When this Mediatonic opus was originally released in August 2020, we immediately fell in love with it. In our review we said that “it was pure fun no matter if we won or lost the game” and we celebrated that, although it had microtransactions, we could get all kinds of costumes, colors and emotes just by playing at our own pace. Now what Fall Guys It has been a free game for several weeks with many changes to its economy, season pass and rewards, we think it is still one of the most fun titles we have played, but its progression system was ruined and we no longer enjoy it as much as before.
As you surely know, this title introduced a new currency: the beanswhich is equivalent to the V Coins of Fortnite and it is used to buy the vast majority of cosmetics. There are others that can be obtained with the traditional Commendations, but they are much less and these have lost relevance. For its part, the Crowns can no longer be used to buy anything, but we can earn rewards for getting certain numbers of them.
These changes can be criticized, but they are understandable within what is possible for a ‘free-to-play’ game. The real problem is that the season pass of Fall Guyswhich is no longer free, now has a very irregular progression.
Where is my fame?
When Fall Guys It was still a paid game, the battle pass was free, and we got the points to level up—called Fame—just by playing. The further we got in a match, the more Fame we earned and received bonuses for winning gold, silver, and bronze medals in each round. We could also get extra Fame for completing daily quests as simple as ‘jump 30 times’ and ‘grab five players’.
After the transformation into free game, and stills posible Earn Fame to level up the Season Pass by playing any game mode. Fall Guysbut the amount we get for each game is minimal. The main way to earn Fame now is through the new daily and weekly quest system. Here the problems begin.
Some of these missions are as simple as ‘play a show’ or ‘win 30 rounds’, but they also ask for a certain number of matches in duos and squads. This is a system similar to Fortnite, in which we can get experience doing a wide variety of activities. But this is a very different game from Epic Games’ battle royale and it doesn’t allow as much variety in the missions. These activities quickly become repetitive and add nothing to the game..
This creates two types of players: those who play all the time and plan their games according to the missions they have to complete, and those who play Fall Guys casually, when they want and only the way they want. In the past, when it was a paid game, you could complete a season pass and claim all of its rewards even by playing it occasionally. Now it is impossible to do it this way.
The problem is that the little Fame that we get playing ‘casually’ cannot be compared with the great amount that the missions give us. If we want to level up in the battle pass, we have to play according to what the daily and weekly missions ask us to do. Not interested in playing in duos or squads? We are very sorry. It is the only way.
But there are also problems for other types of players. The most dedicated fans of Fall Guys They don’t have much motivation to continue playing after reaching level 100 of the season pass. Before it was free, we earned a lot of Commendations just by playing matches and there were a good amount of cosmetics that we could buy with them in the store. Even if Commendations were earned this way, there is almost nothing we can buy with them. Quality costumes in the store can only be obtained by paying with beans.
Another thing. Did you complete all the missions before the end of the week? There are now no notable rewards for playing until new quests arrive.
Of course, there are still the Crowns and there is a long list of prizes that we can get for accumulating them. But these rewards don’t come at a good rate and are mostly color variations of existing costumes.
What motivation do we have to continue playing Fall Guys with the progression of the free version?
Play Fall Guys for fun?
As we said at the beginning, Fall Guys it’s supremely fun. In fact, the rounds added this season have become some of our favorites. In theory, having a good time should be the main reason we play something like this, and all those rewards should come second.
It should be like that, but it isn’t.
For better or for worse, cosmetic elements —call them outfits, costumes, appearances or ‘skins’— have become an important part of the experience when enjoying the so-called games-as-a-serviceespecially free ones like Fall Guys. This is why such a big division was created in the community of Halo Infinite. While most are angry at the slow pace of new cosmetic content arriving, veterans want them to just focus on gameplay.
no matter what we play Fall Guys “just for fun”, seeing the few rewards and low progression in the pass after a game makes us very discouraged.
If we’re cynical, we could say that they purposely created this “problem” to keep us glued to the game or push us to pay for a ‘tier advancement’ in the season pass. Yes, developers have to make money, but these kinds of practices are predatory and abusive.
We prefer to believe that Mediatonic is simply experimenting with the balance required for progression in the game. Recently they leaked that they extended the current season until September. A good reason for this may be to give players more time to complete the pass. The good thing about living in the era of constant patches for video games is that at any time something that doesn’t work can be changed. At any moment we could see Fame rewards adjusted to make progression more satisfying.
We really wish it to be so. We really like this game and we don’t want something as “dumb” as the rate at which we receive cosmetics to discourage us from continuing to play.
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