For the majority of players, unlocking new fighters in Super Smash Bros. games is an exciting process. In the case of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the Switch, it's got some players concerned about tournament play. Due to the sizable roster of 70 fighters currently available in the game, unless you're resorting to particular methods to unlock each of these characters as fast as possible, it's going to take a while before you can play as every single one of them.
Some of the game's fanbase finds this to be a worrying sign for lower-end tournaments, that might not have Nintendo officials present to presumably unlock every character in the game with their magical powers. A user by the name of 'KillstealWolf' on ResetEra, raised the potential concerns tied to tournament play, that could make these types of events a nightmare for organisers, who would potentially have to unlock characters across multiple units for larger-sized events:
"You think unlocking all the characters once is frustrating? Try being a Tournament organizer where you will need to unlock all the characters on multiple units. Even when a fully optimized unlock method as planned [is] out it’s still probably going to take at least 3 to 4 hours to unlock everyone on one unit (and assuming you are fairly competent enough to beat the challenges on their first try as well for time saving)...Smash Ultimate saves are locked to that one switch, and you’ll need a Online Subscription Service if you want to create a backup of that save. And save transfers are one way at present. It’s a lot of unneeded hassle for tournament organizers to set up and might actually affect the tournament scene for the game in the long run."
Other UItimate players said how the character unlock system should not have been attached to every mode in the game. One user mentioned how a tournament option, like the one in ARMS, would have been a helpful inclusion:
"I do wish there was a tournament mode like ARMS had which unlocks everything for quick play, my siblings and I aren't even going to try playing it together until one of us has everyone unlocked, so it's gonna be a bit."
Many others who are not concerned about competitive play defended the character unlock system in the new entry, saying how it's fun to simply play the game and grow the roster over time. In July, the creator of the Super Smash Bros. series Masahiro Sakurai said he didn't really consider professional players or a potential audience when developing new entries in the Smash line:
"I feel like a game, at the end of the day, is about playing the game. But if we focus too much on the top level players - or the audience - then the game skews a little bit too much on the technical side."
In the same interview, Sakurai said how Nintendo's philosophy did not align with competitive gaming and likely never would:
"The philosophy behind them doesn’t go in line with Nintendo’s philosophy in that some of these players are playing for the prize money...it comes to a point where they’re playing the game for the money, and I feel that kind of direction doesn’t coincide with Nintendo’s view of what games should be."
What do you think about this? Do you believe there should be a standalone mode allowing players to access every fighter immediately? Is the 32-player tournament option per Switch enough? How many characters have you unlocked in Ultimate so far? Tell us below.
[source resetera.com]
Comments 120
???? Then just???!? Unlock them now and you’ll have it unlocked forever??!?!?!? Or have others bring their systems??? This is a non issue. Anyone who is hosting a tournament will probably be a big enough fan that of course they will already have them unlocked.
I'm grateful they've kept the slow unlock. It makes the game so much more fun for me!
How did they do this with past entries? Unlocking everything in melee took my friends and me weeks!
This just sounds entitled to me. And I usually hate that word. If you are serious about playing in a tournament you should be willing to put the time into unlocking all the characters yourself.
Welcome to Super Smash, a fun game full of unlockables for 13 and up. If pro gamers need the characters unlocked for tournament play they should play through their games. Unless it's too hard for them in which case.....maybe not call yourself a pro smash gamer.
They have to spend a few more hours unlocking characters, big deal. They need to quit being lazy about it.
who thinks of the 99% of the playerbase who finds unlocking all these fighters fun?
Playing with other people just to watch them fail is fun.
I understand with Street Fighter 4 when it first came out had an unlock system that was fun but i played less when everything was already there.
Man. People will always complain about something. I like the idea of unlocks, just like the parts in MK8D. I actually wish you could unlock characters in the latter as well, but I'll take it as it is.
Also: I am on Ninty's side here. Play games for fun. That is the target the audience - a broad lot who want to have fun.
You wanna play for more than that? Sure. But then follow the rules.
Not a big deal...did they forget how hard it was to unlock everything in previous games? Don’t even get me started on Melee: if you wanted all the unlocks, you had to WORK for it. Clearing all the event matches to get Final Destination? Just the thought of it should make everyone a smidge more grateful that Ultimate comes with all stages already unlocked.
