1 Year worth of Patches Tallied

General Discussion
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So I tallied up the last year worth of patches for Fulgore and Hisako. I’m seeing a lot of dialog where people are basically suggesting that the frustration some are experiencing is unjustified and they should just deal with it. I believe Human Bias is certainly a thing and it plays a huge role in a persons perspective. In KI terms even if you’re self aware of human bias it’s still most likely playing a roll and your perception of characters. I think the game designers have an insanely difficult task of trying to be fair and eliminate any bias they might have towards one character or another. Anyways I compiled this (I called a bug a bug leaving my opinion on it being a nerf / buff out):

Fulgore:
3.3
 Light Eye Laser is now -2 on block (was 0) Nerf
 Medium Eye Laser is now 0 on block (was +2) Nerf
 Heavy Eye Laser is now -10 on block (was -7) (This change ever so slightly Nerf weakens his pressure by forcing him to use Medium Laser to stay even on block, and makes using Heavy Laser without a pip cancel in zoning slightly weaker as well. Fulgore is still both an offensive and defensive powerhouse.)
 Fixed a bug that could cause Fulgore’s Devastation Beam to detach from him he was moved out of place without being hit during the move. Bug
3.4
 Cyber Uppercut no longer auto corrects to face the opponent when you pip cancel into it from any other special move. It will always face the way Fulgore was already traveling. (This technique is very strong, but was proving a bit too strong when Fulgore could change directions on a dime to punish you for jumping over him.) Nerf
 There is now a minimum height restriction on Shadow Air Eye Lasers when cancelling into them from a Cyber Uppercut. (It was never intended for you to be able to do Air Laser so close to the ground that you became safe, let alone advantaged. This move should be properly punishable as intended now.) Nerf
 Increased the Reactor Spin Speed penalty by 33% when performing Teleports. (Repeated teleports are going to have a slightly more noticeable impact on your total number of pips gained per game now, but the strength of Fulgore’s teleport in neutral and during mixups is unaffected.) Nerf
 Ground Shadow Eye Beam pushes opponents away slightly farther and is now +25 on hit, allowing Fulgore to link into Heavy Blade Dash or Heavy Eye Beam from long distance for new combo opportunities. Buff
 Fixed a bug preventing Fulgore from cancelling Heavy Eye Laser into Devastation Beam. Bug
3.5
 Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Plasma port (QCB+K), Shadow Plasma Port (QCB+KK), Air Shadow Eye Laser (While in air QCB+PP) Bug
 Fixed a bug where canceling a normal into Shadow Eye Laser sometimes gave you the linker version making it breakable. Bug
 Fixed a bug where Fulgore’s Cyber Uppercut would autocorrect after the flash. Bug
3.6
 Energy Bolt damage reduced by ~30% Nerf
 Heavy Eye Laser damage reduced by ~37% [Fulgore is getting a bit too much damage off of his projectiles alone, so we are toning their damage output down to encourage a more varied play-style.] Nerf
 Devastation Beam Potential Damage reduced by 30% (This pairs with the PD/Breaker change) Nerf
 Instinct mode reworked:
 No longer sets your spin speed to maximum. Nerf
 No longer prevents you from losing spin speed as you normally would when using energy systems or getting knocked down. Nerf
 Now gives you access to cost-free pip cancels for the duration. Buff
