Is Combo Assist Truly Helpful - Noob Perspective

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Hopefully I’m allowed to post this here, if so I want to first clarify that I am definitely not an elitest at all. I’m fairly new to the fighting game genre and just recently decided that I want to learn KI about 2 weeks before CA came out. So I am one of the many noobs this feature was created for. I’m currently placed in mid-bronze and level 7. After having the opportunity to play with and without CA, as of right now I’m not sure how productive this feature truly is for those who actually want to learn the game.

Absolutely it makes KI more accessible, however if its’ core purpose is to serve as a training tool with the intent of being weened off of, then I have my doubts on its overall effectiveness. Here are a few points of concern, from my perspective as a new player.

  1. Low level games have become frustrating post CA, for a couple reasons. Primarily I like to play with CA off to improve my muscle memory when it comes to combos. It becomes frustrating dropping combos as my opponent pulls off flawless combo after combo and then tea bags at the end of the game as if they’re good. Previously these low level matches felt like a nice environment to learn the game, as both myself and my opponent were equally inconsistent when it came to combos. Thus, the matches were more fun. Now, however I feel like I need CA on until I can perfect the combo system in order to keep up with those using it. I’ll usually switch it on after someone showboats and then beat them on equal footing with CA. Unfortunately, in the process, I’m not getting any practice on how to manually execute combos.

To that, I’m also seeing less strategy as more players simply resort to spamming. Is it beatable? Absolutely. Is it as fun to play against? IMO, no and again the core purpose is fun, not whether or not something is beatable. I don’t think the full depth of the game is on display with this type of crutch active. With full CA on I’m just seeing people spam buttons until something connects and then the AI takes over everything for them. To me, that’s just not exciting to go against. Also, is this not teaching bad habits?

  1. What are they really learning with CA on? Once they turn it off are they going to be better prepared to execute good combos?

  2. I’m not entirely sure about this one yet, but it seems like the pace of combos when CA is on, is faster than normal. Is this true?

  3. Does easy attract more players? The gaming industry is starting to trend towards e-sports and competitive/skill based games. To a degree anyway. I tried to introduce my brother to KI, but he wasn’t fond of it because he said it felt like too much of a button masher. This was before CA was even introduced. When you look at the success complex games like Dota or CS:GO has had, I feel a fighting game could achieve the same. Further, the games people come back to and play for several years straight are the ones with loads of depth. If something is too easy, it gets boring a lot faster. Inversely, when there’s always something to practice or master, you always want to come back. Obviously this type of long term commitment is important for KI’s model.

  4. More of a stretch, but is CA similar to using an aimbot in shooters? CA handles the intricate movements and inputs of specials and combos, while an aimbot handles the precision input of aiming. Yes, there is more to fighting games than just combos and inputs. Similarly, there are more to shooters than just aiming.

I fully appreciate the fact that KI is trying to introduce more players to the game and genre. I’m just not sure this is the route. Obviously I’m no expert, just thought I’d share my honest opinion as it stands as of today. My core concern is whether or not this hinders the fun of lower level matches. Can it potentially alienate new players who prefer not to use CA?

I hope the game continues to grow regardless of whether or not CA is tweaked in the future as this is still my favorite fighter. Nothing else can deliver the type of excitement KI does.

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I am not to sure if you ar supposed to post here as all CAM related stuff goes on the CAM thread. To adress you,lets go.

1st 1. If you want to earn the combos manually,doing it online is not the right place. Therw is a place to learn the manual input combos and practice. To learn,go to dojo mode. To practice,go into the training room.

2nd 1. CAM is basically training wheels for combos. It is there to help you learn the combo system. Not how you do it.

  1. Pace of combos is the same. I think it is a placebo effect.

  2. This isn’t much to attract new players as it is keeping new players in the game.

  3. I am not too familiar with aimbot but it is the game doing the aiming itself but CAM only helps with the combo. CAM is more of aim assist.

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I agree with Most statements supporting CAM, but i also agree with most statements against it.

I like the idea, but something better could replace it.

