You couldn’t change the current game/meta at this point. Three years in the making this game is beyond changing around any core mechanics. I say that now and flipouts and staggers didn’t come until season 3.
Any changes you make to core mechanics would be saved for the next installment (Not a season 4 which i really don’t think is ideal right now). This current game/engine should work itself out over this current year to perfection. Once that is done then start thinking about a sequel with the changes that you might of missed.
At this point it’s like Marvel/Skullgirls in which the games have been out so long that the meta is pretty well said and done. So a new player trying to join marvel right now, while not impossible, is definitely a daunting task in a way. For KI I think the fundamentals alone will go very far as again majority of players don’t have them in KI and remain to play “KI footsies”, but when it comes to the grander scheme of the meta I don’t see that as a reasonable ask, not impossible though.
The breaker system is one of the major elements that defines KI to begin with. And the fact that it’s so different from other fighting games can I will agree that may turn people off. The thing is though without the breaker system, KI wouldn’t have too much going for it aside from it’s diverse roster.
I would have to agree with this opinion, I think that for some people it’s a since of control and entitlement, or it could be they just want things to be easy, on the other hand there’s those who simply wanr straight forwardness. In KI you have to develop the ability of mentally wear your opponent down people would rather do a simple opener and do alot of damage, though if it weren’t for combo breakers that crazy and insane damage wouldn’t be a thing in KI. hell if it weren’t for them, the gameplay wouldn’t be as crazy or fun that likely would of attracted those people to begin with.
Now I wanna talk further about the idea of making counter breakers “more rewarding” I think fi everyone is willing to sacrifice big damage and increase the amount of KV meter you get doing combos (which in turn will make them alot shorter) I think that’s a good way to balance it out, or decrease the lockout by 0.5-1 seconds. The less risky the less rewarding it is.
I think most people who are not familar to KI likely don’t know the kind of tools and all the stuff you can do with your combos. Counter breakers are powerful tools, but alternatively, players can use a plethora of autos, manuals and linkers all with three different strengths and you can mix them pretty much anyway you want. So that’s another defense you can use to stop people who try to just throw out guess breaking. If people want counter breakers to be more powerful I think to make up for that the way people do combos may also be effected to keep things in balance.
I think most other games at least good fighting games that balance out combos if they give you full control, you can only do short combos and and less damage unless you have some meter or some junk.
But like every other fighting game, if people do not practice how to use these tools or have the mental game that comes with it, well…it’s their loss. Everyone who wants to be good at something don’t get good by not practice. KI just makes you work a little harder to get your good damage.
See, I love that idea there for whiffed counter breakers. Both characters return to neutral and PD goes down to half. As the offensive player, you’re punished by losing some of the damage you did plus the ability to cash out your combo. You’re also losing any theoretical post-combo advantage, like a foregone HKD ender, wall splat ender or launcher ender, etc. To me, that’s punitive enough without having to take it all the way in the other direction and open you up for damage from the person you were just attacking.
The defender didn’t necessarily make the right read on your counter break (though I suppose it’s theoretically possible, especially at high level play), all they did was not combo break, which could be completely independent of what you’re doing and not part of some strategy, so it almost seems as though the defender gets rewarded without really deserving it in many situations. That seems a tad lopsided and if nothing else, for the attacker, that might make the risk / reward of a counter breaker not all that worth it.
Now, some say it’s on the players to utilize the counter breakers. It’s not the game’s fault. To an extent, I’d agree with that statement, but it doesn’t change the reality of what tends to happen more often then not. A mechanic can be perfect, but if it’s still not being all that well utilized three seasons in, can’t something be done to help it along without throwing the game in to chaos?
The reward is great, but if the risk is great, people might not use the mechanic enough and if they don’t use it enough, some people will just guess break to their heart’s content because they don’t see getting locked out as anything worse than what would’ve happened had they not attempted to break at all.
Now, that’s not actually true, as an opponent using only heavies on a locked out opponent certainly hurts them more than if they have to mix in weaker manuals or lights or mediums, but clearly that difference isn’t enough to deter many defenders, so why not give the offense, the side that made the right read and opened the opponent to begin with, a little more incentive to throw out a mechanic to really put the pressure on the defender to think before they break?
