I think that KI has to be one of the most exciting and interactive fighting games in a long time. But I noticed the other day watching a tournament stream, the amount of breakers there are in one single game is a lot. So my proposal is to keep everything about the breaker mechanic but change the shadow breaker. I think that if you are spending a bar of shadow meter in your combo you should use a stock of shadow meter to break it. For some characters shadow meter is really hard to get (ex: Fulgore). So this in turn would reduce the amount of breakers in a game and make people do longer combos instead of one chance breaks. In theory you take some, you give some. The shadow breaker mechanic could remain the same but with one use of shadow meter stock if you are successful in breaking it. Or change it to be breakable with heavys only pressing it once during the shadow move. I’m sure people can come up with good ideas. This is just a thought that I wanted to share and please feel free to put your thoughts on this.
My counter to “needs less Combo Breakers”; C-C-C-COUNTER BREAKER!!!
Part of baiting shouldn’t be in the footsie game to start a combo alone, it should also include the ability to reversal with Shadow and Counter Breakers as means to take a little to give a lot.
I know I need more faith in the system 
I don’t understand why you would want to reduce the number of breakers in the game’s flow.
If someone is breaking constantly, they’re either getting really lucky or they’re reading their opponent really well. The opponent has the option of using Counter Breakers to punish break attempts, so the defender is still taking a risk by breaking. That, to me, is the entire point of the two-way-interaction KI focuses on. I guess I’m finding it difficult to understand exactly what you want, to be honest.
So basically you want Fulgore to be the worst character in the game? Since he will never be able to break a shadow.
If you want to break a shadow, simply use the 1, 2, 3 method - which doesn’t cost anything other than the potential risk/reward that’s involved with it. Fulgore can do this too. It’s not any easier or harder for him as it is with any other character in the game.
If you’re lucky enough to block the shadow, then if you really want, you can even spend the meter to shadow-counter it, if timed correctly. Fulgore can do this too, but he’ll have to watch his resources (which is something many characters have to do in some form or another: Spinal, Aganos, Maya, etc.)
I know how to break shadow, but the OP wants it to require a stock of shadow to break shadow… On a character who gains no meter blocking and no meter unless it’s a normal that is blocked this would make it near impossible for him to compete with someone like Jago who could do 1 chance breaks with shadow and battery ender every combo. Fulgore would never win that fight.
Well Fulgore would need a buff to his meter gain but I’m not suggesting changing characters for this reduction on breakers. I just think what season one had was good. Now a days you do a jumping move to get in and you’ve got people button mashing to break instantly right after you start your combo. And honestly I’ve had my share of people who guess break everything correctly even after switching up combos. Also most people even pros don’t like counter breaking so much because it is more of a risk than reward. Unless you’ve got someone that is completely mashing to break all the time.
Well another idea is make shadows unbreakable. I mean you are using your resources and it should be guaranteed damage. In my opinion of course. Linkers autos, manuals should remain the same but make shadows unbreakable.
I feel the current breaker system works fine, thanks.
Shadow breaking is all part of the risk/reward. Shadow moves deal more damage, but they can be broken with proper timing. However, this also means that using the right shadow move can lead to a lock out due to tricky timing, and the fast hitting shadows (which typically deal more damage) are easiest to break, but also make awesome counterbreaker bait since people’s instinct will be to mash break them.
Making it so you can only break shadow moves with shadow would damage that ideal. It would mean that you could use more resources at less risk than not using them, essentially giving you a freebie. Dealing more damage in a form that can’t be broken under the same rules as the rest of the game doesn’t make a ton of sense in this game.
Especially in the case of Fulgore, as @SullenMosquito pointed out, since he gains meter differently than the rest of the cast. Plus, characters with battery enders would be absolutely broken. Omen would suddenly be more than just the Herald of Gargos, he would be an unstoppable raging demon.
As others have said, Combo and Counter Breaking are both subject to the risk/reward mechanics, like it or not. Either you’re not changing up your combos enough, the other player is really good at breaking visually, or they’re lucky.
Regardless of the reason, the breaker system makes sense, and you haven’t suggested anything which will convince me that it would work better than the current Shadow breaking system. This is also coming from someone who hasn’t put a lot of time in, and has trouble breaking a good portion of shadow moves.
If you know people are mash breaking your immediate action after opener, counter break them every time. Since they are mashing buttons they won’t confirm a good combo anyways. It always works. And they hardly ever block properly… So just counter hit the crap out of them… Lame them out… I have a video where I pretty much take half of a Sabrewulf’s life bar by doing nothing but Cr MK into an opener but never confirming into combo like 4 times. Those counter hits hurt, then I did a short combo into a wall splat setup and read him like a book into ultra. The problem isn’t the game, it’s people cannot adjust from playing a high skilled player, to playing a button masher consistently. Then they complain that parts of the game are broken. Learn how to beat every type of opponent.
Counter breakers is what you need to do to for longer combos. High Risk High Reward. Not only that but on the player who’s on the business end is in just as much risk when trying to break a combo alone. KI isn’t like othe rfihting games in this regard. So do not look at KI like you do other fighters.
It’s fine as it is in my opinion. I don’t want to risk an MVC3 and have to sit there and do nothing when I don’t have meter to do it.
