The time it took them to build Shadow lords (horrible mode) and the time it took them to build the cwhole crapy arcade system, would probably have been enough to create a basic arcade ladder (this is absolutely all we need for single player) and every character would have their own stage, and every character would be FINISHED.
Time management must have been tough at the studio.
And no, they do NOT give it to us, we pay for it. How many punches in the face did you have to pay them with all the individual expanssions?
Now the whole full game is $40 bucks. So yeah, they get paid to do their job man.
So I would say, prioritise the NEEDED BASICS first, then if theres more time, do addons…
So what are the priorities? Characters, Stages, BASIC arcade, none of that shadow lord bull ■■■■, etc… But now, they are building a house starting from the top this is what happens, THE CURRENT VERSION OF KILLER INSTINCT !!!
Although i agree that they should have added a “basic ladder mode” shadow lords is basically an arcade with added stats and rpg elements. It isn’t basic but it still is a ladder mode with a boss.
We have enough stages tbh
What do you mean by this?
When i say give, i obviously mean that we pay for it. Nothing is free. They provide service and we pay accordingly. It’s your descion to spend money on a game that changed a lot like KI.
Just don’t blow things out of proportion will you. Ill go back to lurking mode
Priorities? The priorities for ANY fighter should be A. Fun and interesting characters. B. Engaging and easy to pick up gameplay. C. Excellent Netcode. IG prioritized these things to make KI fun.
Everything else is icing on the proverbial cake.
SFV has all these visual goodies, yet the characters and gameplay is stale.
DBZ Fighter is beautiful but the netcode is trash.
MKX is gorgeous and the netcode is okay, but the fighting and general animation is garbage.
Pick your battles, but I didn’t buy KI for Ultimates, stages or anything else.
Stop kissing the developer’s ■■■. Time management Sucked period.
The game is fun? yes I agree, but it isnt finished. When I mean finished I mean FOCUS on progress…
We got a Hisako*, then a shin hisako … we got a jago, then a shadow jago, we have thunder, then we have another indian (the bird guy) …
Did you ever meet a brilliant person, the person is so smart and brilliant but the poor person is not successful in life? It’s probably because having brilliant ideas are no good if you dont execute them.
Just do the game right, step by step, Stop making characters missing ultimate, stop cutting corners (I will do it later). Just charge us money and do it. I dont mind contributing… In fact I will contribute for life, but don’t slow down the pace. THEY STOPPED WORKING ON THE GAME !
Like, Pace up ! This is a Xbox one launch title and 5 years later it’s incomplete . Just get the point and stop kissing the developer’s ■■■ just because you are satisfied with what you’ve got.
Sometimes it doesn’t work that way. People just think, “if I give them enough money, they will make it”, when in all actuality it could be something completely unrelated.
If they stopped working on the game, there isn’t much we can do except support it as much as we can. Plus, it’s prety much a solid, finished game. Maybe we could have had more costumes. (This was explained in another thread why we couldn’t/didn’t.) Maybe we could have ultimates for the entire cast. (I don’t know the reason why.)
People think that a game that has no more support now is “dead”, when growing up, it meant the game is complete.
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to have 5 years of constant support. Most games don’t make even half of that.
The problem is the game IS complete. Everything they said they were going to add, they did. Ultimates were an afterthought. Something extra they worked on that we didn’t pay for. They were never meant to be in the game from the get go. They were one of the most requested features and eventually out of the kindness of IG’s heart, they added them.
At the get go of Season 3, they advised that not all new characters would get a stage.
In terms of the game itself, it is complete. Is it where everybody would like it to be… No.
A lot of people would like to see their characters get an Ultimate. A lot of people would like for their character to get a stage and if that is a game breaking deal for you, you are very welcome to have those feelings.
I certainly understand your frustrations, but IG has accomplished everything that they set out to do. They never promised us that all characters would get stages, ultimates, and other features.
Its perfectly acceptable to no be happy as to where KI is right now. You are more than welcome to have the feelings, but KI is, as it is, complete.
The way I see it, there’s a lot of missing polish, half-done stuff, and some standard features still absent in KI’s final package. I doubt many would disagree that this game is litany of missed opportunities, especially if they were around for the hype and discussion prior to S3. From that perspective, I can see the game as incomplete or unfulfilled.