The original post gives me an idea. He compared KI to other e-sports games. But there is something the other games has that KI doesnt. They have a VERY CLEARLY MARKED area where casual players can participate. “Public Matches”. KI does not have this. Only exhibition, and selective lobbies, which are not clearly usable for casual play. At first glance, all it does it match you with random opponents, instead of opponents who are around you skill (and most of the time trying their buts off).

KI would benefit GREATLY from a better matchmaking area where you can CLEARLY narrow your searches to ONLY players who are in the same skill as you, and inside of it, add the lobby system of “search for keyword”. Then new players could easily say:

“I want to play for fun, not skill. so i will go into a public match”
“Oooo. look at this! i can search specifically for ‘same skill level’ or ‘training partners’ or ‘players with mics’”

Im thinking about making a thread titled “Replacements for Combo Assist?”

would it be a good idea?

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As @Sasuke99I mentioned, real ranked matches aren’t the place to improve your muscle memory. Spend the first five minutes of your play session in training mode training a particular combo. The routine I find most effective is (with input display on): “do combo” → “if you missed diagnose by looking the input data, if you did it right do next step” → “reset by pressing view+menu button” → “repeat”. This not only builds your muscle memory but also helps to warm up for the ranked matches.

Ranked could feel like it was a good environment for learning before because new players did so many things wrong they where essentially punching bags for you, so while you where having fun they weren’t. Also ranked play could be effective before but it was never efficient - lot’s of waiting between matches and eventually you where matched against someone that just wipes the floor with you denying you the possibility of learning anything new.

I know it’s frustrating to lose to someone who just spammed a move the entire match but this is the nature of any competitive game. It’s also frustrating for example to die 5 times to the same guy camping the same spot in CoD.

Why change tactics if the current one is working? It might be frustrating for you to lose to the same move over and over but it’s certainly fun for them to beat you with it and any competitive game will have someone leave the match less happy than the other.

I’m not denying that we can have a fulfilling match even if we lose, but for every fulfilling match we have there are an equal number of frustrating matches either because we lost to someone spamming moves or because the opponent was so ahead of us we couldn’t even move the entire match. Again, it’s just the nature of any competitive game.

Once you stop being trigger happy with breaks, improve your execution and start winning against spamming players, the game will match you against more experienced ones and you’ll have more fulfilling matches in no time.

It does keep them playing as they feel they are doing deliberate things instead of just jumping around like idiots. Players of action games are used to have the character move when they use the pad/stick and do cool combos when they press buttons, so CA makes playing KI feels like playing God of War or Devil May Cry. Once those players spend enough time with the game they’ll get curious about these “special moves” everyone talks about and they also will get curious about why their combos are being stopped from time to time. They will ask around and eventually take your route and start learning more about the game.

Not every player will go that route but some will, without something like CA to help them they would be lost forever.

The difference is that you can’t use CA if you can’t “aim”. CA doesn’t help you start your combos by opening up your opponent, that’s on you. Aimbots on the other hand also help you open your opponent up - you can just stand still and start pressing buttons once someone appear on your screen and the aimbot will take care of the rest.

Also when developers balance a weapon, aiming is part of the balancing factor. A 1-hit-kill weapon will have less aim assist and more reload time so if you miss you’re vulnerable for a long time. Aimbot removes that because it has perfect aim assist and you won’t miss so the reload time will only affect you if you’re attacked by more than one opponent. Aimbot essentially makes these weapons overpowered.

What is similar to aimbot in fighting games is one-button special moves anywhere. It may seem irrelevant but the fact Shadow Jago’s Annihilation move requires HP+HK to activate Instinct THEN a d,df,f + LP + LK to use it is part of the balancing of this move. If the move was just “press HP” and it just activated when it was sure to hit then the move would be too overpowered.

CA is just a step into the route, but an important one. Players want to have fun (you said it yourself) and work is no fun. Learn a FG when you never played a FG in your life feels like work sometimes, you have to spend time doing “unfun” things like going into training mode and memorizing moves instead of doing fun things like beating people up.

Some other games have an advantage over FG’s in that even if you never played that genre before it “feels” like you are doing deliberate things. They might not be optimal but at least you’re achieving some level of success - once you’re having fun and want to improve that success rate you decide to learn more about the game.

