Please IG (about the future of ki)

… If one day ki2 be real, please stop with Chars with 100.000 tools to use in battle, or chars that lost their hp/mp/head/torso when perform a special move. Its just not fun!

Maybe is just me, but those chars arent cool to play, like Gargos, Mira, etc…

What i see in a lot of chars from “IG” era is: Too much options make the char less solid.

We need more martial arts oriented chars, with a few but effective moves! And please dont make the characters “weak” when they perform specials, lose health, mp, etc etc…

Just my opinion, and Eyedol is amazing, he has too much tools for my taste, but at least he is fun to play! By far one of the best chars of S3.

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Just speaking for myself, I love the way IG and MS have handled KI after season one. Each new character that has come out has been unique in one way or another, truly there’s something for everyone. If you think some characters aren’t fun or are to complicated, maybe those characters weren’t made for you? We’re not supposed to click with each character that’s released, its just the truth. I say keep it up IG, some will hit and some will miss but never censor your creative expression, make the weirdest characters you can think of because that’s what makes KI special.

I will say however that I love everything about Mira, her design, her moveset, her visual effects, she looks and plays amazingly. However her self destructive nature makes me hate playing as her, if I had my way she would be reworked a la Fulgore and made more user friendly. I had a game the other day where someone actually picked Mira, the guy was clearly better than I was and was kicking my butt all over the map but I was able to get off a few combos and wound up wining despite me being totally outplayed at every step of the match.

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Tons of tools =/= creativity.
Tons of tools =/= ki

The combo system is what make ki be special.

In resume, the game need to be more like S1.

Look orchid, jago, Sadira and all chars from S1…they are fun to play. THAT is KI.

Now look Gargos, Arbiter, Mira, Maya, Cinder…Every char now need to have glue bombs (Cinder /arbiter).

Mira has an awesome design, and lots of chars too.

One great example of well done chars are Hisako, Kim Wu and even Tusk. They have their tools but are not exagerated.

And isnt about “more tools more complex”

Look ryu from SF.
Look Jago.

Im not a noob, im not asking for easy chars.
Im asking for “more with less”.

But KI2 is already a thing.

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Yeah, but scorpio is coming…
I think ki2 may be come in 2018/2019

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KI2 came in 1996…

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Lol

To avoid confusion we should probably just call this KI KI3, and the hypothetical sequel KI4 lol

KI (1994)

KI2 (1996)

KI3 (2013)

KI4 (???)

You know, I agree with you to an extent. Shago, Gargos and Eyedol are approaching “overdesign” from my POV, as well. They get every tool in the book, and then damage or defense or block safety takes a huge hit. On paper, that sounds like balance. In reality, a full toolset means they simply don’t need the thing that makes them weak. Shago doesn’t need block safety if he can incredibly easily mix you up whenever he wants. Gargos doesn’t need defense if he can chip you down with portal punch spam and then put minions between you and him. Eyedol doesn’t need damage if every button be presses opens a combo faster than most reaction times.

It makes watching them weird–Eyedol wails on Kim Wu with a giant goddam club for 30 seconds straight and she comes out of the experience with 60% of her health intact. And it makes playing against them an exercise in frustration–mentally going through each possible approach to the fight ends in a list full of red X marks, because they have a major tool to thwart the approach.

These three characters are cool, but I can totally imagine bringing the idea into the future resulting in a good portion of the roster being ridiculous and frustrating.

Just for the sake of highlighting a character whose balance is not frustrating, I’ll point out Aganos. As a set up character, he can pull 60% damage out of his ■■■ instantly. However, his normals are slow, he’s slow and he has absolutely terrible anti-air. To an opponent, the gameplan makes sense–interrupt him and, if you can, attack from above whenever possible.

Against a full-toolkit character, the best advice I’ve heard in the Reddit forums is “uh, shadow counter?” Good advice. But also saddening advice.

#feelssaltyman

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I’m with you. IG and DH called this one KI. The next one would be KI2. For some reason, there are a lot of trolls that pretend that doesn’t make any sense and then plug their ears when you try and explain it to them.

Who talks about 1994 KI and 1996 KI2 seriously, anyway? Context clues tell all in conversations about this game. If it’s a conversation about nostalgia and the game’s origins, KI means “1994.” If it’s about balance, tournaments and the future of the franchise, then KI means “2013.”

It’s no different than Mortal Kombat (2011)

It’s just Mortal Kombat, but people call it MK9 so people don’t get confused…and that is likley why MKX wasn’t called Mortal Kombat 2.

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In my opinion, what makes KI season 3 so special is the fact that all those new characters have tons of tools. Having a lot of them means that everybody can use them and truly feel free to play a character the way they want and not the way they were designed to be play.

You can have less tools with a solid gameplay (Jago/Ryu) but to be honest it is boring to watch players doing the same things/mixups. In S1 and S2 every single jago played the same way as if players couldn’t express what they wanted to do through the character. But in S3 with the addition of the fireball cancel and the flip out I can easily see a player’s personality through their gameplay alone because now Jago has more tools than his previous alterations.

The beauty of S3 is wanting to play Shago as a zoner or a heavy mixup character. You play the way you want to play him because you have the tools to do so.

