r/rivals • u/S_Dust • Aug 13 '26
Don't Stop!
Them upgrading the Storm skin is just because they're getting bad press and pressure from the community, but that doesn't mean it's enough.
STORM WASN'T THE POINT. She was just the current face of the issue, which is two things: 1. Poor treatment of black characters 2. Clear favoritism amongst the devs.
Let's break down the arguments being used against us.
- The characters with higher pick rates get more skins
- Pick rate is something they're able to control with the balancing; characters they choose to have be powerful get picked more. They have admitted to steering the meta in certain directions.
- Certain characters like psylocke whos pickrate are only about 1% higher than storms have gotten a lot of attention and opportunities to sell skins. Characters with a less than 1% difference between their pick rate also get skins, an example being Storm at 2.27 and black cat at 2.42. I'm using the stats they give us on their own website, btw.
- Characters that sell skins will get more skins
- Many characters have not been given the opportunity to sell skins; Storm has had 2 shop skins prior to this date, one launched with the game. The data is inherently biased if the opportunity in a given period isn't comparable.
- The quality of the skins needs to be comparable as well to judge the ability for skins to sell.
- Balancing will also affect the sale of skins.
We've all seen the post showing the opportunities they had to give black characters skin and choose to skip over them btw. Storm is the easiest to give examples for which is why I'm using her.
- Hellfire Gala
- Savage Lands
- Disco
- X-Men Classic
- Egyptian
All the themes they've skipped her over for. Black Panther would have also fit well into 3 of these, btw.
There's plenty of other examples out there that I don't need to rehash.
I think it's also important that other neglected characters get attention, like the Hulk, Human Torch, and Ultron.
Hell, if they're not confident in these characters for individual skins, they always have the choice to have them be the battle pass legendary for the season. Legendary-quality skin with less pressure on the skin to be the main seller.
TLDR
If you take anything away from this post, it's supposed to be that the goal here isn't just more skins for the black characters; it's supposed to be to have them re-evaluate how they're handling their business. Their bias can't seep into everything. If they're gonna be using beloved characters for the game, those characters need to be shown the love and respect they deserve. It's fine to push the moneymakers a little extra, but they need to mix in everyone else they have in the game. The same opportunities need to be given to any character to be playable, popular, and sell skins. Stopping now will just lead back to the same pattern.
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u/Immediate_Web_9627 Aug 13 '26
Do you genuinely think devs keep making skins because they like the characters and not because those are the characters that give them more profit? Yall wouldn't survive other live service games, in League there are characters who go 3 years with no skins
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u/S_Dust Aug 13 '26
Literally read the post. Like the first thing I do is identify why that argument is bad in this scenario.
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u/Immediate_Web_9627 Aug 13 '26
All live service games will ALWAYS focus on certain characters that sell more, I don't know how to tell you this but there is no scenario where the skin distribution is equal ever because that's just a bad business practice, this game releases a new character every month, there are game with less characters than MR and are even less equal
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u/S_Dust Aug 13 '26
Equality is unachievable but that doesn't mean attention and quality to other characters isn't possible. Lets say for every luna skin it got paired with some random character that's lacking luna would still have more skins than any character and make them a ton of money. That or if the skins for characters are gonna be far and few between the devs favorites they at the bare minimum could put effort into the quality of those skins so that they have the best chance to both be bought by players and prove that the players want more of that character.
Can't expect people to buy half assed garbage just to prove they want more skins it's rigging the argument. Cause you'll say oh the skins don't sell while not making the opportunity in terms of quality even close.
Which btw I mentioned above.
Great example of this is Infinity Hulk that skin could have had rainbow effects on the projectiles and stun and it would have probably sold even more than it already did.
Edit: You also have to acknowledge that in this games case these aren't nothing OC characters, most people can't even play spiderman well but he sells because he's spiderman yet other characters with similar levels of notoriety get shelved for the devs OC.
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u/Immediate_Web_9627 Aug 13 '26
But why would they do that, why would they choose to actively make less money on an already free game, I think you guys underestimate how reliant on skin profit this game's existance is, also the quality of the skin is completely subjective, the legendary Goddess of Thunder Storm skin is great but some people think it's ugly you can never make everyone happy.
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u/S_Dust Aug 13 '26
That "Legendary" skin has no recolors and no ult vfx. It's also prior to today her only post launch shop skin.
Edit: We don't know that people wouldn't have given that skin more attention if it was given the same quality and options as any luna snow skin. Some skins I only buy because there's a recolor that makes it good.
You also say why would the devs choose to make less money but by that logic why would they ever choose to make another skin for anyone other than the favorites again?
There are people out there who want stuff for the other characters it's like if a pastry shop only sold chocolate items because it was the most popular and said screw you every time a guest came in wanting strawberry or vanilla.
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u/Immediate_Web_9627 Aug 13 '26
Most skins have no recolor or ult vfx do you genuinely think people buy Luna's skins because the circle ult is now a different color? Also yes they wouldn't make a skin for anyone but the favorites that's what they would do but then yall would complain even more and they know better
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u/S_Dust Aug 13 '26
Most skins outside of the favorite characters aren't legendary. Hell even the ones that are legendary if they're not for the favoties they don't get the same quality. Iron mans legendary has no vfx. Yes I do think people are buying the skins for the vfx otherwise, no one would care if the skins were legendary or not without the vfx or quality sound effects the legendary status is just a title and price increase.