That’s what FG lacks, that basic level of fun in just playing the game. The entry level is just too steep and it can take a long time to start doing deliberate things for someone that never played a FG before.

I believe CA is a good step in that direction - it makes FG’s feel like action games to new players and action games are fun.

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What are you talking about? Exhibition and Lobbies ARE the place to play casual matches, but you have to invite the players.

No system that puts you against a random player will ever be good to play casual matches, eventually you’ll be matched against someone outside your league. Some games have an exclusive area where you can only play if you’re bellow certain level, but that reduces the online population even more and only games with obscenely large online populations (CoD) can have the luxury of doing that.

The matchmaking system already puts you against evenly matched players, but the system has the implicit limitation of needing a large population. It can’t match you evenly if there are no other players of your level around. Any attempt in the past to narrow down the matchmaking system so you only play even matches resulted in very long search times so this simply wont work.

Why replacements? Additions would be better, it’s not like Combo Assist should (or will) go away.

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Pulling off combos against a practice dummy isn’t hard. However, once the pressure is on against an actual human opponent, it’s an entirely different experience. It’s much easier to mess up when pressure is involved and there’s a bunch of other things you have to think about. So to me, also considering the fact that I have never been a big fan of playing single player anything, means that online was a great environment to have fun and improve. To compare to real life, some boxers look great hitting pads but fall apart once the lights are on. The only way to get better is to gain more experience in live situations.

This seems to be a little bit contradicting to me. I fully understand your view, however I think a lot of players who don’t like work and want to use CA will never ditch the feature. Because, as you say they don’t like work and CA eliminates the requirement for a lot of it.

Work can and should be fun if you enjoy your work.

Without a doubt it will bring in players new to the genre. I have to question though whether or not it’ll bring in fans of MK, SF or other popular fighters. I fear they’ll now see KI as a step down. Yes, I do feel that in order to become a popular fighter they will need some fans of other titles to pick KI up.

I also want to reiterate, that I don’t have a problem with the concept of CA. I just feel that it currently does too much. At least force players to learn what openers are and how to effectively incorporate them.

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I totally understand you. What I meant earlier is that training mode is where you build the muscle memory so that you don’t miss inputs in critical moments and doesn’t dedicate as much cerebral power in concentrating on what your hands are doing.

Sure you absolutely need real matches to test the muscle memory you’ve built and learn how to read opponents. That’s why I just spend 5 minutes tops on training mode to warm up a little.

It is contradicting but new players don’t know that :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. It’s usually that way for anything that requires training. Take workout for example, people that don’t like workout usually see it as “work” (it’s 'work’out afterall) but if they need to train for health reasons, once they start to lose weight, sleep better and all advantages of workout they start seeing it less as work and more as fun. They start buying equipment, doing more workout and some even start to compete.

That’s more or less what IG wants with CA. They want to lower the barrier of entry in hopes that some players will start to have fun and decide by themselves they want to improve and get better at the game. When that comes training won’t be work anymore and they will want to turn CA off.

But if some never turn the feature off, then IG made sure it’s no problem. CA doesn’t give much advantage beyond “don’t drop combos” and it’s very limiting on what you can do on high level play. You can’t do footsies for example, if you do c.LK, c.LK a special move will come out instead of two crouching light kicks and some characters have very unsafe moves on block.

In short CA will hopefully make some players want to make the jump to learn more and turn CA off and others won’t ever turn it off but they will play the game and be part of the community.

I know the pro players won’t mind, they usually can understand how the system works and why it won’t ever be a problem to them to face a player using CA. The problem seems to be players who “think” they are pros. Keits has mentioned numerous times on Twitter how mid-level players usually have a very wrong idea of where they are in terms of skill and think they are better than they really are - those players usually see CA as an unfair advantage because they are loosing to the same combo over and over and do not want to deal with this nonsense.

(as a side note, I myself used to be positioned just there. I’m just a mid level player and usually do lose a lot to players spamming CA, specially when they understand that spamming LP instead of MP from time to time will make the opponent lock out. Because of that I do understand how frustrating it is to realize you got played by such a basic tactic).

