Fall Guys is a game that popped out of nowhere near the end of 2020. Beginning life as a PlayStation Plus title and also releasing on Steam, the game rapidly picked up a dedicated and committed player base. It inspired a new subtype in the Battle Royale genre and did something bold – the likes of which were unprecedented.
Mediatonic bore the fruits of their efforts when in March 2021, they would be bought out by Epic Games. From there, fans were expecting Epic to do to the world of loveable beans what they did to Fortnite and Rocket League – turn it into their next profitable venture.
There was a lot of speculation along the way, but Fall Guys went free to play earlier this week and was finally released for the Xbox and Nintendo Switch as well. It already amassed a gigantic 20 million players in the first few days of the bold new move.
Many players returned to the game with their friends, including myself and my crew. We did our best and tried the new maps, and modes, and enjoyed the game with a fresh coat of paint.
While praise is where it is due with Mediatonic, fans and players alike have a lot of complaints about how the game is currently being handled.
Here are some of the places where I feel Fall Guys needs to improve if they stand on retaining the player base.
Winning isn’t rewarding, it’s a punishment
The wipeout-like theme of the show encourages players to stay in the game as long as possible. The ultimate goal is to get to the finale/showdown and earn the coveted crown. However, once you get past the attractive bonus XP from the daily and weekly rewards, you earn Fame (the in-game XP) at a pace that makes a snail’s pace look like a Formula 1 race.
Through numerous Reddit posts compiled, we can see a remarkable pattern of individuals finishing in gold across all the challenges only earn a paltry 100 fame. Keep in mind, that getting gold in this game, particularly in Races, is nearly impossible. It’s something you maybe do once a day, once in 3 days, or on other rare occasions. You will NEVER be able to always earn gold.
All of the above images are courtesy of their respective Reddit threads:
The Fame you earn goes toward your Battle Pass progress. Just to give you an idea of how much XP you need to level up your Battle Pass in Fall Guys, I am currently Tier 25. When I play with my friends, we average between the silver medals and sometimes the bronze ones, except for the survival ones where Gold is given to everyone.
While the final XP earned is too broad to tell, I have mostly earned between 50 to 80 fame on most occasions.
These are my daily quests for the day. You can see that I can only earn 720 Fame a day (320 + 240 + 160 = 720)
After that, getting the rest of the XP is a total grind. Especially when you and your friends are looking to play for fun, but you never know when you’re going to hit the next level of the Battle Pass.
Currently, it takes 660XP for each tier. While you can easily get 1 tier a day from knocking out the dailies that really puts a damper once you have completed the dailies.
While we are talking about fame, fans have actually come to the point where they will gladly lose the first round and queuing again to get 1000 fame per hour, rather than playing the game legitimately.
In the post by the user, u/ToLazyToPickName, they highlight
Grind fame in “jump around” show by dying the first round, you get more than double than if you played normally!
Playing normally only gets you on average maybe 415 fame an hour maybe max 450 ish if you’re lucky… Even losing the first round in solo or stadium show gets you around 411 fame an hour.
To compare, Fortnite is now stingy with their XP with each season. However, to counter it, they put out constant in-world events and other ways to earn XP. This includes the creative mode where players can play creative maps, and more to earn XP to progress their battle pass.
If you wish to go through a more detailed assessment of fame and how it is lacking in Fall Guys, there are a couple of good threads you can follow.
A detailed overview of fame
Lastly, the elephant in the room. Your crown rank.
Crown Rank is a constant measure of a player’s skill in a game. It is similar to trainer level in Pokemon Unite. This doesn’t reset with the seasons and it gives you rewards for progressing it. You level up your crown rank with crowns. However, to reach the maximum crown level, you need to earn 4500 Crowns.
You can see the number at the bottom right of the screen, where it shows 36/4500.
This is where many fans are bitter over such ridiculous requirements. 4500 crows is a HUGE ask, and while it is understandable that Mediatonic and Epic want longevity from their product, let me give you a few numbers.
Keep in mind – playing solo earns you a whole crown. Playing with your friends (as a 3 or 4 stack) earns you 20 pieces of a crown (crown shards) make a whole crown. Playing in a duos earns you 35 crown shards for each win.
As such, the game is discouraging you to play with friends. If you do play with friends, you have to put more effort into winning than you do when you’re playing by yourself.
To make a whole crown, you need 60 shards. That means 3 wins as a 3 or 4 stack, or 2 wins as a duo.
Crowns require a thorough commitment
If you earn:
- 2 crowns a day, it will take you 2250 days to earn crown rank 54 – 74 months
- 3 crowns a day, it will take you 1500 days to earn crown rank 54 – 49 months
- 4 crowns a day, it will take you 1125 days to earn crown rank 54 – 37 months
- 5 crowns a day, it will take you 900 days to earn crown rank 54 – 29.5 months
Keep in mind, that the average player will barely or rarely ever earn 1-2 crowns per day. The really skilled players CAN earn 3-4 crowns per day easily. YES, the game does bring limited time modes (LTM’s) like Jump Around where you can earn a whole crown, and play with friends, these modes are seldom and rely on being rotated in.
To help give some contrast, I seldom play Pokemon Unite on my iPad with friends. However, in only a few weeks of passively playing the game once or twice a week, I am trainer level 22. I did this with no strings attached. I get XP whether I win or lose games, and I don’t have to go out of my way to earn it.
To get the maximum trainer level in Pokemon Unite which is level 40, it only requires 138,600 XP. This can easily be done in a couple of months of playing the game for maybe a half-hour or an hour a day at max. These figures are according to people I talked to who are trainer level 40 and kept track of their playtime.
However, Fall Guys making players earn 4500 crowns for the maximum crown rank is simply too great a task for fans. One game lets you earn rewards passively, and the other asks for you to go out of your way completely and ruin the fun for yourself.
