I’m afraid you’re right. I generally used to make fun of “KI is dead” notion, but that was the first thing that came to mind when I realized that “Eagle’s theme” video on Youtube is still a thing in the list of “recent” uploads on the topic.
This is kind of sad because I know a few people who would say a character like that would be perfect for them… Too bad they will never bother to pick up KI.
To be clear, I think the “KI is dead” thing is still incredibly silly. Tournament numbers don’t indicate the overall health of a game or scene - so long as you can still find matches online and set up fights with friends and connect with people, the game is still quite alive.
The seasonal character dynamic I mentioned is pretty prevalent in SFV as well, which to my knowledge isn’t anyone’s idea of a “dead” game. While some of the DLC and S2 characters have fans and get a lot of play (Akuma, Ibuki, Guile), several others that have come later don’t get much play at all (Juri, Ed). When they launch you see a flurry of activity as people try them out, like the cascade of Menats or that one tournament where everyone ran Abigail, but as things settle the vast majority of those players return to the characters they’ve heretofore put significant time and effort into. Serious character loyalty can make Infiltration stick with Juri, or Valle’s lack of ambition to consistently win tournaments can make him really try to make Kolin work (which he has to some extent), but no one’s clamoring to ride the Ed train, and you probably won’t see Menat in a tournament Top 32 any time soon. Later characters will always kind of have this struggle I think, especially as the “base” of the cast gets larger and larger.
To make another point, I know lots of people who log into SFV online but can’t find a match for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the game has many offline tournaments and streams. Is this a healthier game than KI, which has not much traditional offline tournament presence but it’s easy to find online matches? It’s not a super straightforward answer. If you tell your friend “SFV is super healthy right now” but then they log on and can’t find a match, I’m not sure they’ll believe you.
So yeah, there is more to a game’s health than just offline tournament presence. Being able to easily find matches online (as you still can with KI) is a big deal, to be honest.
It’s also worth mentioning, since I’ve been playing more online lately than I have in a while, that there’s a decent spread of abilities present online as well. If I sit down to play for an hour I will run into noobs, beginners, intermediate, great and truly skilled players. The gold tier in ranked seems to be a bit vacant (which makes some sense based on the way the tiers work) but not so rare that I don’t see them. And getting a match is quick.
I know we are all at least a little bit competetive by nature or we wouldn’t be so interested in fighting games. But I’m not sure why we have to always be trying to compare and compete in terms of how “healthy” our game community is. We know popularity is not a good proxy for the quality of the game, online and offline popularity can be radically different, etc. So people look for new metrics that they can use to say the game is dead. Not enough streamers, not enough youtubers, not enough people playing late release characters… I mean, I played for three hours this week and didn’t run into any Maya players. Does that mean the game is dead?
The online scene is what it is.
The offline scene is what it is.
The games continued development is what it is.
Unless you want to take active steps on any of these things then you’re just bellyaching. Hint: posting your observation of the games “deadness” is not taking active steps.
Since we’re talking about his setups… Does Eagle have any gaps to look for in his corner pressure? Seems once he gets the knockdown or the splat he’ll just keep hammering you with overhead projectiles, bird screech, and his own mixups all at once. All that is very hard to successfully block or even shadow counter.
NEVER SHADOW COUNTER AGAINST EAGLE! Most of the time you’ll just eat bird in the face (unless you have godlike reaction and reading skills) If you stay calm his corner mixups can be easier to deal with. Just block low and just wait for the arrows to come down and block high. Once the screech is done Eagle will do something unsafe, a grab, or back away. He won’t have access to his Eagle anymore so that’s when it’s your chance to attack. Be careful of empty wingspan to grab. Also you can get out of the screech by using a projectile invincible move. If he’s doing anything he’ll eat it, however he can read it and simply wait for the move and shadow counter. Eagle players love to abuse the fact that many players don’t know about that or are to scared to whip it out