One other problem that seems to rise a lot is players that believe the real skill of the game is on hard inputs and complex combos that require 1 frame links and manuals. I believe these players usually don’t even play KI since this game has very easy inputs.

The truth is that hard inputs are not “the game”. When you’re doing complex motions you are not facing your opponent, you’re just facing yourself and your skill to not drop the combo. You’re only facing your opponent when you’re trying to read him and shut down any attempt he makes to read you, that’s where the real game is.

I believe players who do understand this concept will accept CA just fine.

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*Shrug * Seems sufficiently different to warrant its own topic - the other thread is at 800+ posts, and this feels a bit more focused. If the mods disagree then they’ll fold it into the larger topic.

My take on your points:
1 (the first time): I think one of the key things to remember is that IG has specifically stated they don’t think you should ever have to turn off CAM if you don’t want to. You’ll be more limited in your choice of linkers (more important for some characters than others) and enders (also more important for some characters than others), but overall you would still be able to play the game at a reasonably high level. Love it or hate it, that’s what the devs are going for.

But the other important thing is that CAM is overridden by traditional inputs. So for someone like yourself, you could theoretically learn traditional inputs while also not having to worry about dropping your combo as you build that muscle memory. Now, you may be against any crutch at a philosophical level, but that is the way that the system allows those who to want to learn to do so. I think this is a reasonable way to allow a player who is sufficiently motivated to learn the traditional inputs of the game. Your mileage may vary on that take, but I’d encourage you to use CAM as you learn. Work on doing all the inputs, only using the inputs for ending combos, etc. You’ll build the muscle memory while staying competitive, and won’t have to worry about the fight going to heck if you mess up the timing a little. As Infil is wont to say: if you’re still dropping inputs, then CAM is basically for you.

1 (the second time): Depends on whether or not they tried to learn the default inputs. If they were, and were simply using CAM to cover up any mistakes, I’d argue that they probably will be ready and prepared. A lot of the execution of FG’s is just an exercise in practicing it over many, many, many matches. If you’ve been practicing the inputs this whole time you’d be fine. If you did not, then you will probably still suck at the inputs. You’d probably still have a good grasp of the general flow of KI’s combo system however.

2 . CAM does not change the speed of anything within combo.

3 . Fighting games are inherently different than the other games and genres that you’ve mentioned. People these days are generally familiar with pointing and clicking and the mechanics of FPS’s. The value of those games (as both game and entertainment) do not revolve around the difficulty of execution to a certain extent. No one praises the multi-clicking prowess of a DOTA player or the ability of a pro Halo player to both shoot and throw a grenade. The depth for MOBA’s in particular is found in the strategy and interaction of the team and heroes, and to a certain extent the same is true of shooters, though there aiming prowess is certainly an important skill. Within fighters, execution has certainly been an important part of the game and the challenge, but that same difficulty has also historically been one of the reasons why the genre has remained relatively small.

The case can also be made that at high level (games as entertainment), there is a certain expectation of perfection among the very best that can make the necessity of complex motions or the like kind of pointless. I no longer expect people to drop Zero’s lightning loops in UMvC3, nor do I expect anyone in top 64 of EVO at USF4 to drop an E. Ryu combo. The games have not become more fun to watch as a result, and for UMvC3, have actually become quite a bit less entertaining. The thing that is interesting to watch is the interaction of the players, how they respond and adapt to one another’s gameplay. The execution of BnB’s isn’t particularly interesting or compelling from my point of view. If there’s no reasonable expectation of a drop anyway, then why have some artificially high barrier of entry for new players? Even if I could hit E. Ryu’s combos with 100% accuracy I would not beat Daigo, because the more important determination of skill is in how I manage the neutral of the game. In KI the execution of combos and confirms is relatively trivial anyway - the real meat of the game is in the neutral (which allows me to get that first hit) and the two-way interaction within the combo.

I do believe that CAM will allow new players who otherwise would not have been able to play and get into KI to start fighting and playing and do cool things, and that as a result they will stick around because those more important things (neutral and combo game) are really, really fun. But they would never have gotten to those things if they had never played a fighter and simply couldn’t perform the inputs as needed.

