• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

How to Earn an Entire Season worth of Characters in Street Fighter V

R

Rymuth

Member
Be it ignorance or misinformation, there's a prevalent belief that once you buy Street Fighter V, you're pretty much fucked on gaining FM to buy Stages and Characters because every win in an online match gives you 50FM and you need 100K per character.

It's basically a huge rallying point for SFV haters to rally behind. Case in point:-

Caipirinha said:
But hidden a lot of it behind some of the most expensive DLC of the entire generation.
Click to expand...

Garlador said:
For anyone who doesn't play often or competitively - which is a vast majority - they won't be getting the DLC anytime soon.
Click to expand...

For the record, I haven't even earned the online trophy for winning 100 matches and yet I have managed to purchase 4 DLC characters and one stage and still sitting on 400K FM

Stallion Dan said:
Bollocks.
Click to expand...

It's true. I'm a scrub and I'm proud of it. So how did I achieve this feat of black magic? Read on. (Special shout-out to Esperrstar on GFaqs because this is pretty much a reskin of their thread)



Step 1: Complete Cinematic Story Mode

Completing cinematic mode on Normal nets you 30,000 FM and on Hard, 50,000 FM. For those who don't wish to watch, you can pretty much skip the cutscenes

Total FM Earned: 80,000

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 2: Play through the individual stories

Playing and completing each character's stories should grant you 10,000 FM (2k for completion, 8k for leveling up) - 16 x 10k = 160,000 FM

Total FM Earned: 240,000 (worth 2 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 3: Play Survival Easy

Survival at this level is incredibly easy and shouldn't take more than five minutes per character. You don't have to do them all at once, just make it a daily routine to log in, spend 5 minutes to clear a character's survival mode and basically turn off SFV if you want. At the end, you should have earned 6000 FM (2k for completion, 4 for leveling) - 16 x 6k = 96,000 FM


Total FM Earned: 336,000 (worth 3 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 4: Play Survival Normal

Same shit as before. Survival Normal should take you about 10 minutes per character. I do this once per day and usually with a podcast on-hand. Just make sure to pick Defense Buffs and Healing. At the end, you should earn 9000 or 10000 FM - 16 x 9k = 144,000 FM


Total FM Earned: 480,000 (worth 4 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 5: Watch the Demonstrations

There are three levels - Beginner, Intermediate and Expert. Watching all three of them should net you 3000 FM

Total FM Earned: 483,000 (worth 4 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 6: Watch the Character Demonstrations

A recent addition. Each character gets a series of demonstration videos. Watching them should net you 500 FM per character - 16 x 500 = 8000 FM

Total FM Earned: 491,000 (worth 4 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 7: Buy the characters you want and repeat the process

At this point, the guide tells you to go after trials. I disagree, I thought some of the trials were difficult so I'm taking the path of least resistance. Buy 4 characters you want, doesn't matter who, and repeat the same process of doing Individual Stories, Survival Easy, Survival Normal and Demonstration. For each character, you should get around 25,500 FM - 4 x 25,500 = 102,000 FM

Total FM Earned: 593,000 (worth 5 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 8: Buy another character and repeat the process

Total FM Earned: 618,500 (worth 6 DLC characters)

Total Online Fights: 0


Step 9: Buy the final DLC character and repeat the process

Total FM Earned: 644,000

Total Online Fights: 0


What Comes Next?

By this point, you should have an entire season worth of characters and 44,000 FM to spare there are still ways for you to earn some money, although at a considerably slower pace. These range from:

- Weekly challenges (6000-10000 FM for five minutes work)
- Character Trials Vol. 1
- Character Trials Vol. 2
- Survival Hard
- Survival Extreme
- Leveling Characters (1000 per level)
- Special Tournament Challenges (watching on Twitch, Tweeting about SFV and gain FM)
- Free FM from Capcom

* Do note that if you bought the deluxe edition, just repeat what I've listed in this guide and skip the purchasing the steps. You'll be swimming in FM and pretty much be set for Season 3 characters

In Conclusion:

If you don't want to do any of this stuff, that's fine. That's completely fine. I'm not here to tell you how to spend your time, the aim of this thread is to dispel the notion that if you happen to buy SFV without the season passes, you're completely screwed out of earning FM without online play.
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
Good thread. How many hours all up to earn 6 characters from Season 2 if i wasted alot of my free FM on stages? (to clarify i bought Season pass 1 already)
 
N

Nightfall

Member
This is a great summary.
Everytime I read somewhere "do the trials" I immediately turn arround.

