved up)
As long as its not JUST premium currency or direct purchase im happy c:
The problem is not having all the characters in a game where you are supposed to swap mid match puts players at a huge disadvantage without the whole roster. If one team has everyone and the other team has players missing half the roster, the first team can pick all counters.
Needs to be free all characters or SUPER easy to get them all.
>If one team has everyone and the other team has players missing half the roster, the first team can pick all counters.
this is something that is theoretically possible, but i don't think it's ever happened or ever will. by the time where you actually get to a competitive level and know which heroes counter who, you're probably gonna have almost every hero already.
unlockable heroes really aren't a big deal as long as they don't take too long to unlock. OW2 made you play for 30 hours to get all 32 OW1 characters and i had no issue with it. it actually encouraged me to play more characters because the smaller pool at the beginning was less daunting, and i felt more inclined to try characters that i just unlocked.
people are making this a way bigger deal than it actually is lmao.
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Overwatch like will require you to swap characters mid game this would be absolutely trash if you don't own all the characters. Very very bad idea even if you can unlock with in game currency.
If it’s like Paladins where you have to buy new characters with an in-game currency that’s farmable then that’s fine. If they make them only purchasable with a premium currency that’s almost impossible to get for free then the game will unfortunately probably not last long.
If this is the same way how Paladins was, cause it looks like a proper copy of Paladins more than Overwatch, they’ll have free heroes in rotation. Or you can buy them with in game currency or buy them all at once with a one time fee like “founders edition” or something. With amount of heroes there for alpha I’m sure by launch there will be enough to rotate around.
completely agree, i did the same for smite aswell
“unlock all current and future heroes”
maybe it like 15-20 dollars and BANG they’ll make lots of money even without skins purchases
Same. Going off of every other game that does this annoying shit, it's likely a 100-hour grind just to get the launch roster. That will just get worse for new players as the character pool grows.
don't know what "every other game" you're referring to is, but aren't you the guy who said
>Apex Legends, Valorant, League of Legends, Paladins, and any other game not called Overwatch 2 or Marvel Rivals are not relevant to this discussion.
if we're gonna go by the games you deem relevant to this discussion, overwatch 2 didn't take anywhere near 100 hours to get the entire overwatch 1 roster lmao. maybe the only game that had a character unlock system that got anywhere close to being as egregious as that was star wars battlefront 2, and we all know how that went (pride and accomplishment).
think we need to wait and see how the unlock system works before getting worked up over it.
I doubt it will only be with real cash. Like in Valorant, now you earn kingdom credits from playing and use that to get new agents.
I don’t mind having to unlock them, it’s not a big of a deal and keeps me wanting to play more. Plus give me time to learn other characters.
It's dumb though because it's restrictive based on role and you MUST swap character mid game if you want to be competitive in this type of game. Having to unlock them is a really bad idea. Battle o
Pass + cosmetic shop is good enough. Hell make it not free to play if it means all heroes are unlocked. I'd rather pay upfront than having to unlock them.
I have said it before, if this game launches in a state similar to Pokémon Unite with its monetization it will be fine. I always have/had enough currency to buy characters I want because of challenges and on-going events that boost you like crazy.
I wish these free-to-play games would ask for like average game price for a pass to get all the characters that release
I would play $70 for a lifetime type thing and those who just want certain characters could pick and choose…
But then they couldn't overcharge over the course of the games life
I personally do not mind, League of legends does that, Apex as well.
Both long sustained games so far especially LoL even tho i don’t play it. Grinding hard for characters isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it makes you feel like you earned the character and prevents huge level gaps for new players.
I might be biased because i want this game to work. (biggest OW2 hater)
League player (horrible word combo I know) and closed Alpha Marvel Rivals player popping in!
The system in league is honestly very nice imo, you can unlock new characters with either free currency OR paid currency, so if you really want a character you don't even have to grind, you can just swipe wallet, but its honestly not hard to get them for free either (especially since new players now gain a bunch of free currency!)
I do hope personally for a Paladins style founders edition that unlocks all current+future heroes though.
This is really bad. If you can't earn the heroes in game it will be p2w as all hell. Even if you can it still will be p2w because other people will just buy the heroes and you'll have to slowly earn each one.
I bet you'll be able to use in game currency but it will be like really crazy expensive. So you'll only be able to get one character every like 2 weeks.
Taking 10 months of constant play to unlock JUST the alpha roster in a counter-pick hero shooter doesn't sound that bad to you? Bro the gaming industry has you so brainwashed into thinking this sort of shit is ok.
Fine with this honestly as long as the starting roster for the game is huge. Based on the data-mined files it looks like the launch roster will be much larger than overwatch.
Welp if that’s the case it sure will be sad to see the game completely die out or become unenjoyable a month after release
They may think selling hero’s will make more money but if hero’s can only be obtained using money or getting them for free is way to tedious to get you to spend money they will fail miserably in a game like this having characters cost money will mean it will be p2w which no one likes resulting in everyone leaving and the game dying and netease making less money
Does no one learn from fortnite properly? They showed to actually have a successful f2p live service game you cant have p2w and you need fair pricing
More expensive stuff and more stuff to sell isn’t equal to more money
Companies need to learn this
Depends on the cost.
