You took the survey. What do you think?
… you DID take the survey didn’t you?
https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3135436/KI-Fall2016-FanSurvey
Please keep the discussion constructive and civil. The survey and the discussion here will help shape a future KI update. Take it seriously, the devs are reading!
7 Likes
I agree with DEClimax in the other thread… I like the idea of resets becoming a little more rewarding, especially due to the mixup potential throws/hard knockdowns can provide. The idea of performing many smaller combos that end in resets or knockdowns as opposed to pushing for straight cash outs, then eventually going for a small combo into a hefty cashout built up from lots of resets sounds appealing.
And I do think that white life building should be examined for all characters. It is a bit strange that some characters can build ender levels much more easily than others, but it’s probably due to balance and keeping damage in check.
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Copy/pasting what I said in the other thread:
On the topic of white life: I put down that I think it drains somewhat too fast, and builds somewhat too slow, but I was to clarify that because I’m talking about very specific things.
I think that white life drains too fast on knockdowns. I think throw resets or other resets mid combo that knock down should be a little more rewarding, but due to white life draining when the opponent’s on the floor, you’ll likely not get a chance to make use of the PD you built up before the reset.
I think that white life builds too slowly for some characters, due to issues with damage scaling. There’s a handful of characters that have combo scaling applied to their linkers per hit rather than per linker, which makes heavy linkers kill combo damage. Also, for kan-ra, I think too many of his tools result in a combo that’s so heavily scaled that he can’t reach higher ender levels at all unless he spends meter.
…To follow up, I think game balance overall is pretty ■■■■ good. It’s true that changing all linkers to be per-linker scaling rather than per-hit could shake up balance in an unwanted way. However, I think the fact of the matter is that if these characters are intended to be balanced around their current combo damage, this should be reflected in the actual damage and PD of their doubles, linkers, and/or enders, rather than through something as opaque as damage scaling working differently for them than the rest of the cast.
Honestly to me, everything asked about in the survey (breaker difficulty & potential damage) seems just fine to me as is.
I don’t pay attention to potential damage often enough to really comment on it one way or the other, but with breakers, and mind you this is coming from someone that gets lockouts from bad reads frequently, that for the most part they’re fine as is. The only thing I would think might need to be looked into would be some characters (Hisako comes to mind) have animations that are similar enough from one strength to another that it makes it hard to read to break properly.
6 Likes
Is this discussion meant to only be about the stuff in the survey? There’s a few other things I’d like to bring up if we’re talking about balance/design.
On PD for knockdowns, I’d be curious to see how much the reward changes for resets into options that HKD if PD were to drain half as fast while knocked down. Maybe successfully opening them up afterward for a short combo would be more likely to get to level 3? Maybe it wouldn’t be a good change at all, but I’m curious to see how things would be different.
I hope it doesn’t look like I gave throw away answers in the poll as I honestly answered that everything is About Right. The only one I didn’t was the question in regards to how fast potential damage is recovered if the opponent isn’t hit. I think it recovers just a tiny bit too fast but not enough to be game breaking in my eyes. The only reason I see it as bad is because some characters can play keepaway a tiny bit better so it usually favors them but I supposed that it’s that characters reward for successfully being able to avoid getting hit in that amount of time so I’m a bit divided on the topic.
I can see where you’re coming from on this, but I like to look at this as KI’s implementation of BnB combos. Some characters have better bread and butter’s than others and while some character’s need that meter to get up to hefty damage, others can build it faster. I am A-OK with some characters being able to build PD faster than others even if they’re also able to do it easier. Helps make characters feel more diverse just like in any other game.
That’s a pretty legitimate point to bring up, why should some characters suffer more for some arbitrary scaling than others? Maybe there is a reason for it and it was the most logical way they could think of to balance certain attributes for a character? I’m not sure as I’m not a dev but it’d be fun to hear from them why some things are the way they are.
I think it’s much more likely that it’s some kind of bug that got left in than it is that they’re intentionally like that. Kim wu is supposed to do a lot of damage, it really doesn’t make sense for her to be punished for using medium/heavy linkers.
That’s true, I don’t know why I didn’t think about it like that.
Judging by the questions asked, seems they are looking at/considering changing reward/punishment of combo breakers while also examining the easy accessibility of breakers. Perhaps they are considering that the easiness of combo breakers isn’t translating well in terms of losing all your PD.
For me I think potential damage is in a perfect spot for now although there are character specific scenarios where I wish PD dwindled for a tad longer to be able to capitalize off it for example hitting someone with Kim’s reversal Shadow Dragon Kick. It builds a beefy chunk of PD but she takes so long to land to the ground while also having a hefty pushback, all the PD is fully recovered before she can do anything with it.
I could totally see them potentially implementing a change where you don’t recover 100% of your PD anymore after a combo breaker allowing for a second chance at cashing out later. I feel this would significantly speed up the game because people would be anxious to get back in and try to capitalize even though they had just been broken and as we know some characters actually gain advantage after being broken as apposed to being disadvantageous. This change would probably also subsequently buff characters like Omen’s demonic grab, Fulgore’s Devastation beam etc. This is a hypothetical change in which I’m theorizing they could implement but not necessarily something I’m suggesting as I mentioned the PD system is in a fine state overall.