Locking over 60 characters is extreme, even if people do like unlocking characters. And if your main happens to be locked, and the RNG decides you should get them last, too bad.
At the same time, I suppose a certain sector is grateful that they didn't offer a paid DLC to unlock everything at once.
Me? I love the game just the way it is.
@TheOpponent I see your point, but I do like the fact that the game is forcing me to play as characters I probably wouldn’t have considered otherwise.
@Heavyarms55 The problem is just that in a tournament, the host needs to provide systems for everyone to play on. If you have 20 matches playing simultaneously, that means creating 20 accounts and spending a few hours on each account unlocking all characters. That's some days of extra work for the organisers.
I seem to be enjoying Smash Bros Ultimate far more than any other fighter this gen, and it didn't really hit me as to why until I read this article. IMO it seems like most fighters out there have become far too focused on competitive tournament gamers and it has come at the expense of the far more relaxed or "casual" crowd who just likes to have fun and not take things so seriously.
😢😢😢These poor people.
I’m happy the unlock works like it does. It forces you to try other fighters. I’ve been playing Workd if Light and I normally main Link. But I still haven’t found him. I’ve gotten better with Kirby, realized I like Dr. Mario more than normal Mario, and found out either Wii Fit Trainer got a serious buff, or I’m way better with them than any other fighter.
@TheOpponent It actually isn't RNG, both Smash mode and Classic mode have their own seperate order of unlocks. For example, Sonic is the 17th character to unlock by just Smashing, but you can get him right away by playing through Mario's classic mode. You can easily get your favorite characters earlier by looking up the order for both modes and utilizing that.
@Strumpan Why not just provide 20 Switch docks, and let people use their own systems? Benefit of the Switch and other portable devices. Pokemon has done that for years.
Unlocking stuff is a joy. I'm pretty sure unlocking some characters on a video game is the least stressful job on the list for organisers.
@Klunk23 And the World of Light mode also has it's own order of unlocking characters. I don't think it would take more than 15 minutes to unlock a specific character by using all three modes.
Nintendo could, however, add a tourney mode. That would unlock all characters just for that mode by default. But wouldn't allow CPU or FP fighters.
@sanderev That's also true. That's how I got Marth. Still, in that case I avoided doing that for anybody else to avoid WoL spoilers. Part of the fun with WoL is seeing what's around the corner next. I just knew Marth was so early from Preview footage.
@BensonUii Same goes for 3DSes and Pokémon tourneys. But I think bringing in a hacked system would count as an immediate disqualification.
@BensonUii The weekly I go to has people bring their own systems and it isn't a problem at all. Everybody's systems and games play fine.
I finished my roster on Saturday and I had a blast unlocking every character.
Couldn’t care less about the competitive scene. To me it’s all about having fun at home on my own system.
Just have people bring their own switch, that's how pokemon does it. If someone suspects cheating just call a TO and have them take appropriate action.
@Mijzelffan It's like the Switch reveal video. Organisers just need the docks and TVs.
It seems this isn’t a problem for Brawl.
@Heavyarms55 you cannot take your own system to a tournament. It would lead to endless accusations of cheeting. Especially if money is involved.
All I heard from that KillStealWolf fellow was “Boo Hoo, Gripe Gripe, Blah Blah...”
Just play the game and unlock the content as you go along, ya pathetic yutz... people will complain about anything these days and frankly- it’s getting ridiculous! People sorely lack discipline and appreciation for genuine hard work and that just saddens me to my core. Entitled little twerps who just sit and complain suck the life and joy out of everything...
@BensonUii Fair enough I guess, I haven't been to a tournament bigger than 30 people before so I'll listen to those with more experience on this one.
I'm running around a bit lost at the moment...
This will only be an issue for the next few months or so. After that, it will be common to have a bunch of systems available with all the characters unlocked.
Besides, the unlock process in Ultimate is still quite a bit faster than it took to unlock Mewtwo and Mr. Game and Watch in Melee, and people put up with it back then. Although, Melee did have the advantage of easily transferable save data, but it was still a huge pain in the butt to unlock those last two characters.
@Heavyarms55 Because the systems can be tampered with. So tournaments always use their own systems.
It's the same with PC game tournaments, where dedicated PC's are used for tournaments, to prevent cheating.