I wouldn't say I'm bad at SF5 but I'm not really good either and I haven't managed to clear trials for even one character.
 
S

sephi22

Member
Good thread. The FM system is one of the good things SFV did with it's DLC.

I bought both season passes because I would have bought the premium costumes anyway, but the FM was still good for stages and story costumes.

After not having played the game since February, I was able to get back in recently, and unlock 2 story costumes + 3 stages I was missing by just doing trials 1+2, demonstrations 1+2, survival easy with everyone and survival medium with everyone but 5 characters.


Also, if someone's feeling adventurous, here's an easy strategy to cheese survival hard/extreme using one move: https://youtu.be/G40RTESwT40

That's another 80,000 FM or so if you can nail it
 
L

lupinko

Member
You also get 1000 FM for every level up with each character. There's more free FM available right there.

Personally I just use the fight money for colors, stages and story costumes.

I just buy the season passes out of convenience.
 
P

Punished_Snake

Member
Great thread. After you do all the things the op said, I recommend that you play the game online and level your character (git gud), which will grant you 1k with each level and do the weekly missions which will grant you more than more than 8k every week.
 
R

Rymuth

Member
Nightfall said:
This is a great summary.
Everytime I read somewhere "do the trials" I immediately turn arround.

I wouldn't say I'm bad at SF5 but I'm not really good either and I haven't managed to clear trials for even one character.
Click to expand...
I've managed to clear Zangief, Laura and Necalli which, on the net, are agreed to be the easiest. Thats 9000 FM right there.

Give Zangief and Laura a try. They're pretty simple.
 
F

Fitts

Member
Great job, OP. I expect this thread to get a lot of views and a dearth of posts comparative to other SFV threads for obvious reasons.
 
L

Linkstrikesback

Member
And how many hours are steps 1-9 likely to take? 10. 20. 100?

It's all well and good as a premise that they're technically earnable, but if it's an unreasonable amount of time for a lot of people, it's not really a good argument for me.
 
J

Jimnymebob

Member
Personally, I'd recommend buying a full pass if you enjoy all the characters from it when it went on sale (I bought season 1 on sale, because I liked all of those), but for season 2 I only like Akuma and Abigail so far, so there's no use in buying that pass.

But yeah, I've not really played much, and I've got 300,000 left after buying:
Guile's classic costume
A Ryu and Chun-Li color
Bison's SF2 stage
Akuma

And that's with only doing a couple of survival modes, the demonstrations, quite a few of the trials, and most of the character stories, plus a few online matches. I've not touched the cinematic story yet. I'd like to say I've earned 500,000+ since the have released, and that's with playing a couple of days every few months.
 
B

BassForever

Member
What else can fight money be spent on besides for characters? I got sf5 back when amazon had it for like $10 but have barely played it.
 
M

Mass_Pincup

Banned
How much of that was actually fun to play though?

Looks like a busy list you have to take care of from how I read it.

But it's cool for people who don't want to pay to have the option not to.
 
R

Rymuth

Member
Linkstrikesback said:
And how many hours are steps 1-9 likely to take? 10. 20. 100?

It's all well and good as a premise that they're technically earnable, but if it's an unreasonable amount of time for a lot of people, it's not really a good argument for me.
Click to expand...

Read the conclusion, I've already addressed that its not about time - its about the 'online play is the only way to earn FM' crowd
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Nightfall said:
This is a great summary.
Everytime I read somewhere "do the trials" I immediately turn arround.

I wouldn't say I'm bad at SF5 but I'm not really good either and I haven't managed to clear trials for even one character.
Click to expand...

Heh I managed to complete just about all trails except for Guile's. By this I mean the original base Trials. It all comes down to te many hours of playing the SFEX games' trials modes.
 
T

tzare

Member
thanks for the summary. It is good help. Didn't know about those demonstrations so will do that. Currently bought 4 characters using FM and will probably have enough to buy another one without much effort... will wait to see if the new ones appeal to me, if not will buy akuma maybe.
 