4 . I’d consider CAM more of an aim-assist, which virtually all console shooters use to some extent. Because artificially difficult things are not fun in general, and the devs want the players to be able to hit things at least enough to make them want to come back. From the desire to come back comes the desire to improve. If the system is so punishing that a newbie can never get into the two-way interaction, then why would he want to come back in the first place?

And yes - I 100% agree with you that the real test and practice of execution comes within a match. I’ll go into the lab on occasion to work on a particular string or input or to retrain my muscle memory, but in general I feel it’s way more productive (and more fun!) to practice within the match. :grin:

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Very well written post @STORM179. I stand behind everything you had to say. I consider myself to be a fairly advanced player but CAM has only made me enjoy the game even more. There were characters that I hated playing with such as Cinder and Thunder because their overall control scheme was so radically different from my mains (Kan’Ra & Hisako). If it wasn’t for a CAM, I don’t think I would’ve ever taken the time to learn the intricacies of these characters. CAM allowed me to see what these characters were truly capable of in my own hands and it made me delve even deeper in the lab with them. That’s what CAM is all about…to draw players into the game, old and new. I know that people are going to gripe about it being unfair, but it’s not. It changes nothing in terms of competitive play. If anything, it has made me a better player in my own right and not because I choose to use CAM. For example, I used to get my butt handed to me while using Kan-Ra against Pressure Heavy Cinders online, but since learning how to play with Cinder myself, it’s made it so much easier to defend against and punish this character in match-ups.

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There are so many aspects of KI, and FGs in general, that I could talk about in regards to your post, so in an attempt to be as focused as I can, I’ll just talk about one focus that you posted about…

CAM was developed to trivialize the basic combo system. In this, CAM is super successful, and a by product of this is placing more of an emphasis on the neutral game.

In the beginning stages of learning any FG, your first hurdle is learning the fundamentals of whatever game your playing, and learning how to control the neutral. If you can’t control and navigate said neutral against other players, then nothing else matters.

You said…

Your frustration shouldn’t be with CAM, it should be with yourself.

Not trying to be a ■■■■ or anything, but why are you getting upset that others are doing well? I know, I know, it is CAM that is making it “appear” as if they are doing well…but therein is (what I think is) the crux of your argument, and the brilliance of CAM.

If you want to improve in your game, first an foremost you need to learn to loose. Don’t make excuses for your lose, as you need to learn to take that lose, analyze it, and identify deficiencies and whatnot IN YOUR GAME. I’d put to you that CAM wasn’t why you we loosing, it was your…

  1. inability to control the neutral and not get combed.
  2. inability to break combos.
  3. inability to impose your own will on your opponent and get damage.

Those things are easier said than done I know, and a serious over simplification of how FGs work, but that is the only honest way to look at things in the beginning if you are serious about improving.

All CAM does is allow noob players to by pass the “heavy” execution aspects of the combo system. It doesn’t make them better in the neutral, at the CB system, at manuals, at the general mind games of the game, or at the multitude of other things you need to learn to be successful at KI. In general FGs are hard because there is SO MUCH to learn and execute on the fly and under pressure. As you get better at KI specifically though, you learn that basic AD combo are not “the game” of KI, as that is just the beginning.

…

To address the other side of the table though, those people who play with CAM on…the question about whether or not they will get better or not? That is an open question with the answer only existing in the future.

People only get better at FGs if they are willing to learn. I believe there will be plenty of strong players who use CAM, but I highly doubt it will be BECAUSE of CAM, as they will need to develop beyond what CAM offers in order to be successful. CAM WILL make it easier for some players to progress to the next level though, as by lowering the execution barrier, in can only help people. Will CAM in itself attract new players to the KI base? IDK…probably not, but those who are willing to try the game should have an easier time getting into it, have a faster path to experiencing the “fun” of the game, and as such MAY be inspired to learn more about the game.

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I’ll be frank with you. I dislike CAM. There are still a number of glitches with it and I’m finding when I’m playing against people who are using it, they are next to impossible to break, IF CAM is used to do the combo. I can play somebody without CAM on and they can perform the exact same combo and I can break those every time.