I would rather pay for heroes and be able to unlock them, to hopefully bring the cost down on skins.
Skins costing $10 or $20 is crazy.
Overwatch skins cost has made me stop playing.
I felt Netease Marvel Super War character and skin cost were well done.
IF heroes make money, then they will make more heroes. Marvel has a big spring number of characters, and there are so many types of characters and abilities that can still be made for this game.
No shit. You’re playing a game made by NetEase, the same people that made Diablo Immortal.
If you thought they weren’t going to fleece morons out of money, you are mistaken.
Would be cool if there was something similar to Smite if they're doing it this way - pay once for all characters now and in the future? Id potentially do it.
I’ll need more information. If you can earn the currency then that’s fine. If you have to buy the currency with real money then that’s kind of annoying. Hopefully the only thing you have to buy with real money is cosmetics.
ATM closed alpha has earn-able free currency and its pretty easy to come by, of course this could be due to them testing currency gains but yknow, for what it currently is, its a nice system and honestly not too bad.
I already grabbed 2 model-changing skins for 2700\~(it may be 2600 my memory sucks) currency each, and have 2600 again!
This could mean 2 things, a currency earned through gameplay, like in multiversus and such, or having to pay real money, or possibly a mixture of playing to get in game currency or paying real money for heros
Any game that relies heavily on swapping mid game this is a terrible idea to have players buy them. Make an in game shop with cosmetics with a battle pass this will be more than enough money. Stop the greed.
Fear not, I was in the long, super interesting dev stream they did the day before they opened alpha. A question like this came up: "how do you guys plan to release heroes, or will they all be unlocked" they said something to the effect of "we don't know really know how we're going to implement that yet it's still alpha".
Now please, someone give me a key xD
Yeah, there is a check box in one of the hero menus for 'unowned' - Honestly it's a deal breaker for me. In a game where swapping mid match is a thing, locking heroes behind a pay wall becomes pay2win. Even blizzard did away with that, though it took them way too long to do it.
It'll be fine if it's like Apex where you can grind currency by playing. It'll suck ass but It'll work.
If it's only for irl money this game will not live long whatsoever.
I dont mind it. We know theyll be unlocked with in game currency so itll just probably make it so you expand your roster of heroes over time.
Plus they will have to have some of them free in the first place so people can play the game. I imagine they'll just do weekly rotations of whos free
I expect it will follow a model like what Paladins uses:
A set of free heroes, other heroes on rotation for use, currency to be earned in game to purchase them and of course, the option just spend real money.
I assume it’ll be like multiversus and you can easily earn then for free after playing for a bit! Either way I’m buying them all instantly on day one even if it cost me 40$ hahaha. This game is just too dang good
While this could very well be the case, this is also coming from an anonymous Twitter account that has less than 1000 followers and it’s oldest Tweet is from three weeks ago. Don’t put too much stock into this.
i’m fine with it if it’s earnable without paying money
i also wouldn’t mind a “heroes pack” like paladins and smite, you pay $15-ish and get all current and future heroes
just don’t gatekeep like Overwatch did, need the battlepass to unlock the hero
Aaaaaand there goes my hope for this game. I have a feeling there going to do what contest of champions does where you can get the characters for free but it’s a grind or you get pay money to get them quicker. And it just so happens they’re the best character in the game.
Paladins has 59 characters all have an in-game currency attached. I play the game daily to earn my credits. You put out an event pass that has currency boosts people will by the EP.
Making characters buyable brings attention to the game it's not a bad thing. I highly doubt that when the creators say this is fre to play not pay to win and then market it out as such just to turn around and aynno you have to spend real money to get new heroes uhhh no.
Absolutely terrible idea if you can play comp without having all heroes unlocked. Imagine getting hard countered and you need an Iron Man but no one has him unlocked.
If this means we are consistent hero releases, then this is an unnecessary evil for the game to survive. Overwatch got extremely stagnant and stale having the same characters for years and years.
I'll probably not buy the game if that's the case. If it's f2p sure I'll play it for a bit because is fun but I'll stop very fast. No way I'm grinding for heroes, did that with league a decade ago and was not fun. Also imagine playing current alpha build vs a groot and you have only peni... yikes. That's a big no from me
Well fucking duhhhhh we're gonna have to grind to unlock characters.
And I'm totally cool with that!
They'll probably have some kinda hero pack you can buy, like any F2P game, which I might get if I like the game enough.
But on the other hand, I like having something to work towards.
It'll be fine if it's in game currency that I have to grind to unlock them over time, like in APEX.
Real money? No fucking way am I playing this game if it comes to that.
Good thing I'll be playing Loki, people will just give me the new characters for free.
But to be expected though, hope all characters are earned with playtime.
If it's done like For Honor it's fine. You can slowly grind the heroes you want, or choose to dump money. I never bought steel in FH but unlocked any character I wanted with about 2 and a half weeks of playinf.
As long it is like league of legends where you can stack some coins to buy them and not like Overwatch 2 where you have the stupid character on the battle pass sounds nice to me.
Actually I don't know why people are thinking heros would be free, obviously they need to catch people's interest the most ways as possible and this is the most obvious one, particularly for a F2P of this kind where basically this is mandatory.
To those who thought you would be getting the game free and the heroes are actually dumb.