But despite that, I think the core competitive gameplay definitlely achieved a complete experience. We’ve got almost 30 wildly diverse characters now, over 20 stages with great tunes, a training mode that still holds up as pretty good, and possibly the best netcode in an FG ever. KI is still a Fighter unlike any other and there’s likely still a ton of tech left to discover in what is an impressively varied and well-balanced game.
I’ve got plenty of disappointments with how KI2013 turned out, but I’m still happy to be playing.
Yeah I agree that there are certainly more ideal scenarios for a game being deemed complete. I’d love an arcade mode as well, and ultimates for everyone would be cool. I just kinda look at it as there’s a reason why production stopped, even if we’re unaware of it at this time. So taken at face value, I weigh the balance of what’s not there with both what’s there as well as the experiences I’ve had with what’s there and to me, it’s not even close.
Maybe that’s some weighted math, but given that we all knew this would end sometime and we all knew that there were parts that we maybe would’ve liked to have seen improved upon or a little more consistency in what was doled out to characters, I still can’t help but feel like I’ve had a complete experience from this game, and I’ll take that any day.
Couldn’t have said it better! Agree 100%. I think that this game is a phenomenal foundation for an amazing future for the franchise. At worst, it’s been an incredibly fun experience that tried a lot of new things and succeeded on many levels. It’s easy to get caught up on that word “complete,” but to me, what I got out of the game matters far more, and I really hope we get more in the future.
You must have a pretty awesome life then, if your biggest regret was spending a few hundred bucks on a piece of entertainment hardware. Good on you, I guess.
Well, that’s on you then. It’s not their responsibility to make your perfect game just because you spent money on something before you did research.
Again, doing any type of research would’ve told you what the game was, what it was going to have at launch, etc. You had PLENTY of time to cancel your preorder (assuming you preordered) if you didn’t like what they were offering.
You just negated your own point. You knock the game for going from studio to studio, but then say they have talent and the game looks beautiful. So why does it matter that it went from studio to studio?
Yeah but that’s like .0002% of the content in the game. I mean yeah, it’s slightly unfortunate, but why is that SUCH a big deal?
Hell yeah man, it’s at my local arcade and it’s pretty fun! I believe it’s the only actual arcade cabinet that’s out in the wild. The other copy is owned by one of the devs. Either way, I’d love to see it as a downloadable title some day.
A game with a like… eight more finishing moves (give or take), a few more stages and an arcade ladder… I dunno. That doesn’t scream “finished product” to me any more than what we have now. Would I like more of everything? Sure! Absolutely. I’d love another season. Several more characters. More stages. More missions in Shadowlords including a big, blowout story involving a new KI tournament.
But instead of wanting all of that and viewing the game through a lens of unfulfilled expectations, I just see it as more of a testament to just how much I enjoyed this game. They’ve been putting out content for over four years and it STILL left me wanting more. Not to mention the fact that I really enjoyed what I got for those four years. So it’s kinda hard for me to feel like I’m missing out on much, but maybe that’s just me.
I don’t think any of those things make the game “complete” when we all have different definitions or a different bar for what we consider complete. Had this game been released as one stand alone disc instead of through seasonal content, I think people would scratch their heads a little at some characters not getting ultimates, but I don’t think people would be calling the game incomplete with the conviction that you seem to be doing it.
Agreed. I think we’ll always want more, but there’s already so much here and we’re all so used to it that some might take all these things for granted. I’m not telling anyone to just shut up and be thankful and it’s totally fine to want stuff. But man, the idea that the game has somehow failed (which is the implication I’m seeing) because the game’s missing a few fatalities or whatever seems a bit misguided.
As someone that completed Shadowlords, I couldn’t disagree more. That mode was awesome; a fun and unique experience that constantly layered reward upon reward. If you don’t like it, that’s totally fine. But at some point, you kinda just have to let developers make the game they think will please the most people and stop talking about what could’ve been, because in all honesty, we have no idea where they might’ve put that time and money otherwise. You can assume, but that’s all it is; an assumption.