 [Fulgore was simply building far too much meter. He could completely ignore his own meter mechanics until instinct was available to him, pop it, and be loaded for the rest of the game. This is a big change that will force Fulgore players to respect how their meter works (attacking to build and maintain spin speed, zoning and teleporting to deplete it). It is a berf, however, because Fulgore’s Instinct just got much scarier. If you use energy systems aggressively during instinct, however, you won’t gain much meter during the mode. We feel this change makes Fulgore play much more thoughtfully, and we are looking forward to your feedback after playing as, or against, Fulgore.]
3.7
 Can no longer pip cancel Eye lasers into Plasma Bolts [Upon review, we felt that this ability simply made his zoning too strong, and that when used with his new instinct, lead to unwanted high damage 1 chance break combos.] Nerf
 Fixed a bug causing Fulgore’s spin speed to max out when activating instinct despite us trying to remove that last patch. [The last patch said this would happen, but it didn’t, and it’s still causing Fulgore to get more meter than we expected internally.] Bug
 Fixed a bug where Fulgore’s combo breaker would become vulnerable during the landing portion of its recovery. Bug
 Fixed a bug where it was not possible to Shadow Counter with LK+MP. Bug
 Fixed a bug where the Punishment message would not show up during the Air Shadow Eye Laser’s landing sequence. Bug
 Fixed a bug where the time out win animation would finish too early. Bug
3.8
 Can no longer pip cancel if the opponent is performing a shadow counter (We’ve all know this ability was too strong, but we didn’t want to adjust the entire pip cancel system just to make this behavior less common. Without getting super technical, the team didn’t really have a way to prevent this that didn’t break other parts of the character until recently, so we’ve finally made it so that you cannot use pip cancels to stop Shadow Counters. Pip cancels behave normally in all other situations.) Nerf
 Medium Laser is now -3 on block (was 0), +2 on hit (was +5) and has 3 additional frames of recovery on whiff (A two hitting low that left Fulgore at a great range at 0 was a bit too good for one of the game’s best zoners.) Nerf
 Crouching MK is now -2 on block (was 0) Nerf
 Crouching LK is now -1 on block (was +1) Nerf
 (During a frame data review, the team decided that these two moves were too strong to carry advantage on block when paired with the rest of the character’s toolkit.)
 Lv2 charge of all strengths of Blade Charge inflict 1 less frames of blockstun
 Lv3 (max) charge of all strengths of Blade Charge inflict 2 less frames of blockstun Nerf
 (A little more frame data review convinced us to reduce the advantage on charged up Blade Charges just a bit. The move remains very high priority and intimidating.)
 Medium Cyber Uppercut is now lower body vulnerable on frame 1, and upperbody vulnerable on frame 5 (Was fully invulnerable until frame 8) Nerf
 Heavy Cyber Uppercut is now lower body vulnerable on frame 1, and upperbody vulnerable on frame 3 (Was fully invulnerable until frame 8) Nerf
 (Upon review, the team wanted Fulgore to have to use his single-hit uppercut for invulnerability, and felt that having full invulnerability on the multi-hit versions was just too strong in matchups against Armored characters. If you attack low, Fulgore will now have to use a light uppercut. Medium and Heavy versions retain upperbody invulnerability, though for a shorter time, and still make great anti air attacks.)
 Teleports start playing their invisibility VFX 4 frames sooner, causing them to end 4 frames sooner (We’ve heard your requests to make his teleport more visible, but this is the best we could do with the resources available to us at the time. It won’t make a world of difference, but it is something.) Nerf
 Fixed a bug preventing charged blade dash from being breakable after an opener or normal because it counted as part of the previous move. Bug

