Can someone please advise me on how to use combo breakers PROPERLY! =)

You can. I have a bad time breaking linkers, so recently I focused on my own character’s animation and it’s true. Never realized it before as I used to focus solely on the opponent’s character animations. Only for linkers I do this now though (still learning…)

I tried this yesterday heavies I can spot a little better now but lights and mediums. Argh!

If you suck at combo breakers is it better to just eat whatever they throw out and try to block any follow up attempts.

I really wish there was a way to break a combo that didn’t require playing the game 10,000 hours to know every animation. It’s really off-putting to new players or anyone who doesn’t care about being pro level. Who has the time to learn all these animations for every character and even then it’s very hard to tell what strength some moves are because they’re almost identical. I would gladly waste a shadow meter to disrupt these high damage long combos. It’s not really a skill so much as it is I have a ton of time to waste on this game thing. As long as it is the way it is, this game will have a very limited appeal and very low player retention level.

Combo breakers from KI and KI Gold were much better and made a lot more sense. That’s probably why those games were a lot more popular too. I see what’s happening but doubt IG or MS really cares. Basically you’re building your game around the pro/tournament scene. When you do that you’re not basing the game on skills but rather on some skill + a stupid high amount of time commitment to the game. 95% of player don’t have a ridiculous amount of time to invest in a fighting game but they very well may be extremely skilled at the game. Bring back the old combo breaker system!

Let me take a wild guess MS and IG, at peak times there are roughly 1,000 - 2,000 players and that’s a very generous estimate. It’s probably much lower 250-1000 but I’ll be nice. That’s because you’ve made the same mistake SF4 made with 1 framers but worse. Your entire game is based on being able to combo break vs SF4 being able to do some extra combos. If you can’t break combos in this game, you will never be good at this game, ever, period! What percentage of players do you think have 100-500 hours to learn animations? And, you’ve made that aspect of your game so vital you cannot progress your relative skill level in game. It doesn’t matter if you’ve learned every other aspect of the game tot he point you can do it in your sleep, if you can’t invest those 100-500 hours into learning all the animations, you will never get better! Overstand.

Of course, I fully expect most of the players who’ve already invested that much time into the game, however much it was for them or they think it was, probably very inaccurate on the low end, “I mastered combo breakers in 5 mins”, to cry out against this common sense reality. lol

If I managed a fighting game company/dev/marketing all of that, I wouldn’t cater my game mechanics to the pro scene. I would go as far to say that recently fighting game makers have fooled themselves into believing investing in the pro scene is going to pay big dividends. Catering to the pro scene is somehow going to maximize profits for your fighter. I believe quite the opposite is true, you’re locking out 95% of your player-base with arbitrary time investment barriers. The pro players should adjust to the game mechanics not the other way around. The only real world benefit to this misplaced investment into the pro scene is maybe, if you’re lucky, the game’s stream and youtube viewership might go up a lat around the time of big tournaments. Most of the money made from that doesn’t even go to the game makers. lol It goes to the streamers/youtube hosters. :slight_smile:

Personally, I think you’re blowing things a bit out of proportion. For starters, KI does cater to newcomers - CAM, the dojo mode, and combo-breaker training (which you really should use if you’re not “getting it”) is all proof of that.

Besides, a lot of what you’re complaining about has to do with the breaker system. As long as you can have a solid defense (by blocking and using back-dashes, and teching throws, etc.), and avoid getting hit and can regularly start combos of your own, that’s all you’d need to be moderately successful. You also seem to be forgetting that it’s not just about recognizing animations, but you can also identify them by the speed of the attack, or even the sounds. There’s a lot that you’re not taking into account. Oh, and if you don’t like recognzing 6+ different animations per character, why not trying looking at your own character’s animations as they get hit? That’s another way to determine the combo-breaker strength that is needed - and you only have to memorize 6 animations instead of 130+ (provided you only play the 1 character, of course - then again, most people don’t play the entire cast, especially casual players). :wink:

lol Combo Breaking training doesn’t mean the game caters to new players whatsoever. lol It just gives people a more convenient way of spending those 500 hours trying to learn all animations. [quote=“GalacticGeek, post:24, topic:8523”]
your own character’s animations as they get hit? That’s another way to determine the combo-breaker strength that is needed - and you only have to memorize 6 animations instead of 130+ (provided you only play the 1 character
[/quote]