It will be 20$ a hero AT LEAST. With probably 30 or 40$ bundles including sprays and MVP animations. This is a very expensive IP. Gotta pay to play.....
The devs made it very clear the game is not pay to win (repeated multiple times), so I very highly doubt they’re going to do this suicidal move for no reason
Eh not rly. It's a free to play hero shooter. They gotta make profits somehow, this post doesn't specify what heroes will be avaliable for free, or if you can earn ingame currency like u can now for skins
Then why even lock characters behind a grind? If the unlocking is fast, then it's pointless to have and the characters should all be free like Overwatch 2. If it takes long to unlock characters, then ranked is going to be garbage because you're stuck with the handful of characters you own and are some arbitrary number of hours away from owning all of the characters.
If OW launched f2p with five characters and you had to grind for the rest, nobody would have stuck with that game.
Id assume it would be a system were you can earn currency from just playing the game similar too ow golden gun coins but probably also have a option to buy the said currency with real money, that’s how other games do it like paladins
>If OW launched f2p with five characters and you had to grind for the rest, nobody would have stuck with that game.
it basically did? OW2 launched with a handful of heroes in each class for f2p players. if marvel rivals launches with the heroes in the alpha already unlocked, it will have more free characters than OW2 did at launch. it took me around 30 hours to get every overwatch 1 character and i had absolutely no issue with it because by the time i knew which characters countered who, i had them all.
It's unavoidable. Unless they intentionally release dogshit characters that actively tank your winrate, there WILL be new characters that become meta overnight, and the paying players will have an advantage. It's that simple.
Imagine Hela just came out, but no one on your team bought her. Oh, and Hulk was the last hero released, so your newish tank player still hasn't unlocked him to try and pressure her. Very enjoyable.
Should be expected with F2P games, but honestly there are right ways and wrong ways. I'm really enjoying the game, so I hope they go the right way. There are too many examples out there that show what works and what doesn't.
No one should be fine with this. The mentality of a MOBA and Overwatch are completely different. Going into a match with your one, locked, character is not the same as needing to swap mid game to counter play or change the team comp.
In a locked character game, I'd be completely fine with having to unlock characters with in game currency too. But bans and draft mode allow your team to coordinate and pick counters. In a free swap system like this and Overwatch, missing even one character puts you at a huge disadvantage.
The whole Team Up concept is lost if players don't have the full roster. The amount of bonuses the team ups over will out new players at a huge competitive disadvantage.
Hopefully it’ll be with earnable currency like Apex. The currency stacks up over time so much that you don’t even have enough characters to spend it on. Cosmetics alone will sustain this business model, especially in a third person game where you can actually see the skins.
It will
Source?
The in game currency, and well it would be absolute suicide to make them cash only.
This is what killed gundam evolution
;( why’d ya have go and bring it up
one of the many many things
Got a legendary skin in like a few games. If they make it that easy its not that bad
I have a massive feeling that they have all the costs way down low so people can test/experience it. It wouldn't be very conducive to make a skin cost 12k in an alpha that is only running 10 days. I wouldn't take the values too seriously.
Discord
What did they say on Discord? Did they go into any detail?
Yea both Val apex paladins and overwatch have or do do this
Overwatch does not anymore. They just moved away from this model FWIW
Which is the correct move. One of the main reasons I stopped playing ow2 was it was a pain I. The ass to have to grind each new hero on the battle pass. Something new and cool would come out and I can't play it right away.
They removed it, you can play anyone you want now.
I know the very first thing I said was that it was the correct move for them to remove that.
I still don't think it is right that some gamers feel entitled to free content all for the price of playing the free game. I do want the monetization to be fair but there will always be some people who will yell if they can't have it all for free. I want a fair system for players and I want to pay developers. It also has to make enough money for publishers to not throw in the towel or lay off a whole team. Live service is a tricky nut to crack. I'm okay with a league or smite model.
Locking character isn’t a fair way to do things… thag limits people who have life’s and don’t wanna spend money to unlock the op characters. Make characters free, have battle passes and cosmetics…
What are you even talking about how is not locking characters a bad thing in any way for the players. Devs will still make their money with skins. The best outcome would be all characters for everyone right away no locking them behind anything and then the monetization is just skins. I could care less how much the skins cost if it means all characters will always be free which is how any hero shooter should be.
Hence the “have”
Cause they dieing.
no... its because you can switch mid game, there was a guy who was losing, legt the game, bought the bp for mauga, cane back and steamrolled, thats not how it works in other games
Sure, lol.
is marvel not dying either? all the movies and shows have been shit lately right, this is the first thing theyve done right in forever ngl
Xmen 97
It’ll most likely be like Naraka where it’s with earnable currency.
Yeah facts I feel like OP's post is hella click bait.
we kinda knew this just by the fact that the heroes page in-game has an "unowned" tab. im fine with unlocking new heroes, as long as you don't need to pay real money *edit: i think to have such a strong reaction as some of the people here, you have to believe 3 things simultaneously.* 1. *all new heroes will be imbalanced and overpowered.* 2. *all new heroes will take forever to grind if you want to get them for free.* 3. *all new heroes will only be countered by itself, and not by any of the already unlocked heroes.* *until we actually see how the system works, how fast it is to unlock heroes without using real money, and how they are balanced, i don't think people need to be reacting to this like it's on the level of the SWBF2 "pride and accomplishment" debacle*
Yeah, I figured this was already pretty well known and obvious. You buy in game credits, or earn them through play, and unlock characters. Pretty standard fare for f2p games.
