So right now in the social media side of KI, tons of discussions are taking place. Same old same old to be honest. “Which Season of KI is your favorite/Why?” “Pro Stars: Do they matter or not?” , “Going 0-2 in offline events” etc.
All being discussed between top players and average players.
My favorite season for KI is still Season 1. Reason being is there were a lot more stronger (fundamental wise) players playing the game. Also Ranked, most played mode at the time, rewarded better play. Yes we all remember how broken the S1 cast were, but it still came down to fundamentals to keep you from eating those high, unbreakable combos. There were so much more Anti Airs and proper punishments going on. Also , the Rank system was really harsh but still rewarded strong play. Everyone wanted to achieve that Level 40 to get the Killer title. For the few of you who managed to get one, they can tell you how hard it was and how you had to play at your best. Almost like playing in an actual tournament. If you lost, chances were you were going to get demoted.
Season 2 came and changed that. Later that year, the KIWC was announced and one way to get points was through playing Ranked and achieving a Top 32 spot where you can no longer get demoted. It’s all about grinding and maintaining an average win ratio. Nothing compared to the win ratio to get to Level 40 in S1.
I knew there was a huge flaw in this system already that made it harder for “known” players to HONESTLY get to the Top 32. Lots of players that were usually in the Top 32 for S2 aren’t that good fundamentally speaking. They would BLOCK you if they knew you were a threat and can mop them up in a matter of seconds. This in turn forced the “known” player to have to grind that much more because they were never going to get those Bonus points from beating them because they were NEVER going to have the chance to play them.
I then decided to prove this and used my wife’s account. I played a FEW days out of the month, compared to playing EVERY DAY on my main account. Truth be told I managed to get a Pro Star for her GamerTag and actually placed higher in the Top 32 than I ever had playing on my account. She wasn’t even at a level 30 multiplayer-wise (number under your Profile Card in game) when she received her Pro Star. That’s how little I played on that account. I ran into so many usual Top 32 players that I would never encounter on my main account. Beat them and took their bonus points. That made it so much easier to climb up the leaderboards.
Now we have KIWC Qualifiers that you can automatically qualify if you get 1st, 2nd 3rd etc . It used to be only 1st place was an automatic qualify but not anymore for unknown reasons. Maybe because it’s usually the same few people always winning these events. Personally I don’t like it, but it’s not my Tour. It takes away the competiveness. It allows you to settle for anything but Number 1. It also shows how many of the current top players are lacking fundamentally. Look at some of the more recent Top 8s. How many jump ins do see not getting anti aired? A LOT. Anti Airing is the most basic thing to do fundamentally in fighting games, yet you barely see it in Killer Instinct.
Take SFV now for example. They literally just had the opportunity to get played at the White House. Yes, the WHITE HOUSE. Look at their recent Top 8s or even Top 16s and do the same for jump ins. The Capcom Pro Tour allowed Gate Keeping. Tokido for a while kept getting Gate Kept by Infiltration. Same with other players. They wanted to qualify for the Capcom Cup but 2nd place wasn’t enough because only 1st place was a guaranteed seed.
They then started to collaborate with other top players in their region. Coming up with anti character tech so they can better themselves in the MU and hope to take down Infiltration in an upcoming event. This in turn, just made more players level up as whole. Tokido finally beat Infiltration. They were the Top 2 players and many believed it would be one or the other to win the Capcom Cup. Sadly they both went 0-2 because other players did the same thing. They did their homework and eliminated the threat.
If we can get back into Gate Keeping both in Ranked and Qualifiers, I feel like the community as a whole can level back up to where it used to be in S1. It will make every player trying to earn a spot in the next World Cup want to learn more; starting in the neutral. From there, it will just roll down hill to the above average players etc. If we can get better fundamentally, then some of the original if not new players might want to swing back into Killer Instinct. This will then help expose KI more when the REAL KNOWN players pick it back up again like Wong, Balrog etc.