Maybe this even helps teach people to learn when to break a bit more and to take a more judicious approach and play the game of trying to outthink your opponent, rather than just mindlessly mashing break? Probably not, but it couldn’t hurt.
Yes, in the current system, the opponent can and should condition the opponent with heavy ADs on lockouts and counter breakers to prevent YOLO breaking attempts, but the point is that the counter breaker, the offensive trump card, as it were, isn’t being utilized more often then not.
Maybe reducing the punitive nature of counter breakers helps those that expect full, unmitigated damage to at least try and learn the breaker meta and actually see how great the pleasure can be from landing a counter breaker and walloping their opponent with free damage (like they’re used to) even more than they otherwise would have in a typical combo? Who knows.
If they decided to do one final rebalance, either prior to a 4th season or just to put a bow on the game, I’d think that whiffed counter breakers causing a return to neutral with halved PD is a much more tame adjustment than adding a mechanic like flipout or stagger, but that’s just me.
I would assume something will likely come of it to balance it out, but if anything this is the closest thing we’d have to a solution without having to kill KI’s gameply by removing breakers.
I think this balances it out in an intrresitng way: here’s the current system:
COUNTER BREAKERS:
Curent:
Risk: you get comboed because you drop your combo
Reward: You get 3 seconds of free HEAVY, MEATY, DAMAGE!
Suggested:
Risk: You drop your combo and don’t get to finish.
Reward: both players are set to neutral.
Personally I don’t feel it’s that rewarding to have to open my opponent up again but it really just sets both players back on equal footing.
I agree that it could be any of those things. I also think that fighting games have been conditioning genre fans for 25+ years that when you open someone up, you’ve earned the right to do your combo and this game more or less throws that idea out.
It’s convention. It’s straight forward, so anything that comes along and says “hey, you can still break that combo, you have a second chance” doesn’t just defy that convention, but it seems almost more convoluted because it’s different. Add on all the stuff the offensive player can do to make it more difficult to combo break and it starts to sound strange and foreign compared to what’s familiar, when the reality is that it’s an incredibly simple and intuitive system, it’s just different.
I think lessoning the lockout by a half a second or a full second is a good way to balance out a whiff returning both characters to neutral. That makes sense to me.
I think that players learn that these exist pretty quickly when playing the game. Sure, they learn how to mix things in over time and how to read their opponent and bait them in to a lockout and using manuals etc. But I feel like being able to counter break someone’s combo breaker, at least as a tactic, is a pretty basic, day 1 kind of thing that you learn. Thing is, I still don’t think it’s used nearly as much as it should be. I don’t think the mechanic itself is bad by any stretch. On the contrary, I think it’s a great mechanic, I just think that the risk / reward, as it stands, might drive more people away from using it as a real, viable, strategic counter measure to combo breaking.
I mean, in an average match, how many times would you say you see a combo breaker either land or fail versus the number of counter breakers that land or fail? Maybe I’m wrong, but to me, it seems like there are FAR more combo breakers attempted.
Now, of course, as the only means of ending the damage, combo breakers are more likely to be attempted, while a player doesn’t HAVE to attempt to a counter breaker. They just have to keep attacking.
But I’d submit that if the ratio’s that far off, and I tend to think that it might be (but again, I could be wrong), then maybe the counter breaker needs to be less risky? I’m not saying it should be more rewarding, but I think that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they tried to at least toy with the idea of making it something that players want to use more.
That’s just it though, saying it’s on the players for not utilizing the counter breaker doesn’t change the fact that they’re not using it enough. I don’t really think that practice will make them use it any more either. Now that may not be what you’re referring to here, but either way, I don’t think it’s a matter of “do we blame the game or do we blame the player?” I don’t think it matters when the result is what it is regardless.
I’m kind of confused by the suggested reward. So let’s say I’m doing a combo on you and you go to combo break, but I counter break, you’re saying that I’d still drop the combo and we’d be reset to neutral? Just trying to clarify.
Here’s what I’d propose.
Curent:
Risk: dropped combo, foregone post combo advantage / follow up, open yourself up to getting combo’d
Reward: You get 4 seconds of free HEAVY, MEATY, DAMAGE!
