How to make it better (From a Street Fighter player's perspective)

I’ve actually seen this claim made in these forums. I’m not suggesting that Lycan said it, but I really do think this is the underlying bias that is in play here, including Lycan and the OP. SF is the right way to fighting game. If people are willing to admit that there is random in SF then they go straight to “SF has the RIGHT amount of randomness.” Lycan is saying things like “you can’t compare the YOLO in SF to the YOLO in KI.” That’s a statement of belief, not a point of discussion. I’m not telling him to like KI, or enter a tournament. But I think it’s wrong to say KI is a game that has a disproportionate amount of randomness.

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There are definitely people who think this, even though what SF is, as a fighting game, changes drastically between versions. But yeah, if there are people who think SF has zero or very little randomness, it’s pretty safe to ignore them. SFV in particular actually seems to have more randomness than average for a SF title. The corner is very punishing in that game, there are fewer reversals so you must make a completely random defensive decision that only prolongs your death instead of helps you get back in the match, and matches where you lose the randomness are over fast (meaning there aren’t opportunities to recover and make the randomness less deciding). And I think early SFV play is probably pretty indicative of how it will be played at year’s end… it’s a simple game and we’re better at figuring out game engines than we’ve ever been.

This is a hard point to discuss, because lots of games are very random. MKX is much more extreme than KI is as far as rushing down and “just doing stuff”, but Sonic Fox never loses. But okay, maybe you don’t like MKX anyway. Highly-praised games like Guilty Gear have extremely different footsies to SF and being locked in the corner in that game requires lots of good guessing to get out, but you have better defensive tools in that game (sort of like how KI has things like shadow counter to help). Is that randomness? Probably.

KI adds more randomness to the combo game than any other fighter in that aspect (and the damage is tuned to match that), but I don’t think its neutral is exceedingly random. It’s fast paced and “scrambly”, but not exceedingly random. I’m convinced that players with good SF neutral can dominate in KI, and there are characters in the game (Fulgore, for one) that are built to let them do it.

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I have to agree and I’m willing to admit my fault in kicking it off with a copy/paste. I definitely didn’t meant to set the wrong tone.

But that word… tends to illicit poor response. It’s difficult to gauge because it’s essentially a non-word and its colloquial meaning gets muddy fast depending on the context.

But I digress, and you’re correct. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Thanks for your persistently level attitude. I’ll endeavor not to reply past midnight in the future. :thumbsup:

I like MKX well enough. I love SF as a series, and I like SF V. If people want to talk about what they enjoy most, and why then I am all for it. It’s just the idea that these differences are all deficiencies in one game or another that I think people need to stop and rethink. We have similar saltiness about whether a block button is “legit” for a fighting game, so I don’t think KI is especially victimized.

But the heart of what is being suggested is to get rid of the breakers (very politely by the OP in this thread - which I appreciate). They are too YOLO and they rob you of your guaranteed punish - and everyone wants guaranteed reward. If you lose breakers you lose the two way interaction, you have to tone down the focus on offense because there is no second tier of decision making to bail you out of the dirty overpowered offense, and then throttle the damage potential in combos. So you are essentially making it SF with KI character skins - that game wouldn’t be KI.

What I like most about KI is that you are constantly making decisions even during combos. There are many more decisions during a KI match, so no downtime while you watch your opponent demonstrate his optimal button string, and fewer memorized challenging button sequences. Other people may not like that. Which is fantastic. But I don’t go into a SF forum and say “to make this game better, you need to add combo breakers. The game is too robotic once a player lands his first hit.” There’s a certain amount of hubris in showing up to say how the game can be made better. It implies that the designers of KI are unaware of how SF works, the players are unaware of how SF plays and that if we knew we would be pushing to make the game more SF-like. If someone comes in and says “as a SF player, here is what I am struggling with” or “here is what I don’t like about KI,” then that’s fine. We will have a similar conversation about how and why KI is different than SF but it won’t be set up with the false tautology that any difference from SF is competitively sub optimal and needs to be justified.

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See, I think that it’s not so much the sentiment as it is the delivery, to your point. I think these posts/threads would be met with a lot less vinegar if they sounded more like “I’m a SF player and here’s what I’m having trouble understanding about KI” and less like “Being a SF player makes me qualified to tell you that X Y and Z make your game random and dishonest”.