There is literally millions of dollars at stake at these Pro Tournaments and you sadly have certain teams trying to do anything possible to get an advantage, which has been proven on more than one occasion where team members (or whole teams) have been caught for cheating.
@Mijzelffan That would so so inefficient. Delays cause chaos and any claim would have to be investigated.
I'm baffled at the stupidity here. You should just let competitors bring their own Switch. IT'S FAR EASIER.
If anyone's going to cheat in any tournament, it would be PC gamers who bring their own PC build as far as I'm aware.
@Peace-Boy Maybe you have been living under a rock or something, but the Nintendo Switch has been hacked all over already. No system is hack proof!
Maybe you also missed the news on Splatoon 2 for example? Where hacking has been and still is ongoing and Nintendo clearly struggling to combat it, due to the auto online teaming with randoms.
Is it an annoying aspect for tournament organizers? Sure, but considering there's already been a method found to unlock all the fighters fairly quickly, not to mention we've known about having to unlock everyone but the original 8 for a while now, so this "issue" just comes off as kind of petty since it's only gonna apply to the ones who wanted to host a tournament right out of the gate anyway. In a month or two, this won't be a hurdle for any legit tournament anyway.
Plus do these guys not remember that it once took a bare minimum of 5 hours of total in game multiplayer just to unlock 1 character in Melee? I'll take unlocking 60+ characters in the span of a couple hours over 10-15 characters over the course of 5 to 10 hours any day.
You poor things, let's just make games less interesting for 99% of players and have everything available from the start just so that these few can have their tournaments without having to play the game for a few hours before hand. Funny thing is I work with somebody who helps run a Nintendo group and they were having an event for Smash and he couldn't wait to play it and unlock all of the characters in preparation 🤔
@Reavely16P Melee certainly had slow character unlocks, but they weren't that slow. If I remember correctly, you could unlock the first one (Jigglypuff) just by beating Classic Mode for the first time.
@Strumpan Once. Some extra work once. This is a non-issue, and they can leave it at the doorstep. It's plain stupid.
Want to make tournaments? Do so. Tournaments include the full roster? Unlock it for the players. Don't complain. Nobody forced you to make the tournament, so if you're making it, suck it up.
I find it so strange that Smash, a lighthearted, fun, crazy random item based game even HAS a tournament scene.
"Ok guys, no items, no unlocks, focus only on each individual frame of animation, only 2 stages, no smash ball...you know what let's just play Street Fighter ffs"
Edit: If it's that much of an issue, why don't the organisers just limit it to the characters available at the start?
And ya can't say "because this guy mains someone else" because no previous Smash has had all the fighters before.
Also that just set's a boring stage of every game always having the same characters every time.
So... what do they do for other games that have unlockable characters? Do tournaments have just one person running things? If you feel you need 5 consoles for the tournament then just have 5 people do a unlock session and you are set for all future tournaments. If you're savvy you could even see about having some of the competitors do the unlocking for you as part of their training or whatever.
Mewtwo took a lot of effort in melee to unlock...and what about Devil Jin in Tekken 5...stop complaining that they game isn't built for tournaments...Smash was never built with that in mind anyway
Enjoying unlocking the characters, but I do see what this organizer is getting at though. In this case, it might be best to wait a bit.
Yikes. It's really not that big of a deal, is it? Granted, I don't follow tournaments or how they work but it seems like such a non-issue. Just unlock them beforehand...? Feels as if people just like to complain for the sake of it tbh. Don't blame the game or the developers when it doesn't cater to your audience in the first place.
Having to unlock almost the entire roster is a stupid waste of time.
I'm enjoying the paced unlock system! 😊
Tournament organization, roster unlock woes, the competitive vs casual arguments aside, it (again) comes down to the fact that Nintendo (as in, the brass at Nintendo HQ in Japan) do not consider the competitive scene as a core tenet in their game design philosophy. You could almost say that they don't care much at all of the competitive scene, and that trickles down to much of their design decisions, which no doubt leads to friction with the competitive community.
The obvious outliers are the heavily criticized roster unlock debacle, horrendous online/netcode infrastructure, and the input lag. Nintendo would rather entertain the fantasy of a 4-player items free-for-all 'competitive' match then accept the reality that players want 1v1 no item matches. Organizers need codes? There is actually a difference of 3-4 frames and 8 frames of lag? Whether they will listen, who knows.