Suggested:
Risk: dropped combo, foregone post combo advantage / follow up, lose 50% of white damage.
Reward: You get 3 seconds of free HEAVY, MEATY, DAMAGE!
Does this favor the offense more? I think so. But I think that’s probably how it should be if you’re the one that made the right read and opened your opponent up. I think the worst that should happen is that you lose your combo, some damage from it and the follow up opportunities. I think that’s enough punishment for a bad read on a counter breaker.
I think it might go a little too far in the opposite direction to essentially reward someone for being a passive observer of the combo, even if that passive observation is a strategy because you think they’re going to try and counter break. Personally, I think the chances of someone assuming you’ll try and counter break aren’t super high in the game as it currently stands.
Ah sorry, I don’t mean to hijack the thread and turn it in to a referendum on counter breakers as they currently stand, as it’s a discussion that’s been had before. I enjoy talking with you guys about this and appreciate your well-informed opinions none the less.
That’s not to say that I don’t want to talk about it anymore, as I do. Just that if anyone has any other suggestions for how they might improve the gameplay, I’d be curious to also hear those thoughts as well. I think that this has been a good conversation so far.
that’s not the reward for the proposed change. The reward is the same as what the current.
The reward here is apart of the risk.
So it should read
Risk: You drop your combo and don’t get to finish resulting in a neutral reset.
Reward: you get 3 seconds of free heavy meaty damage.[quote=“Iago407, post:211, topic:20230”]
Maybe reducing the punitive nature of counter breakers helps those that expect full, unmitigated damage to at least try and learn the breaker meta and actually see how great the pleasure can be from landing a counter breaker and walloping their opponent with free damage (like they’re used to) even more than they otherwise would have in a typical combo? Who knows.
[/quote]
I think that maybe if missed counters did in fact just act like a break situation (50% of pd gone on missed counter, and return to neutral) would be good for the defender that is patient. You should reward that defender for holding out, so perhaps give them the advantage but enough time for offender to place a defense. So say the offender after a failed counter is at -1 or something, a state in which they can’t say, “well i countered I missed so ill dp to stop defender’s next move” but that it is no longer their turn and give the defender that was patient a 50/50 scenario. The defender can mount an offense to turn the tide, or they can back off to reduce their PD.
I wish I had a lot more to add to the idea, but I really think that this is perfect. I’d be just fine with an ever so slight advantage going to the defender for holding out, where they can decide to follow up quickly or back off to recover white damage so long as the offensive player can try and either react quickly to an anticipated move by the defender or back off themselves… In all honesty, that could be a thinking game in and of itself, where a the defender waits it out, and instead of punishing the offensive player, waits even longer for them to open themselves up by whiffing a DP after the whiffed counter breaker (for example). I also love the parity with an actual combo breaker it’d create, even if it’s still slightly different.
To me, that mind game plus the overall risk / reward adjustment to counter breaker sounds a lot more fun in a variety of ways than what we currently have with counter breakers, where enough people see them as too risky to even attempt a lot of the time.
@Iago407 thanks for clearing that up, I must of gotten it mixedup my apologies, I mean to say that the reward you get for a successful counter breaker is the damage, risk is droped combo,so yeah that’s what I meant to say.
Also don’t fret, since we’re talking about the imprvoing the game the page we’re on is simply about one of those mechanics.
I would say there is nostalgia for S2’s “simplicity” but not because the game itself was more simple than S3 (really, the games are of similar complexity, except S3 has more characters), it’s just that the playerbase as a whole was worse during S2, since the game was younger, so they got away with being less good and still winning.
Flipout actually is in most 2D fighters; KI not having an air reset tool made it an exception rather than the norm. This is especially true of modern SF titles (both SF4 and SF5, but especially SF5, heavily use flipout for their mixups). Anti-air jab → dash into cross-up mixup in SF5 is a flipout. SF5 Ibuki hit confirming target combo into kunai into V-trigger, letting the bomb pop you up, jumping and doing air target combo, then landing with a super ambiguous 5-way mixup (which stuns you and then kills you) is a flipout, except you get only one opportunity to guess before you die.
