Character Backstory - Murder of Crows

Characters Thunder
61

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you were unaware that reservations still exist. You just listed that as being something that was a disparity between Thunder’s new look and his stereotypical past when everything they said in this regard was factually correct, so why mention that at all?

Okay, I’m going to confess my ignorance here. I was not aware that owning a motorcycle was a Native American stereotype. I lived near a reservation for five years. Granted it wasn’t the Nez Perce reservation, but still. Never saw a motorcycle. Not one. I’ve never heard of a motorcycle stereotype in any of my studies or with any conversation with any Native Americans that I’ve come across or with others about Native American traditions or stereotypes. If that’s true, then that’s a new one to me.

Dude, how long do you want the story to be? It was a few paragraphs. I don’t think that the omission of other Nez Perce traditions makes this tradition’s mere mention problematic. It’s part of his story.

Would their understanding be shallow simply by only mentioning this tradition? I don’t think that we can safely assume that at all. I could’ve sworn that Adam or someone said that MS & DH consulted with the tribe on Thunder’s redesign. I think it’s probably safe to assume that they heard at least a little about the traditions and / or studied them as well.

Honestly, in that short of a space, if they chocked it full of a ton of traditions and information and what not, it probably would’ve read like an 6th graders book report. They mentioned the region of the tribe, they mentioned vision quests and weyekin and what Thunder saw and how Eagle didn’t tell him what he saw in his own vision quest… All of this makes sense as far as what I’ve read.

Not sure I follow this logic. They changed Thunder because they wanted more historical accuracy and to avoid racial stereotypes. His story has historically accurate traditions in it. I don’t see what they need to be careful about other than having historically inaccurate or stereotypical stuff in it in the future.

If people are seriously going to comb through a fighting game character’s story, looking for historical inaccuracies as some sort of “gotcha!” that they can level at the developers, as if to say “why did you change his appearance if you’re going to have him do X when X isn’t historically accurate, you hypocrites!” Well then that’s just ridiculous and if I were one of the devs, I’d completely disregard that type of response.

I’m fairly certain that they’ll aim for accuracy and even if they stumble a little down the road, it appears to me that their heart is in the right place. I don’t think they’ve done anything that they need to worry about here, not one bit. I actually thought that it was a good, fun background for Thunder.

1 Like
62

My only problem with this bio is that it doesn’t go into deep enough into Eagle and Thunder’s training, making it seem like they are just inexperienced. From what was written though, it seems as if Eagle was the fighter, where Thunder was the academic type. I was surprised that they wrote that Runder was the older brother too.

Anyway…

“…he must begin training in earnest with the traditional weapon of Native Americans—the tomahawk. He became obsessed with keeping his heritage alive after that, studying the Nez Perce language, folklore and even traditional medicine with the elders of his tribe, his goal to one day become a teacher at the local Indian college.”

…even though both of them were athletes, and it says that Thunder trained in the use of his Tomahawk, Eagle was the only one of them that seemed to be more formerly trained, and actually went out and fought to gain experience. It just seems like Thunder relies more on his size and “lightning powers” more than anything else, rather than actual fighting skill.

Also, the fact that they harped on Eagle’s “amateur” skills was another sticking point for me.

TJ Combo is a pro.
Orchid is a pro.
Glacius is a pro.
Jago is a pro.
Cinder is a pro.

All these guys are experienced, and well trained fighters…yet Ultratech needed / wanted Eagle, an amateur boxer, to “complete” their Fulgore project? What? Maybe they just need to further develop Eagle’s story. Did he actually win the tournament? Did he prove his skill to Ultratech in some way?

63

I just want to go on record and point out this would be super punishing to those of us who play Thunder - not an improvement at all. If those moves are so vulnerable, you are effectively eliminating them from his toolbox, as all anyone would end up using was the light most of the time.

64

I believe ultratech just needed a human mind to help fulgore determine friend or foe and process info without glitches. Not entirely sure about fighting style (because fulgore doesn’t grapple nor box) maybe it was programmed in to the bot already… but I’m almost positive we will find more about eagle in MKIII fulgore’s bio.