The competitive community is no doubt excited about Ultimate, and the host of new players wanting to get into it. But it is a bit frustrating to imagine that, in a world of developer-grown esports leagues, Nintendo has shown no serious inclination into bringing one of esports' most faithful under its own wings.
They're making a big deal out of this, yet you can unlock everyone faster with the reset trick than you could in Smash 4, despite there being far less characters to get on that one.
Hell, to prepare setups for tournament in Smash 4, not only did you have to unlock the characters, but also one of the Animal Crossing legal stages by playing the Events. Now that was an organizer's nightmare.
The only reason this is seen as a potential problem is that the game just came out and obviously not everyone is up to speed with the unlocks just yet. This'll be a non-issue down the line. In fact, all my friends and I have already unlocked all characters and we're ready for organizing a tournament next week.
@Jeronan I think the threat of perma-banning and a stipulation in the entry rules that cheating results in forfeiture of all winnings should be sufficient...
Didn't it happen with the previous entry too?
I for one like to unlock characters, not too fast even. I hate what they did with Mario Tennis Aces, a game which would have been replayable if only characters or suits would have been unlockable...
In Smash Bros. case, what's the problem? People are going to unlock all characters if they haven't already, and I guess online players want to fight against other expert players, right? They will definitely have all characters unlocked.
@Heavyarms55 That has never stopped cheaters.
Just look at other professional sports, where sporters still get caught with doping.
People always keep finding new ways to cheat to avoid detection..... until they get caught.
Unlocking modes and characters is how it should be done,old school. I was disappointed with Mario kart 8 when I found all cups and characters unlocked from the get go as they wasn't in the WiU version. It provides a sense of achievement and adds longevity to a title imo.
Non-issue. My friend got Smash Friday and through casual play unlocked all the characters on... Friday.
I would say the opposite about Smash; the element of discovery is downplayed too much. I would have wanted to unlock levels. I would have wanted character unlocks to be less common. I would have wanted that nothing appears in the game until you get the chance to unlock it. I know I'm an outlier, but if we're just reporting opinions there you go.
This is such a harsh criticism - quite insulting really to be knocked for such a minority of players who compete and organizers. I do love Masihiro’s reply about just playing the game, enjoying it. Focusing on the simple joy of just playing games.
@EeryPetrol that’s not casual play - he must of not slept. How many hours did he say he did that in?
@Jeronan Seems more reasonable than having tournament organizers buy dozens of consoles and set up as many dummy accounts. Like you said, there is no full proof way to stop cheating. But I think the risk of punishment is enough, and if people cheat anyway, punish them. Have it be part of the contract when you sign up for the tourney, if you are caught cheating, you are forever banned and forfeit any winnings you gained. Pro-smash players should be able to tell when someone is cheating. They have everything else down to a science.
@Yoshi Totally agree with you! People complain just because they'll have to explore the game and play as a bunch of characters? That's nonsense! It increases replay factor immensely. I can't see why people complain so much. Dedicate hours and hours into the game and THEN go to serious tournaments!
@EeryPetrol What is casual play for your friend? 10 hours? 15? The entire day?!
All the hours played and the huge number of characters to unlock are some of the aspects that will make the $60 worth it. So what's the point? People don't wanna play?
@Blizzia I agree that having to unlock the characters makes the game better. I just found that most commenters here didn't understand the issue.
Lol im so glad 2018 is almost over. Lets hope 2019 brings less whinging c@#ts
Unlocking characters in Smash is pretty simple, and Nintendo know that. 10 minute Smash matches, and you have the opportunity to unlock a character. No need to play WoL if time is against you (you can get characters unlocked this way too).
10 minutes is perfect for those with little time for gaming, and if you don't succeed in unlocking the character at first, it re-appears later for another shot.
To me, it seems Nintendo got it right.
Lol.... Those complaints just unlock them, they even made it easier to unlock just play the game geez.
mommy! i'm worried about tournament 😕
Grab a tissue, wipe those bubbles of snot and just play the game. Its quite easy to unlock, if still you have a hard time go watch youtube how to unlock lol.
@The-Chosen-one but 90 minutes is longer than anything can keep their attention. They can only play in 5 minutes increments and have to restart everytime trying to get a shiny fighter. ;p
I hope Nintendo has seen this, realises it might indeed be an issue, and releases an updated to address it.
