I actually agree @UAPaulB - the style in which the player plays determines his options once the lockout happens. The Orchid low short->low short->insert combo is never going to do significant damage, but it is going to get you the next setup, and maybe that’s the thing that really matters. The flipside is that I already know that you’re afraid of a long combo, so what possible reason do I have not to guess break once you touch me? If you’re afraid to do a combo of more than 6 hits, the first 5 of which are unbreakable, then I already know that you’re sure as hell not going to chance me on a counter breaker, and I can safely eff up this break attempt however many times it takes low short->low short->manual->ender to kill me. There is no risk to me breaking because my opponent is risk-averse, and I know he’s not going to call me on it.
The breaks come towards the end because the combo hit 83 KV before I could even break, because you (generic you, btw) hit-confirmed off low short or cr+lp, and then did nothing but medium linkers (if you were feeling ambitious) and manuals. There’s no opportunity to truly punish a bad guess because the style you’ve chosen is low damage by nature. You start a combo with mp->opener->heavy linker and all of a sudden it starts to matter a heck of a lot more whether or not I guess incorrectly. Is that very breakable? Absolutely. But it also starts to force the other guy to actually think about whether or not he can get away with testing you. That style is risky, yes, but it also actually makes the other guy have to respect that you’re ok with taking a risk every now and then. That one-chance break stuff that’s all the rage now gives away the game that you’re not by its very nature. I really do believe it’s one of the reasons (along with poor use of meter) that we don’t see Jago do better in tournament a lot of the time. People are so afraid of taking any risk within combo that their style encourages their opponents to do more of it, because they know you’re never going to really punish them for it, because you can’t. Rebelo gets away with so much ■■■■ because no one just throws heavy AD’s at him the instant they touch him. Yeah, heavies are bait. At high level so are mediums. Toss one or two at them anyway and see how they respond once there’s actually a consequence to being wrong.
I get that being broken sucks. I get that being broken by a guess break sucks harder (and even moreso against someone like Kan-Ra). And I actually firmly believe that the better you get the less you rely on things like counterbreakers to get around it, because as you get better you realize how much solid damage you can get without taking unnecessary risks. But I also think that KI as a game actively discourages a risk-free style, and I think many top level players willfully ignore that aspect of the game because they’re afraid of risk. It’s why they’re good to a large extent, but it’s also why this complaint keeps coming up even though the game has so many ways to punish randomness. And the thing is, you lose options by playing too safely - if all you ever do is manuals, then I get 50% guesses on your manuals unless you managed to sneak a heavy linker by me, or an 100% “guess” if you’re so wedded to manuals that you want to manual even after light linkers. Trying to completely avoid the combo breaker game is limiting, and so many higher level players are ok with these limitations just to get that extra margin of safety within combo, and then will turn around and complain that their opponent kept guessing and the game doesn’t punish it hard enough.
I’m a Hisako secondary, and one of the things I know is that as I’ve gotten better with her, the less I use her counters. The less I have to. The bloody things are insanely punishable if you whiff, and a lot of times she has better ways to respond to things. But even as I use them less and less consistently, there still has to be a credible threat of counter for me to play that character to her max potential. If you know that I don’t like to counter and don’t throw them out, then what possible reason do you have to not just go completely nuts on me? I think the high-level beef with KI (such as it is) is basically Hisako writ large - the existence of tools that people simply don’t want to use, because they’re dangerous if you get it wrong.
Towards the end of your video you talked about them (the devs) trying to make “us” play the game in a way “we” don’t want to. You said it yourself within your video multiple times, but there’s a huge chunk of the game population that emphatically isn’t in that “we”. You don’t want to play the risky combo game, and maybe TexAce or Nino or Grief or whoever doesn’t, but for a lot of the people who play this game that interaction is what’s exciting and what keeps them coming back. For myself, one of the things I really love about KI is that the game to a certain extent punishes you for being too afraid of risk. You can have your safe, nigh-unbreakable 20% one-chance into setup, but that necessitates you being able to open me up 5 times to the 2 or 3 times I need to open you up to take your bar. My style (mix of manuals and AD’s, not talking about counterbreakers) is a lot riskier than yours in terms of being broken though, so it really does come down to whether or not I understand who I’m playing against and what their tendencies are. That’s the game I want to play - one where there really isn’t an “optimum” playstyle, and where you have multiple viable options to close out the fight in terms of attaining damage. I love that there’s always something you can do in that last moment - that’s what makes KI an awesome game to me.
This post is already far too long, but that’s part of my take on it. I agreed with a lot of what you said in your video: Kan-Ra=/=fun or fair, and some things probably are a bit too shenanigansy. But on the breaker mechanic I think, and have always thought, that too many high level players simply ignore many of the options the game gives to avoid the guessing everyone claims to hate. And I’m not even talking about counterbreakers, which I’d agree are too hard of a read for consistent use at high level.
Unless it’s done very late in combo, there is a massive penalty for being wrong on a break attempt. It is on you as a player if you are so eager to get out of a potential breaker that even after they lock out you wind up ending your combo because you’ve burned it into your soul that anything breakable=bad and want to get your oki setup, or because you think manuals=good all the time and don’t maximize your lockout damage. That is on you as a player. The game punishes lockouts for 50+% damage if you are patient enough to wait to see what happens before you end your combo. It used to be amusing, now I find this complaint incredibly annoying. There is a huge risk to combo breaking if you don’t go about it intelligently - it is your fault as a player if you’re not capitalizing when they get it wrong.
I think you nailed a bullseye 
with that post and heartily 
agree. It was something I actually already said 
, but you did it so much better. 
)