I personally don’t think it is needed… PERIOD, or that it should be offline only. Let’s be honest, EVERYONE of us here were noobs once. Everyone of us here had to learn how to do autos correctly, manuals correctly, spacing and whot knot. We have a ranking system that allows noobs to play primarily against noobs and vets against vets. KI has never been one to throw people to the wolves. (well unless they are fighting against Sabrewulf).

KI is NOT a hard game. It is by far one of the easiest fighting games to get into and I think making things easier cheats the new player out of the feeling of accomplishment.

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Outside of Jago’s broken linker “tech”, in what instance or in what way does CAM make things more difficult to break? The AD’s and linkers are the exact same, the combo flow is the same…how would you even know they are using CAM unless they’re doing something blatantly obvious like the broken Jago stuff?

I’ll be honest: of all the reasons I’ve seen vets say they dislike CAM, “it makes things harder to break” is one of the absolute least convincing. If you’re having a harder time reading the doubles and linkers, that’s kind of on you.

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Actually it turned out to be an Xbox Live issue. The problems they were having was causing delays in button presses. Since their issue was fixed, I haven’t had those problems since. Nothing like seeing Spinal do a Heavy Ghostly Manual and getting an “M” or “L”… or getting a lock out even if you didn’t press anything.

I played last night and didn’t have any of those issues. Everything was breaking like normal.

Getting back to my original point:

Have you ever watched anybody playing a TAS fighting game? I’ve seen a few UMK3 and MKT vids on Youtube. While cool at first, you soon realize that the player isn’t really THAT gifted. It’s easy to pull off unbelievable combos (often breaking a few mechanics along the way) when you are letting the game system do everything for you. It’s like playing MK3 on the SNES with all the cheat codes activated. It’s fun, but it doesn’t do anything to improve your skills.

MKX released a package that allows you to do easy fatalities. Yes there is a learning curve to get them right, but that’s the point. Once you pull one off, there is a since of satisfaction.

Does anybody remember that Street Fighter EM (I think that is the name) that came out for Gamecube? It did lousy because no competitive FG player is going to take an FG game that does everything for you.

For me part of the fun of KI is unlocking the mysteries. Learning to pull off crazy tech. Spending hours in Practice perfecting a specific move or combo. Practice is where I learned to do all my manuals.

I also found CAM very limiting. After that update installed, I didn’t know that it was “On” by default. During a few matches I found that I couldn’t get Sadira to perform certain tech, namely Opener > Web> HK> Web> Ender of choice. Instead she would automatically start doing some sort of crazy auto double, especially as I use the right analog stick to drop webs. I was sort of puzzled as to why I couldn’t get her to work right. I checked my controller settings and there you go, it CAM was enabled. I turned that baby off and haven’t looked back.

By default, it should be turned off (at the very least). Then if somebody just can’t play this game, then turn it on.

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The whole implementation is full of questionable decisions that could have easily went the other way and made many more people happy with the system.

-Allowed throughout Ranked (don’t want to risk hurting anyone’s feelings)
-No way to see who is using it (ditto)
-Defaults to on (I see this having the potential to drive people away honestly)

If these three things went the other way, IG would still have their supporters and the detractors would have been reduced by 90+ %.

All conscious decisions by IG that they have basically said are set in stone.

15

*Shrug * Now the conversation is beginning to drift to what the 800+ post thread is mostly about. The real question for this is simply “does it help new players?”

It’s there to help new people. It should default to “ON” because (completely) new people don’t know anything about the game, and would have virtually no basis to say “I should really tweak my default options so that I can play more effectively” or anything similar. Any veteran player who finds the system activated will VERY quickly notice it (I had much the same experience as @WebNRaGnArOk here), and can simply turn it off in their next match. After it’s turned off it stays off in my experience, so it’s literally a ONE TIME thing if you want it to be. I think it’s more than worth it for IG/MS to make sure Joe Gamer who tries out KI from Games with Gold be able to do cool things than that it not inconvenience me for that one game I accidently had it on.