H

Hutchie

Member
Linkstrikesback said:
And how many hours are steps 1-9 likely to take? 10. 20. 100?

It's all well and good as a premise that they're technically earnable, but if it's an unreasonable amount of time for a lot of people, it's not really a good argument for me.
Click to expand...

But i thought people wanted content???
 
F

Finnish the Fox

Member
With Abigail, there are currently ten DLC characters. Using your method you can only buy little more than half of the DLC characters. Even if you do all the weekly's, at 6500 thats 52 x 6500 = 338000 FM. A whopping 3 DLC characters for a years work. This is free to play MMO level of shitty grind.

If you did all the above from launch you should have enough FM to get all ten characters. However, in a year and a half you will have an additional ten DLC characters, and in another year and a half ten more. Since there is no more general story mode, limited trials, demo, etc... You will lag behind and not be able to get all the DLC characters free. Also, It leaves no FM to get titles, costumes, stages etc... I'm not complaining, its just an observation. Obviously, Capcom has to make money too.
 
D

daakusedo

Member
And with that I have few fm left to spend on stages, which is why i didn't bought any and have a tragic stage selection at my disposal. This ship is run so tight and gives so few that I don't even want to spend anymore real money on it.
 
A

AmethystEnd

Member
Finnish the Fox said:
With Abigail, there are currently ten DLC characters. Using your method you can only buy little more than half of the DLC characters. Even if you do all the weekly's, at 6500 thats 52 x 6500 = 338000 FM. A whopping 3 DLC characters for a years work. This is free to play MMO level of shitty grind.
Click to expand...

Your argument is equally disingenuous.

You say "a year's work" when a weekly challenge takes 10 minutes at most according to the OP. So your "year's work" is less than 9 hours for the year.

And if the weekly challenge is the only thing you boot the game to do each week (since your calculation only uses the weekly challenges as a source of FM and nothing else), then I dunno why you'd even need fight money.
 
F

Fitts

Member
Linkstrikesback said:
And how many hours are steps 1-9 likely to take? 10. 20. 100?
Click to expand...

I've done everything in the OP on the PS4 version, but I have a nearly fresh install of SFV (deluxe, so I already have the season 1 characters unlocked) sitting on my PC. All I've done with it is some vs and training mode, so I may make a concerted effort to tackle the SP content this weekend just to see how much time it takes.
 
D

dreamcastmaster

Banned
JohnSpartanLee said:
On PS4 you can also play with alt accounts to buy different characters if you run out of FM on your main account.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is what I did, 2 accounts gives me most of the DLC for less effort and I can try out stuff with my 2nd account to see if I want to actually use it on my main account. Main account I focus on characters, 2nd account costumes, colors, stages typically.
 
J

Jimnymebob

Member
Linkstrikesback said:
And how many hours are steps 1-9 likely to take? 10. 20. 100?

It's all well and good as a premise that they're technically earnable, but if it's an unreasonable amount of time for a lot of people, it's not really a good argument for me.
Click to expand...

Not too long to be honest. If you just focus on this, and not playing the game online/in training mode, you can get it fairly quickly. Like, character stories take around 5 minutes if that, trials don't take long if you're decent at the game/genre, and survival takes around 10 minutes per character in easy, and 20 or so on normal. Plus you get the 6,000 a week for single player weekly challenges.

If you spend an hour- an hour and half a night doing this with each character, you'll have enough to buy 4 characters in two weeks. Obviously, as you buy more characters you'll start to get diminishing returns doing this, but then you can just hop online and get FM from wins and level ups from that point.
 
K

katsubento

Member
I agree that you can get a lot of fight money by simply playing and your guide is great.

The bollocks comment by the other Gaffer was for someone saying they got six characters in a day.
 
T

tzare

Member
dreamcastmaster said:
Yes, this is what I did, 2 accounts gives me most of the DLC for less effort and I can try out stuff with my 2nd account to see if I want to actually use it on my main account. Main account I focus on characters, 2nd account costumes, colors, stages typically.
Click to expand...

thanks. Do accounts need to be from the same region? Because DLC is tied to regions if not mistaken

Each account has separate DLC. Also any purchased DLC (Season passes, costumes) aren't shared between accounts, they're tied to your CFN so only the account that purchased it can use it.
Click to expand...