Hisako:
3.3
 Fixed a bug that allowed her to Instinct Cancel her Influence command throws. Bug
3.4
 Fixed a bug that could cause followups to On Ryo Zan to be unbreakable if the first hit of On Ryo Zan whiffed. Bug
3.5
 Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Influence (QCB+P), Shadow Influence (QCB+PP), Air On Ryo Zan (While in the air QCF+P), Shadow Air On Ryo Zan (While in the air QCF+PP) Bug
3.6
No Changes:
3.7
 Fixed a bug causing Possession’s animation to slow down while cursed by Kan-Ra. Bug
 Now showing the Recapture and Stagger attack properties for Shadow Air OnRyoZan in training mode.
3.8
 Fixed a bug where catching low attacks with the instinct mode catch counter would result in performing the high catch counter attack, which would whiff some lows attacks. Bug
 Fixed an issue causing her jump arc to change permanently after performing a wall jump. Bug

Final Tally:
Fulgore: 20 Nerfs – 2 Buffs – 11 Bugs
Hisako: 0 Nerfs - 0 Buffs – 6 Bugs

To conclude. I’m not interested in debating the balance. The point I want to make is a Fulgore main has looked at the same patches as a Hisako main with the same excitement each time they get posted. The difference is over the past year the Fulgore mains have been hit by 20 nerfs, where as the Hisako’s have received zero. Again this does not imply the balance favors one character or another, but it should give you some perspective on how a Fulgore main might feel frustrated. And that’s the point I want to make, if your character hasn’t been changed for a year please understand that your perspective is biased just like the guys perspective who has been nerfed 20 times. This is just an example of one set of characters but it exemplifies how different one persons perspective might be skewed from another and hopefully it servers to help people better understand each other so civil discourse can take place.

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I was literally debating posting all the fulgore nerfs but was afraid nobody would take me seriously after all of my rants so far. It’s staggering how much has changed. And like I said before, if IG simply redesigned him along with spinal and maya at the start of s3 it might’ve been an easier pill to swallow then every few months having to relearn what you can’t use.

Personally, I thought 3.7 killed him already. Whether I’m right or wrong, we’ll never know because here’s another 12 nerfs. They never gave his instinct redesign any real time to be evaluated. I fully think they’ll nerf him again next patch to…

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Could you aggregate the changes into one overall 3.0/3.8 diff, and crop largely immaterial bullet-points like most of the bug-fixes? Yes the character has been touched a lot, but a qualitative comparison of where the character was to where he is now would be potentially interesting, whereas a c&p of a bunch of patch notes sections is very information-inefficient and, assuming you don’t actually expect us to read it, actually a little obnoxious.

Also wrt “bias”: I’m a (former-ish) Jago main. My character has also been nerfed repeatedly since 3.0, including in ways that I think are unreasonable. I still wouldn’t c&p a wall of patch notes to prove my point.

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Well just be careful, it goes both ways. You need people to understand where you’re coming from and you need to understand where they’re coming from.

You can argue that these nerfs have made him a worse character since you started playing him and that can be frustrating. But being worse doesn’t mean he’s bad. It’s too early to determine that. You can only speculate and you have to respect other peoples opinions on whether or not they think he’s bad. They also have to acknowledge their opinion is currently just speculation.

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You’re absolutely correct that it’s too early, and I’d argue that it’s too early for another 12 nerfs following a redesign to his instinct. His meter gain is much worse now, and that’s a fact. Is it still good enough to to warrant making his frame data worse to prevent as much physical pressure? Apparently so, even though it hasn’t been that long since the redesign…

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I apologize for the fatigue your index finger experienced when scrolling. Life can be difficult. You survived I see and I’m happy for that.

My point was to show the difference of one players view of the patch notes to the other. Sako is less than a page, Fulgore is over 3 pages. If you felt that was long you received the message perfectly. Bug-Fix’s are relevant some have fairly significant impact on how a character plays and I did not want to cherry pick what was shown so I displayed it all, likewise I was careful to call all bugfix’s bugs and leave my subjective opinion on whether they were actually nerfs or buffs to myself. Check out Infil’s new blog on how crazy bugs can be.

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I think what Fnr is saying is that posting the list raw isn’t really indicative of how much Fulgore has changed (lots of bug fixes as well), and doesn’t really indicate how much of a different character he is from 3.0 to 3.8 (since many of the points could affect the same thing/overwrite a previous change).

Definitely I think Fulgore has changed a fair bit from 3.0 to 3.8 (although the core of his zoning and rushdown is more or less identical), but I’m not sure the raw list of patch notes is actually proof of that, if that makes sense.

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For example, here is how I see Fulgore changed as a character from 3.0 to 3.8. That is, if someone played Fulgore in 3.0, then stopped playing KI until now, this is what I would tell them is new about their character.