@SuperWeird at the end of the day, most games are...
Guys, the issue isn't about having trouble unlocking everyone on a single Switch or that it takes several hours. The issue is that tournament organizers sometimes have several Switches to use for their tournaments, like those bought by their company for tournament use. Tournaments can be as large as several hundred people and need several dozen setups, which would require several dozen Switches. So when you need to unlock everyone on multiple Switches, that could take several of work for every single Switch. And whenever you order new Switches, you need to unlock everyone on those as well. Just imagine your entire process of unlocking everyone, then doing that again 10 more times. Although it's easy for you to unlock everyone by yourself over the course of hours or a few days and the development team made a good choice in that regard, it's a very different problem when you need to unlock everyone on multiple setups. So that's why it could be a nightmare for tournament organizers.
Saying "just bring your own Switch where you have everyone unlocked" won't always work for tournaments. You need to bring a dock, all the cables, Gamecube adapter, and a monitor or TV in addition to the console to have a full tournament setup. Few people bring all of these to tournaments. This is why tournament organizers provide their own Switch.
I'm glad it takes some time to unlock all characters, it is part of the fun. Melee was actually hard/time consuming to unlock the full roster for the average player
Options are always a good thing; something Nintendo has still yet to learn.
You can actually unlock the full roster in an hour or so.
Just do random smash battles, when you get the new fighter beat them.
Then, when you get the splash screen saying "so and so join you!" go to the switch home menu and close the game down.
Stary the game up and do another battle.
Then you'll get another encounter.
Rinse and repeat.
Who remembers the tournament part in the Swich reveal show reel. Nintendo surely forgot that in a hurry.
Really. This is news now.
@Dizzy_Boy
Ultimate has a pretty robust system for setting up tournaments.
@Heavyarms55 You're right I didn't define that much. But with casual play I meant 'just playing the game, not trying to unlock the characters as quickly as possible'. I think he ended up playing the game a fair amount that day. But he told me that by playing Smash (just regular matches), the characters were unlocking at a rapid rate. Every ten minutes at the start.
I like unlocking characters. Who cares.
@CaptChaos There's tutorials online on how to unlock the full roster in 90 minutes. It's plausible that if you spend a day playing Smash Brothers in a healthy manner you will be able to unlock everything without even trying. Especially if you're just playing regular Smash matches, which I'm told unlocks characters rather quickly. I'm focusing on Online and World of Light because I like my addiction fed to me with a slow drip.
@Pod I know that, but adding a tournament scene in the reveal reel just seemed an odd thing to add if they're not actually interested in tournamants themselves.
Umm..... There is an easy way to unlock the characters in like an hour or so.
Play smash with one stock, you can sd in some matches or just fight a bit with the computer, and after the match one character random unlock. Then close the game and rinse and repeat.... Honestly not that hard. Got all the characters in like an hour
I knew about this way, but I still played WoL and classic mode cause it was a little boring to just unlock them by doing nothing
I'm still unlocking my characters...
Although, if spirits become the norm for tournements, people will likely bring their own switches that use their own builds. That could circumvent the issue.
It’s almost as if the game is designed with... fun. in. mind. SHOCK!
Seriously you can unlock characters at a fairly decent pace just by playing the game
It took me two days to unlock every character through Classic mode and after Smash 4 gave me everything, this was a nice change of pace. You can always unlock a character in VS Mode and then reset the game to speed the process up.
Give me a break. Last I checked Team Neckbeard’s favourite stage was locked behind beating 51 event matches in Melee.
Is this whining I'm sensing? Look, I get it-- It would be nice to have a tourney ready mode. But it's a game first, just like any other game, and the fact that it's utilized for tourney play comes second. So get out there tourney players, unlock all the fighters on your respective Switch's (as you should), and the tourney scene is all set. SSB hasn't been tourney unlocked before, and it still isn't. Less complaining, more Smashing!
@Dizzy_Boy
Sakurai doesn't like for the game to be considered "serious competition" or an "e-sport", but Nintendo are likely to do certain things whether he likes it or not.
Like hosting online events similar to (or even more elaborate than) the Splat Fests, as well and invitational tournaments, which mostly feature prizes of symbolic value.