65

The Thuder bio states…

Here, during one of the fights, he came face to face with the mechanical being called Fulgore—the newest version of Ultratech’s battle cyborg. Thunder’s gut told him that this mechanical aberration was fighting with the same style as his brother Eagle. He wondered if they had somehow extracted Eagle’s consciousness, but he was not able to prove whether or not this was true. Furthermore he was unable to recover the remains of his brother, and so he continued on what he called the “Path of the Eagle,” vowing to find answers or death.

How Thunder jumps from “he’s using Eagle’s fighting style” to “they transferred Eagle’s consciousness,” IDK, but ultimately UT used Eagle’s mind for more than just processing power…then again maybe Eagle manifesting in Fulgore was an anomaly.

Actually, if that were the case, if Eagle’s brain was used ONLY to somehow boost the Fulgore project, but somehow Eagle’s consciousness found it’s way to the forefront, that might be pretty awesome.

Eagle and Fulgore combine to become something different. A powerful warrior that is neither, but both. I like the idea.

66

I Misread or skipped that paragraph…Sorry about that.

I like the way you’re thinking though :smile:

67

Noooooope. It is still invincible, I was watching Max stream some Fulgore and he went up against Maya where he also caught that.

68

Only Maya’s shadow DP is fully invincible from frame 1 to the hitting frame.

Light DP starts up in 6 frames, but only has 5 frames of invincibility at the start, meaning if you time a meaty attack well, you will always hit her. But people mistime meaties very often (including me), so sometimes you will not hit this 1 vulnerable frame properly and instead get hit. If Max was just playing by feel and didn’t have a specific setup to hit light DP, chances are he would get hit more often than not.

2 Likes
69

Is a Native American riding a motorcycle really a stereotype? If it is, it must be a minor one because I haven’t heard of it. I’m not sure how it could be offensive… This is a pretty ordinary thing that lots of people do - ride a motorcycle.

[quote=“Frodo54, post:59, topic:2294”]
But making that specific thing a central point without having him do any of the other traditions of the Nez Perce, or even mentioning them, signals a very shallow understanding and just picking and choosing, which, considering that the cited reason of the complete overhaul of racism, sparks a little bit of interest.
[/quote] I understand what your saying here, but I think you need to be careful. The road you’re going down suggests that if you are to include any Native American character, you have to demonstrate exhaustive knowledge of their history and culture. But the point of KI and Thunder isn’t to provide a cultural learning environment. All they are trying to do is include the character, in a way that is plausible… Scratch that, it’s completely implausible, just like all the other KI stories. I mean to say in a way that is somehow grounded in reality… No, nevermind it’s not grounded in reality either. I guess tries to demonstrate at least a modicum of respect for the culture. The alternative you suggest is that you either cut out any Native American character or you devote the game fully to exploring their culture.

I am not a PC guy. I generally don’t get too wound up about the accuracy of cultural depictions. I’m Scottish by ancestry and Scottish culture (such as it is) is rarely reflected with any sort of accuracy in media. Oh well. But even I can’t look at the KI1 Chief Thunder and pretend that it’s not a distasteful caricature.

70

Um, why is anyone talking about Maya’s gameplay while talking about Thunder’s extended bio? Just curious.

72

The Thunder Sammamish change is why. It makes us talk about gameplay which leads to other stuff. Sorry.

73

Cant anyone see they are centering on one move for each backstory
That will be key fOr the season three traditional Ultimate Combo

74

Yes sabrewulf spinal kan ra hisako and fulgore all need human skins!!!
SERVICE THE TRUE FANS!!!

75

It’s a view I’ve come around on, tbh. It seems like, barring option selects that I’m not familiar with, if Thunder has a bar of meter, then sitting on top of Thunder on wakeup is a losing gambit, since Thunder could either

  • Shadow sammamish, which will beat anything but blocking, in which case Thunder gets a 50/50 mixup; or
  • Noting that the opponent is expected to block, put that bar of meter into shadow CotE instead.

