New Players need better ways to earn cosmetics#87

I’ve been really enjoying Rivals 2 since launch, I’ve even gotten a lot of my friends into it. Theres a group of 3-5 of us who play pretty regularly, but 10 of us own the game.

Out of the group that do not play much, none of them ever earned a single skin or pallete ever. If a player is new to the genre, ranked is extremely punishing and casuals is even worse. That leaves Lobbies, Bot Match, and Arcade mode, all of which have severely reduced xp gain compared to online queues. In a lobby of 3, a new player gets to learn in an optimal environment with 2 friends to help them out and learn by observation, but because they are only playing 2/3 matches, the already low exp rate of lobbies is even worse. Bot Match (lite) is fairly boring and has not yet hooked anyone I know into grinding it, and is still very slow taking many hours to earn enough coins to buy a skin or level up to 50 where they would earn one naturally.

Arcade mode is the best here due to the one-time bonus of 2k exp per character per difficulty. I will often tell new players to do arcade mode once with each character to learn their moves, get lots of Aether Bucks, and compile almost all of the shaders in the game. However, this is essentially homework. If I convince a friend to buy this game they are doing so to play with our group and not to grind ranked or single player modes. As a result, they basiaclly never do this maybe only playing arcade mode for their favorite character once.

I would like to see tutorials reward coins and bucks for first time completion, enough to buy a blue-rarity skin from the Bucks store and a 50k coin skin if you complete them all. This is still homework for a new player, but I’ve had better luck convincing people to play a tutorial over arcade mode. Regardless, they would still have to log on without their friends and grind through lessons so there also needs to be a way for new players to efficiently earn cosmetics while playing with friends.

Here Crew battles offer a really cool way for a new player to work with (not against) their friends, fill online queues, and earn cosmetics all at the same time. Unfortunately right now exp gain is only given for one stock’s worth of gameplay, severely limiting the already slow progression. I would also like to see 3 person Crew battles give full 3-stock exp gain, not just for the one character, but for every character on a player’s team. This would make it the new best way to earn exp and rewards people for playing with their friends, which is what multiplayer is all about really. There is the issue of crew battles requiring exactly 3 players, so it would be nice if Crew battles could be queued with two friends, finding a 3rd to fill. Additionally, if 2-3 person lobbies could queue FFA/doubles together online that would fulfill a similar role.

Finally, modes like eye break, target test, edgeguard training and bot match could use advertised exp rewards for achieving a certain level. Maybe a one time bonus of 5000 coins for beating target test under 20 seconds (the abyss medal requirement), breaking 50 eyes, edgeguarding a given rival 10 times, or achieving 10 wins against level 9 cpus could motivate new players to engage with these modes on their own time. Having a clear goal is a much stronger motivator than the nebulous aim of improving and learning, especially for someone who is new and hasn’t yet committed their time to the game. Completing arcade mode in under 4:30 is great for people wanting to speedrun or earn a cool reward for their main, but is too tough of an ask for a new player.

I agree with everything you’ve said. The grind for currency in this game to unlock cosmetics for new or even average players is horrendous. Personally, while they’re fantastic looking, the skins are far to overpriced. I wish there were double coin events on the weekends for doubles or free for all. Occasional in game sales & discounts around holidays and/or tournaments would be nice too. Especially for older skins. A better way for earning in game currency would help lessen the pain of the grind for casual players because it would feel that their struggle is actually accomplishing something by being able to unlock more than 1 or 2 skins. It would be another level of engagement offered to casual players that currently doesn’t exist

The game desperately needs a sort of weekly reward even if it’s just for dealing 800% damage a week. If you are a casual player it feels impossible to unlock anything. Reward commitment over time as well as total time commitment.

I do agree that there should be better ways to grind monthly pass EXP and even character EXP for those rewards, but I will say that the coin and Aether Buck rewards should remain as is. This game needs to make money somehow outside of the 30 USD entrance fee and bundles are the best way to do it. If they give more Coin/Aether Bucks as rewards (more than they already are), then I think it’d ultimately be a net negative for the team. You even get a beginner’s bonus that you can get for dirt cheap to further boost your coin gain, something the team didn’t need to do, but they did and we’re thankful for it. This game is already insanely consumer-friendly as how it is.

Brought this to the team and we’ve been discussing XP bonuses for first win of the day regardless of the mode you play. It would be a pretty big chunk, which would be nice but it is a pretty big tech/UI task so we’re not sure what the timeline could be. We’ll be looking to add this when possible.

Sbs the goat

I do hope you guys end up going with a weekly bonus instead though, first win of the day dailies can be frustrating especially if they start to feel like obligations

Recommendation to new players is that finishing each difficulty in Arcade mode for the first time per character offers a lot of XP. This isn’t an excuse or a fix for the problem. But a fun way to both explore the cast and get some Dan bucks/coins.

@Rynnyryn I fail to see how changing it from daily to weekly would help with making it feel less lke an obligation. I only see it limiting the frequency of bonuses for players, and that would annoy me more lol

Because a lot of people only have time to sit down and game only a few times a week. If rivals wants an hour or two from me a week, let me choose which days to commit that time to. A player that puts an hour into the game one day a week is no less valuable than a player that plays ten minutes every day but a strictly daily reward system insists otherwise.

Absolutely, but a daily reward system does not punish the weekly player, but a weekly reward system punishes (or at least disencourages) the daily player. If you have the time for a match a day, that’s great. If you don’t, no problem you can just get 1 a week. I’m imagining a system where the first match you win every 24 hours simply gives you more xp / coins.

Weeklies don’t punish daily players. In fact, it allows greater flexibility in how you choose to complete them (For example all at once, or across multiple days). It would be like the current event tracks, just on a smaller scale.

Ohh, I think we’re thinking of different things. Yeah I think weekly quests for xp like “kill with a spike” or “win a match as X Character” would work well. Refreshing weekly to have no time stress. I was thinking something like Splatoon 3, where your first win of the day gives you an extra amount of xp and coins, or like how the first clear in arcade mode works.