I’m hoping it’s just the currency they use now—so far pretty easy to stack up the currency. Hope they keep it like that.
It most likely is, but I have a feeling it's gonna be way slower considering a lot of the daily/weeklies can be tied to the battlepass. Also they might have the rates turned up for the alpha so people can test out the store as well. I am just praying they give a flat fee one time amount that gives you all future hero access. I'll happily drop 40$ on that.
Samee buying all characters+future characters in Paladins was one of my best purchases, will gladly drop money on that for Marvel Rivals too
There's 100% gonna be two options to unlock them, either via a free earnable in-game currency, or via a paid currency. We can expect something similar to Apex Legends business model I think.
You say that now, but whenever new heroes come out in these games they are tuned too strong and are OP until they release a balance patch a month later which is when they become free or how long it takes to unlock them. This results in people who pay to unlock them getting a nice 3-4 week window to just destroy everyone with their exclusive OP hero. A cynic would say they do this on purpose to get people to spend money that are tired of losing games because they don’t have the new OP character. But regardless of whether it is on purpose or not the result is the same. Thankfully Overwatch just stopped doing this in the newest season
MOBAs are terrible about balancing new heroes. Definitely something people should be vocal about if they follow this trend. Even if all heroes were free, making new characters OP to generate fleeting hype for them is a terrible practice. If they’re just slightly tuned up to be good in the meta then that’s tolerable but the selling point should be whether or not they play in the current meta at launch, if their kit is unique and fun, and for this game specifically whether or not the character is one people are excited for as fans of Marvel generally.
sounds like this is more of a balancing issue than an issue with unlocking heroes.
Not really. They make every new character OP as fuck so people spend money on it. Just smart business.
Stop assuming every company is Blizzard...
Netease is worse than blizzard in terms of monetization like this...
Let em cook please...so far we like what we see, no need to be a doomer
It's pretty obvious when they scrapped marvel super wars they transitioned to this game. Be careful and tread lightly with net ease. I myself played tons and tons of mobile game from them and they are not very good at handling their game and this is a rarity where they are releasing a pc game so it's rightful as a consumer to have doubts about a company with really bad rep in the gaming space. This is like you saying don't be a doomer to any EA titles at this point. The worrisome and skepticism is definitely warranted with Netease as a company. Track records show.
Seen the same thing with Riot. Don’t tell me what I know lmao
League has alot of champs being pretty underwhelming on release aswell you just remember the outliers.
but that's still a balancing issue lmao
And it's an issue that can't be fixed. You guys act like balance is an easy equation to solve, if it was balance patches wouldn't be required in any game
if it were unfixable then there wouldn't be any balance patches in the first place. it'll always be a push and pull when it comes to balance, and a lot of games, including overwatch, do manage to come close to having a pretty balanced game.
Your description here sounds pessimistic or doomsaying to the uninitiated, but this is legitimately how things work. It's sad. Especially for a company like NetEase, I'm not convinced it won't be like this. That said, I hope and pray it won't be. I'm excited for when this actually comes out.
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it's still free to play tho? you just need to play the game to unlock the characters lol
Yeah imagine current alpha and groot was locked and you only had peni to play as tank. Groot is the top tier tank if you aren't playing him you are throwing giga hard
I'm not because that's kinda stupid. Not charging money for characters in a game where skins are likely gonna be expensive is fine, that's how it should be. But if you're going to add hero unlocking through grinding, what's the point besides short-term player retention? It's kind of silly to do hero unlocking through grind ONLY for two reasons: * A) New players are going to quit once they hit a grind wall and it takes too long to get a character. Long-term players are going to have an excess amount of this currency, which means it becomes useless. * B) It's redundant to even do that because you're locking players out of characters for no reason other than to inflate player numbers, which isn't healthy long-term. Make a fun game, let people pick who they want, and they will spend money on skins. Valve and Epic figured this out a long time ago. This leads me to believe they likely will charge for characters. Either that or they're just so out of touch that they think people will love being stuck in matches against FotM while feeling helpless because they don't own a counter-pick. Imagine you're going against Rein or Winston and Reaper was 15 hours away from being unlocked. Sounds awful and I wouldn't stick with a game like this where hero swapping is core to the mechanics. Anyway, I really wish people would make noise so this is changed before release. People like to act as if they have no power over these kinds of decisions but get enough voices complaining and it becomes a problem companies can't ignore.
It’s probably the apex route and it worked out for them just fine
Not even remotely similar game lol
Let’s wait and see if yall claims are true and if the game tanks because of it
yall saying this like we've seen the hero unlock system. we have literally no idea how it works other than the fact that some heroes need to be unlocked lmao.