I’ll bet it was difficult given that they were kicking out so much content so often. A character a month at times. That just seems brutal.
Oh stop with the “customer is always right” garbage. They told us what they were making and set a price on it for every season. We don’t get to dictate what content they create just because we put a few bucks in MS’ pockets. We’re not their investors.
What’s your point?
No, see… These are YOUR priorities. You don’t get to decide their priorities for them. They make the game, and we decide whether or not to buy it. That’s our role in the transaction. We can provide all the feedback and opinions we want and if they choose to listen, great… But at the end of the day, they can choose to make what they want, listen to what they want and decide what’s best from there. That’s it.
They have great characters, great stages, great music, great game modes and I give them all the credit in the world for trying some different ideas with Shadow Lab and Shadowlords and stuff like that. I don’t see how adding a standard arcade mode makes that package any better, but whatever. You act like the game has failed because it doesn’t have a few, largely superfluous things. Can’t say I see it that way.
LOL, I find it hilarious that you have to resort to this idea that people must love the developers as the only reason why they’d disagree with you. People have different opinions, man. You seem to think that a few fatalities and an arcade ladder is the difference between a game being finished or being this huge failure that resulted in “the biggest mistake of your life” aka buying an XB1.
If you think that’s a more rational opinion than others simply valuing different aspects of a game then I don’t know what to tell you.
Please define this a bit better. Not sure what you mean here.
Ultimates were added later as a free gift for fans and you’re throwing it back in their face as “cutting corners” because they didn’t do it for every character, but sure, they’re the ones with messed up priorities… Gotcha.
They stopped working on the game because they’re done working on it. Maybe they’re making a sequel, maybe they’re not. Either way, it’s been almost five years. Several fighters have come and gone since then. We had a good run here with this game, didn’t we? So maybe the ending isn’t perfect… Is that really such a big deal?
It wasn’t designed to be a “complete package” though. It was designed to be a long term platform and they did that. You kinda need to realign your thinking here, man. You’re so focused on the destination that you’re disregarding the great journey we all had here.
Who’s kissing the developer’s asses here? People are saying they’re satisfied with what they got because that’s how they feel. That has nothing to do with their opinion of the developers.
I think it could’ve been more, sure. But that’s only because the game had a ton of potential throughout its development and I think they realized a lot of that potential. Tons of great characters, great gameplay, great netcode, and they tried a bunch of cool ideas that I hadn’t really seen before in a fighting game.
It’s not a perfect package, but compared to where it started, where it very easily could’ve ended up several times over? It’s hard for me not to be happy with what we got out of this experience.
Just commenting here, but i hated Shadow Lords too. I appreciate the effort put into it and that they were able to pack it full of so much content, but at the end of the day its not what i want in a fighting game. I don’t like RPGs. I get enough strategy, planning, and resource management in real life. I play games to get away from all of that. I’m probably one of the few people out there who see’s gamings general RPG-ification as a negative, because its adding elements I don’t like to games i otherwise would (Shadow Lords in KI, Injustice 2’s Gear System, God of War 4, etc.). I just want fighting games to be fighting games, action games to be action games, platform games to be platform games, and RPGs to stay the hell away from me.
As for an arcade mode, I just want something to play in this game that, yes would take a while, but has a foreseeable and realistic end to it. I’m a student in college, and my life is only going to get busier and busier. And with SO many games out there that I want to play, if a game is something like Shadow Lords, then it’s a game I just don’t play. Which saddens me because KI is a game i really love, and I still feel like I haven’t even finished it. I beat Shadow Lords once to get Astral Plane, but the ending is so open ended and encouraging of multiple playthroughs that I didn’t feel like i actually did anything (and I got the Eyedol ending). Maybe I’m weird, and I know how counter intuituve it seams to want something you love to have a definitive end, but that’s my take on it.
That’s totally fine that you didn’t like it, obviously. I’m not here to disprove anyone’s opinion lol. But there weren’t really any RPG elements in this mode. You collected stuff just by fighting and you used it when you need to or felt like it.
I mean yeah, it helps to know what does what and how each guardian affects a match, but it’s not like you’re leveling up your characters or developing them via a skill tree or job system. They’re not gaining new abilities in the RPG sense.