No, there’s so much graphically going on that’s not feasible. If you took the hit effects off it would be slightly more doable but still the system is not good at all.

Again, unless you invest that time, you will never be good at this game. You will very quickly hit a ceiling. That ceiling is very apparent, those who’ve spent countless hours learning animations for combo breakers and those who haven’t. Or, put another way those who can combo break well and those that can’t. You will never improve, you will be stuck in Bronze or Silver forever or until you’ve played the game so much you recognize not only the animation for one strength but for every strength’s startup animations. That’s absolutely ridiculous. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Starting combos of your own is a mute point once you hit the combo breaker ceiling because your opponents will break your combos at a high rate.

Oh yea, there’s yet another barrier, even if you do manage to combo break it can be turned right around on you by someone who’s invested countless hours into the game. Counter breakers and even bigger slap in the face to anyone learning this game. Now, you’ve put all that time into the game, you’ve learned all the animations but it doesn’t matter against a time invested opponent, they can easily do a counter breaker and continue to pile on insane combo damage you can’t do anything about!

It’s impressive how thoroughly you are able to completely deconstruct the details and interactions of the combo/breaker/counter system in Killer Instinct with just over two weeks’ interaction or experience with the game. Step on down, @Infilament, we have a new KI Information Czar!

Your argument about needing to invest time doesn’t make any sense; KI is the most new player friendly fighting game I have ever seen or had the opportunity to play. No fighting game is, or has ever been, something where you become a tournament level pro just by picking up the controller. Games like MK, SF, or Marvel have the same sort of “good player ceiling,” but theirs don’t revolve around combo breaking. Instead they revolve around specifically structured combos with zero interaction possible from the player being hit, outside of the very occasional meter burn.

In Marvel specifically, it’s not rare to see a pro or really good player take an entire character’s lifebar without the opponent being able to do anything at all!

In MK, (and I assume it’s mostly the same in SF, though I don’t have direct personal experience with SF) good players learn specific setups and combo strings which never change, and unless they mess up the timing of their button presses, the opponent has to just watch their health disappear unless they have two stocks of meter saved. There’s never any reason to do anything other than the single highest damage combo your character is capable of.

That’s not to say these games are bad, but they are different than KI (although from the things I’ve seen SFV is integrating some of the mechanics which work well in KI) because they don’t focus on the two way system. The thing is, the mind games, breaker/counter system and varied combos are unique to KI and require you to learn in a different way than memorizing the order of buttons you need to push.

TL:DR - a pro sports player with years of time invested in learning their game, position or plays is inherently better than a high school freshman who joins the team without having played the sport before, but there’s nothing stopping the freshman from working at their goal and eventually reaching the level of the pro over time. It’s the same in all sports, and the same in any fighting game.

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Please don’t respond to me dude, you’re just gonna ban me if you disagree again for a week or two, it’s not worth it. Can I ignore this guy? Is there an option to not even see his posts?

If I was going to ban you for your post, you’d have been banned rather than getting a response. I’m attempting to have a conversation with you, and pointing out the flaws in your posted logic.

As a point of reference, you’re not earning your bans because people disagree with you, you’re earning them because of the way you decide to respond to people and specifically avoid legitimate, constructive conversation.

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Take this to a PM if you have issues with someone. We don’t need this here and is off topic. He’s trying to converse with you like an adult.

Don’t worry about it, I muted him, there’s no problem.

I think for a few days I’ll just go in training and learn to block.