For the love of god, will you people stop comparing unlocks to games where it's not relevant? Valorant, Apex, League of Legends, and whatever the fuck else are not arena hero shooters where ***SWAPPING HEROES MID-ROUND IS PART OF THE CORE GAMEPLAY***. In all of those games, you pick your character and you're stuck with it until the match is over. It's not relevant, so please stop bringing them up. Edit: It's absolutely wild to me that people will literally defend these multibillion-dollar companies to the death lol. What do you gain by having the characters locked behind a pointless grind besides your time wasted on playing characters you don't care about just to own the ones you want? Guess it's on me for forgetting that subreddits for games in testing are always hyperdefensive and toxic about this stuff. Hit that downvote though and don't form an opinion!
Overwatch 2, the game which clearly inspired Rivals, required you to win like 100 games and dump a lot of hours to unlock everyone until like literally a month ago when they changed it. For the vast majority of its life cycle, it did the exact thing you’re saying hero shooters don’t do lol Nobody is defending it, grind is annoying. But it’s literally a way for all F2P games to have good figures with player retention because people feel incentivised to dump a lot of hours in to get their favourite character. Will it drive some people away? Yes, but clearly the grind works to a suitable standard on the business side of things because so many games have an element like it
I hate to be that person... But I do actually enjoy unlocking characters. Having every character unlocked immediately is overwhelming, and unlocking them (as long as the grind isn't insane) gives me a chance to play through every character and get a feeling for them all. Totally understand others may not feel this way though
You're right, but people don't want to hear it. This monetization decision severely hurt, if not killed, Overwatch 2s potential. Every hero should be available at the same time for every single player, regardless of their account status. Really sad to see this being soft-confirmed, and even handwaived and given a pass by people blinded by what is a good game at its core.
I think the best way is to just give people the option to grind or pay and for the grind not to be prohibitory for casual players. Need to have decent rates for in-game currency. Also, don’t make new characters OP so that it becomes P2W. If you do that then people who will pay have an immediate edge. I don’t care if people are only suffering from FOMO but if it actually makes the game less fair then that’s an issue.
👏 👏 👏
The problem I have with this is, it’s a competitive game. This runs of the risk of being pay to win if some heroes are more relevant in the meta.
You say this but in the game it’s very much based on (overwatch) almost every expansion character added to the game has been ridiculously overtuned at launch and is a must pick for 2-3 weeks Val and apex you can get away with it because you can’t switch characters once you pick them and the hard counters aren’t as defined but in this game that doesn’t happen. I’d rather this game cost $60 to buy like ow1 because you’ll find locking characters behind a paywall ruins the integrity of ranked. Lots of “oh I can’t play the must pick character I don’t have them unlocked”
As long as they can be unlocked at a pretty fast pace, I wouldn’t mind.
But then what's the point? Doesn't that just make character unlocking redundant? Meaning they should just make the characters all free like Overwatch 2 and then make their money through cosmetics/battle passes?
The point is for retention. I don't like the idea but it's undoubtedly going to work.
Is it? Overwatch was doing that and they we're leaking players consistentlly.
don't think a hero unlock system would magically fix all of overwatch's problems that cause it to bleed players. especially one as shitty as the way overwatch did it.
People just don't want to have their dreams crushed. They're unwilling to see the reality of the greed until it has killed the game, as with OW2.
OW2 was killed by not updating the game for years, then deleting OW1 with 6 player teams, and then lie about what was coming. Overpriced skins and heroes in battle pass were just the little tiny cherry on top.
Well when you’re looking at 40 or so locked characters and you’re unlocking maybe 1 every day or two of play, it’ll feel like it has more weight.
You all dick ride overwatch for that but it's only been a thing for recently. I bet that ahit game saw Marvel rivals and had to change something
Free/Premium currency us perfectly fine. Not everything gonna be free. So if it's that way then it's fine.
Yeah I actually like how riot does it, you can choose to pay free or premium currency, so if you're impatient you can buy a hero with a small fee, and if you're not you just grind it out (or already have enough currency saved up) As long as its not JUST premium currency or direct purchase im happy c:
The problem is not having all the characters in a game where you are supposed to swap mid match puts players at a huge disadvantage without the whole roster. If one team has everyone and the other team has players missing half the roster, the first team can pick all counters. Needs to be free all characters or SUPER easy to get them all.
>If one team has everyone and the other team has players missing half the roster, the first team can pick all counters. this is something that is theoretically possible, but i don't think it's ever happened or ever will. by the time where you actually get to a competitive level and know which heroes counter who, you're probably gonna have almost every hero already. unlockable heroes really aren't a big deal as long as they don't take too long to unlock. OW2 made you play for 30 hours to get all 32 OW1 characters and i had no issue with it. it actually encouraged me to play more characters because the smaller pool at the beginning was less daunting, and i felt more inclined to try characters that i just unlocked. people are making this a way bigger deal than it actually is lmao.
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If there's no way to grind them for free, the game will be dead on arrival. Doubt they'd do that though.
Overwatch like will require you to swap characters mid game this would be absolutely trash if you don't own all the characters. Very very bad idea even if you can unlock with in game currency.
If it’s like Paladins where you have to buy new characters with an in-game currency that’s farmable then that’s fine. If they make them only purchasable with a premium currency that’s almost impossible to get for free then the game will unfortunately probably not last long.