I dunno, I personally like to feel like I’m progressing in the game, not just by completion percentage, but sometimes by character power, ease of battle, abilities, etc as well. That’s not to say EVERY game needs to be like that. Certainly not. But in some games, adding on some stuff like that can add variety, help make the more sluggish parts of a game seem less so, provide more short and medium range rewards, etc.
I will say though that I agree with you on Injustice’s gear system. I couldn’t get in to that to save my life and I really hope they don’t do something like that with MK 11, but that’s just me.
I hear ya man. I’d still argue that fighting takes center stage for a vast majority of the play time in Shadowlords, but if you disagree, it’s cool. I think some games definitely try to do too much and that can be harmful at times, but I like seeing games in familiar genres try new things, different things, expand the definition of what a game in a specific genre can be and do. I think it’s good to innovate on those ideas, just as it’s also good to have more familiar experiences that are evolved in a more linear way. I like having a balance of more traditional games and more genre-bending games in any given genre.
As someone that graduated from college and grad school and has been out in the work force for a while… Increased busy level = Confirmed.
Yeah this is something that I’m discovering myself as well. I used to love the idea of putting 90 hours in to a Final Fantasy game and despised the idea of ever paying full price for a game that I could beat in 4 or 5 hours. I felt like the length of a game had a real impact on my feeling like I got my money’s worth from a game.
But now… I’m just looking for more experiences in shorter bursts. Games that I can play for a little bit, put down, and not have a hard time figuring out where I was, where I needed to go, what I needed to do and most importantly, how to play the game. I loved Dragon Age: Inquisition for about 35 hours, then put it down to get back in to Killer Instinct and that was a few years ago. I want to go back, but I don’t want to start over and I don’t want to relearn how to play it.
Granted, the whole forgetting how to play thing is more or less on me. But regardless… I feel like there are a lot of awesome games out there that just have tons and tons of stuff to do and the more they have to do, the more I’m now kind of backing away, like “yeah, I’m sure that game’s great, but do I really want to devote X number of hours to just that game when there are all of these other games I could play?”
So I hear ya. I think Shadowlords big problem when it launched, and for a long while after that came from just how much of a grind the dossiers and skins were. Couple that with the fact that a few of the dossiers simply wouldn’t drop at all and it created a situation where a mode that could’ve been completed (to the point where you got everything and there was nothing left to do) in a matter of weeks or even a few months took several months and many more hours of grinding than it probably should have.
I believe you now get a dossier every time you play a match against someone you don’t have all the dossiers for, if I’m not mistaken. So that alone should take a TON of time off of trying to get everything.
I think in an ideal world, the dossiers would’ve told a cohesive story for the character, detailing what they were doing / what happened to them during the time period that the third season takes place in. It would’ve been great if it was just a nice long story that could be pieced together and read in order so the player knows who did what and when. Maybe even detail the final battle between Tusk and Gargos.
Regardless, I still think the mode is fun, but I can definitely see why it’s not to your taste. I like having modes in fighting games that I can play over a long span by myself; find secrets, get rewards, learn new lore, progress the story, earn new items or whatever, so this mode fit perfectly for me and I’d love to see them expand upon the ideas in a new KI game.
No I totally get that. I think that having some level of finality to the story, where Gargos is defeated and each character achieves some development in their own stories and rivalries and what not or does something of note would’ve been a great way to reward players through the mode.
I think the hard part with doing a rogue-like is that because it’s meant to be played over and over, you don’t really get that feeling of accomplishment and in this case, a whole lot of story progression. In a sequel, I’d love to see a more cohesive narrative that gets every character significantly involved, and once you have everything in terms of story (accomplished through playing and unlocking written bits, videos, etc), maybe there’s a huge, final mission structure that’s like… A new KI tournament. And you play through this with any character and you find out what happens to them in the story canon; who wins it all, who loses to who, whose fight is interrupted and why, what becomes of each character in the tournament, what’s going on in the background and so on and so forth. Just a complete picture and story that really puts the finishing touches on the mode that allows you to both play through tons of times, but also play a more traditional “story mode” within a non-traditional way of providing such information.
