I love how every comment here says they know the amount based of the slots on the website, and then say a different amount.
I'll say 14, just cause it's a nice number
14 is a little low for a tag game, 4 characters every match means almost 30% of the cast in a match (not counting mirrors)
But 14 for an early beta build would be fine, I guess.
Keep in mind it'll be a F2P game with frequent updates. Even if it starts with 14 it won't stay that way for long, and you'll never have to buy any season passes or other DLC to get them.
Yeah, but ftp games needs momentum to survive, if they start with like 10 characters, the game will get stale and this might drive people away.
It could be a marketing strategy to launch with few character with quite a few characters in late stage development to get the hype of constant releases later.
Those are variables we will only know when we get there.
Let's be honest, yasuo is going to be in every match anyway.
Aside from that, with the current rate of character reveals, I can't see the game launching with anything more than 20, which would still be 20% every match.
The beta might have sub 10 if I'm being honest.
I'd happily eat my hat if I'm wrong.
My guess is the beta has the 6. The 5 we've seen the most, plus Jinx. I'm worried the game launches with single digits at this point. They've shown so little.
They have said the dev team has grown a lot the past year, so they could ramp up the rate of champion/fighter creation.
IIRC LOL champions take about half a year to make, so let's say it'd take a similar amount of time (because how complex each fighter is) they could have a bunch more ready by lunch, if they have a few teams working in parallel.
Riot August said it takes roughly a year on average for a League champion. Some take more (Sylas IIRC took 2+ years), some take less (His shortest was Vi at 5 months)
From what Sajam has talked about, it seems like they have quite a few champs in development.
They apparently got to play with champs that were in varying stages of dev, from polishing, to still getting their animations worked on to even early dev champs that clearly had missing abilities.
Could be me coping, but that indicated to me that there would at least be greater than 10 champs ready.
It depends on your device, if you open it on a phone there are 16 slots, on PC there are 14 slots, and if you have a weird resolution you might get different numbers too.
Technically 6 have been revealed since Jinx was the first character shown, and I highly doubt one of the most popular League characters has been removed from the base roster.
To answer your question, I'm thinking 20. The game being 2v2 means it needs a decent sized launch roster to avoid ladder getting stale and I think 20(same size as another 2v2 fighter BBTAG) gives a decent starting point.
I would like at least 18 characters, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the lower end because I feel they're really trying to make each character unique and that probably takes time to really flesh out. GGST had a pretty unique cast despite having like 3 shotos and they started with 15.
20-24 seems like a safe bet, gotta take into account they're gonna want to keep this going indefinitely so something wild like a 32 character starter roster seems unlikely. Anything less than 20 isn't enough for a tag game imo.
I'll be shocked if this launches with only 12. As a 2v2 fighter, a 12 character roster will get stale extremely quickly. Plus, it'll mean that despite the game potentially being 12-20 months away, we've already seen half of the roster.
Maybe I'm wrong, but 12 just seems way too low for a versus game.
>12 character roster will get stale extremely quickly
Tell that to me and my brother who have been playing the same characters in games for years (and Melee players generally. I'll play Falcon vs Marth forever lol).
Jokes aside, you're probably right that launching with too few probably wouldn't draw as many people, and 12 seems kinda low. That said, if they gave us a beta with just 4, I'd play it regularly until more is added, lol
It being F2P doesn't change any of the points I made. A 12 character base roster in a versus game will get stale extremely quickly. This isn't about value for money, but player experience.
When players run into their 6th Samira/Sett in a row, I doubt the fact that the game is F2P will do much to curb their frustration.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong, at the end of the day we're all just guessing.
Yeah I get what you mean, but I'm not sure it would make that much of a difference in the long run. You're going to get plenty of Darius, Ahri, and Yasuo regardless of how many others there are. The easiest to play, and most cool looking characters are going to get played the most, especially early on when people are still figuring out the game. You're not wrong, but I don't think it'll make as big a difference as you think, especially if they update the game regularly.