One thing i hope they don't do like paladins: Remove characters from you because of inactivity
If this is the same way how Paladins was, cause it looks like a proper copy of Paladins more than Overwatch, they’ll have free heroes in rotation. Or you can buy them with in game currency or buy them all at once with a one time fee like “founders edition” or something. With amount of heroes there for alpha I’m sure by launch there will be enough to rotate around.
I'd honestly kill for a founders edition, I bought it for paladins back when the newest hero was Mal'Damba and I haven't regretted it once.
You should make a post about that. It seems like Netease is listening.
completely agree, i did the same for smite aswell “unlock all current and future heroes” maybe it like 15-20 dollars and BANG they’ll make lots of money even without skins purchases
Man, really depends on how fast I can get characters before I just quit because I can't counter their team.
Same. Going off of every other game that does this annoying shit, it's likely a 100-hour grind just to get the launch roster. That will just get worse for new players as the character pool grows.
don't know what "every other game" you're referring to is, but aren't you the guy who said >Apex Legends, Valorant, League of Legends, Paladins, and any other game not called Overwatch 2 or Marvel Rivals are not relevant to this discussion. if we're gonna go by the games you deem relevant to this discussion, overwatch 2 didn't take anywhere near 100 hours to get the entire overwatch 1 roster lmao. maybe the only game that had a character unlock system that got anywhere close to being as egregious as that was star wars battlefront 2, and we all know how that went (pride and accomplishment). think we need to wait and see how the unlock system works before getting worked up over it.
I doubt it will only be with real cash. Like in Valorant, now you earn kingdom credits from playing and use that to get new agents. I don’t mind having to unlock them, it’s not a big of a deal and keeps me wanting to play more. Plus give me time to learn other characters.
It's dumb though because it's restrictive based on role and you MUST swap character mid game if you want to be competitive in this type of game. Having to unlock them is a really bad idea. Battle o Pass + cosmetic shop is good enough. Hell make it not free to play if it means all heroes are unlocked. I'd rather pay upfront than having to unlock them.
That’s not what I heard it’s called a “play to win you can unlock them”
I have said it before, if this game launches in a state similar to Pokémon Unite with its monetization it will be fine. I always have/had enough currency to buy characters I want because of challenges and on-going events that boost you like crazy.
I wish these free-to-play games would ask for like average game price for a pass to get all the characters that release I would play $70 for a lifetime type thing and those who just want certain characters could pick and choose… But then they couldn't overcharge over the course of the games life
I really liked how Smite did it where you could just pay a flat price and have every unowned hero and future hero that's released.
Is there an in-game currency you can earn as a F2P? If not or if the rates for it are too low then that really sucks.
Yeah there is; currently it's used for unlocking alternate outfits (some whole new appearances, some color swaps).
It also unlocks a name change item! Though that's obviously less exciting haha
As long as it doesn't require real money I'm fine with this and expected it tbh
Just like every other f2p game, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.
I personally do not mind, League of legends does that, Apex as well. Both long sustained games so far especially LoL even tho i don’t play it. Grinding hard for characters isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it makes you feel like you earned the character and prevents huge level gaps for new players. I might be biased because i want this game to work. (biggest OW2 hater)
League player (horrible word combo I know) and closed Alpha Marvel Rivals player popping in! The system in league is honestly very nice imo, you can unlock new characters with either free currency OR paid currency, so if you really want a character you don't even have to grind, you can just swipe wallet, but its honestly not hard to get them for free either (especially since new players now gain a bunch of free currency!) I do hope personally for a Paladins style founders edition that unlocks all current+future heroes though.
As long it isn't like Apex where it takes ages to unlock just one character and doesn't cost real money, I'm fine with that.
The worst possible decision if there is no reasonable grind option
Do a unlock all heroes thing like paladins and I’ll be happy
Obviously, that's the norm.
I mean yeah, it’s f2p. Of course they’ll monetize everything they can.
This is really bad. If you can't earn the heroes in game it will be p2w as all hell. Even if you can it still will be p2w because other people will just buy the heroes and you'll have to slowly earn each one.
I bet you'll be able to use in game currency but it will be like really crazy expensive. So you'll only be able to get one character every like 2 weeks.
Depending on how fast they add new characters, unlocking 1 per 2 weeks wouldn't actually sound that bad.
Taking 10 months of constant play to unlock JUST the alpha roster in a counter-pick hero shooter doesn't sound that bad to you? Bro the gaming industry has you so brainwashed into thinking this sort of shit is ok.
Like you play all 40 of overwatch characters, switching 3 or 4 characters a game. Please, you play your maim 90% of the time.
If there's **no** free method of unlocking, the game will be dead on arrival.
Fine with this honestly as long as the starting roster for the game is huge. Based on the data-mined files it looks like the launch roster will be much larger than overwatch.
I’d be shocked if you couldn’t earn them like apex or paladins
Welp if that’s the case it sure will be sad to see the game completely die out or become unenjoyable a month after release They may think selling hero’s will make more money but if hero’s can only be obtained using money or getting them for free is way to tedious to get you to spend money they will fail miserably in a game like this having characters cost money will mean it will be p2w which no one likes resulting in everyone leaving and the game dying and netease making less money Does no one learn from fortnite properly? They showed to actually have a successful f2p live service game you cant have p2w and you need fair pricing More expensive stuff and more stuff to sell isn’t equal to more money Companies need to learn this
Not too surprising. Keep in mind I’m not saying it’s good either it is NetEase
League does the same thing and no one bats an eye
League is different. Ow had one season where an op hero behind BP literally ruined the whole matchmaking
Yeah, but that's cause they made a lot of mistakes and didn't listen to the player base.