Oh, so it is not possible then?
 
F

family_guy

Member
Rymuth said:
Be it ignorance or misinformation, there's a prevalent belief that once you buy Street Fighter V, you're pretty much fucked on gaining FM to buy Stages and Characters because every win in an online match gives you 50FM and you need 100K per character.

It's basically a huge rallying point for people to hate on SFV.

...
Click to expand...

Is it? I mean it's been over a year and there's still no arcade mode. The game is still lacking single player content. I disliked the modes that are there which is why I dropped the game. The characters and stages were never the issue.
 
R

Raitaro

Member
Great work OP. It's not nothing to do these things and it can be a bit tedious, but like you said there are definitely ways to earn FM without ever being in an online battle.

Your post also reminds me that I still have to do the survival challenges on easy for most characters to earn some more FM. I've been doing the weeklies at least, mostly just the easiest story mode related ones, and have earned quite a bit that way. Capcom also gave us 50.000 free FM not too long ago for sticking with the game so they might do this again at some point.

One question though OP, did you add in the FM tha you earn automatically when a character levels up, which happens by doing the activities you described? I've always been confused by how much that earns you (and where I keep track of a character's level and how close he/she is to levelling up for that matter), so I'd personally welcome it if you would add this in case you didn't already do so.

Edit: I missed Lupinko's post about the character levels it seems. Still, perhaps the guide should mention this additional source of FM since 1000 FM per level is nothing to sneeze at considering you level them up multiple times doing mostly the story and demonstrations stuff if I remember correctly.
 
T

tzare

Member
Mediking said:
Survival Normal is very unfair in the last matches. There's a difficulty spike for sure.
Click to expand...

yes, 2-3 last matches are harder. I use online waiting mode 'on' and if the match goes the wrong way you may be lucky and someone challenges you before you are beaten you get another chance. If the combat goes well just pause and disable it.
 
P

Pompadour

Member
lupinko said:
You also get 1000 FM for every level up with each character. There's more free FM available right there.

Personally I just use the fight money for colors, stages and story costumes.

I just buy the season passes out of convenience.
Click to expand...

Right. Back when SF4 was out this would have been my ideal system because I didn't like the majority of the way the characters played and spent 90% of my time playing Dudley from Super to USF4. If I could have been still played with everyone else I would have never spent a dime after getting Dudley (aside from buying his costumes, maybe). I was in college back then so I had much more free time than money.

Today it's the opposite where I have more money and much less free time so I usually get the Season Passes out of convenience (usually at a discount because I fuck around at work by looking for deals on PSN cards and the like). That works out because I generally like how every character plays more than how they did in SF4 so I get enjoyment out of fucking around with multiple characters. Plus, the trials aren't absurdly hard like in SF4 so completing them for extra FM is a lot fun. I only use FM for stages and colors so I always have a ton left over.

I don't think the OP mentioned this but this year Capcom has been giving away free FM fairly often if you watch certain CPT events through their Capcom Pro Tour or ELEAGUE pages. Of course, this is PS4 only but if you're not a PC player that's like an extra 15k or so per event. Plus, they recently gave a 50k bonus for just logging in.
 
S

specdot

Member
Nah OP. You're wrong. SFV is the worst fighting game of all time and should stop being sold forever.
good stuff OP!
 
F

Finnish the Fox

Member
AmethystEnd said:
Your argument is equally disingenuous.

You say "a year's work" when a weekly challenge takes 10 minutes at most according to the OP. So your "year's work" is less than 9 hours for the year.
Click to expand...

It's almost nine hours spread out over fifty two intervals doing boring busy work. People have things to do, that doesn't include logging onto SFV every week to do some mindless random chore every week to get enough FM for 3 measly DLC characters. YES, THIS IS f2p MMO level of shitty grind

AmethystEnd said:
And if the weekly challenge is the only thing you boot the game to do each week (since your calculation only uses the weekly challenges as a source of FM and nothing else), then I dunno why you'd even need fight money.
Click to expand...
What does this even mean?
 