The reality is people don’t like getting hit by something. They’ll complain about whatever that is. S3 has the most complaints because the player base is getting better, since the game has been out longer, so they are hitting more people. Therefore, they’ll point to a new S3 mechanic as the problem. That’s… really the full story.
Not that you can read other people’s minds, but do you think there’s some hesitance with some people on flipout because in KI it’s a mere button press as opposed to the more complex sounding strings that you’re describing in SF4 and SFV? Maybe people don’t look at those as flipouts the way they look at flipouts in KI?
I can see that easily being the case, which is kinda funny considering how many people were tearing their hair out during season 2 when recapture was first introduced, you know, in the good old days when men were men and flipouts didn’t exist.
I have to admit that for someone with middling skills at best, it can be rather difficult for me to discern what’s a legitimate gripe and what’s a gripe clouded by nostalgia. I mean, people were complaining about the bugs in season one nonstop, the jail system was screwed up, yet once season 2 came along, every character was too complicated, bring back the good old days when DH was running the show, etc. Now we’re getting the same thing in season 3.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making a horribly original or unique observation here, I’m aware of that. But I see flipout as a sort of fun way to surprise the opponent and keep the pressure on. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if there were a season 4, that people would have no problem with flipout at that point because they’d be complaining about whatever gets introduced for the new season.
“Man, remember the good old days of season 3 when everyone loved flipout and stagger?” -Some guy two years from now.
Iago407 and @Infilament you guys both raise some interesting points here. I think it’s kinda silly though now that I think about it, if this is a sign that the player base is bigger do we consider this a good thing? or a bad thing? or is this just a result that comes with it.
Actually I remember people complaining about S2 up the wazoo but I mostly just remember things like Fulgore Nerfs, people complaining about Maya, People complaining about Omen and how he looks, people complaining about Cinder, Wulf changes, Sadira changes, etc, etc. Lol
But on the good side and this by far overrides the negative demanor of the community back then: S2 was when all three of my mains were reunited so yeah.
But S3 introduced a lot of stuff I personally thought was interesting and exciting all at once.
Honestly, I think it’s just par for the course regardless of the size of the player base. I’d have to think that when a game has been around for three years, that by now, any changes, especially if we’re talking characters or mechanics or thing that veer away from what’s been done traditionally (such as character trailers, characters all getting their own stages, etc) will be met with resistance. Hell, remember the reaction to the level 4 ender animation when that was first introduced? How fast did they have that toggle announcement? Personally, I always have that animation turned on lol.
I don’t know if it’s just that people become to used to things that they forget that this is a constantly evolving platform of a game, or if people just cycle in, find out stuff is changing, and then cycle out after X number of changes. Tough to say.
Exactly. Kinda seems like they’ve been trying to do right by us for a long time now.
I don’t care what anyone says, Kan Ra still makes my heart sing. That’s just one hell of an awesome character design.
Maybe I’m in the minority on this, I don’t know, but Shadowlords… As someone that tends to prefer single player to getting shouted at online, this mode, I just freaking love it. Tons of longevity, tons of stuff to unlock, especially for a lore fan like me. It’s really been the gift that keeps on giving.
I think they did a great job with season 3. Mira is freaking awesome. I immediately wanted Maya’s sister the second they talked about her and was so psyched when we got her. I also love her glass cannon mechanic. I also love how Gargos turned out and all the crazy stuff he can do. Plus the fact that they offered up Eyedol in the survey and then introduced him in that trailer that practically made me jump out of my chair, and to have him be a stance changer!?
There’s a ton of stuff to like in this season. Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of guests and sure, I don’t love Kim Wu’s gameplay and I probably haven’t given Tusk as much of a chance as I should, even though I have both of them at level 50. But no season has been perfect so far. I’m still hoping Wulf gets more fun stuff to do because I find his move set to be so basic compared to the rest of the cast. I also didn’t really connect well with Hisako’s move set, even if I love her design.
So yeah, there’s preferable and not so preferable anywhere you look in any season. I think that this one in particular got off to a rocky start with the 3 stages announcement and the guests, and that sentiment kinda carried for a long time. I think that coupled with the rebalance and new mechanics threw people off (though why I’m not sure, given that season 2 had a rebalance).