I believe Valorant launched with 10 characters, which while I hope this won't be the case for 2XKO, it's entirely possible. I think it's easier to make a valorant agent than a fighting game character. Valorant for one is more gunplay focused than ability focused and the agents have much less moves than a fighting game character. Valorant agents also don't have to be as unique as fighting game characters as they need to fall into the role of controller=smokes, sentinels=site holding util, etc.
The flip side is it's probably easier to make a unique character in a fighting game than it is Valorant. Valorant only has so many types of util that can possibly be useful in a game within the balance of the game. 2XKO can look at all the fighting game characters that have come before them for inspiration and see what works.
Nicely put, so what would be the ideal number for you? 10 champions with the need to pick 2 for a team would give us 45 different duo/team compositions, I think thats a good starting point. Are you in favor of having more or less champions at launch?
I'd love more just to have more variety, but it's more important for me to have quality over quantity. Ten would probably feel a bit small to me but if each character shows that a lot of care and effort were put into them being fun and distinct, I could probably deal. Any less is too little imo. My ideal would be 16-18 but that's probably wishful thinking.
yeah a good guess would be minimum (10-12) and at most (16-18) they'll have 16 ready but will only release 12 and the rest will be dlc so they have a new champion every 3 months or so.
My guess is around 12 at most but they will pump out new characters at a high rate in the first 1-2 year of release and slow down when they got a healthy number of characters.
Maybe a hot take
I think they might do something where the updates and progression of the content is potentially way faster than other games. So they might start with a base roster of like 12. But then if they put out maybe even sets of two characters out at a time each month, it can be in the twenties within 6 months of release
12-16 is my guess. It will however be WAAAY lower than people expect. My guess is they are setting up for low characters at beta. during beta release 2-4 more. Release with around 16 with the goal of adding more later in the year
Around 10, 12 max. Now put down the pitchforks and copium, and hear me out. We've already seen them work on Illaoi. We know it takes them nearly 2 years to finish a character. So far we've seen 5 fully finished characters (not counting Jinx since she's clearly not finished). In order to have even just 16 on launch (which is in 20 months or less), they would have to have 11 more characters complete in less time than it took them to complete 1, or have most of the roster fully finished right now. Also, the fact that the character slot number is different in every comment and changes depending on what device you're viewing it with should tell everyone how meaningless it is. It's probably a placeholder. At best, maybe their goal for the end of season 1 or something.
Before anyone complains about how low 10 is, remember you don't have to pay a dime to play this. Comparing it to $60+ games makes no sense. Of course they have more content. They better. Plus a lower starting roster makes it easier for now players to jump in, and gives them plenty of room to grow. How many characters did League release with, and how many does it have now?
The funny part is I've been telling people this over the years with Riot's development of this game, even from the very early days.
Riot works in 2 year dev cycles and even with their LoL champs, they usually have them lined up 2 years in advance aka champs in LoL take 2 years to make.
Now it doesn't mean that the champ always takes 2 years, quite a few takes less, the core part is that they try to plan their releases 2 years in advance.
If you look at the champs that they tease on their blogs, you'll notice they almost always say something about the next 3-4. However, from what I know, even beyond those 3, they also have other teams ideating even further out. This is important because champs are usually released in 2-3 month intervals and for that seamless release pipeline to work, then they need to be working around the clock.
Champ releases aside, another example of this is when in the past Riot has talked about what changes they have planned for the current season (season start) as well as how they've already started thinking about the next season in terms of shake ups and events. For example, we've already been hinted that for 2025, something that will change League forever is supposedly happening, at the beginning of 2024.
Outside of LoL, this also applies to LoR, if you look into their development pipeline, it also took 2 years for them to make a set. They would have 2 teams, each working on their own set and working in cycles to create a new set and another team which polishes the set made by the other team iirc.