R

Raitaro

Member
family_guy said:
Is it? I mean it's been over a year and there's still no arcade mode. The game is still lacking single player content. I disliked the modes that are there which is why I dropped the game. The characters and stages were never the issue.
Click to expand...

It's definitely one of them I'd say, though you are correct that the (continued) lack of single player content like an arcade mode might be an even bigger (continuing) strike against the game for many people (including me at launch but I've still stuck with it to a degree). I still remember the flood of negative videos by casual (as in: mostly offline playing) SF fans voicing their dissapointment at Capcom.

Let's hope that the rumored (free for vanilla SFV owners) Super version comes true so we'll finally have more modes to play agaist the CPU (and earn FM that way).
 
S

Sheroking

Member
There's like 60k FM easily earnable with each DLC character that goes to paying for the next one. They give you like 6k FM every week with goals that are achievable in minutes.

If you've spent a cent on character DLC, you're doing it wrong. Unless you're buying the season pass and saving up FM for the costumes and stuff.

family_guy said:
Is it? I mean it's been over a year and there's still no arcade mode. The game is still lacking single player content. I disliked the modes that are there which is why I dropped the game. The characters and stages were never the issue.
Click to expand...

I find it difficult to believe the level of boring arcade mode that exists in past Street Fighter games is the difference between playing the game and dropping it.

At this point, you're either playing online, have invested friends for offline/attend an offline scene or you're not going to keep playing.
 
P

Pompadour

Member
Finnish the Fox said:
It's almost nine hours spread out over fifty two intervals doing boring busy work. People have things to do, that doesn't include logging onto SFV every week to do some mindless random chore every week to get enough FM for 3 measly DLC characters. YES, THIS IS f2p MMO level of shitty grind
Click to expand...

So what do you want? DLC for free?

If a meager amount of time is worth more to you than your money you can just buy the DLC. If you a few minutes a week logging in to play the game is doable then the DLC can be earned for free. If you don't want to do either than you can just wait until the season passes are on sale (and they do go on sale) and get them on the cheap.

If that doesn't satisfy you than I don't know what will aside from Capcom just making everything free which isn't going to happen.
 
G

Garlador

Member
shira said:
A good comparison would be cost vs hours required.
Click to expand...
OP quotes me, but that was my issue. I never said it was impossible if you're not competitive, but grinding Survival after story and trials soured me quickly.

Pompadour said:
So what do you want? DLC for free?

If a meager amount of time is worth more to you than your money you can just buy the DLC. If you a few minutes a week logging in to play the game is doable then the DLC can be earned for free. If you don't want to do either than you can just wait until the season passes are on sale (and they do go on sale) and get them on the cheap.

If that doesn't satisfy you than I don't know what will aside from Capcom just making everything free which isn't going to happen.
Click to expand...
Doing 9 hours of fun content is enjoyable. Grinding 9 hours of repetitive content isn't. I don't think that's too hard to understand. There are 9 hour games that I enjoy every second and justify full price, and there are 9 hour games that drag the whole time.

People have diffent thresholds and tolerances. I, for one, love Arcade Modes best in fighters, and Survival is my least favorite. Wouldn't mind a Time Attack or Team Battle mode though.

Sheroking said:
I find it difficult to believe the level of boring arcade mode that exists in past Street Fighter games is the difference between playing the game and dropping it.

At this point, you're either playing online, have invested friends for offline/attend an offline scene or you're not going to keep playing.
Click to expand...
Hi. I'm Nick. I almost exclusively play traditional Arcade modes, and have for nearly 20 years since the Arcade days. That's my bread and butter fight mode.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Blizzard is making significant changes to Diablo 4 next season
News Hype
24
2K
Ogbert replied
The System Shock remake is getting a massive patch with a revised ending, choice of female player character and more
News
21
2K
Roni replied
Jwlar - Alone in the Dark: A Complete Retrospective and Analysis
Opinion Analysis Trailer
8
857
Team Andromeda replied
  • Locked
Coming to Xbox Game Pass: LEGO 2K Drive, EA Sports PGA Tour, Harold Halibut, and More
News Platform
40
2K
Nydius replied
Coming to Xbox Game Pass: LEGO 2K Drive, EA Sports PGA Tour, Harold Halibut, and More
News
23
965
cash_longfellow replied
Top Bottom