Which, IMO, stems from a larger issue that would totally derail the thread were I to get into it…

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How much laying stuff in my mouth.

Just by saying that you cant compare yolo in KI with yolo in SF the statement is clear - imo both games allow yolo play.

But in SFV i always have the same damage for punishing and it is easier for me to dictate your descision making in a best of 3.

In KI it is dependant on how my punishes went - do i get immediately broken 5 times in a row - i still have to fear a dp after a Windkick or stuff - so depending on how much i get broken i will have a harder time to dictate your descision making

Just as a sidenote:

I played a good thunder Ninox52 a few days ago - in general imo a stronger player than me but i played Gargos and he plays a pretty unyolo Thunder. Imo very few DP for a thunder. I won that Match 2:0 cause i knew how to handle the Spacing.

Yesterday or so i played one thunder player with 14 stars ITA Master and the amount of raw in neutral DP is just plain overwhelming. I lost two matches (so 4:0) in a row and got hit by a million dp - regardless of punishing all blocked dp (around 6-8 per Match) with a setup or stuff - the dp did not stop cause at around 50% guessbreak on a manual out of the punish after light reckoning opener - the punishment seemed not enough.

And since his DP stuff is so hard to block sometimes - you will get hit by it.

Is he a better fight game player than me - i dont know (imo not) but what i do know that he is the better KI Player

I dont say that Street Fighter V is the way how a fight game should be.

I just that if i want to play competitive i would play Street Fighter V.

And im not saying all of you are wrong with your opinion cause my statements are just that my personal opinion. And since the opinions are based on individual experiences they can be right for yourself but wrong for others.

And as stated im having fun playing KI - to me it is a fun game but to me it is no competitive fighter.

Do i want KI to be changed? No - cause i already have fun

Peace out

I didn’t read the whole topic yet but am I the only one who watches my character when getting hit to determine strength of the attack? It seems a ton easier to do that honestly.

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Nah you’re not the only one. That method has its problems, but if you recognize a tell from the reel animations I say go ahead and get the break. I lean on this from time to time myself.

I’m glad you have fun. You’ve been a participant in this community for a long time and I’m sure your contributions have great value. And I fully support playing games for fun. That’s how I play almost everything - but you are making the claim that KI should not be, and can not be, a competitive game. And that’s wrong. I’m not trying to aggravate you, but your response essentially supports what I said and my interpretation of your original comments.

I don’t disagree, although I would say “…easier for me to dictate your decision making in neutral in a best of three …”[quote=“LycanNaryko, post:47, topic:11261”]
In KI it is dependant on how my punishes went
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I completely agree. But where you lose me is here:

When you say this in this way, you make it sound like breaking is random (YOLO, whatever), but the chances of you getting broken at random 5 times in a row is .4% or 1/250 (it’s actually less than this, because this only accounts for strength lockouts not timing lockouts). If you are being broken 5 times in a row it is not a problem that the game allows inconsistent punishes it’s a problem that you aren’t varying your combos enough. And if your opponent breaks you four times on the first breakable hit then hit a counter breaker and get 60% damage. The point is, this is competitive gameplay that you can improve on or not. It isn’t just some sort of inhibition on you getting the punishment you earned.

SF players and proponents always focus on the neutral and only the neutral. Neutral - mistake - punish. And that’s the important part of the game. They tend to acknowledge the oki game as something that happens after a punish but usually pretty begrudgingly. But KI is a different game where capitalizing on a single mistake in neutral is not enough to guarantee you high damage. You have another whole phase of gameplay which is balanced against the neutral. The flow is neutral - mistake - enter combo game. The punishment for a mistake in neutral is to get into a combo contest where you are fighting to reduce damage. The reward for winning the neutral is to enter a combo contest where you are fighting to maximize damage. You can’t take KI’s neutral out of context and criticize it, and you can’t just take the combo game out of context and criticize it. The two go together to make the game balanced and competitive (at least in theory if it is working correctly).