Why do you care who’s using it? You should have no expectation whatsoever that your opponent be dropping AD combos and missing hit confirms, and if you do, then it is likely that your own game is at a level where CAM is kind of for you too. You don’t lose matches (Ranked or otherwise) because your opponent didn’t drop his combo - you lose because you messed up in neutral, or made a bad bet within combo or with an unsafe opener, or because your own breaker and combo games were weaker than they should have been. AD combo execution is trivial in KI - helping new people not ■■■■■ up on it helps them get far enough into the game to figure out those other, more important things.

And yes, CAM is necessarily limited. It’s supposed to be. It allows the new player to execute the KI golden path, but removes combo creativity, has no effect on manual timing, and can have some seriously negative effects in neutral with opener assist turned on. But it lets the new guy get far enough into the game to see other players doing those things (and not just getting wrecked by them), and from there he can begin to ask “well how do I incorporate that into MY game?” He can begin to figure out the appropriate spacings and the utility of manuals and the value of not guessing on his breakers. That’s the beauty of the system to my mind.

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I have won and lost games because of dropped combos. Even if it is rare, it does happen. Anyone who says otherwise is full of it. And please, try to make an argument without assuming whoever doesn’t like combo assist in its current state is probably a scrub that needs it. I’m pretty certain I could hold my own against the majority of people on this forum arguing FOR it in it’s current state. But that’s completely irrelevant.

17

I will answer the question, “Does CAM help new players”…

That answer is no.

The solution for new players is the same solution that has been used since day 1. Dojo mode, Practice, CPU Versus, and Exhibition are all there to help prepair the new Killers learn the ropes.

CAM doesn’t do anything for them, other than help them do easy combos the wrong way. In short, what it does do, is promote button smashing. How are they supposed to know when NOT to use this feature? You develope the wrong muscle memory, it will make changing to the natural mode of combat very difficult.

A good example is my fight stick. I purchased almost a year ago for KI. However, I had played KI with a regular X1 controller. My muscle memory was so used to the controller that it was nearly impossible for me to use the fight stick. I would literally have to retrain my brain.

CAM will do nothing for noobs, but hurt them.

18

It will also get those noobs to actually keep playing the game, when they otherwise would have quit long ago. There’ve been numerous examples given since CAM came out about how people have finally been able to get their friends/family/significant others to actually play and enjoy KI, where before the barrier for entry dissuaded them.

Not all of those people will stay, but some of them will, and some of them will hang around to better learn the game’s systems and actually work to get better.

Who cares if they’re playing the “right” way? There’s no religious or moral reason why being able to do a quarter circle motion is important. But whatever - we just look at this in a fundamentally different way I guess. I care far more about more people being able to enjoy the game and learn what about what actually makes it interesting (the neutral and two way interaction) than about maintaining some fictional standard of executional purity. *shrug *

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But Storm it won’t. KI (as stated) is one of the easiest to pick up and play FGs out there (not counting Dive Kick). It gets hard ONLY if you want to completely master the mechanics. If a noob ain’t going to stick with it then, then they aren’t going to stick with it even with assistance.

It is a moral decision because this mode isn’t Offline only.

We both play Destiny. What if Bungie decided to create a mode that will help those who suck with PVP (yeah me!) get nothing but head shots. You don’t even have to aim. Close your eyes and shoot… head shot every time with any weapon. The best PVP players will still be the best PVP players regardless, but suddenly I’ve been given an unfair advantage. My goodness everyone already screams about the 1000-yard-Stare with its rediculous aim assistance, but what if this was applied to EVERY weapon.

The meta would be wrecked. PVP is frustrating as it is in Destiny because they don’t have a proper Ranking system, but we can all agree giving noobs a free pass wouldn’t help.

In this respect there is an unspoken moral standard. Factually speaking CAM is nothing more than cheating. This would be a mute point if CAM was only available for offline and or local play, but the very fact that you can bring it into a competative enviroment changes the meta.

Yes we ALL can use it, but that defeats the purpose of actually learning the game.

What will bring more people to KI is more content and fun and balanced characters.

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Here is the difference. In Destiny,some guns have different recoul and accuracy so they don’t all have the same level of accuracy for balance. Removing this disrupts the balance. What is different in each character in Ki? Their tools and how they play. How they are balanced determines their balance. Combo assist doesn’t change their tools. The aim thing does change the effectiveness of the weapon though.

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