Any idea why main FGC Pro Players haven't picked up KI?

My bad. I was quoting a friend. Not my opinion.

I feel like pros are just too engrained with go fighting games with before. Combo breaking puts another mind game into footies and fundamental play. The architecture of the game REQUIRES you do it or you’ll lose pretty fast UNLESS you never get touch. Combo breaking does not come easy and it can be punished (counter breaker or locking out). I feel that for ppl who make statements like I just did are ignorant to what makes KI different from standards fighting games.

I feel like KI keeps you more engaged because not only do you have to play to get in but you can’t just take the combos, you have to keep playing even when you get hit.

I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but I know a lot of people don’t branch out much from a single game/company.

Capcom players will always buy Capcom games, NRS players always buy NRS games, ArcSys players always buy ArcSys games, etc. etc.

Killer Instinct was basically a completely new series from an unestablished studio as far as the competitive community is concerned, so it doesn’t get the player migration that games like SFV or even Injustice got. It also plays completely differently from every other fighter, so when people pick it up for the first time, some of them get confused and turned off.

EDIT: And it’s only for Xbone and PC, while most of the FGC went for a PS4.

The game is still doing well in my opinion. It still has a spot at EVO this year, which is more than most games can say.

2 Likes

I want to say it’s the combo breaking system. It makes the game feel so even compared to others such as mkx, and even tekken which seem biased towards offense. When I really think about it, the fact that KI isn’t on ps4 seems like a bigger reason.

3 Likes

I think one of the biggest hindrances for pros early on was having to get a Xbox One + arcade stick that only worked on that console + Xbox Live. I know that couldn’t have meshed well with some people, like say Japan as a whole. Not only would they have to buy that, but it would be for a game that they wouldn’t even know that they’d like. Now that it’s on PC, they might also make the argument of, “It’s 3 years old now, that’s a lot of learning I’m going to have to do.”

Another thing that I think might be a hindrance is how the game rewards aggressive play. Some people might think (and this is from my own personal findings of my local FGC who play SFV for the most part) that say, Jago for example, being able to travel fullscreen and be relatively safe is dumb, or how Omen has fireballs that are +15 on block. They want to play the game so straightforward without thinking about the many options that are there for their disposal. If they can even remember that mechanics like shadow counter exist, then they might say, “Why doesn’t it work like an alpha counter? Why do I have to time it to escape, that’s too much.” You’ll also get people like UltraDavid for example. He wants to play the game but wants to avoid the combo system entirely because he thinks that having to learn what a character’s animations are to combo break is excessive.

These are some of the things I’ve observed on why both new and pro players don’t feel like picking the game up.

1 Like

Yes, it’s possible to just dislike the battle system for “reasons”. That’s fine and I wouldn’t fault anybody if they just didn’t like it. But when people try to explain why they dislike it and they say things that are incorrect about the game, it bugs me, that’s all. Things like “putting in a lot of work to open someone up” and “not getting rewarded” are just false, I think. People don’t seem to mind punishing sweep with sweep in SF5 (a roughly 8-9% reward, full stop, with very little chance of more without full super), but they seem especially bothered when they punish X with something that gets broken after 10% damage (with average damage probably about 25% and max damage 45-50% off a non-max damage opening).

I can understand the psychological annoyance with getting broken, especially if it happens a few times in a row. But then in some games, you land two low forwards and you win the round because your opponent locks out twice. Mago hasn’t played KI (as far as I know) so it’s fine that he doesn’t know the intricacies, but yeah
 among people who should know the game, this type of misinformation bugs me.

This type of thing I can understand, although I think he is maybe (slightly) overcomplicating how much learning is involved. But KI is an extremely complicated game to learn, IMO, and it gets more and more complicated as they add characters, systems, and exceptions to rules all over the place. It’s fun, but I can totally understand why it’s daunting to new players, even FGC veterans. When Justin played, he only had to learn 8 characters
 and let’s be honest, he really only had to learn like 4 or 5. If he chose to come back to the game now, he’d be faced with 15+ characters that are regular tournament threats, and I can see him just saying “eh, not worth the effort” and going back to SFV, a game that has much, much less overhead to learn and much more money involved.

3 Likes

Don’t mean to be negative but there are a lot of delusional people here who has every excuse for this question.

Truth is SF5 is more technical than this and fighting games with less combos is much more respected. For example KI is better played on a controller than a stick that in itself tells you it cannot compete with SF games. The 1 button pressing for long combos is mainly why it isn’t taken seriously.