This. To me this sounds like OP has issues with Fulgore :U
no thanks OP I like the system as it is. Just learn to Counter Break. It’s not hard just pay attention to your opponent. KI’s a game that makes you pay attention and react. Not master a single combo of Simon-Says and just press buttons.
Unbreakable Shadow moves? So Thunder could just do: Overhead, Triple Axe opener, Shadow ankle slicer, Meter ender, repeat. Yep that totally encourages less use of one chance breaks.
So, the OP is suggesting we change the game mechanics for the entire game, relatively speaking, to accommodate 1 character? I’m sorry, but Fulgore gets meter for doing absolutely NOTHING. Sure he has to do a little something-something to get it faster, but that’s not that hard to do. And that’s not even considering the fact that he gets benefits no other character does as he gets more of it (faster walk and dash speeds and a super attack of sorts).
No, IMO, both the system we have in place, as well as Fulgore, are fine as is…
Yeah, as SithLord mentions, one of the big problems with this suggestion is that against someone with no meter, you gain access to 40-50% unbreakable combos by simply filling the space between opener and ender with shadow moves. For characters with easy hit confirms and huge meter gain enders, their offense is 100% sustainable with 0 chances to ever break (until you get meter).
It also means you are very, very unlikely to ever use meter for any other purpose than shadow linkers, because you will need to hold onto them to get unbreakable damage, and hold onto them to prevent your opponent from getting unbreakable damage on you. Additionally, characters with meter enders instantly get way better, and characters without them get way worse (think about what Omen would be able to do to you, lol). In fact, you might not ever use your damage ender if you have a meter ender, because why would you stop the gravy train when you can feed back into it and get the damage during the shadow linker later anyway?
The game would devolve incredibly quickly.
The current way to break shadows is really fun to me. You get to play a timing mini-game that is possible to mess up, and your opponent gains information about your habits before you successfully do anything. The “mash to break” shadows are balanced because they deal tons of damage and increase the ender level, so it makes sense that the offense should get less information about the break attempt when using them outside a lockout. So yeah, I’m pretty against changing the system to require meter on defense, or changing it to be 1 total input to break.
EDIT: Infil beat me to it.
Re: spending a bar to break shadow moves: terrible idea. Many salient reasons why this idea is terrible have been fielded before in other threads (maybe on the old forum), but the main one is that it’d force people to save their meter for combos, and get annihilated if they don’t manage to save up a bar before they get opened, so the rich variety of uses of bar in neutral would dissipate as a consequence.
Opener → one-chance 1/3 breakable → shadow ender? Spin2win? Season 1 was busted. With the system as it currently is, players are incentivised to explore far more of the combo system than they were in season 1, which makes the game deeper and more interesting.
Statistically unlikely, and I’ll believe the math over you any day.
I mean, sure: on occasion you’re going to get psychically broken a disproportionately frequent amount of times in a single match. On occasion in any fighting game a pro is going to get perfected by their opponent too. But breaking is hard, and the deck is stacked against the typical guess break. If you’re getting broken frequently, then your opponent probably knows you better than you know yourself.
Most pros aren’t used to the dynamics of KI’s combo system. They’ve had decades to learn SF-style neutral and pressure games and maybe a year and a half to learn how to apply combo pressure in a game like KI. I expect thinking on combo tactics to become less risk-averse as familiarity and understanding increases, and hopefully some game-theoretic input will accelerate that progression.
This is also a terrible idea. Also a naively entitled one: your valuable meter, that you get from…well, not doing anything special, but ■■■■it it’s your meter that you’re paying with, better be respected by the game with guaranteed unbreakable damage. As though you’re a taxpayer and the game is some government department that’s wasting your money or something.
Shadow moves have a lot of great properties, and often can be used in opportune ways to mitigate some of their drawbacks – but it’s important that they have drawbacks and are beatable. Having tools in a game that just beat all options because you spent a resource for them is bad game design.
If consistent mash breaking is getting you, then I recommend using manuals, or alternately just going opener->linker to start all your combos. If they’re truly mashing, you’ll get an orange lockout guaranteed to start your combo, and then you can just go nuts on them.
He is saying spend shadow to create less breakers. He knows how to break a shadow linker.
Mechanics for less breaking.
I have to agree with him a little. Anytime you play CPU on very hard or killer… you get broken every time…try to counter break and they don’t break. Every shadow link is broken as well.
Now Human players don’t break as much…but CPU does, unfortunately. Everyone doesn’t play against a human opponent.
But he is talking about a tournament with too many breaks… so I don’t know.
I don’t necessarily agree with the OPs method, but i do think there can be too many breakers sometimes.
This is why I have spent the last month learning MANUALS…to avoid being broken so often. But the CPU will break them consistently too.
I’ve noticed that Orchid has always been able to do this. Isn’t this against the rules of the combo chain? Can everyone do this? Why is this allowed and why doesn’t everyone do this? Why isn’t it trained to do this…say in the dojo?
You still have to put an AD in there to avoid Opener/Ender correct?
No sir! Opener > Linker > Ender is not considered Opener/Ender, and I believe everyone in the cast can do this.
Yep, only difference is Orchid can also do Opener>Linker>Linker>Ender