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The thing about more complex characters in Killer Instinct is that no matter how many tools they’ve got in neutral, every single member of the cast is grounded in the same combo game. With a few notable exceptions, every single combo in the game follows the exact same pattern. Because of this, even more complex characters like Gargos or Kan-Ra are inherently simplified.
This is part of why I love KI’s system: No matter what kind of learning curve a character’s neutral game may entail, you can take a basic understanding of any character and learn how to do combos with any other character. Since combos are how you’re likely to get most of your damage, it means that a)complicated neutral only effects half of the game, and b)no matter how big a character’s toolset is, it can only get them so far once the combo game begins.

See, I think Jago is a bit if an odd example of a “simple” character, because sure he’s a pretty straightforward mainstay from Season 1, but he has nearly every single tool in the book.

He’s got:
-A fireball
-A DP Reversal
-A long range special to close distance quickly
-A short range special for pressure
-A grounded overhead
-Fast, potent buttons
-Throw that can be canceled into juggles
And now dash cancels? For such a “simple” character he’s got a TON of options. In fact, I’m pretty certain part of the key to Jago’s lasting popularity is that he’s got a big enough toy box to give him a solid 5-5 chance against most if not all of the cast. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Didn’t they get a ton of complaints for making Raam super basic? There’s no winning for them.

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People complained about his auto doubles.

This isn’t SF or KOF…so no. I don’t need characters like ■■■■■ ■■■ akuma or ryu punks.

Giving a character every tool with one glaring weakness is fairly common in a lot of fighters. So far i would say the only characters approaching that in KI right now is Gargos to a degree and maaaaybe Shago. The frustrating thing about these chars however is not necessarily the amount of tools they have but the way their tools work.

A lot of people find Shago frustrating because of the teleporting he does inbetween moves and his dashes. His toolset is the closest thing to a traditional Akuma style toolset which is basically Shoto+. However most of his tools are pretty damn punishable and his damage output isnt quite as nuts as a traditional Akuma char.

Gargos is frustrating because 1. Hes new and 2. His tools lead to a feel of helplessness when you play him. Being stuck between two minions while hes in stone skins and hes instant overheading you is frustrating. However I would not say he has too many tools, He has no real reversal and has to build momentum to get you in that situation, its not somthing he can do out of the gate.

Now take a char from another game who literally has every tool such as Seth from SF4 and you can see a problem develop where you are not sure what to do because he can beat you at every angle and punish you from every situation. They had to consistently nerf him through almost every iteration (except toward Ultra if I rememeber) and even remove tools ( Jump back HP-Yoga Sniper) to make him feel less suffocating.

I do not see a character in KI at this time that deserves that kind of treatment.

Edit: The combo system also helps level the playing field in a lot of way. The biggest issue about characters with lots of tools in KI really is just it takes longer to learn to fight them.

Edit Edit: One final note. One the question of overdesign, I feel like some of the later designs having more tools is a result of IG going out of their way to make sure each character plays unique, which I approve of. I wouldn’t really call it overdesign I would think of it more along the lines of all the simplistic character designs have already been covered.

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That might’ve been one complaint, but certainly not the only one or the main one. Lots of the complaints I saw were from people saying he felt incomplete because he had so few options as it pertained to moves and combos (particularly openers and linkers).

No offense OP, as you’re absolutely, 100% entitled to your opinion, but I personally couldn’t disagree more with a lot of your post.

I mean, it’s all a matter of preference here, so I’m not saying you’re wrong by any means. We just have different taste.

I personally find some of the season one characters to be rather bland in comparison to my favorite characters, which tend to be the ones with more moves and options like Gargos, Mira, Eyedol, Kan Ra, Shago and Cinder.

If anything, I’d love it if they added a bit more to Jago, Wulf, Glacius, Thunder, Raam and perhaps Hisako and Sadira as well. Not saying any of them need buffs. They don’t. But more moves, more toys, more stuff to play with to further entrench their identity and what they’re trying to do would be great.

I know that some tend to have a more utilitarian view of characters move sets and thinking that they should have only what they absolutely need and nothing more and that’s a perfectly valid opinion. Maybe you prefer simplicity or maybe you just see too much stuff as a kitchen sink approach or a less defined archetype or what have you. Again, no problems here.

I just prefer more. I would love to see Human Sabrewulf as one of those alternate versions of characters simply because I’d love to see what IG could do with a Wulf that they build from the ground up. Current Wulf was really fun for a while, but I got bored of him rather quickly. I don’t really even like watching high level players use him because he’s just not compelling to watch IMO.

So yeah, if any devs are reading this thread, put me down for more characters with expansive move lists that fit the character and their theme. I’d also love to see earlier character’s move lists expanded further to flesh out who they are and what they do even more.

Pretty much this. I love watching two people use the same character in completely different ways and I think that has improved as the character designs have become deeper and more complex. I honestly think that going back to S1 designs would be a step back at this point.

Agreed. The fact that every character is, for the most part, unified in this core mechanic does put some familiarity behind every character’s initial complexity that I don’t really think you get in most fighters and that alone, to me at least, gives players a great jumping off point for each character.

Even as crazy as characters like Gargos and Eyedol are, you still have that base system to work with and play with and you can expand upon what you know from there. I love that characters like those two have so much going on though, and that expanding from the initial shared traits of the game can take you into many fun and unique directions with these so-called “kitchen sink” characters (an expression I tend to find to be a bit of a misnomer, but whatever).

I think IGs character design has been awesome so far, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

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