Both are still a far cry from from the tournaments hosted for actual e-sports games, of course, but Nintendo has never been proponents of the idea that young people should be spending ten hours a day playing the same game to get skilled enough to win a tournament.
The brackets are mostly there in the first place for accommodating private parties, I'd assume, as anything more than playing with your personal friends and family in your own home really isn't covered by the End User License Agreement.
I understand the frustration coming from organized players for the purpose of tournaments but as a player who is never going to a tournament, I love it the way it is. I look forward to playing so I can unlock new characters. It also forces me to use other characters until I'm able to unlock my favorites.
Wouldnt be a popular opinion, but i think the characters unlock too quickly. I yearn for the days that it was an actual challenge to unlock characters.
I'd have been fine if they released 1 character a day (or even a week) via DLC for 2 months (or a year). I'd be more excited if i had to wait, rather than knowing i just need to grind.
Considering that the characters tend to be more aggressive than usual, I'd say the complaint is warranted.
I'm intentionally unlocking everything through World of Light because I enjoy the long unlock process. Gives me time to really appreciate one fighter at a time, coming to grips with their play style.
@Syrek24 Yet Smash gets multiple main stage events at EVO while competent fighters like DoA and Soul Calibur get sidelined I'm not into "competitive" gaming (and the Smash compettive people I've known are enough to turn me off from it forever )
@JayJ If by "Most fighters" you mean SFV and BlazBlue, then yes, I agree But most of the big fighters, MK, Injustice, SC6, DoA seem to revel in the unlocks, map modes, etc as well. The only other one that gets close to that is Tekken 7, but that one is a pure, unfiltered arcade cabinet type game, so the arcade mode with the full roster available just "works"...it's the same mode running in loop on actual coin-op arcade cabs. The Treasure Battle is smash-like fun as well... DB:Figther Z does the unlocks too (in a fun way, you have to rescue characters on the roguelike map area.) Overall I've found current gen fighters have really followed Smash in engaging with fun single player content. Previous gen fighters were a mess of eSports platforms. So was Smash 4.
@Syrek24 The competitive scene for any game is always the minority. It's an important minority, and particularly for Smash it's one that's kept interest in the series for a long time for many a fan. Why do you think Melee has remained in contention til present day? To say that Smash is not a 'serious' fighting game community is laughable and untrue. To call the players "man-children" is disingenuous when they raise well-reasoned and valid complaints to the current state of the game, backed up because they understand the game at a high-level.
When I mentioned input lag, I'm not talking about online lag. That's an entirely separate problem that people are understandable about. I'm talking about the buffer between controller-to-onscreen locally. Ultimate currently has a measured ~8ms frame delay. You compare that with any other fighting game: DBFZ(2-5ms), Guilty Gear (~2ms), Melee (3-5ms), etc.
Meh... I guess it is a valid concern, but the process is so streamlined that you can unlock every character in less than 5 hours, or in a weekend like I did (without any tricks or fancy stuff, just playing some matches with my brother and girlfriend). And yes, I know that doing it several times on several systems can be tedious, but if you have the resources to have multiple games and systems, you probably have the support to get everything ready too. Besides, and I know this might sound bad, the game wasn't developed with this kind of users in mind. It was developed to play it, not to host tournaments and such. Besides, only not-big tournaments seem affected by this, and Nintendo doesn't even endorse those tournaments in their creator program. IIRC, they don't want them to even stream the tournaments that aren't supported by Nintendo.
I stopped at "Resetera".
You can't expect anything good from the ignorants at that hate group.
You go on Intrest and what do you see?
@Jeronan Maybe you shouldn't make assumptions, because on the contrary I did know that the Switch has been hacked quite easily.
Anyway, I don't see how that's relevant.
Remember "tournament" doesn't just mean EVO or prize money. It can mean student clubs at colleges and local groups. I can see why a tournament unlocked option would be helpful if I was doing say, a smash tournament charity event at my college.
My one complaint about this game is the super low starting roster, if you want to pick this game up and just play for fun with friends unlocking the characters is a chore. I wish at the least the starting roster was closer to half of the characters 8 is way to low when you have this many characters. I don't play tournaments, but I just like to have smash to pick up and play for fun when a friend comes over. However I have to go about the tediousness of getting all of the characters unlocked before I'll be able to enjoy those moments.
