KI Ultra Tour 2016 Feedback - Saturday Frenzied Fights (1/7/2017)

Game Suggestions & Feedback
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I wanted to make this thread in consideration of the recent KI Ultra Tour event in New York for providing constructive feedback for Microsoft and crew for the next tournament, should it occur.

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Venue (Online Viewer Perspective)

I really liked the look to the venue. Significantly different that what I’ve seen and from what I can guesstimate, fairly cozy as well.

Production looked significantly stacked. A commentator’s booth, cool viewer perspective of the employees in the background (personally find this cool), looks like a cozy audience area as well. I really liked the camera view of the players in front of their station. That is an original look I have not seen and it certainly is welcomed in my book.

Commentary

With respect to the commentators Connor (Conf1ictz) and Arturo (NYCFurby), I thought that these two had a bit of a rocky start.

Granted, Arturo had started playing the game (per his words during breaks and during commentary) last week, it makes sense it could take a little bit for him to get comfortable with the game’s quirks, but I’d say he started having fun with the commentary midway through the first round of matches. He had some help from the guide (IIRC) through Infil, which is good that he has gone out of his way to provide information from the guide to us.

Connor, I’d say, also would have a rocky start at the beginning. I’m not sure how knowledgeable he was about the game or how much he has played it before, but it showed a little. Again, like Arturo, midway through the round of matches, you could see a shift into having fun with the commentary and enjoying the experience, which is good! “The Roadster” (a.k.a - Rash’s Turbo Tunnel Speed Bike) might be the next KI reference to be used in commentary as we know it, it was a good kind of funny that I liked.

I really appreciate the good honest effort guys, as matches continued and it got into Top 8 territory, you guys appeared to be having fun with the game, the commentary, and the matches as I listened. I do hope if you two are on commentary again, to continue the trend of enjoying it while also providing the viewers a good amount of game knowledge as well.

I also hope you two get into the game more.

After Match Interviews

A (welcomed) first for Killer Instinct tournaments, outside of the KI Cup (I believe). I liked how Jess was very professional with each match’s respective winner and looked to broadened her set of questions as play continued. I always enjoy hearing the perspective of competitors and their methods of how they deciphered their opponent’s methods which enabled them to achieve success. In addition, taking points from the Beam/Twitch chat and asking questions of the players from that as well.

Game Overlays, Broadcast Issues

A little over a handful of times, the broadcast had a bit of issues with deciphering which player was whom. After it was determined that the person on of the left side of the screen was player two, and vise-versa, it was corrected. I’d ask the next time we have an event like this that the respective Microsoft Store knows which player is on which side (P1, P2), so we, the viewer, and the commentators, know which player is playing which character, and so on and so forth.

Small little audio desync/off queue a little bit, but easily correctable.

I’m not sure how I felt watching a game view of the action, in addition to the players duking it out. A camera view of the player is a welcomed attempt at trying something different for sure, but is it the right thing for a KI viewing experience? It’s a new one that we haven’t quite done before so I’d be open to whomever else watched and wants to voice their opinion on it. We’re very accustomed to seeing the entire screen more so than the players.

Character Promos

PLEASE CONTINUE TO DO THIS.

This is a very good thing to include in your breaks of watches matches. Character backgrounds are a good thing to know in addition to information about how they play. It’s something we saw at KI World Cup last year, but haven’t seen anything since. It gives newcomers a look at characters they have not played or of the like.

TL;DR - Great production with its fair share of hiccups every now and then, easily correctable for the next one (should it happen). Good viewing experience. Rough start for commentators, but they found their groove as the tournament continued. Be open to local commentary talent.

P.S. - PLEASE DO THESE TOURNAMENTS MORE.

P.S.S. - Archive Link

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Assuming this was a pilot or a test run to see if it’s a viable event to put on and not just a one off, this event had a great start. The only thing was the commentators lack of knowledge but they weren’t intolerable or gave wrong information. It was a great way to make KI seem really professional. Part of me hopes that this becomes a traveling event or something like the redbull regional events were to sf5. The in between interviews with players was great, maybe give these guys some macho man randy savage lessons so they can cut promos. I’d love to see more character explanations and maybe some tech demonstrations to give it more depth. Not like the “if you block an attack you won’t take damage” but something like Have thompxon explain jago fireball juggles or sleep talk about arbiter bullet usage.

Basically great first event, get people with passion for the game involved in production and on commentary and it will be unstoppable.

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Agreed, I want to really capitalize on this opportunity. This is a great first step for us and I know we can make this even better.

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Hello Fellas, Conflictz here. Just saying thanks for the feedback. Id like to continue casting these events, so i will be studying each character and strategy more in depth. As you can, KI is not one of the games that I am very familiar with, but with time, it will improve. So long as i didnt trash to game with wrong information and just terrible overall commentary, I think the production itself was a success. Thanks again, and I look forward to bringing you the action again in the near future.

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I agree the Commentators were rocky at first… but I feel like they got better as the show went on. They just needed a warm up and a bit more practice. But from what I saw the entire thing was really on point.

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For a moment I thought I was watching a GoW tourney (for the setting) but in the end I liked it.
I just wish people in the chat weren’t so agressive to new players or maybe nervous players, maybe I should stop reading chats, they get the salt out of me sometimes =P

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I thought chat was fairly tame, open-minded and good overall, after the rocky start. I did have a Twitch Whisper open with someone who was looking into the game. Guided them into the right direction and it seems as though they liked it at face value.

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First off I have to say that I appreciate the effort. I really don’t want to come off as ragging on these guys as I am SO very grateful that they put this on, but honestly there was a lot of room for improvement with the commentary.

I think everyone who watched the tourney, who are knowledgeable at all about the game, could see the gaps in there just basic info about the game any how it works, and how the characters work. When you have two guy who have little to no clue what is going on, it just comes off looking bad IMO.

A few examples:

  • At one point Connor congratulated a player for breaking a combo, AFTER the attacker dropped said combo. That doesn’t happen. That isn’t a thing.

  • Neither commentator new about Arbiter’s Overshield, and why Jago can’t juggle using fireballs.

  • Neither commentator seemingly knows what a recapture is, let alone what moves do it.

  • Neither commentator knew about Spinals S3 changes, or any of the S3 changes.

Arturo at least had a working knowledge of some of the players who play, and played, the game, and thus he could ask questions that related to the tournament history of the game, but he didn’t have any back up from someone with more up to date info. All in all, it was just a collection of little things that amounted to a lot of lost opportunities throughout the event.

I think in the future, the audience would be better served with one of these guys (my personal choice would be Arturo), and someone else who could actually point out what is going (I would love to see Sajam do commentary here, but I’m sure he has a ton of stuff going on…not to mention this is an NY event). The less knowledgeable commentator could point out general, cross game knowledge and strats, while asking questions after seeing “new to them” things regarding KI (questions that a new comer would ask), and the more experienced KI player / commentator could answer those questions, and offer more in-depth/specific analysis of what is going on in the match.

If they actually built a good, knowledgeable team, I think event would be just that much better.

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