That’d be a nice balance to me, and for people that don’t want any of that, I’d like to see an arcade mode that gives a more vague, but relevant bit of information for each character in their ending. Maybe three story bits like Twisted Metal used to do as you play through arcade and each one provides a glimpse at the larger story and the character’s story, but doesn’t overlap what’s shown in the Shadowlords story. I think that’d be cool.
Sorry to talk so much here. I think Shadowlords is an interesting idea with some successful concepts executed very well, some ideas that could be streamlined or expanded upon, and a few things that could stand to be corrected a bit. But as a first draft at something entirely unique in the genre, I still give it an A+. I just want to see them take the idea to another level in the future with more missions, more DLC, more mission variety, more items, more guardians, way more lore and story elements that can be laced together to tell form a complete tale of all the happenings in the game.
The fun should come in that variety; of constantly gaining new stuff that you want to use as you learn new information. The grind feeling should be minimal and I think that’s where they could stand to improve the most.
Pretty sad they decided to leave the game in such an unfinished state, especially when they had just started to ramp things up with the post season 3 content, the new costumes and colors, it looked like they were finally going to start listening to us and make additional stuff to buy so we could continue to support a beloved franchise.
But for whatever reason they decided to give all the new stuff out for free to most owners of the game and pull the plug before even finishing the ultimates. As much as I love this game and always will, it’ll forever in my mind be unfinished and I’ll wonder what could have been. :B
You saw Adam’s reasoning above as to why this didn’t happen, right? I mean yeah it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get more outfits and what not, but at the end of the day, most characters still had a lot of colors and accessories, so it’s not like having even more would’ve made the game “complete” as opposed to what we have right now, but that’s just the view from where I’m sitting, I guess.
Is it a bad thing to get stuff for free? Maybe that was just their way of saying “thanks for playing.” Maybe they had a little money left over in the budget and decided to do a little more with it. Can’t we just assume that they did what they could and be satisfied with the results? I’m not angry or trying to cheerlead for them, I’m legitimately curious as to why this would be a bad thing. Do you think it would’ve gone over well if they’d charged for ultimates?
Yeah, it’s a bit unfortunate that some characters got them and some didn’t. It’s a bit strange. At the end of the day though, I don’t really see those moves as being of dire importance, but I can see why not getting ultimates for the whole cast would be frustrating for people.
I dunno man… The game lasted for over four years, it got three seasons worth of characters, game modes, story, plus additional post seasonal content, a comic series and it features some of the best netcode in the genre. I can see feeling that way if we only got one season, but after all of this?
I get that there can always be more, and with a seasonal model like this, it’s very easy to always want more. Honestly, I think it’s a testament to how much fans loved this game that after four years, people still want more. I know I’d love to see a 4th season with a lovecraftian character, an MMA fighter, a witch, The Tsar, Yeo, a wendigo, a gorgon and an ultratech suit.
I’d also love more stages because I love the way they’re designed and they’re nice to look at, even though I know most fighting games don’t have a metric ton of stages. I’d also love more music, whether from Mick Gordon or from Celldweller / Atlas Plug. I’d love a new main villain, like a returning Ichorien or a new shadow lord or maybe some benevolent power that wrests Ultratech from ARIA and tries to take over the world.
But who knows… Maybe I might get some of that stuff in the next KI game? As much as I hate seeing this game’s content stream come to an end, we all knew it would happen at some point, and I think it’s awesome that they actually came out and told us what some already knew in that regard. The communication with this game has been top notch since the beginning.
Now, as I still want more, I’m thinking less about what would make this game complete and what I’d like to see out of a sequel. This game laid a phenomenal foundation for something that could become one of the best series in the genre, and I’d love to see that happen. Here’s hoping Microsoft feels the same!
I will consider this game complete when everyone has the extra colors/costumes that are bundled with the ultimate Source figures. I missed out on Spinal. I have the rest. Sadly I think they’ve discontinued production on existing figures, including the prototypes of TJ Combo, Orchid and Cinder. The skins could be made available on the marketplace. I would happily pay for them.