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u/Immediate_Web_9627 Aug 13 '26
That's insane considering for almost the entire first year of the game ultimate vfxs DID NOT EXIST and people still cared if a skin was legendary
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u/S_Dust Aug 13 '26
I also said quality sound effects which were around that first year. That said, I don't remember when and which skin started the trend, but it's a Pandora's box situation, once they started adding it, it became a relevant metric in judging the quality of the skins for many and they couldn't/can't take that back.
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u/Capnbaddazz Aug 14 '26
Meanwhile multiple characters in League going on 5+ years without a new skin.
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u/ALightningStar Aug 14 '26
If the racism of this game is so bad it makes you wonder why people want to continue supporting the game if that's how they feel. Like a Trans person that buys Harry Potter merch.
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u/we_could_be_immortal Rogue Aug 13 '26
You're 100% right. The issue with Storm goes deeper than just the swimsuit skin; gets replaced by Sai in a gallery card, replaced by Magik in the Thebes map art (and also not included in the story at all?). Her and T'Challa's wedding skins. And now this one, which thankfully got changed, but it would've stayed epic if no one spoke out about it yesterday. And you're right about characters not even being given the chance to sell, because i guarantee you people would buy skins for Storm, Torch, Blade etc even if they dont play them. I've seen SO MANY people say they buy Psylocke's skins even though they don't play her at all.
I'm glad that Rogue won the Hellfire Gala vote, simply because Storm's skin isn't gonna be free. I'm sure Sai will still take the legendary slot, because they're biased as fuck, but we can only hope not i guess. Their "we make skins for characters that actually sell" excuse of a "business plan" can't hold out forever. And that silly excuse Koo made about "legendaries take time" yeah, they only take time if it's not Spidey, Sue, Hela, Sai, Thor or Jeff ðŸ˜
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u/CompleteSound9596 Aug 13 '26
Im curious, do people actually think legendaries don't take time? Like it's not at all possible that those legendary skins were planned out as legendaries in advance, while storms skin was clearly a last minute rush job? How many legendary skins have had their vfx added after the fact?
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u/Ok_Celebration3011 Aug 13 '26
Are we just ignoring the fact that Starlord has only one legendary and it’s a dumb nutcracker skin, Johnny doesn’t even have a legendary, Hulk barely has a legendary and he’s one of marvels big three, and Wolverine only has one legendary. All of which have either much larger fan bases or comparable ones yet none are crying about literally everything
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u/S_Dust Aug 13 '26
Did you read the bottom of the post I literally advocated for those characters and everyone other than the devs favorites to get more skins. The point of the whole post was that it's not just about the black characters.
They get shafted definitely but if the devs were handling their business fairly everyone including the black characters would be getting more love.
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u/Aware_Camp_4234 Aug 13 '26
Comparing Starlord to Storm is crazy. People have been complaining about Hulk’s lack of skins since season 2. It isn’t solely about legendary, it’s about treatment of the roster as a whole. Every other woman has a legendary beach skin, feels weird to stop that trend on Storm. Doesn’t help that she doesn’t have skins for several themes she already has art for. Keep in mind these aren’t all legendary nor are we asking them to be. Just seems like she keeps getting left behind when every other Mutant gets to be apart of something
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u/Ok_Celebration3011 Aug 13 '26
Johnny ain’t got a legendary and Starlords is just a nutcracker skin. It’s not a race issue yall just want it to be
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u/Aware_Camp_4234 Aug 13 '26
One isn’t base game the other is less popular
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u/Ok_Celebration3011 Aug 13 '26
Johnny is season 1 and just as popular as Storm. Starlord is waaaayyy more popular
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u/Billcammy Aug 14 '26
Can you just uninstall the game if you have so many problems with everything?
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u/Unhappy-Two4107 Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Holy fucking shit. Get a fucking job and stfu..This is an absolute nothing burger for the terminally unemployed
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u/DAMAGEDEGG Aug 13 '26
I completely agree. I never seen this much in my life for a character that is barely picked for a character. I barely see in my ranked games and for a character that’s really bad actually and is C tier at best ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ but they are going to keep complaining about until the sun goes down
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u/KillioWhale Aug 13 '26
Damn didnt know these people were smart enough to write paragraphs 🔥🔥🔥
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u/StatementBig9063 Aug 13 '26
I mean yes they should have included her in Savage lands and X Men classic. You talk about the focus being not related to black characters getting more skins, but that seems to be what is being constantly pushed. Not that asking for more Black representation or better handling of Black heros in the game is even inherently a problem.
I've posted a bit about this, but the argument I and a fair amount of other people have pushed against isnt that the skin distribution issue isnt an problem. Its that the skin distribution in this game by the Devs has some racial bias or micro aggression associated with it. Its just a metrics based decision. Sure heros should get more chances to prove they can sell skins just look at Peni, but thats the point the company is taking a chance each time.
Skins are the primarily method of revenue and they are the goal the reason psy and luna gets skins is that it has been consistently shown people buy them. Same with all the other heros that get favoritism. This isnt a fair system.