  • Medium laser and light laser are worse on block (but not punishable)
  • Can no longer pip cancel laser into fireball
  • Can no longer pip cancel to beat shadow counters
  • Damage lower on fireball and heavy laser
  • Have to use light DP as your reversal now
  • Get less meter than you did before (energy systems slow reactor more)
  • Instinct mode changed: free pip cancels but no free reactor spin speed maxout
  • Teleport shows up a little sooner (to be honest I think this change will be hardly noticeable if it’s really only 4 frames)

So it’s… 8 points, by my book, unless I missed one (which is possible, I’m doing this in a hurry). Only changes to muscle memory are the button you press for reversal (changeable in 5 minutes) and canceling laser into fireball.

I’m not trying to downplay any one particular change if you feel it is a bad idea, but just that I think the list is not “3 pages long” you know?

I imagine the list is similar long (maybe longer?) for Gargos, and, not counting Kilgore bug fixes, I imagine those two are the only characters with even remotely long lists. Most characters have been pretty stable, maybe with only 1 or 2 serious changes over the year.

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I think Fulgore has been reiterated so many times that it doesn’t really make sense to compile all of the changes into one list, I mean just from season one to season 2 I feel like he was a completely different character.

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From S1 to S2, I agree he was basically a brand new character.

From S2 to S3 though, I don’t really think so; he had several tweaks but surprisingly, most of his stuff (even the fact that you should be using medium laser for everything) didn’t really change that much. His pressure game was mostly identical from late S2 to early S3. All teleport mixups work the same. All his normals were the same. He zoned almost entirely the same way (throw in a few heavy lasers for kicks if you want).

A S2 Fulgore player could play him pretty much the same way in early S3 and have no trouble. That’s not the case for S1 to S2 though.

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Sure @Infilament. That’s probably a less obnoxious way to make the point. But it does all the same. You’re correct most of the cast is stable. What I’m trying to show is that because of that disparity a person with a stable character may not be able to understand why someone who plays a character who has had their character changed frequently might be vexed by the changes.

The most productive changes that can be made have to happen somewhere in the middle. I watched your breakdown and I agree with your points. However as most would still be slight nerfs I’m sure some people would still be upset about them.

And as I’ve said in prior posts I’ve played the character since season 1 so all of this has been commutative. I don’t intend to drop him but I can appreciate a fellow fulgore main being frustrated by continual patch notes that nerf the character.

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To reiterate your point for everyone, the net change for medium laser from 3.0 to 3.8 is +2 to -3.

But in reality, a fulgore who learned his options when it was +2 had to relearn them when it was changed to 0, and now relearn them once more when they become -3.

It’s a lot, and it’s frustrating.

Worse yet, there wasn’t a single buff, not even a tiny one to soften the blow. People say fulgore’s fireballs aren’t about damage, but neither are Jago’s and they do roughly twice as much damage. And now that fulgore’s meter is that much harder to come by, shouldn’t two fireballs do at least a little bit more? I don’t know…

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People are definitely allowed to be upset over any change they feel isn’t fair. I imagine many people who play KI have had various nerfs they don’t agree with (including me).

I dunno though, man. At the end of the day, it’s a video game made by imperfect people, played and analyzed by imperfect players. I don’t think upsetting some people is avoidable (whether it’s Fulgore players or Gargos players or people who quit from S2 to S3 because TJ lost invincible roll). Each person has to decide for themselves when they want to try a different game, or a different character, or make peace with the changes as they come.

I think Fulgore would have been just fine without some of the stuff they did to him, but the devs didn’t agree and that’s just how it is, I suppose. Also, we don’t really know how far back these balance changes go… it’s at least 2 months (based on patch cycles) and maybe more, and the devs opinions may have even changed a bit since then, due to CEO and Combo Breaker taking place in there.