MKX for example it takes alot of skills to pull off any combo there because well its just that very short combos combined so there is a LOT of muscle memory in KI its 6 buttons and each you just keep pressing over and over. No game in the world is east as this to do combos.

I think this is half of the problem.

And this is the other half.

There is the part before getting opened up and then there’s the part after that. There are enough tools to deal with both to not get annoyed, IMO.

I think that people new to the series somewhat misunderstand what combo breaking in this game means. People just might not know that you’re still rewarded with damage up to the point of the break and that a combo break isn’t as big of a “get out of jail free” mechanic as they might have believed. I think that ties in with the mentality of people working hard to open up the opponent for no reward on their end if it gets broken right away. I think there’s some general misconceptions overall about certain game mechanics like combo breaking (like the opponent not taking damage if it gets broken, or that it’s a 33/33/33 guessing game) that somehow need to be clarified for those types of people. Problem is, even if you clarify any misunderstandings, it’s still on those people on whether or not they actually look for that info themselves.

My roommate who’s heavy into SFV barely got his stick modded to work on both PS4 and Xbox One and I’ve been getting him to dabble in KI for a bit. He’s no slouch when it comes to fighting games but he drops combos more often than not, even with practice. Sure, KI has some easy elements to it’s combo system, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some form of muscle memory and execution that players have to learn to get to a decent enough level.

I think the pros are just engrained with his they usually play and experience fighting games. The more exposure KI gets the opportunity to share the more dedicated players and pros it will build. Competitive scenes weren’t build in a day. Let the pros who played games before KI play their game. If they want to play KI, GREAT, if not, we have our pros. I’d be nice to see the main marvel and street fighter guys playing KI but you have to build up your OWN community. Not expect guys from other communities to jump ship.

I don’t think it’s any one thing in particular. A lot of people have mentioned ideas here that can and likely are contributing factors.

-Xbox One had a lot of bad karma going with fans up to the point when it released.
-There’s a substantial perception that fighting games as a genre has moved from Xbox to Playstation.
-The fact that it’s a western developed fighting game.
-Capcom brand loyalty.
-Some fighting game fans that remember old KI never saw it as a serious fighting game.
-The seasonal release structure and the “is it free to play or not” confusion some had initially.
-The negative reception the game first received when they first demoed at EVO before season one came out.
-The combo breaker system perceived as ruining the “reward” of a full combo for working to open up the opponent.
-The perception that anyone can mash their way to victory because of how large combos can still be even at lower skill levels.

I’m not going to go through and tackle these one by one and point out the issues, flaws, misconceptions, logical inconsistencies and/or pure silliness of some of these. Anyone that’s played this game or has an open mind can likely deconstruct and dispel many of the arguments.

But I’ll just say that in the end, you have to want to give something a chance and really dive in to it. If you see something and it doesn’t appeal to you, or you allow yourself to be swayed by perception or the opinions of others, regardless of how erroneous or flawed they might be, then you’re entitled to that limited view, but I’d still say it’s a limited view none the less and with KI in particular, I feel like they’re missing out. But that’s just my take.

1 Like

:thumbsup:

http://www.nerdspan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/X-Gon-Give-It-1-300x183.png

2 Likes

Haha xD

1 Like

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again
 It’s a Western game, with a Western publisher and originally released exclusively on a Western platform. Fighting game player elitists will not recognize it for the quality game that it is because of this. Any other analysis is, mostly, wishful thinking.

On a side note, I wouldn’t trade Killer Instinct in for immediate Street Fighter VI beta access.

1 Like

Which is ironic considering the unbearable infinities in MvC3 and while MKX is a fun game, it can be pointless when you face a foe that has one combo and they beat you with just that one.

2 Likes

I don’t know either. There are many games like Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter that appeal to so many, yet Killer Instinct gets left out in the dust like Pokken, etc when there’s so much potential. They need to be open minded like me and give some other fighting games a shot than just street fighter all the time. I play other fighting games like Smash and Killer Instinct most of the time. Heck, I’d much rather play those games than SFV vanilla :laughing:

P.S. They need to end the PS4 exclusivity deal and release Street Fighter V on Xbox One. Seriously, make it happen, MS and @TempusChaoti!

Personally I think it’s because KI still doesn’t have its own identity and wow factor. Pokken, Guilty Gears, all these other games have their identity.

Pokken gets by with the Pokémon name alone and can attract any Pokémon player no matter what the mechanics are like.

Guilty Gear has had a following for ages and the Anime crowd love it. Guilty Gear just looks incredible and since day 1 was a huge sight for sore eyes. The game has its own unique visual identity and personality. FGC pro players who played other anime games could easily transition and not feel to foreign to their game.