The Store and Microtransactions
Yes, we all knew this was coming. Before you pick up your torches and pitchforks, YES, the game is now free to play and yes, monetizing the game is easily the best way to encourage the developers to make content for the game. While that may be the case, many fans are conflicted about how the content in the game is priced, and the value of the content itself.
I have participated in microtransactions in free-to-play games myself. Aside from Pokemon Unite, I have done purchases in Fortnite, Apex Legends, and many other titles. This is because, at the time, I was playing them regularly with friends and had fun with my purchases.
First, we must understand the different forms of currency in Fall Guys
- Kudos: in-game coins by doing challenges (daily, weekly, events, etc.)
- Show-Bucks: Must either be bought or earned in the Battle Pass.
- Crowns: Used to be the currency to buy skins and such in the game. Now, these have now been dissolved into Kudos. Crowns only count toward your crown rank.
The in-game store has separate sections for stuff you can buy with Kudos and Show-Bucks:
The Kudos Store:
The Show-Bucks store:
And to top it all off, you can’t even preview the celebration you are going to purchase:
Yes, I know that Fortnite has similar pricing for their in-game skins and such. However, keep in mind, that those skins also include collaboration, or unique events skins. Not to mention a centralized currency, V-Bucks.
The only other currency is gold bars which you use in the game itself. These are used with NPCs to buy items and weapons, which can not be used in the in-game store.
All of the skins shown here are also of good quality and are definitely appealing. However, the main bone of contention here is how the gap between show-bucks and Kudos separates what you can and cannot buy.
Particularly when you also consider that Crowns used to be the way to purchase skins. Now with the move to free-to-play, crowns only count toward your crown rank now, they are no longer an asset to your purchase.
However, the most egregious crime here is the lack of the ability to preview emotes. Considering these are something that players will have to spend real money on, they should at least know what the celebration looks like before spending money on it.
While I fully support the new model of monetization, the current stuff doesn’t match the same standard as its competitors. Considering there is better stuff in the Battle Pass or content given to legacy players.
Another complaint is the quality of items between the stores. For Kudos you’re only able to buy glasses or a belt, and when there are people like myself who hold 100,000+ Kudos or similar, we are just looking to spend the money where we can since there is few other places we can actually spend it.
In addition, the Kudos store takes almost a week, if not more to roll over. While the show-bucks store takes less time to update.
Mediatonic/Epic should look into changing how the different currencies work. They should at least put more effort into the content available to people who hold both forms of currency.
Locking a Trophy/Achievement Behind a Paywall
This is another gripe faced by the community, particularly those who were close to getting a 1000G / Platinum trophy. The trophy titled Head Turner requires the player to have a legendary body colour, pattern, upper, and lower cosmetic item.
Getting an Upper and Lower costume part is easily earnable by the battle pass. However, it’s worth mentioning that a lot of items from the previous seasons that were previously legendary are now classified as Epic or other rarities. Including body colors and patterns.
The main issue comes to a body colour or pattern. Unless Mediatonic releases one that is available through Kudos or as a free part of the next battle pass, this is also a problem that the community is facing.
While multiplayer trophies/achievements are already abhorred by the gaming community, this trophy sets itself as another precedent about why the practice of multiplayer trophies that require luck or excessive skill should be curbed.
We hope that Mediatonic looks into rectifying this serious problem in a future patch. Either that or they somehow find a way to help the community get this trophy as this is something beyond the players’ power.
Challenges Need To Be Reworked
Challenges are another way of earning Kudos/Show-Bucks, but some of them are intentionally or unintentionally made to inconvenience the player.
As of the time of writing this, there are two long-term challenges:
- Dive 1000 times
- Grab another player 1000 times in the team rounds
One of the most annoying challenges here is the grab one. This actively sets you up to be sabotaged by players on your own team. This has happened to me on multiple occasions on team-based games who grab me just to get another digit toward the challenge.
While there are game modes where it’s everyone for themselves, the team-based ones are the easiest ones to farm this on. This, in turn, makes your own teammates turn against you since it’s easy and convenient for them.
In addition, there are a couple of challenges that will truly take people a great amount of time. These in turn are milestones that reward a mere 120 shards, or 2 crowns.
Considering the amount of effort paired with the payout, these challenges need to be significantly reworked. This is so that players are able to feel a better reward for their efforts rather than something.
While these are classified as Marathon challenges, these also do have an expiry date, which at the time of writing this, is 62 days. While that is a generous time span, there is still room for better and more cooperative tasks. It could be similar to how Fortnite awards cooperative play with friends, rather than grabbing your team in a team round.
An example of this is getting
- Running 150,000 meters in race rounds, 120 crown shards
- Qualify from any round in Any show 200 times, 150 crown shards.
- Dive 1000 times in survival rounds, 120 crown shards
- Grab 1000 players in team rounds, 120 crown shards
Making the challenges less selfish and more cooperative would be a step in the right direction. Also reducing the milestones to something more realistic which doesn’t require overcommitting to the game for a minor reward.
Conclusion
At the end, Fall Guys has a lot of potential to major player in the Battle Royale market. It offers a lot of great content, versatility, and constant updates. It shows that the developers have a lot of love to give to the game. However, with the game now going free to play, it will need to fix a few minor grievances that are currently hampering the player experience. Only then will it have a fighting chance in an already saturated market.
We hope that Mediatonic and Epic Games look at the state of things and address them in future updates. It has a lot of promise, but it should be able to retain that momentum if it follows the path of Fortnite. That game has constant updates, an attractive store, good collaborations (Halo is set to go live on the 29th of June) and with the social media team already very active, the game has a good future ahead of it, should it choose to listen to important player feedback in the early stages.
Perfect article.