Yeah, you are right. To be honest, when I wrote that post I hadn’t read the thread at all. But after going back and reading your first post, you make a lot of sense.
Personally, I don’t think the breaker system is problematic at all, but then again I am surely bias as I love KI, love the OG games but also don’t play this KI game at a competitive level. I just play for fun when I can, so getting broken isn’t an issue for me…it is just part of the game.
On topic though, putting myself in other people’s shoes, I really struggle with a logical solution that would make the CB system “better” and “fun” for all potential players. As you laid out in this thread, there are plenty of ways already to get around CBs (including guess CBs), and/or punish them harshly, but at the same time there is/will always be time when you will get a match where you will see 20 or so CBs in a match.
IDK how to “fix” this “problem”.
Off the top of my head…
What if there were a way to counter CBs in the game that would not leave you wide open? Contrary to Counter-Breakers, what if you could “abandon a combo”? In Guilty Gear, players can punish BURST attacks (that games breaker system) by baiting them and getting the punish after. What if as well as doing a counter breaker for 60% damage off of a read, you could safely bait CBs putting the opponent in a reset of sorts (not a ‘lock out’)?
Again, this is just off the top of my head right now, so it is absolutely half-baked, but what if during a combo you could “abandon” your combo, and that abandon move could also be “broken”? The differences from a normal Counter-Breaker would be:
- If your opponent chose to brake at that time (whatever the strength), they would still go into the breaker animation, but be left wide open for a new combo to start as the “abandoner” would be able to punish.
- A portion of the white-life could be restored if they didn’t attempt a breaker, but if they do try to break the white-life would stay in full, and they would be open for punishment.
- Of course the player being punished would be able to break again if they so chose, but there again they would be in the combo system trying to get out.
Overall a mechanic like this would serve to slow the game down some in theory, but yet be able to mitigate breakers in the game to an extent. Sure it won’t stop people from guess breaking incessantly, but it will give the person doing the combo a way to bait combo breakers without putting themselves out there as much.
(Edit: I understand the risk reward of CBs and Counter-Breakers in the game as is, but I just think that the system addition above COULD serve to both slow the game down some thus putting more emphasis on neutral, and also put at ease the disdain of getting your combo broken all the time and either having to put yourself out there to stop it, or just take it.)