What does character level actually do? Does it actually effect the character you play as or is it just a indication to other players that your experienced with that said character?

Other than trophies, I think it's the same as your prestiges in COD. It indicates how much you play. 

I would have said how good you are, but some people will take a lot longer getting to a higher level than others as they won't win as many fights.

Well it depends what you include when you say "such". Apart from leveling up characters playing Survival, it's no easy/fast task to level up every character to 30. First of all you get more exp. if you win online and being able to win consistently with every character is going to require extreme skill.

I'm a hardcore SF4 veteran and know I could fight against FM-system for a long time if I really tried but that's not the case for most of the players out there. Most players aren't going to be sinking hours in the 4-digits or have good enough win% to gain FM efficiently. Completing the single player mode will always be the fastest way to accumulate FM and for example if you are not willing to complete every Survival difficulty with every character, you are fucked and even if you did you are still fucked in the long term.

Story mode 32k

Survival easy 32k

Survival normal 80k

Survival hard 160k

Survival hell 320k

I'm not sure how high a single character will level up after completing those modes but lvl 25 is guaranteed at least.

Player/Character Levels 400k

Total 1024k -----> 424k after buying 6 DLC characters

Now let's talk about only up to Season 2 characters. Assume it's still 100k/char. That's definitely doable since you can get easy FM from those first 6 DLC characters.

Completing single player modes with 6 DLC characters assuming lvl 25 is achieved

6 DLC Characters 384k

Total 808k -------->208k after buying another 6 DLC characters

Completing single player modes with another 6 DLC characters assuming lvl 25 is achieved

6 DLC Characters 384k

Total 592k

Then there are the Story Costumes 40k each. For 16 characters it's 640k and assuming DLC characters have Story Costumes too it's 1120k. You could gain the missing 528k from Dailies and leveling up fighting online. Let's assume dailies give 1k/day and half of the needed FM comes from there meaning 264 days, 264k FM. Let's assume you need to win 20 fights online to gain 1 Character Level (when in reality 20 wins is not even enough to level from 25 to 26, the level we assumed your character will be after completing single player modes listed). Then winning 10 online matches every day gives you 132 character levels=132k FM in the next 264 days and the remaining 132k will come from the 50FM bonus you get from winning online match (2640 matches x 50FM = 132k FM). Now you've bought 12 characters and 28 story costumes and end up with 0 FM, this is if you manage 100% winrate. This is of course without variables like Trial Mode which should give some FM but if we assume it's 5k/char which sounds high, then you gain 140k FM surplus meaning you only need to win roughly 5 matches every day instead of 10. It's doable, yes but then Season 3 knocks on the door and you are in need of 600k again...good luck to all the Free-Content warriors!

I just checked and I have that trophy. The combined levels of all characters need to be 200.

Hard mode is really random at times. Most of the time it's braindead easy, though there are few set stages which are always tough/dangerous. Then there are these out-of-nowhere random killers which can screw your entire run in a blink. You really need to put down and finish the job when you have the opportunity, the longer a match goes and especially if CPU V-Triggers, beware. Health should be prioritized at all times since you don't want to bet on the RNG-gods. You can easily fall into a bad cycle if your health drops below 50-60% after match (before supplements). I'd say when you are below 75% life, always go for health and if over 75% life, then depending what's being offered go for defense, health or attack.

I've noticed the last day it's been really bad finding opponents on lines, I can be waiting 5-10 minutes, hopefully capcom or Sony can sort this.
Had a really bad streak in it today, I'm struggling to win even against fighters at lower LV and LP.

Not played online today, but I will later. I done survival on easy with 3 characters and survival on normal with another. 

It usually finds a match for me with restrictions (4-5 WiFi strength) within a few mins. 

That should be easy. Getting to level 12 with every character gets you to a total of 192. That's completing story mode with everyone abs survival on easy. Just 8 more levels needed after that. 

Darc Requiem|Darc_Requiem|PS4
Darc Requiem|Dark_Requiem|PC

Added you to OP