I understand that every player (including myself) has many different opinions on each character in the game, and it’s a brutal job for the devs to sit there and put out a product that satisfies everyone. I could make the most impassioned plea for Jago’s M Wind Kick to not be punishable (or any number of other changes I don’t agree with) but my choices kind of remain the same as everyone else… adapt to the changes that I have no control over, or play a different character/game (where the situation isn’t really improved; I imagine there are lots of upset SFV players right now for the same reasons…)

Basically, I sympathize with people who don’t agree with a change, but at the same time, it’s just a reality you have to face.

I actually agree that Fulgore’s fireballs could stand to do a bit more damage. However, the comparison between Jago and Fulgore’s fireballs is pretty strange to me. Fulgore controls way more space with those than Jago does and can turn any one of them into a mixup at will (making the chances of them hitting much higher). Fulgore is a huge full screen threat because of them, while Jago isn’t. Their fireballs serve pretty different functions. In fact, before Jago could charge/dash cancel them, I thought his non-instinct fireball was pretty much a useless move in neutral, wholly outclassed by wind kick and completely ineffective from outside wind kick range against the vast majority of the cast.

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There’s also the other perspective; he’s been nerfed how many times and STILL above average? How broken was he to begin with??

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If he was THAT horribly imbalanced, how come tournament top 8s never had more than one fulgore in them? Do competitive KI players hate money? When Tanya dropped in MKX 5 of the top 8 of the first tournament she was available for were Tanya players. Don’t you think there’d have been an army of fulgore players steamrolling everyone they played if he truly was that good?

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Again, it’s actually quite common (especially in modern games) for strong characters to not have tons of top 8 placings. SF4 Sagat, arguably the best character in that game, didn’t win any American tournaments and had pretty weak top 8 representation for over a year, as just one example. It’s especially true of a game with really wacky archetypes, where a character can be strong but really not match up with everybody’s playstyles.

There are examples of such dominance, though… Tanya, as you mentioned, is one, and there are others for older games (like 3rd Strike Chun). But those tend to be reserved for truly, truly broken characters or rare occurrences where a bunch of people who play a strong character all have good runs through the bracket at the same event. I don’t think anyone has said, or would say, that Fulgore was “truly broken” at any point in KI’s life, so it makes sense why he hasn’t seen such results. But he is/was strong enough that there were several people who brought him out in big tournaments at crucial moments, like Rico and Wheels, despite largely maining other characters. For the latter big of S2 and much of S3, I think there were many people who had pocket Fulgores planned for some matchups.

But the important thing is that “if a character is good, why doesn’t everyone play them” is logic that only rarely applies to fighting games. There are lots of things to consider about that statement, including playstyle and matchup knowledge, that go beyond character strength in all but the most extreme cases.

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Then what about ARIA? How come we only see one person using her in tournaments when she’s considered top 2 in the game? Shouldn’t we be seeing an army of ARIA players? Not just ARIA, what about Mira, Omen, and Maya? They’re considered top 5, so shouldn’t we be seeing a lot more of those characters in tournaments as well?

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List of characters who are the strongest considering their tools =/= List of characters that can be more easy to get success with them

A character being strong doesn’t guarantee him being choosen by everyone. Lots of factors have to be considered= Counterpicks, difficulty to master, personal preferences…

On top on that, 2 other factors have to be considered:

1-Unlike most FGs, all KI characters have good tools and the game is pretty well balanced. Of course there are stronger and weaker characters, but the gap between them is smaller than most FGs

2-The combo system allows to bypass most traditional issues with weak characters. If two players with similar skills face each other, one of them with a strong character and other with a weak one, if the player with the weak character outplays the other in the combo game(breaking often, not being lockdown, using smartly CBs…), most of the weak character downsides can be overcome. This is unique to KI

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She didn’t receive 20+ nerfs and still considered strong, hell, she’s clearly fine seeing as how she continually dodges the nerf hammer. People don’t complain about her like they do others and only stuff that gets complained about gets nerfed.

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You have GOT to be kidding me that people have not/do not complain about ARIA in any sort of significant fasion…

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