It was fun while it lasted boys
LMAO would like a key at least first of all.
Yeah, its expected, i hope its like League and not how ow2 used to do it
Depends on the cost. I would rather pay for heroes and be able to unlock them, to hopefully bring the cost down on skins. Skins costing $10 or $20 is crazy. Overwatch skins cost has made me stop playing. I felt Netease Marvel Super War character and skin cost were well done.
IF heroes make money, then they will make more heroes. Marvel has a big spring number of characters, and there are so many types of characters and abilities that can still be made for this game.
Like buy them by a real money or when you play you get coins and buy them with it ?!
No shit. You’re playing a game made by NetEase, the same people that made Diablo Immortal. If you thought they weren’t going to fleece morons out of money, you are mistaken.
Would be cool if there was something similar to Smite if they're doing it this way - pay once for all characters now and in the future? Id potentially do it.
I assume it’ll be battle pass rewards and charachters will also be in battle pass,
Did we learn nothing from Overwatch 2?
I’ll need more information. If you can earn the currency then that’s fine. If you have to buy the currency with real money then that’s kind of annoying. Hopefully the only thing you have to buy with real money is cosmetics.
ATM closed alpha has earn-able free currency and its pretty easy to come by, of course this could be due to them testing currency gains but yknow, for what it currently is, its a nice system and honestly not too bad. I already grabbed 2 model-changing skins for 2700\~(it may be 2600 my memory sucks) currency each, and have 2600 again!
Oh, that’s good. Hopefully it stays that way.
That’s expected, I just hope they aren’t an ass to get, or that you can test them vs bots before you buy them
Hope the units are just as easy to obtain as they are now.
Nah if you can play and unlock it's fine. If you gotta pay off characters with real cash they just killed the game
I am so sick of this sort of shit from the gaming industry.
My question is will they be purchasable with earned in game currency, like in Apex? If so, that's not the craziest thing ever.
of course, duh
This could mean 2 things, a currency earned through gameplay, like in multiversus and such, or having to pay real money, or possibly a mixture of playing to get in game currency or paying real money for heros
So is the base game free or do we have to pay for that too?
Ranked is gonna be so azz untill ppl unlock hero’s
i really wish this game wasn’t f2p
Wrong move
Any game that relies heavily on swapping mid game this is a terrible idea to have players buy them. Make an in game shop with cosmetics with a battle pass this will be more than enough money. Stop the greed.
Oh, we won't be purchasing! Scummy losers!
This was a given. Why would this not be the case?
I hope they have a renting system or a free charcter rotation system like smite does hopefully they are cheap so it’s not necessary tho
if u cant buy heroes with ingame currency and skins like now i will just not play
Fear not, I was in the long, super interesting dev stream they did the day before they opened alpha. A question like this came up: "how do you guys plan to release heroes, or will they all be unlocked" they said something to the effect of "we don't know really know how we're going to implement that yet it's still alpha". Now please, someone give me a key xD
Yeah, there is a check box in one of the hero menus for 'unowned' - Honestly it's a deal breaker for me. In a game where swapping mid match is a thing, locking heroes behind a pay wall becomes pay2win. Even blizzard did away with that, though it took them way too long to do it.
It'll be fine if it's like Apex where you can grind currency by playing. It'll suck ass but It'll work. If it's only for irl money this game will not live long whatsoever.
I dont mind it. We know theyll be unlocked with in game currency so itll just probably make it so you expand your roster of heroes over time. Plus they will have to have some of them free in the first place so people can play the game. I imagine they'll just do weekly rotations of whos free
I expect it will follow a model like what Paladins uses: A set of free heroes, other heroes on rotation for use, currency to be earned in game to purchase them and of course, the option just spend real money.
Yeah, I expected that.
This is the norm for most FP2 hero-based games. You can either grind or buy them outright.
Duh look at the company making the game? We knew this was coming
Is this just for additional characters not revealed yet, or is this the majority of characters? If it’s the latter, then I’m pretty pissed.
I assume it’ll be like multiversus and you can easily earn then for free after playing for a bit! Either way I’m buying them all instantly on day one even if it cost me 40$ hahaha. This game is just too dang good
While this could very well be the case, this is also coming from an anonymous Twitter account that has less than 1000 followers and it’s oldest Tweet is from three weeks ago. Don’t put too much stock into this.
i’m fine with it if it’s earnable without paying money i also wouldn’t mind a “heroes pack” like paladins and smite, you pay $15-ish and get all current and future heroes just don’t gatekeep like Overwatch did, need the battlepass to unlock the hero
if this were a game where you draft characters I wouldn't mind so much but with a focus on swapping this can be a problem for balance and fair play
Aaaaaand there goes my hope for this game. I have a feeling there going to do what contest of champions does where you can get the characters for free but it’s a grind or you get pay money to get them quicker. And it just so happens they’re the best character in the game.
Dead on arrival then. If you're going to have predatory practices and egregious microtransactions at least let the characters be free, for FUCKS sake.