Like others have said, too, being patient makes all the difference. With the Combo Breaker UI I’ve found it easier to learn my opponents’ autodoubles and linkers because if my original assessment is incorrect, the game will tell me what I should have broken. The next time the opponent goes for the same combo (or at least the same AD/linker) I am more likely to recognize that it was the same as before, and can adjust my break accordingly.

Once I’ve done that in a few different matches with the same animation, I also find it constantly gets easier going forward. Baby steps initially can lead to bigger gains later on.

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My problem is I seem to go to extremes. I’ve tried the patient route before but I end blocking much I never get a chance to actually fight. Like wise with the offensive. Needless to say I end up losing horribly lol.

Tried survival yesterday and couldn’t even get past the first opponent on “very hard” the Jago taunt was real and justified. :joy: I think I hit him 3 times.

It’s all good though I’m still having fun one of these days it will “click.” Watching my character animation helped somewhat.

Part of learning KI that was initially a struggle for me was learning when I can or can’t push buttons and expect to have something go my way. I’m not advanced enough to really learn frame data, but I have learned relative speeds of typical opponents’ reactions or strings and where I can take control from them. If you’re successfully blocking a lot, that’s great - but start experimenting to see when you can block an attack and immediately throw the opponent, or move into a fast jab; Wulf for example has a nasty crouching LP or MP which reaches a pretty good distance and is really fast, you can poke opponents out of a “block string” and then start your own combo.

If you’re really good at identifying high/mid/low attacks and blocking them, you won’t have to worry about how good you are at breaking quite so much. What I’ve started to do while teaching myself to play Kim Wu is to listen closely to the number of hits while also visually studying the animations; I also try to predict what my opponent is going to do, so when facing a Sabrewulf who seems to like to go for low hits or the slide a lot, I will put myself in a crouch block whenever I suspect he’s about to go for a low.

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That’s probably what I need to do. Still experimenting with Arby.

Pretty much just summed my current struggle. Hahaha

I rewatched a video that @SightlessKombat made and think I’m going try this too.

I agree on this. I am not able to see my own character’s animations at times due to special effects covering some of the animations when hit. So definitely not ideal.

I don’t get it, dude. There are lots of complaints from all over the place (including “new” players) that combo breaking is a scrubby mechanic. You get the first hit, then you play RPS to see “if it counts”. Playing good neutral doesn’t matter, because you can bail yourself out with an easy or lucky combo breaker.

Then these same people finally get to play the game on PC, realize that combo breaking is actually really difficult and that if you’re wrong you eat 60% damage, and then they complain that combo breaking is too hard and needs to be easier?

You even mentioned a good piece of advice; don’t combo break and instead eat a slightly lesser damaging combo. Then you can play it like a “real” fighting game where all your mistakes in neutral lead to about 30-35% damage, as opposed to 50%+.

Your second line is great, though. What is your definition of skill, if not something you can practice and improve on? It may not be a skill you want to practice (that’s fine), but … don’t say it’s not a skill.

Can you clearly explain what your improvement to the combo breaker system is? You want people to be able to spend 1 stock of shadow meter to get a guaranteed breaker any time they choose? How exactly would this work? (How would it break shadow moves? Would this “shadow breaker” just always give you the right strength, but not always the right timing (meaning you can still get timing locked out), or would it put you in a state where you will break the next attack first frame? Are these shadow breakers counter breakable?)

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That sounds like a good thing to me… So just to be clear, you want to be good at the game without investing time into it? And the fact that you can’t is the games fault - the game should be changed so you do better without having to work at it.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is the definition of “scrub mentality.” Don’t post salty nonsense. There’s all kinds of good advice here from helpful people who are good at the game and try to contribute positively to the community. Your response to those people is “whatever dude, don’t talk to me.” So why are you posting here?

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There’s a reasonable time investment for a game and an unreasonable. For this game it is unreasonable.