How to get more people playing KI

Thanks! Thats awesome!

Iā€™ve hosted several tournaments/parties, etc. over the years for KI and Iā€™ve found that the people who adopt it do so for several reasons.

  1. The game looks/sounds awesome
  2. They remember the originals and like seeing the updated versions.
  3. They love the over-the-top unpredictable madness and are willing to learn a substantially new system for it.
  4. The game is balanced for players at all levels and they see that at the event I host.

Those who pass also do so for several reasons.

1.) Bad/boring event with only one or two characters (Evo 2013, KI World Cup with Ricoā€™s Shago) doesnā€™t let them see the potential of the game (i.e. ā€œHeā€™s just playing with Akumaā€ was a direct quote that I got about Shago) They donā€™t bother to learn because the ā€œdominantā€ character isnā€™t one they like, so why learn the game?
2.) The game is very, very fast and has an ungodly amount of information to learn. You can do well with the basics, but to get better you have to become familiar with some very weird stuff and put in some serious time.
3.) The breaker system puts off a LOT of people. Remember, for thirty years weā€™ve been playing fighting games one way ā€“ win the neutral game, dial-a-combo for max damage. But to win at KI you have to master a much more egalitarian system that requires a new skill set.

The tournament scene is easy to understand. Pros, like other businessmen, crave predictability above all other things. The constant new characters and balance adjustments made it so they couldnā€™t just walk away and then come back unless their character of choice was incredibly powerful offensively (allowing them to dictate pace to other characters) and hadnā€™t really changed (i.e. Wulf). Everyone else just got frustrated with the amount of time they were required to put in for not much financial reward. Other fighters generally and Capcom fighters in particular have more money, the win-neutral-to-win-the-match rule applies and you donā€™t have to learn more than six or eight characters. After all, if you look at most fighters played at an EVO level, the gameplay is basic because the games themselves are largely basic - winning isnā€™t about memorizing every weird system and character quirk so much as it is using elite timing and executing combos flawlessly.

High-level KI, in contrast, is crystal meth in a can, to the point where even the commentators get overwhelmed. The closest thing pace-wise in other fighters would be Smash, only you canā€™t run away to buy time in KI and there are no breakers in Smash. Remember how Wong was dominant in Season 1 simply using Derpewulf with OCBs and eschewing the system altogether ā€“ he simply brought those high-level basics to KI and made them work using an overpowered character. Same with Jr., who offensively built his entire game around landing huge unbreakable damage with broken Sadira and then charged-up Maya, although he at least bothered to learn the system well enough to bring those into play. But with changes to the game look at the top players now, like Nicky, Bass, Rico, Sleep, Paul, Seadragon and Thompson (apologies to anyone I missed!!); they are basically KI specialists who exploit every last nuance at warp speed while the stage explodes behind them (I just remember Sajam shrieking ā€œJesus! What is happening?! The boat is on fire!!ā€). Itā€™s awesome to watch but it takes elite concentration to play, and if youā€™re looking to make money and have no real emotional attachment to the game or players, why bother?

So to win casuals, you can take the shotgun approach and know youā€™re only going to get one out of five people or target hipsters with elite reaction speed who are up for a challenge. Microsoft can help with their marketing and putting money into tournaments, but overall this is always going to be a niche game. Itā€™s not because itā€™s a long-dormant franchise or a weird subject like Skullgirls or other anime fighters; itā€™s because everything about KI, from the characters to the music to (most importantly) the depth and pace of play, is biblically insane. And itā€™s not going to be for everyone.

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I still remain hopeful that many people will open up to many of the novel concepts that KI represents.

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Thanks for sharing your experience, TOs always bring a different perspective. I do agree with pretty much everything you said, KI in itā€™s current state is and is likely to be a niche game in a niche genre, itā€™s way too complex and thereā€™s way too much going on screen at high level play. This is exactly why I think we donā€™t need a season 4, Iā€™d rather let IG do a brand new KI (possibly a launch game with scorpio or something like that) instead. In the meantime I wouldnā€™t mind some extras stages and skins for season 3 KI though.

Personally, I donā€™t think soā€¦ Outside of the usual mechanics youā€™ll find in most other FGs, a lot of what makes KI stand out mechanically is, I would argue, easier than most other FGs. Itā€™s easier to do combos, and to do things like combo-break or counter-break, you need only press 2 buttons. The only thing that might make it more complex is the fact that it engages you throughout the entire fight, not just when youā€™re performing a combo. For that reason, it may take more thought and dexterity, but itā€™s not exactly what I would call harder. Once I learned the system, it only took me about 10 minutes per character to learn how to effectively break them.

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Rythem (I forgot how to spell rythm and my phone isnā€™t autocorrecting) is also a big part of ki. Every player has a rythm. My friend who is maybe a 1/4 of my overall skill level can break me better than pros on the ladder. He just knows my rythm.

On good days he can get 100% Counter breaker efficiency.
Find that rythm in the combo, the music. Itā€™s all about hat killer feeling.

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I said high level play, and you surely know that advanced players are not gonna be doing heavy autodoubles all the time right? Chances are youā€™re going to see a lot of manuals, 1 chance break combos, resets, fancy juggles and whatnot. Yes, the combo system is quite easy to learn, but VERY hard to master at high level play, since you also need to be able to adjust on the fly, so you can take advantage of lockouts and discourage guess breaking. And letā€™s not even talk about the combo/counter breaker system, which forces you to pay attention all the time.