MK has had its following for ages and it was bleeding fans after years of releases it was becoming a joke of itself and not taken serious with characters like Mocap. Then MK9 came along completely rebooted the franchise and became pretty serious in its tone and direction and did something which no fighting game had done before which is do a real story campaign and that by itself sealed the deal to make it the number 1 fighting game for new players. The popularity alone would support its scene along with former players of the game.

KI doesn’t really have any of that. It can’t really lure new players from other games because KI itself is new and foreign to them. It can’t lure them in because in some cases, KI isn’t as polished as those other games are. People joke about KI being generic fighter and although we all love these characters from the outside in a lot of these characters do look pretty generic. There are only a few cases in which a KI character has received mass appeal outside of the KI community and that was Hisako. She was a viral hit and unless MS/IG can continue to deliver that type of unique character KI will continue just being “That Game” to people who play other games that have character they love.

Those other games just have a rich history and have had years of polish and refining. KI may have had a following in the past but it was no where in the scale of those other games.

To put it in perspective, try writing down a list of reasons why any other fighting game player should play KI and then ask yourself does that game also do the same. I know some of you guys will go to the netcode excuse but that hasn’t sold anyone on the game so far, why would it now? Some of you will say the combo system, well others would likely disagree and say that their preferred game handles combos better. Overall, KI isn’t a decisive winner against other fighters besides netcode and so other FGC players have little to no reason to play KI.

I disagree actually. I’m not home now but when I get home I’ll break down why I feel this way.

KI’s combo and breaker system is the first aspect of its own identity that comes to mind. The KI combo system was fresh and unique in the 90’s, and it still has no equivalent. The game also allows you to combo in ways that don’t strictly follow the standard combo path, so there’s freedom of expression as well as modular combos.

Another aspect of KI’s identity, shared by both the original as well as the current iteration, is its ability to softly parody a trope while maintaining a modicum of darkness to the aesthetic. MK took a stab at this in MKII and forward, but in my opinion KI really took this to the next level by not needing the gore to support the aesthetic, allowing the character and stage designs to bear the weight. This was executed with absolute precision in the original, and I think @TempusChaoti et. al. deserve a lot of credit for being keen to observe this and working hard to preserve and expand on it.

I disagree. KI Does have it’s identity.

Aside from the obvious ULTRA COMBO phrase and so on.

KI has one of the MOST Diverse cast of characters. Unlike most fighting games like: Soul Calibar, Tekken, Street Fighter, which are 90% of it’s entire cast are just humans from all over earth. KI’s roughly 50/50 and even the monsters are uniqe and the human characters to.

Not only that, but KI while it may have some small fundamentals like DPs, Fireball motions, etc. It’s a game of it’s own and it is highly uniqe.

Only game that’s even come close to competing with KI’s incredibly uniqe cast is Dark Stalkers, and that’s IT! Not many other games now a days, especially modern fighting games have a rich roster and gameplay like KI does.

If anything KI does INDEED have it’s identity. Most players who haevn’t picked up the game yet maybe haven’t noticed right now.

In my opinion KI is the most diverse roster than any fighting game, and if people want to take a break from watching some dude from Japan beating up some guy from some other country KI’s a good place to start.

I would assume for some people it’s a matter of “comfort zones” really.

If it’s not for the uniqe cast of characters that is pretty much a blue moon in fighting games, than they should try for it’s deep gameplay mechanics. Every fighter fights differently. Not too many fighting games do that today with a few exceptions. But in most fightin games it’s simple:

Open the guy up---->hit the one combo rinse and repeat.

KI goes a bit deeper than that and while I can understand it being intimidating. If you’re able to shrug off a few beat-downs as you learn the game, you will get better. Anyone who’s mad into fighting games obviously couldn’t of gotten so good at their preferred game without getting bodied a few times.

For people who are starting out, I would consider KI as a “gateway” kind of fighting game. You can learn some of the fundamentals of it, most of the basics can carry over to other fighting games.

Before KI’s reboot I did LOVE fighting games, but I never looked at them in the same kind of light as I do now. They were always fun, now they’re godly crazy fun. Admittedly only thing I may be spoiled by is really I can be picky about the roster of characters. Regardless I wouldn’t be as optimistic about fighting games as much as I have been until KI’s reboot. And this is coming from a fan of the franchise since the 90’s.

The worst I’ve ever felt towards a fighting game is MVC3 and MAYBE Smash with all the Fire Emblem characters, but that’s another story for later.

1 Like