There’s a trending article claiming “$732 or 2.5 years of play time” to unlock everything in For Honor. This claim neglects to mention that while it costs 91,500 steel to unlock every cosmetic for a Hero, it only costs 500 to unlock said Hero.
After getting 1500-2000 steel for completing the tutorials, a player could have access to the entire roster within a few days.
Everything you need to play can be unlocked within a reasonable time. The rest is just fluff to provide incentive when playing multiplayer.
Wouldn’t players be pissed if they could unlock everything cosmetic within a month or two? Multiplayer games thrive on dangling carrots to preserve a sense of progression. I personally despise games that have performance-enhancing unlocks in multiplayer. In truth, I haven’t played For Honor beyond the beta, and would love to be enlightened if this is the case.
Overwatch continues to put out more content for loot boxes and I’m sure if you did the math to acquire everything it wouldn’t be pretty either. But that’s not the point. The point is to give you a pleasurable gift at the end of your evening of play.
Ubisoft has already started to trend towards free-to-play with their excellent Rainbow Six Siege. They currently offer a Starter Edition for $20 (CDN) that unlocks four Operators with the ability to unlock more with playtime. Obviously it takes a heck of a long time to earn enough funny money for additional characters but they can’t give away the game now can they.
DOTA 2’s very successful model starts with every character unlocked for free. Their business model is all about cosmetic add-ons. I’ve never played it but I’d bet the math to unlock every single cosmetic there could also be painted in a negative light.
For Honor is a full price game because of the production values, single-player campaign, and multiple maps/modes for multiplayer. The characters can all be accessed within a very short time and the cosmetic micro-transactions are a business model used by the most successful games in the industry.
2 comments
just a heads up.
the issue people are having is that to unlock everything or pay for it, including the items that improve your chances of winning, be it through damage or defense or revenge and everything else. and that is where the 730$ or 2.5 years comes into play
I play paragon and for the last year i have been building up my profile, mastered 4 of the 39 characters, unlocked some skins, and emotes. all witout paying a cent.
MT like the BS from ubisoft should be illegal if you have to pay to play the game
Thanks for the comment, a friend that plays told me the unlockables were cosmetic, good to learn otherwise. Anything that improves winning should not be a part of multiplayer progression. Ruins the balance and creates pay to win.
How’s the paragon community?