Man, so many arbitrary requirements for people to give their unneeded seal of approval that the game is done. I don’t really get it. I mean… The game’s done. We might not have everything we want, but when people talk about how this will make it complete for me and that will make it complete, everyone has a different set of requirements. How was MS ever supposed to meet that list?
I get that some people assume they’re being reasonable here, but think about it. Let’s say we got the ultimates for every character, wouldn’t there still be people saying “well I don’t see it as being complete until they finally fix those season one retros.” Big stretch, but let’s say they did that. Wouldn’t others still insist that “they game’s not done until every character has a stage.”
I mean, where does it end? Where’s the magical line of demarcation / finish line that gives every fan this warm feeling in their tummy that tells them the game is complete and it’s okay for the developer to not keep adding content in order to “complete” the game?
I’m really not trying to patronize anyone here and I know I’m coming off that way, and I apologize. But I’m just kinda confused here. If everyone has their own set of requirements for what makes them deem this game a finished product, then isn’t kind of up to the developer and publisher to simply put an end to it and just stop putting content out?
MS and IG were even nice enough to tell us that the game was done. While I absolutely appreciate it, I don’t particularly feel like we were even owed that level of forthcoming by them. So I’m curious… People that have played on-going or “living” games up until the developer stops supporting them: Do people tend to feel like the game is complete, or do people generally tend to keep wanting more and more or looking for content inconsistencies as a means to not give some sort of approval that the game is done?
What do we make of this feeling too? Is it a matter of people having legitimate points and that the developer has somehow failed us simply by not releasing a few fatalities or colors or whatever? Or is it more just the fact that some aren’t ready for the content pipeline to run dry and don’t want the game to be done?
Just curious what people think. I tend to think that more content would always be nice, but I tend to wonder if there’s ever enough for people if content inconsistencies exist, or even if they don’t.
You know what’d be super? A comprehensive and official “The State of Killer Instinct” post from the KI Crew that officially dots the i’s, crosses the t’s, lays it out on what to expect from 2013’s KI from here on out, and maybe a little spark to keep us hyped for the future.
You’ve likely read through my hopeful/conspiratorial posts about what I guessed what was next for KI, (ENT Aganos, more Color Packs, the other Crimson Guardians, a fighter #30, more Shadow Lords missions, etc.), but between the huge character survey from… (insert specific date, because that sucker was a while ago!), the KI merch mega poll*, and the nice way that the first volume of the KI comics ended, I still believe that Killer Instinct as a whole is far from done.
Maybe, MAYBE, this game is done-done, but if it truly is, then we’ll surely see a new game before too long.
Fight on,
-Zenek
*Still waiting for my ultra-cute Dretch plushie, @TempusChaoti!
I mean yeah, that would be cool in theory, but what would they really say? They’ve said that that game is complete. They’ve used that word. So as far as what to expect from 2013 KI, I believe they actually said that they’d continue quality of life updates as needed, but I don’t think there’s really anything else TO expect.
I mean, sure, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe all the talk of the game being complete is one big trololol from Keits, IG and MS and Season 4 is announced at E3 with a fall arrival. Or maybe the next game is announced. I’ll GLADLY eat crow if that’s the case. But I just don’t see it happening.
I get wanting a spark, but sometimes games end and that spark goes out, only to be reignited when the sequel’s announced or the rumor mill starts churning again. I hadn’t thought about Mortal Kombat in a while until the rumor mill started up and I started listening to the Nethercast again. Now I can’t wait for whatever they announce at E3!
And so, the hype train starts all over again. We’ve been so used to having that spark and that hype for so long that maybe we kinda forgot that this awesome experiment was going to have to end eventually, and that’s okay.
Like I said (somewhere) above, this game has been a phenomenal foundation for what could become a tentpole MS franchise. KI 2013 absolutely oozes quality, creativity and fun, and since they won’t have to deal nearly as much with a lack in name recognition (at least among younger / newer genre fans) or a somewhat troubled console launch, I could see the next game really cementing itself as something special in the MS family, if it hasn’t done that already.
A Dretch plushie? Where’s my Sadira body pillow!? Wait WHAT? I MEAN… NO I DIDN’T SAY THAT. I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING… I meant… A wulf plushie! Yeah! * whew * (good save!)
