I play this game sparsely and very casually. When I am in the mood to play it (like I was today) I expect to be able to play the game online, but now that portion of the game has been paywalled??? 🤔 For some reason unknown to me, a portion of the game I had already paid for wayyyy back when this was still a KickStarter Indie game with real potential has been taken away, and IF I would like to play online I will have to pay for it again.

This is not to mention all the additional skins I received for being a supporter of the original KickStarter project and it's Steam release, that were AGAIN taken away from me due to reasons? A mod on the RR Discord at the time, informed me I would not re-receive those skins in the transition to a F2P Live Service model... I bit my tongue then because I could still enjoy the game and it's multiplayer which ultimately mattered more then some skins to me. Now the part of the game I ACTUALLY enjoyed most of all is paywalled.

I'm dumbfounded by this decision. I can't think of any other live-service game I have played regardless of whether or not it started as a F2P game or transitioned into one, ever make a decision this poor and at the same time alienate the playerbase from each other for an already niche platform-fighter. I don't know if Slippi Melee paywalling the Ranked Beta match-making, and the amount of players willing to jump on that was the inspiration for this gigantic mistake, but even if it was that was only $5 in comparison.

If this game is able to survive somehow after this transition I will be surprised, because from my perspective it looks and feels like a death sentence...