Doesn’t change the fact that they’ve put out some great stuff with this game in each season, and I’m still looking forward to seeing what they do next with Character 3 and still hoping and praying that season 4 gets announced at E3 (or a brand new KI).
I think that if people could focus on what they love and what works and on constantly learning new things, that they’d be more willing to embrace the changes and evolve with the game, as it’s been doing for three years now and actually have fun in doing that exercise, instead of focusing on who moved their cheese and getting so invested in what the game was before versus what it is now, that there’d might be slightly less “in the moment” negativity, but who knows.
There’s a couple of ideas in here. I don’t want to go through them in detail, but I will just respond to two thing.
First, as far as the “outsiders” perspective, I think there’s a lot of people in the FGC who just look for any excuse to not try a game. If it’s not the game they are already playing there’s a nearly infinite number of things they can say, which all amount to “that’s not like the game I play, so it’s weird and bad and I don’t like it.” I don’t think there’s any way to make those folks happy. I’d rather see new games do something different and innovate. I don’t enjoy every mechanic in KI or every character, or every change that has happened to the game over the last three years. But I am impressed by all the risks and innovative things that Ms and IG have been willing to try.
The second thing you mentioned is “fundamental” players coming from other games and doing well. I think this is a sort of false idea. Chris G (and Justin Wong in S1) are just great players who understand how to think about fighting games in a way that leads to success. They beat 99.999% of SF players. The fact that they can pick up KI and beat 99% of KI players doesn’t suggest in any way that KI players are somehow less talented or fundamental as a whole than SF players. I have played tons of KI players who are obviously excellent SF players but just don’t “get” KI. They are easy to beat. Again, I’m not really arguing with you so much as pointing this out because I do feel like the normal assumptions is that “fighting game fundamental” means “what makes you good at SF,” and any mechanic in another game that wouldn’t work in SF is, by definition a “bad habit” that the game lets you somehow get away with. And I think that’s just wrong. As a SF game, KI is always going to compare less favorably to SF. But if you are willing to accept that combo breaking IS a fundamental skill for this game and being prepared to deal with breakers, counterbreakers and flipouts are fundamental. Having a pressure offense and being willing to take offensive risks are important skills in KI. “But that would get you killed in high level SF play.” So what? This isn’t street fighter. If you are playing KI trying to get good at SF, you’re doing everything all wrong.
There is nothing at all complicated about flipouts/air resets in SF4 or SF5. They are still just one button press and a mixup where you have to guess. KI’s implementation of flipouts is similarly straightforward.
I really dunno how these upset people look at flipouts. It’s just another mixup, albeit a faster one than a HKD, but the increased game pace can easily be thought of as a positive (or, at least, neutral since KI is already pretty fast). People just really end up getting mad at whatever hits them.
true though in my mind, the only way to remedy it is to give them options or at least let them know what can be done. There’s always a way, those people just need to know and be willing to try it.
I can say this because earlier when I still learning Cinder, I hated how trailblazer got punted by Glacius jumping heavy kick. @SonicDolphin117 suggested I time my air-light kick and guess @justathereptile doesn’t icicle kick much anymore. XD
if the advice seems sound the player CAN use it to break out of it, just have to give it a chance.
When I say FG fundamentals I don’t mean “what makes you good at SF” I literally mean the fundamentals of fighting games. Neutral play, utilizing normals, spacing, anti airing, when it’s your turn and not. The CORE things that make a fighting game without any additional mechanics (Divekick, even though that had mechanics of it’s own too).
Breaking isn’t necessarily fundamental skill that is a requirement of this game. Japan players were notorious for never breaking or counter breaking, an we all saw how far Domi got at evo two years ago using those tactics. Domi and the other japan players had the fundamental skills that carried them as far as they went.
Fundamentals doesn’t refer to street fighter, fundamentals refers to base skills that translate to every game. An yes Chris G an Justin Wong are great players in their own right, but if they didn’t have fundamental skills they wouldn’t be in the position they’re in. There are plenty of fundamentals required for marvel including a solid neutral game. Every fighting game is playable in a base fundamental style. Will you win a tournament with fundamentals alone? Probably not, but you’ll do EXTREMELY well.