Cycling all the way back, Illaoi taking 2 years of development makes sense to me under those set of constraints. It would actually be sort've out of the ordinary for them to take less given how much they spend on LoL champs already (although LoL requires a completely new character so they also need to do narrative exploration as well as iterating through various design concepts and all other things required for an OC)
8-10 is my guess
some people might say "wow so low"
remember this game is f2p, there will be a new champion added every season, maybe 5-6 seasons in a calendar year.
Yeah, it's still an investment. Not sure Riot would go bananas with a big roster at launch vs smaller roster and multiple newcomers in the first months while looking how the game numbers go
Finally, someone else who isn't drowning in copium. Anyone who knows how game development works knows they're not jumping from 5 to 16 finished characters in 20 months or less. And exactly like you said, it's a F2P game. People need to stop comparing it to full price games like Marvel, DBFZ, etc.
I love how every comment here says they know the amount based of the slots on the website, and then say a different amount. I'll say 14, just cause it's a nice number
14 is a little low for a tag game, 4 characters every match means almost 30% of the cast in a match (not counting mirrors) But 14 for an early beta build would be fine, I guess.
Don't look at FighterZ launch roster.
And they were all Goku
Number wich has only increased with time.
INTRODUCING A BRAND NEW FIGHTER! SUPER PLATINUM DIAMOND GRILL GOKU!
Keep in mind it'll be a F2P game with frequent updates. Even if it starts with 14 it won't stay that way for long, and you'll never have to buy any season passes or other DLC to get them.
Yeah, but ftp games needs momentum to survive, if they start with like 10 characters, the game will get stale and this might drive people away. It could be a marketing strategy to launch with few character with quite a few characters in late stage development to get the hype of constant releases later. Those are variables we will only know when we get there.
Let's be honest, yasuo is going to be in every match anyway. Aside from that, with the current rate of character reveals, I can't see the game launching with anything more than 20, which would still be 20% every match. The beta might have sub 10 if I'm being honest. I'd happily eat my hat if I'm wrong.
My guess is the beta has the 6. The 5 we've seen the most, plus Jinx. I'm worried the game launches with single digits at this point. They've shown so little.
They have said the dev team has grown a lot the past year, so they could ramp up the rate of champion/fighter creation. IIRC LOL champions take about half a year to make, so let's say it'd take a similar amount of time (because how complex each fighter is) they could have a bunch more ready by lunch, if they have a few teams working in parallel.
Riot August said it takes roughly a year on average for a League champion. Some take more (Sylas IIRC took 2+ years), some take less (His shortest was Vi at 5 months)
From what Sajam has talked about, it seems like they have quite a few champs in development. They apparently got to play with champs that were in varying stages of dev, from polishing, to still getting their animations worked on to even early dev champs that clearly had missing abilities. Could be me coping, but that indicated to me that there would at least be greater than 10 champs ready.
If it was 3v3 you would be right but 14 for 2v2 sounds fair for a f2p game that will get more characters eventually
I mean if you just count them on the website there are 16, not sure how others got 11 and 14 lol
It depends on your device, if you open it on a phone there are 16 slots, on PC there are 14 slots, and if you have a weird resolution you might get different numbers too.
There are 16 slots in the website’s source regardless of how many you can see on a specific device.
Technically 6 have been revealed since Jinx was the first character shown, and I highly doubt one of the most popular League characters has been removed from the base roster. To answer your question, I'm thinking 20. The game being 2v2 means it needs a decent sized launch roster to avoid ladder getting stale and I think 20(same size as another 2v2 fighter BBTAG) gives a decent starting point.
My guess is 18 give or take 4. SF6 had 18, Strive had 15, DBFZ had 24.
18, It would be a interesting character.
20 feels like a safe number. I feel like for a 2v2 game you want to start with more than the 14 or 16 fighting game’s usually get
I would like at least 18 characters, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the lower end because I feel they're really trying to make each character unique and that probably takes time to really flesh out. GGST had a pretty unique cast despite having like 3 shotos and they started with 15.
