Epic design lead says V-Bucks price increase is a necessary evil, but players aren’t impressed: ‘We need to fight this hard’

Well, folks, it happened: Fortnite is increasing the price of its premium currency, V-Bucks, much to the dismay of a good chunk of its player base. The game, featuring heavy microtransactions and battle passes, helped spread to live-service games as a whole, and had stable prices for most of its existence, but now they’re getting beefed up.

And, of course, Epic Games thinks this move is absolutely necessary.

Fortnite has revolved around huge collaborations with other popular franchises and IPs, and though many of these collabs had actual in-game events and content, most of them were primarily driven by microtransactions, specifically skins and outfits folks can purchase either standalone or earn via the battle pass. It’s gotten to the point where Fortnite has become an actual marketing venue, one used by publishers to advertise their games, movies, TV shows, or just about any other form of audiovisual media.

And given this strong reliance on selling cosmetics, purchasable exclusively with V-Bucks, it only makes sense that Epic would want to buff their primary revenue stream. The fans, at least those vocal enough to speak out, are having none of it, though.

“We need to fight this hard,” one player said on Reddit. Epic thinks the game has grown to a point where it’s unkillable, but with how many bad decisions they have been making, Fortnite might actually be gone for good,” they added.

Others immediately started advocating and calling for a boycott of the game, at least its financial side, in an attempt to force Epic Games into rescinding its price increases. So far, there hasn’t been much success, and Fortnite‘s lead designer Andre Balta actually came out to defend this move in response to the boycott campaign.

“We put a ton of work and care into Fortnite’s gameplay, and this focus is only growing. Paying the bills frees up our teams to continue driving stories and building stuff you love,” Balta wrote on X. The responses to his comments weren’t so positive, though, as many believe Fortnite has long been focusing on microtransactions, cosmetics, and collabs, propping them up instead of actual gameplay and content, making this price increase feel that much more hurtful.

“For me personally, just my own experience lately, it seems to me that the collabs and item shop cosmetics have been the most important factor in promoting the game and it just doesn’t feel right,” Fortnite content creator MoonNite said in a reply to Balta.

Others were of the opinion that the price increase would probably be fine if there were content to justify it. “Something tells me these price increases aren’t coming with more content in each pass,” one player noted.

It’s been a few days since the initial announcement of the price increase. Epic Games plans to start implementing these changes as of March 19, i.e., next Thursday. You’ll now be getting some 20 percent less V-Bucks per pack, with popular choices like the $8.99 pack now giving 800 instead of 1,000 V-Bucks. The exact amount packs, which let you decide how many V-Bucks you want to buy, are essentially doubling in price, going from $0.50 per 50 V-Bucks to $0.99 for the same amount.

To compensate for some of these changes, Epic Games is lowering the price of certain store-bought items. As such, battle passes are going down from 1,000 to 800 V-Bucks to maintain the same real dollar price as they had before.

Actual cosmetics and outfits are staying the same, however, making them quite pricier than they were prior to the changes. Whether or not the boycotts will achieve anything remains to be seen, as community action can affect publisher behavior, even if some would disagree.

The post Epic design lead says V-Bucks price increase is a necessary evil, but players aren’t impressed: ‘We need to fight this hard’ appeared first on Destructoid.

Setting up an amazing squad in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is easier said than done, as you’ll need to look for monsties with the best possible stats.

This task is easier said than done. While you can always hatch the best of eggs, that doesn’t guarantee a perfect monstie. Instead, you’ll need to look for something called genes and master the concept.

How do genes work in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection

Every monstie has a dedicated set of Active and Passive skills. The number and types of skills of a monstie are determined by genes. If you refer to the image below, you’ll find a young Rathalos that’s available for all of us at the start of a journey.

Notice the bottom right corner, and you’ll find nine slots in a 3×3 grid. This grid is applicable for every monstie when they hatch. Some of the slots will be filled, and some will be empty. To get your perfect mostie, you’ll need to fill these empty slots. Having nine filled slots will give the mostie the best set of skills.

While not all their slots might be filled at the start, you can inherit additional genes from other creatures. To do so, you need to understand how Bingo and Rite of Channeling work.

How does Rite of Channeling and Bingo work in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection

Rite of Channeling allows you to switch the genes from one monstie to another. You can do so in different ways.

• Directly swap the genes from one monstie to another.
• Manually select which gene/genes you want to swap.
• Select the monsties and the genes you want to swap.

Once the swap is complete, you can continue to modify the genes of your selected monstie until you’ve filled all nine slots. However, randomly filling the slots is not the most optimal thing to do.

When you use Rite of Channeling, you should match up genes to get the maximum possible bonus. If you manage to do so, your monstie will have an extra 5% damage as a bonus for all Power attacks. To do so, you need to match three Power genes in a row. You can match them vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.

You’ll get the bonus damage for a Bingo even if the associated element and attack type don’t match. If they do, however, then you can get multiple Bingos in a single row.

To build up your perfect monstie, Excursions are important as well.

How do Excursions work in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection

You can send your monstie on an Excursion to make it gain different stat bonuses and Environment Skills. To do so, you’ll need Training Talisman, which can be purchased from the Melynx Emporium. They’re expensive, so you should ration them properly. Additionally, only one monstie can be sent on an Excursion at any time.

To gain Environmental Skills, you’ll need to pay attention to whether the monstie was present in that region. If you add a monstie to a habitat and then send it on an Excursion at the same place, it will be able to learn new skills based on their Environment Rank.

The ultimate aim is to have three S-rank Environment Skills active on your monstie at once. Three is the maximum number of Environment Skills any monstie can have. If you send them to a region they’re unfamiliar with, your monstie will only learn the stat bonuses.

Every Environment Skill has three ranks for each region: B, A, and S. Your monstie can access the Skill if their Ecosystem Rank matches the region’s grade. Additionally, you can also Awaken every Environment Skill if your monstie has the required genes.

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