To me, that indicates that Thunder’s optimal mixed strategy on wakeup with meter actually has a positive expected lifeswing (i.e. Thunder gains more from that interaction on average than the guy standing over him), so the offense is probably better off forgetting that oki is a part of the game and just backing off to outside CotE range, and maybe applying some sort of ranged pressure (fireball, hail, grenade, etc) to get something off of the knockdown. That is, unless you have a fireball-teleport mixup, or some sort of OS.

So I’m inclined to think, that unless you actually want oki to not be a thing (and granted, there are players on these forums who actually back off of an opponent after knockdown), then Thunder probably has to lose shadow DP into skyfall.

Yeah, I think this is extra evidence that they may be looking to cut the follow-up.

I agree that you’re effectively eliminating them from his options on wakeup. I think they would still have utility as mobility tools, for getting through fireballs, anti-airing, as crossups that also beat jumping, etc. This would especially be the case if they gave him extra follow-up options for these moves alongside skyfall. I could be wrong, but even without strike invincibility of any kind, I’d still expect sammamish to clobber most things in neutral with its big obnoxious high-priority hitbox, and only lose to something stuffing its startup, e.g. meaty normals and frame traps.

I’m also suggesting a buff for light DP here that’d give Thunder players an invincible wakeup option without meter – which, whilst not as good as Thunder’s current deal with one bar of meter (which I’ve somewhat broken down above, and indicated is probably bad for the game), is still an improvement in one regard.

76

You’re right that Thunder gets to play a 5 frame game on his wakeup, where he can beat all attacks with shadow DP, and all blocking with shadow grab (I think smart Thunder players should wake up with shadow grab more! but people get hit by shadow DP 95% of the time anyway so I dunno). There are some options that beat both (some backdashes), but you have to stand at a pretty far range for that in order to escape all the hits of shadow DP, and Thunder can sort of react to your range and then not do anything.

This in itself is pretty good but it’s not the end of the world, per se… lots of characters in fighting games get a pretty strong mixup on their own wakeup, and Thunder does have to spend meter for it, at least. If you block shadow DP, you can also get a guaranteed punish if you settle for anti-air damage, which… can be half-decent for characters with a recapture (TJ, etc), and there are punishes for shadow DP that can OS against both stomp and non-stomp. Jago, for instance, can block shadow DP, then walk forward under Thunder, which blocks (crossup) stomp and also lets him punish landing recovery without stomp on reaction. This probably works for other characters too, but you have to block the DP very point blank, and it only really works for shadow DP because of how high he is forced to go.

I just want people to commit to their reversals, that’s all. If you have a way to make it safe-ish via spending meter as a cancel, commit before you can see the result and make it do little to no extra damage on hit. I don’t like players being able to move across the screen, always upper-body invincible, and then being able to cancel landing recovery into more invincibility (and the loop continues), an impossibly huge move that beats blocking, and a move that can sway out of the way of attempts to punish (ankle slicer). The only real strategy that beats it, a low attack on Thunder’s landing frames, is difficult to perform, super range-dependent, and also just loses to stomp followup.

I’m kinda rambling here. There are numerous ways they could tackle this problem (remove special cancels on landing recovery, allow only stomp followups on non-invincible DPs, etc etc), if they agree with me that it’s a problem… we’ll have to see what they do.

77

Human…spinal… WHAT WOULD THE POINT BE OF HAVING THE NAME SPINAL IF HE ISN’T A SKELETON?

And sabrewulf would not look good clawing and biting with a human head…would he now?

Hisako I’m not sure…

And fulgore would be eagle…

I’d be down with a pre-cursed Kan-ra tho.

1 Like
78

I’m not either, in fact, if you were to look at my FB wall, you’d probably think I was the biggest ■■■■■■■ to ever walk the earth. But, if you want to cite racism as a motive for a complete overhaul of a character, then you gotta be suuper careful about what you have in his backstory.

Yeah, at least it is here in VA

79

That was a glorious moment lol

80

Great job here guys, I love the concepts of these stories

If I had to critique one thing, not to be a ■■■■ but, you guys really need to hire a better/professional writer lol These backstories feel like they’ve been written by an amateur/fanfic writer. And I say that with love hahaha