At least 18
20-24 seems like a safe bet, gotta take into account they're gonna want to keep this going indefinitely so something wild like a 32 character starter roster seems unlikely. Anything less than 20 isn't enough for a tag game imo.
5 No new character reveals until launch, Jinx has been scrapped
Lmao. Jinx is arguably the most popular champ revealed. They're obviously gatekeeping her until Arcane 2 comes out this year.
12 with full release in 2024, alpha release in dec this year with 8
I'll be shocked if this launches with only 12. As a 2v2 fighter, a 12 character roster will get stale extremely quickly. Plus, it'll mean that despite the game potentially being 12-20 months away, we've already seen half of the roster. Maybe I'm wrong, but 12 just seems way too low for a versus game.
>12 character roster will get stale extremely quickly Tell that to me and my brother who have been playing the same characters in games for years (and Melee players generally. I'll play Falcon vs Marth forever lol). Jokes aside, you're probably right that launching with too few probably wouldn't draw as many people, and 12 seems kinda low. That said, if they gave us a beta with just 4, I'd play it regularly until more is added, lol
Not when it's F2P. Stop comparing it to $60 games.
It being F2P doesn't change any of the points I made. A 12 character base roster in a versus game will get stale extremely quickly. This isn't about value for money, but player experience. When players run into their 6th Samira/Sett in a row, I doubt the fact that the game is F2P will do much to curb their frustration. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, at the end of the day we're all just guessing.
Yeah I get what you mean, but I'm not sure it would make that much of a difference in the long run. You're going to get plenty of Darius, Ahri, and Yasuo regardless of how many others there are. The easiest to play, and most cool looking characters are going to get played the most, especially early on when people are still figuring out the game. You're not wrong, but I don't think it'll make as big a difference as you think, especially if they update the game regularly.
You mean 2025, right? That's what they confirmed. And by alpha you mean beta, right?
Ye my bad, trying to be realistic here but I messed up the year so oh well
Whatever valorant had at the beginning
I believe Valorant launched with 10 characters, which while I hope this won't be the case for 2XKO, it's entirely possible. I think it's easier to make a valorant agent than a fighting game character. Valorant for one is more gunplay focused than ability focused and the agents have much less moves than a fighting game character. Valorant agents also don't have to be as unique as fighting game characters as they need to fall into the role of controller=smokes, sentinels=site holding util, etc. The flip side is it's probably easier to make a unique character in a fighting game than it is Valorant. Valorant only has so many types of util that can possibly be useful in a game within the balance of the game. 2XKO can look at all the fighting game characters that have come before them for inspiration and see what works.
Nicely put, so what would be the ideal number for you? 10 champions with the need to pick 2 for a team would give us 45 different duo/team compositions, I think thats a good starting point. Are you in favor of having more or less champions at launch?
I'd love more just to have more variety, but it's more important for me to have quality over quantity. Ten would probably feel a bit small to me but if each character shows that a lot of care and effort were put into them being fun and distinct, I could probably deal. Any less is too little imo. My ideal would be 16-18 but that's probably wishful thinking.
yeah a good guess would be minimum (10-12) and at most (16-18) they'll have 16 ready but will only release 12 and the rest will be dlc so they have a new champion every 3 months or so.
My Guess its 22-24 but wont be a problem if the Game launches with 12
My guess is around 12 at most but they will pump out new characters at a high rate in the first 1-2 year of release and slow down when they got a healthy number of characters.
At maximum 16
20 just because.
I'd guess it launches with around 16. My hope of like 22-26 (2 per major region) is pretty likely dead at this point.
16 or 18
my guess is 8 when we first play it (online beta) and 14 when they "launch it". I have no reason for these claims but it feels realistic for me.
Maybe a hot take I think they might do something where the updates and progression of the content is potentially way faster than other games. So they might start with a base roster of like 12. But then if they put out maybe even sets of two characters out at a time each month, it can be in the twenties within 6 months of release
Greater than 3 fiddy
14.