Killer instinct is a game that is mentally taxing and execution wise is far from being easy at high lvl. In fact, I personally think KI is way more complicated than SFV. Donā€™t get me wrong, I do like all the depth and some of the unique mechanics and archetypes that KI has introduced, but it can be a little too much for quite a few players.

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Completely Agree!!! :+1:

Great post! @DesirousCat3658

These statements kind of contradict each other. The players who are playing at a competitive level absolutely understand whatā€™s going on. They indeed may not like it but they absolutely understand the mechanics of it.

What helps the game is passion and enthusiasm. What doesnā€™t help the game is feigning the sky is falling nonstop. The fact is KI has taken the typical course of a game that was a console exclusive and released 3 years ago. This fall and early winter there are a lot of high profile titles that are dropping that will cannibalize a lot of players from a lot of communities. Thatā€™s the way it works, people in general have a short attention span and new things are coming out all of the time. SF5 just updated, Tekken 7 is coming out, Destiny just released an expansion, Gears is coming out, etc.

If you look at MKX entry numbers youā€™ll see that they have dropped significantly over time despite getting content updates and NRS doing a good job of pumping money into the competitive scene.

At the end of the day you can load up KI and within 5 minutes be playing a match with another human being at almost any time of day. When the time comes when you canā€™t do that, thatā€™s when they game will truly be struggling. Until then rather than create the perception that the game is struggling, instead work to show your passion and enthusiasm for it. Explain to people what you find so great and entertaining about it. Thatā€™s how you bring more people in.

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Exactly, and most importantly donā€™t take it personally if they donā€™t share your opinion.

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Scorpio is a highend Xbox1 not a new platform. So no there will no new ki made for scorpio, the current ki is the only ki youll play on it. If there is sequel it will be for the xbox 1 not the Scorpio. Since the Scorpio is just an Xbox1.

Most players arenā€™t at that high level though (I admittedly missed that part when you mentioned it), so what newer players initially learn (the basics mentioned above) is not that hard when compared to that of other FGs - and thatā€™s not even considering CAM or itā€™s fantastic dojo mode. Itā€™s a big reason why KI is seen as a really great gateway into the genre.

Just to piggy back off of you, my 4-year old loves watching everyone play KI and while he has just been mostly button mashing. I just recently turned on CAM for him, and suddenly on survival heā€™s getting up into round 9 or 10 on beginner. What Iā€™m saying by that is surely a teen or adult who would most certainly be more critically minded can certainly do well enough with CAM to do better with minimum effort.

Story Time:
During my senior year of school took a tech class where practically everyone was a fan of gaming. Had a project to advertise any game weā€™d like, to share with the class. Usually as a (Never heard of this game? Well then do I have something to show you!) Everyone chose Destiny, Boarderlands and such, but my turn, I tried my damnedest to sing this gameā€™s praises. Unfortunately this was just when Season 3 was taking off, so no Arbiter or Tusk, but after showing them, rest of the day while everyone worked, non stop they were talking about ā€œMan that looks sickā€ but sadly after like a week, that hype simmered down, as they moved on to other things. Basically moral of the storyā€¦ I tried, lol.

Now reasons why itā€™s not getting enough love, no real TV ads could be a starter. I mean whens the last time you were watching something like The Daily Show, and a trailer for Shadow Lords played on right after? Ive had Halo ads, Gears ads, CoD ads, that game Ryse had some pretty big ads, despite that game biting the dust, but KI just got the shaft in that department. Probably didnā€™t have the budget for it perhaps, but how are consumers supposed to get the game if they donā€™t even know its out there, other from word of mouth. Yes online the game is talked about heavily, and thatā€™s usually where the trailers are at, but still seems odd that from 2013 till now, this new KI has never really been mentioned in commercials, least from what Ive seen. Just a small theory.

Dunno if this has been said before, but IMHO IG just changes stuff too much and too often. Sure, itā€™s nice to have constant support for the game, but IG just seems to add / remove new mechanics every couple months or so, and this seems to seriously turn off competitive players. I heard one in particular say he had invested months into playing as one character, learning the timing, frames or whatever mumbo-jumbo competitive players talk about, only to have IG change everything with the following update which rendered almost all he learned useless. He basically dropped the game after that.

Personally, this doesnā€™t affect me much since Iā€™m just a semi-casual player (Iā€™ve been playing fighting games since the 90s, but never cared to go competitive) but these are tournaments weā€™re talking about, right? And I believe itā€™s mostly competitive players who attend those.

That being said, even if Iā€™ve supported the game all the way, I kinda prefered how it was back in S1. Dunno, everything was simpler, more streamlinedā€¦ characters had a set number of specials, Ultras were shorter but made more sense (even musically) ā€¦ stuff was more consistent. Just an opinion :slight_smile:

Again, competitive players donā€™t make up the majority of the playerbase by a very large margin, and although I understand that they may have somewhat of a following, I donā€™t think that them choosing to go elsewhere really effects this game as badly as you might think.

Oh, I donā€™t really care about competitive players myself ā€¦ but TC was asking why people werenā€™t attending KI tournaments, and the ones who do are usually competitive players.

Eh, another explanation: a big part of going to tournaments is that for a lot of games itā€™s the only way to get ā€œrealā€ matchesā€“the netcode just isnā€™t where it needs to be for most. You need to play in person, and you need to be where the killers are at. For KI, we have godlike netcode and top players willing to play sets with low-level players. Thereā€™s a hell of a lot less incentive to put the money down for a plane ticket to go somewhere when you can get quality matches without getting off your couch.

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