Open game. Open Smash mode. VS mode. Set Stock rules to 1 [as auto default]. Start a match against CP, then jump off the stage. New challenger appears. Beat them [if you lose check for your challenger door under Games and More]. Turn off the game. Start the game. Repeat previous list. Also beat classic mode twice. You'll get everyone quick.
they should have made it so that the levels needed to be unlocked as well. or at least some of them.
its odd how we start with 100+ levels but only about 10 characters or less. the starting lineup should have been a bit more balanced.
at least we will be getting a new level with each new character once the DLCs are released.
You can just reset it after every character unlock. Dont see the issue here.
I see alot of people here saying it only takes a few hours to unlock the characters as if these tournaments will be only using 1 Switch. Some of these Big Tournaments could be providing alot of Switchs to get through as many matchs in a faster time.
So lets say they will provide 20 switchs. Well they will need to unlock all the characters in all of those 20 of those switchs. On top of that they need to spend more money for each of those switch to have the online account to back up that data encase any of those switchs get broken and will have to repeat the process again. (sure that comes out to just over the price of another switch but it is unnecessary money spent there)
This is why I am siding with the TO. Nintendo should provide a Tournament mode so it will make organizing these events easier. Have it so that only the Smash game mode is available with all the characters unlocked with amiibo function disabled.
Glad to see even this comment section has people that understand the pain TO has instead of just saying "lol you lazy people, just play the game".
Nintendo has the potental for and epic casual AND eSport title. Why not fully support both? Sure, casuals bring in more money but you would get good publicity in the eSport scene which would be another money making pillar for the future. Like those mobile games you swore you'd never make...
@ElectricGhost This is real funny considering you were just complaining about Joker being in Smash when so many people want him in...
@ElectricGhost Hello we PAYED for the game. That "entitlement" statement makes no sense.
@PipeGuy64Bit doesn’t matter. Quit whining.
Honestly, the solution is pretty simple, just add a tournament mode. ARMS managed it fine, and its not nearly as big as Smash. Just do what ARMS did, and and make it so that it's only for local wireless with other consoles.
Also, this is only the second time I'm hearing about this being a problem, with the first obviously being ARMS. Are Tournament modes with unlocked characters standard, or has this just not been a notable problem until recently?
A simple tournament mode would easily solve this, nothing a update can't fix.
@BensonUii Looking at patch notes Nintendo didn’t put the tourney mode in Arms until update v5.1 which released about 7 months after launch (Jan 31, 2018). Which happened to be after the final content update (read: last new fighter added) v5.0. I’m willing to bet their plans to add it to smash is set for soon after the final fighter dlc pack. Nothing TOs can do but wait, no reason they should’ve expected Nintendo to do this at launch. And griping isn’t gonna get it added any sooner if Nintendo has those plans locked down.
But smash players all around who are complaining really need to chill out, Sakurai is working himself to death for the fans and some people just can’t be happy with this awesome release we got. They’re acting like we’re stuck in the offline console days where games have no way to update once shipped. Nintendo has built a pretty good track record of long term support for the online games like splatoon, arms, and Mario kart.
We actually just held a tournament at the library I work at yesterday! Unlocking all of the characters on multiple Switch consoles over the weekend was exhausting. My coworker handled one but I was left with the other three... and I am really, really, REALLY bad at the game. I was only able to fully unlock one Switch and mostly unlock a second (which meant we only had three Switches at the event rather than four, which made timing a bit of a concern). Still, everyone had a blast, so it was worth it!
What I don't get, is why not just add cheats? Don't get me wrong, I am really enjoying unlocking things. I'm about 20 hours in, and I think I still have 20 hours to go. We still had a blast on launch night, but it is still a bit of a pain to have a party but not have everyone's favorite characters available.
For me, it would be awesome if Single Player remained as is, and there was an option/cheat to simply unlock the characters for multiplayer. I certainly understand the frustration for tournament organizers, especially with so many characters to unlock.
I have been playing Smash Ultimate a lot since it came out. I finished World of Light last night, and it got me pretty much everyone on the roster. A few I unlocked also by leaving Adventure mode every 20-30 minutes to face a new challenger. I had them all by Sunday night. I've seen that you can also unlock them quickly through classic mode. Just find a guide and go after who you want.