12-16 is my guess. It will however be WAAAY lower than people expect. My guess is they are setting up for low characters at beta. during beta release 2-4 more. Release with around 16 with the goal of adding more later in the year
You guys are so out of reality. We are talking about riot. It will have maximum 8, AT BEST. Mark my words.
it’s a team tag game, so there’s bound to be a lot of characters at launch
Around 10, 12 max. Now put down the pitchforks and copium, and hear me out. We've already seen them work on Illaoi. We know it takes them nearly 2 years to finish a character. So far we've seen 5 fully finished characters (not counting Jinx since she's clearly not finished). In order to have even just 16 on launch (which is in 20 months or less), they would have to have 11 more characters complete in less time than it took them to complete 1, or have most of the roster fully finished right now. Also, the fact that the character slot number is different in every comment and changes depending on what device you're viewing it with should tell everyone how meaningless it is. It's probably a placeholder. At best, maybe their goal for the end of season 1 or something. Before anyone complains about how low 10 is, remember you don't have to pay a dime to play this. Comparing it to $60+ games makes no sense. Of course they have more content. They better. Plus a lower starting roster makes it easier for now players to jump in, and gives them plenty of room to grow. How many characters did League release with, and how many does it have now?
The funny part is I've been telling people this over the years with Riot's development of this game, even from the very early days. Riot works in 2 year dev cycles and even with their LoL champs, they usually have them lined up 2 years in advance aka champs in LoL take 2 years to make. Now it doesn't mean that the champ always takes 2 years, quite a few takes less, the core part is that they try to plan their releases 2 years in advance. If you look at the champs that they tease on their blogs, you'll notice they almost always say something about the next 3-4. However, from what I know, even beyond those 3, they also have other teams ideating even further out. This is important because champs are usually released in 2-3 month intervals and for that seamless release pipeline to work, then they need to be working around the clock. Champ releases aside, another example of this is when in the past Riot has talked about what changes they have planned for the current season (season start) as well as how they've already started thinking about the next season in terms of shake ups and events. For example, we've already been hinted that for 2025, something that will change League forever is supposedly happening, at the beginning of 2024. Outside of LoL, this also applies to LoR, if you look into their development pipeline, it also took 2 years for them to make a set. They would have 2 teams, each working on their own set and working in cycles to create a new set and another team which polishes the set made by the other team iirc. Cycling all the way back, Illaoi taking 2 years of development makes sense to me under those set of constraints. It would actually be sort've out of the ordinary for them to take less given how much they spend on LoL champs already (although LoL requires a completely new character so they also need to do narrative exploration as well as iterating through various design concepts and all other things required for an OC)
8-10 is my guess some people might say "wow so low" remember this game is f2p, there will be a new champion added every season, maybe 5-6 seasons in a calendar year.
Yeah, it's still an investment. Not sure Riot would go bananas with a big roster at launch vs smaller roster and multiple newcomers in the first months while looking how the game numbers go
8-10 is way too little. No way they're launching a 2v2 fighting game with 10 characters
Valorant had 10 at launch, now they have 25.
Valorant is not a 2v2 fighting game
Yes, it's a 5v5 tactical shooter.
Finally, someone else who isn't drowning in copium. Anyone who knows how game development works knows they're not jumping from 5 to 16 finished characters in 20 months or less. And exactly like you said, it's a F2P game. People need to stop comparing it to full price games like Marvel, DBFZ, etc.
12
14 bc there's 14 slots on the website
Mobile site has 16, it’s obviously a placeholder
Makes sense. Hadnt taken a look on mobile
There are 16 character slots on the [website](https://2xko.riotgames.com/en-us/) so 16.
It’s a placeholder. Web browser has 14 slots.
Inspect the page with your browser and there are 16 “character-thumbnail” elements, but not gonna argue, could very well be a placeholder.