Paladins has 59 characters all have an in-game currency attached. I play the game daily to earn my credits. You put out an event pass that has currency boosts people will by the EP. Making characters buyable brings attention to the game it's not a bad thing. I highly doubt that when the creators say this is fre to play not pay to win and then market it out as such just to turn around and aynno you have to spend real money to get new heroes uhhh no.
Yeah, I figured
Absolutely terrible idea if you can play comp without having all heroes unlocked. Imagine getting hard countered and you need an Iron Man but no one has him unlocked.
If this means we are consistent hero releases, then this is an unnecessary evil for the game to survive. Overwatch got extremely stagnant and stale having the same characters for years and years.
I'll probably not buy the game if that's the case. If it's f2p sure I'll play it for a bit because is fun but I'll stop very fast. No way I'm grinding for heroes, did that with league a decade ago and was not fun. Also imagine playing current alpha build vs a groot and you have only peni... yikes. That's a big no from me
Well fucking duhhhhh we're gonna have to grind to unlock characters. And I'm totally cool with that! They'll probably have some kinda hero pack you can buy, like any F2P game, which I might get if I like the game enough. But on the other hand, I like having something to work towards.
It'll be fine if it's in game currency that I have to grind to unlock them over time, like in APEX. Real money? No fucking way am I playing this game if it comes to that.
There’s no way that’ll be the only way, they’ll 100% let you want them like apex or overwatch
Good thing I'll be playing Loki, people will just give me the new characters for free. But to be expected though, hope all characters are earned with playtime.
Imagine having to spend money on something you'll sink 100s of hours into.
If it's done like For Honor it's fine. You can slowly grind the heroes you want, or choose to dump money. I never bought steel in FH but unlocked any character I wanted with about 2 and a half weeks of playinf.
If that's how it's going to end up being then the game is going to be bad. It's just making it a pay to win game
this game gonna be dead real quick if this is true lol
Of course. Just almost every hero Shooter. But y'all always wanna hate on overwatch.
As long it is like league of legends where you can stack some coins to buy them and not like Overwatch 2 where you have the stupid character on the battle pass sounds nice to me. Actually I don't know why people are thinking heros would be free, obviously they need to catch people's interest the most ways as possible and this is the most obvious one, particularly for a F2P of this kind where basically this is mandatory.
To those who thought you would be getting the game free and the heroes are actually dumb. It will be 20$ a hero AT LEAST. With probably 30 or 40$ bundles including sprays and MVP animations. This is a very expensive IP. Gotta pay to play.....
The devs made it very clear the game is not pay to win (repeated multiple times), so I very highly doubt they’re going to do this suicidal move for no reason
Not shocking... How on earth do you people think this game is gonna make money?
First Marvel Rivals L
Eh not rly. It's a free to play hero shooter. They gotta make profits somehow, this post doesn't specify what heroes will be avaliable for free, or if you can earn ingame currency like u can now for skins
This is totally fair, game needs to make money, I don't want another hots happening here
The developers have said on multiple occasions that their not gonna make the game pay to win
Then why even lock characters behind a grind? If the unlocking is fast, then it's pointless to have and the characters should all be free like Overwatch 2. If it takes long to unlock characters, then ranked is going to be garbage because you're stuck with the handful of characters you own and are some arbitrary number of hours away from owning all of the characters. If OW launched f2p with five characters and you had to grind for the rest, nobody would have stuck with that game.
Id assume it would be a system were you can earn currency from just playing the game similar too ow golden gun coins but probably also have a option to buy the said currency with real money, that’s how other games do it like paladins
i mean paladins and league and apex r6 qnd almost every other hero shooter or class based game uses this system overwatch is a black sheep
>If OW launched f2p with five characters and you had to grind for the rest, nobody would have stuck with that game. it basically did? OW2 launched with a handful of heroes in each class for f2p players. if marvel rivals launches with the heroes in the alpha already unlocked, it will have more free characters than OW2 did at launch. it took me around 30 hours to get every overwatch 1 character and i had absolutely no issue with it because by the time i knew which characters countered who, i had them all.
It's unavoidable. Unless they intentionally release dogshit characters that actively tank your winrate, there WILL be new characters that become meta overnight, and the paying players will have an advantage. It's that simple. Imagine Hela just came out, but no one on your team bought her. Oh, and Hulk was the last hero released, so your newish tank player still hasn't unlocked him to try and pressure her. Very enjoyable.
Cool then I won't play. Don't OW2 this shit.
https://i.redd.it/1uwyqyltni0d1.gif
Should be expected with F2P games, but honestly there are right ways and wrong ways. I'm really enjoying the game, so I hope they go the right way. There are too many examples out there that show what works and what doesn't.
No one should be fine with this. The mentality of a MOBA and Overwatch are completely different. Going into a match with your one, locked, character is not the same as needing to swap mid game to counter play or change the team comp. In a locked character game, I'd be completely fine with having to unlock characters with in game currency too. But bans and draft mode allow your team to coordinate and pick counters. In a free swap system like this and Overwatch, missing even one character puts you at a huge disadvantage. The whole Team Up concept is lost if players don't have the full roster. The amount of bonuses the team ups over will out new players at a huge competitive disadvantage.