The first question is unanswerable because there is no way to know what it means. I guess you could play against him in every fighting game ever and see who wins more matches or something. But it’s sort of like asking if Michael Jordan or Michael Vick is a better sports player. I dunno. I’m sure Vick is a better football player and Jordan is a better basketball player.

But you are essentially doing the analysis of your victory and loss by saying “This guy would beat me at SF, but I have defeated him at KI - so there is a problem with KI” and “This guy beat me at KI, but I would have beaten him at SF - so there is a problem with KI.” So even though you say you aren’t saying every game should play like SF the way you are doing your analysis is with SF as the baseline for what is “correct.”

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How may I ask is the light reckoning a 50/50 guess break? If all he does is light break or medium break the manual,just do a heavy double and do more damage. Have you tried counter breaking? You also realize you can do a command grab since it is a stagger right? Unlike SFV,you have to mix up your punishes. Adapting is very important in KI. I would say more so then in SFV. It isn’t a competitive fighter because you have to mix up your punishes? It might not seem enough. That is why you have to make it enough. If you play KI like SFV with short combos that are hard to break,if course the punishement isn’t enough. Do long combos. Don’t play KI like SFV

What is it that makes people think KI is supposed to be like Street Fighter?

There’s a bit of KOF in it, a bit of ArcSys, a tiiiny bit of Tekken, maybe some Divekick, and a lot of ideas that no other game has.

Killer Instinct holds up really well under scrutiny. The strong moves that people like to abuse are almost always massively negative on block, or have some other easy way to punish. Offense can get going very quickly, but it can end just as quickly. And there aren’t any characters that just completely dominate the rest of the cast, as far as we know.

But none of that means anything unless you have a firm command over how the game works. It’s easy to get beaten by a never-ending barrage of Wind Kicks, just like it’s easy to get beaten by Ken’s DP. You need to see it a few times before you can understand how to stop it.

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https://youtu.be/kVpOhkylG5Y A key element that hasnt been implemented. [quote=“Infilament, post:8, topic:11261”]
Also, change how Ultra Combos work at the end of the match. It definitely does not encourage a newbie to continue playing when a guy wins, does his long ultra combo where he’s allowed to cancel repeatedly, and then he has plenty of time to teabag you.
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50% guess break success not chance. 16 punishes - 8 times broken first opportunity

I do the punish - do a medium manual - get broken - next time - i do a light manual - get broken and so on.

Counter breaker on manuals - good luck - the chance they lockout before you counter break is too high.

Thats what i meant by advices with there is always an answer. Sometimes i am just unlucky in KI regardless if i mix or not.

And why everyone needs to come up with - you play it wrong… when you post your own opinion.

I never said i play it like street fighter and i dont play it like that - i play ki.

Just because i have a different opinion about KI does not mean i dont know how to play KI.

And as i stated - this is my opinion about KI and any example will not change that.

But now im finally out cause i never wanted to change anyones opinion about KI.

If you like playing KI competitive than have fun doing that. I accept your opinion even if to me personally it is wrong, it of course can be right for you. I simply dont care.

Peace out

https://youtu.be/kVpOhkylG5Y what happened to this solution?

You might want to try to counter break right after the opener. Have you tried command grabbing right from the stagger? It is unbreakable and will catch him if he tries to break. Gargos can do that.

i know he can do that - but since i dont know if that stays - i dont want to use it too much… you can also do shadow command grab

And it seems you think i have a problem with that - i dont. I was not seeking for advice. I played 70d KI pure gametime - i know the basics.

Generally i get a lockout - but sometimes i am just unlucky and get broken 3 times in a row even with mixing up - and you can manual all three strengths of light reckoning

https://youtu.be/kVpOhkylG5Y Oh,this should be done![quote=“DulXboxOne, post:4, topic:11261”]
Honestly, I don’t think there is anything you can do about it. Killer Instincts identity was built on the premise that you could do outrageously long combos during and after a match.
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Why would you break an ultra? You’re already dead.

Getting broken 3 times in a row is not getting “unlucky.” There are mindgames happening that you are losing at. Mixups failing is not “unlucky.”

You say that you’re not looking for advice, but when you come in complaining about aspects of the game you’re failing at that you think could be improved from a “street fighter player’s perspective,” what do you expect to get?