Their question about how easy it is to Combo Break was also interesting. In my opinion at this point in the games cycle most players can break everything and anything on reaction (except manuals) almost instantaneously. Contrary to back in Season1 where the question was " can you break this", now in this stage of the game the question is “will you break this”. I’d rather them change breakers than adjust reward/punishment for them as I think breakers are a long term problem that needs a solution rather than changing a byproduct of something else that isn’t the real problem. What I mean by breakers being a “problem” is the counter measure of “Counter Breakers” not being a full or real punishment tool anymore. People are so scared to counter break these days that people just let stuff rock no matter what. I’d personally just like to see breakers become harder overall in some fashion or more risky. There is just too much combo breaking going on now that the game can kinda get annoying to watch. I’d like to see a story and mind game of a match progress between the two players instead of seeing a random combo breaker every 5 seconds.
Back in development of Season1 doubles and linkers were extremely slow and then they did a speed pass and sped everything up by like 20 or 30%. Perhaps they could do that again although maybe that isn’t the solution either. Maybe make lockouts last longer or get some sort of damage bonus during locks so your opponent hits harder as a punishment for you getting locked out…idk just ideas.
You can see what I mean in this video.
Obviously we don’t know their plans for the game going to forward so any drastic changes to breakers may or might not be something they have in the cards.
I feel like potential damage buildup for certain characters needs to be checked. Some get rewarded a bit much for the tools that they possess(Kim/Tusk) while others can’t get a lvl 4 ender from heavy autos and lights in certain openers(Cinder third degree -> fission -> heavy auto light). Some characters would benefit significantly more if there was a change in the amount of potential damage build up. A lot of characters in the highest level already have great reset potential and to make that more rewarding could make them too strong. These characters already do extremely well if played correctly.
Ex) Hisako. She can reset combos with a command grab that combos into more damage. The player could condition them to think they have to jump or tech a grab and instead meaty them on the reset for even more damage.
Let’s not even get started on the potential of the rest of the cast using resets. It could just shift the meta into a more reset focused game.
The speed of recovery seems a bit fast at times. As a Cinder main, it can be a real struggle to keep the potential damage when trying to open an opponent up that has amazing defense. I like to focus more on burning them with grabs, using inferno when they are blocking, and even shadow inferno to keep it built up. Once the flame is out the recovery is extremely quick unless I keep constant pressure.
Breaking isn’t hard, but a lot of people still feel like the counter breaks feel off. Probably b/c the lockout animation is slower these days? It seems like at times I question myself why a break didn’t happen. All I really say during those moments is “KEEEIIITTSSS”. I feel like a good amount of high level players also experience this oddity too.
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Everything is fine IMO except for the potential damage recovery speed. I do wish it was a tad slower. Some moves randomly add potential damage that’s completely gone by the time you can even touch your opponent again.
Funny that you bring up kim when she’s one of the characters struggling to get to higher ender levels without shadow or juggles…
@DEClimax Just to be clear and so that discussion doesn’t derail in this thread about the survey questions; the damage scaling on linkers being different on some characters is not a bug. It is something that we do intentionally to limit the output of some characters as needed during their initial design phase. You can even see in the 3.0 patch notes that we deliberately say we changed this for Maya to help her build ender levels normally because her gameplay focus was changing in the rebalance.
If you’d like to continue discussing this, please use the existing thread. Please use this thread to discuss the survey questions.
2 Likes
I admit, I was kind of surprised by the direction of the survey. I have never thought that anything was wrong with the damage potential, the ease/difficulty of combo breakers or the combo scaling. I’m afraid that this will be like adjusting the color on your tv. Once you start fiddling with it, it never looks right again.
Anyway, I filled in “just right,” since that’s how I feel. It will be interesting to see the results.
8 Likes
For the breakers, white life and all that. I put just right for everything.
HOWEVER…I have one question. Since ARIA is the only character in the game that doesn’t recover white life automatically while in a main body.
But…when she switches bodies and starts to recover the white life…how come when she’s hit the speed slows down? That health bar isn’t in play but it gets penalized.
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I can see what you mean, but the tools she possesses is absolutely terrifying. The tech BastFree has found is scary and she spits out damage with her shadow damage ender. Can even get high damage 1 chance enders. I just feel the extra stuff they gave her was unneccessary.
I could get behind something like minimum scaling or removing some KV on a lockout to ensure it’s always rewarding.
In general for breakability I think things are doing alright. At all levels of play it’s possible to throw in light doubles now and then without being broken, and I find I can slip occasional cheeky medium doubles by on a shocking number of players, even ones I would think would break them 100%. They’re mostly just counterbreaker bait to cash out big, though. I think offense in KI is potent enough that it’s fair for most options after an opener to be pretty breakable on reaction.
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I always felt that it was just right, but some characters like Raam suffer because how fast white life recovers. Try chasing Gargos or Kan-Ra while they have potential damage…