That said, tourney organizers can have it rough, but maybe not as much as we'd think. This time around, I've used Little Mac, Simon, Ike and Ryu in most of my matches. I could have started playing Tourney after about a day of playing the game. I had most of what I'd use by then. I expect most players would be in a similar situation.
I'm not a competitive player by any means so I don't see how this is an issue. You want a specific character, then play the game a lot to unlock the character you want. Simple. Should be considered part of the "training" for these tournament players. And I guess if that's not feasible than go out and get a real job, LOL. But in all honesty, this game just came out so maybe for these established players, then they should use older Smash Bros games for the next few months before starting to solely rely on Ultimate as the tournament game-of-choice. These players have to take responsibility for their own game files if they want to participate, 'nuff said.
I have all the csharacters already it didn't even take me very long just play the game
If you own the game I was playing 8 players smash with all ice climbers it holds up pretty well with 16 people in the game at once since ice climbers are 2 people. it lags a small bit but still playable. But sometimes it will crash it crashed on me 1nce and ive tried this abour 50 times.
@Andrew5678 The problem started popping up as soon as console save systems became locked down to accounts or consoles.
Back in the day you just copied a complete save file to all the memory cards you needed for a tournament.
Super Street Fighter IV started a trend in fighters where you simply start with the entire cast, a move that took a massive chunk of single player longevity out of the genre.
Today games like Pokkén Tournament and ARMS have these bespoke tournament modes that perfectly solve the issue without any sacrifices to anything, and is what people want here:
You do something esoteric, like a button combination on the title screen, and now all content is temporarily open to you for use on your tournament setup without affecting the console's save at all.
In other news I wish Nintendo took the unlock chain further. I'm bombarded with challenges for any action in Ultimate, even leaving a menu, and will no doubt deplete the unlocks in a matter of days.
Games like Tekken 2 or even Brawl could provide something new and unexpected months in
Oh, and Pokkén Tournament is made by Namco, the same people who made Ultimate. So I'm fairly sure we'll see ut patched in down the line, maybe once all fighters are released.
Well, if it would be only the competitive Scene, but Folks tend to forget that first and foremost the Game is an Party-Game, which is one of the biggest Crossover-Games on Earth. You know what that mean? Most People play this Game to play an certain Character, so it's pretty unfair to begin with to lock their Favorite Character behind an Grindwall and force them to play Characters they might not want to play... and even further:
If you play this with many friends & family this whole unlocking becomes an Chore. I couldn't even enjoy the Game properly or even enjoy the "unlocking" first day due i had to prepare for the weekend to unlock every character, so we can enjoy the Release of Ultimate at the FULLEST... (And i even had to use tricks to make it happen anyway due the 10 minute limit)
I know, nowdays People need their (cheap) Carrots to enjoy a Game and keep interested in it... i mean look at Ego-Shooter which can't come anymore with fairplay in mind but have unlock thousands of things, even if unbalance the Game(newcomers don't fail because of skill, but due they don't have the strongest weapons / mods unlocked) and make it not very competitive in it's mind.. (cough CoD cough) and don't misunderstand me, i'm not an lazy casual who can't spent much time into an game, because i want to spent much Time into Games... and i also enjoy a good part of unlockables. I wouldn't have mind to Grind the heck out of an epic skin for each Character... i don't mind to spent Time into unlocking all Spirits, and i also enjoy to unlocking this Characters within the Singleplayer-Adventure-Mode called World of Light. But this things should make sense... even more if sakurai argue his Games aim to be "fun", but this wasn't Fun for me, and even though i truly love Ultimate and is the best SSB for me, if i have to point out one thing which i really hate with a deep frustration and anger in my soul, it was to unlock this freaking ~70 Characters... this whole "unlock" Concept should've been complete optional...
So yes, though it's an different case for me, i understand this Guy... imagine to do this over and over again sounds like eternal penality of hell to me... and this overexaggerating should tell you how much i despise this whole unlocking...
Oh the irony of a competitive gamer complaining about having to play the game in which they compete
I question the wisdom of organizing tourneys this early in the game's life. It's not even a month and everyone seems to want to go on a gold rush of sorts to be the first to organize a tournament, probably hoping to rake in cash on entry fees and get some free exposure by being the first whatever.
They're joking right? I suck at Smash compared to tournament players and I still unlocked the characters within a few days of getting the game. If anything, I see the unlocking as trouble for casual players.
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