Poll: New KI - Seasonal model or nah?

General Discussion
1

bc Im still thoroughly enjoying this current KI, Im prolly in the minority in that Im not interested in a new KI at the moment. however, given that since KI’s release, just about all fighting games seem to release characters in seasonal packs. do you all want this next KI to be released with the prolonged hype of the seasonal model or with all characters available at launch?

  • seasonal model (prolonged hype!)
  • all available at launch (ready for action now!)
  • something different (describe below)

0 voters

2

I would love to see the game complete at launch. Meaning it should have a pretty full roster (around 24 characters) and fully fleshed-out game modes. They could then do DLC fighter packs later on with more characters or stages. I don’t want to wait another 4 years after the game releases to have a “full” game. Basically what MKX has done (but I’m not really a MK fan).

Also, I have no idea how they’re going to top the music that was in the current KI. It’s one of the greatest soundtracks in video game history.

3

as much as they can have ready for Xbox Scarlett’s release date, with DLC following

4

I’d keep seasons and F2P, but launch bigger than KI2013.

1 Like
5

I picked something different because I’d really prefer to see more of a combination of the two. Instead of starting out with six characters, fewer modes, and changing how you present certain things like the menus, the story, etc over time, I’d like to see them launch with something like 20 characters and all the modes and graphical style it’s going to have.

Then extend the life of the game through regular DLC packs / seasons. Maybe you release something each month like they did in the seasonal model (primarily season 2), only maybe one month it’s a character, maybe the next month, it’s a stage, then release some skins each month for a few months and so on and so forth.

Give players a sense that this game is constantly updating with more great stuff to look at and play with. Sure, maybe some other ideas or modes creep in over time, but a substantial portion of the foundation of the game, from how the story is told to how the characters play, should be in on day one. Maybe after a year, you do a character rebalance, but instead of more or less overwriting the characters, you give the player the choice between version 1 Jago or version 2 Jago, and you don’t add any new overall gameplay mechanics.

I get why they did that in the last KI, and I thought they added a good amount overall, but I’d like to see the new game be more consistent overall, so players can always kinda feel grounded and instead of having to relearn their own character or figure out how the story’s going to be told from now on and how that links to the way the story was told previously, etc.

TLDR:

So yeah, 20 characters and 90% of the modes to start with and continuous monthly content ranging from new characters to new stages, new skins, new colors, new shadowlords items, dossiers etc for a few years after initial release. Have a substantial percentage of the foundation in place; the select screen, the menus, the gameplay elements, the way characters play, the way the story is told etc. After a year, do a substantial character rebalance, but let players choose between the previous version of their character and the new version.

6

I actually like a season model, but I would also like a complete game from the get go. Getting new characters, stages, accessories and such through out the entire year is cool, but when I don’t want is to have game mechanics changes every year. Relearning your character every season just gets old.

7

Mimic SF5 seasonal character distribution but make game good.

8

I’m one of the people who actually quite liked the F2P seasonal model. I think it was really cool that you could play for free, or pay $20 and get all the content the game had to offer (for each season). I wound up doing the Ultra Edition each season because I liked the game and wanted to support, but I think it was really cool that others could forgo that and pay considerably less for their KI experience if they so chose.

That said, I do think the new game would have to launch with (at least) a completed first season. The FG market is too saturated right now to launch with something like 6 or even 8 characters I think, and because of the work that was done with KI 2013 I think a lot of that initial legwork in terms of reimagining KI’s mechanics has been completed already. I’d be happy with a launch roster of 12, and then seasonal updates of 8 new characters. The SFV formula certainly works and I wouldn’t really be upset if they went that route instead, but I’d prefer if KI managed to maintain their flexible pricing structure from this iteration. SFV basically feels like a racket to me, where the first season wasn’t all that impressive content-wise yet they still charged full price for it, and now all the seasonal updates are also relatively hefty purchases. I think KI’s low price point bought it a lot of goodwill from consumers, and I think it’d be cool if it could keep that competitive advantage moving forward.

9

Imo, release the game with 12-16 characters at launch. Have a free version with rotating characters. Allow the option to buy individual characters or the full game for $40-60. This would really help a lot.

10

Guys- Think bigger. :star_struck:

Killer Instinct Ultimate: Everyone is here from Day One, and continue to add new fighters soon after launch as DLC for as long as we can, with at least one new fighter from the get-go so we launch with an even 30.

Bing-Bam-Boom- Everyone’s happy. :wink::yellow_heart:

-Zenek

11

Smart money is on them doing something similar to SFV/Tekken 7/SC6 etc. A (fairly) full game at release with seasonal content coming every year. Then again I wouldn’t mind them doing the FTP season approach again but this time I hope they let people know what they’re getting for their money as opposed to some silhouettes.

1 Like
12

I’m kinda torn. On one hand the seasonal model helped me to continue playing a game for years that, if I go off of my usual gaming habits,
I would have played for only a few months at best. The constant influx of new characters and modes kept things fresh, and the way the new content was handled never felt like a lot of dlc characters do in other games where you have your core characters, and then these few bonus characters if you’re interested…at least not until the post S3 characters.

On the other hand the way the production was handled where they were constantly working at breakneck pace and having to make big “this or that” decisions meant the game made a lot of the features in the game feel disjointed and every aspect of the game, save for the roster and Shadow Lords, felt incomplete. Not everyone has ultimates, not everyone has their own stage, S3 is missing from the Arcade ladder, more costumes, etc, etc.

What I would like to see, whatever way they go, is a singular, unified plan from day 1 that lays out all the features, modes, etc. ahead of time so that when they add more content later it’ll be planned for and they won’t have to do some kind of crazy coding trickery to add in a feature the game wasn’t designed to have included * coughultimatescough*
Whatever the case, just so long as they don’t shift gears every time they add something new (new to us, part of the plan for them) I think somewhere in between full game and seasonal would be just fine.

3 Likes
13

I’m not a fan of seasons, well…at least the way KI2013 did them. For the seasonal model to be done right there would have to be more time in-between patches to deliver a more polished product on top of having to deliver more with each patch. I think the whole deliver one character a month thing is kinda stale and doesn’t allow for much creativity when it comes to designing them or making sure they aren’t infested with bugs as we saw continuously for most of the DLC characters in KI.

Also since we’re on the topic I really hope they stay away from balance patches every month like we saw with KI2013…I know for a fact this was a huge turn off for a lot of players and made it so it became impossible to keep up for casual players or tournament veterans who played it as a side game.

Quite frankly people are more likely to get burned out with a 1 character at a time model than they would with something like 3 at a time because it allows them to explore much more content over a period of time rather than only get one new thing and they are bored in a week. The way you keep players interested and coming back is with DLC content that doesn’t directly affect gameplay such as stages, costumes, contests, ranks/leaderboards etc. The ‘everyone is a killer’ thing needs to go away haha. I like games where ranks actually mean something. I remember in Season1 where it was actually ridiculous to be a killer because if you lost once almost your entire XP bar went down.

2 Likes
14

Seasons please. I played Killer Instinct 3 plus years because of the seasonal model and constant updates. Games like MKX I was done with a month after launch.

I would however obviously like more content right out of the gate and more time between seasons to create a more polished product.

I’m also a huge fan of the F2P aspect of KI. It got me to play with my friends who never would have bought the game at £40-£50. They then picked their favourite characters to buy a la carte. Perfect scenario as far as I’m concerned, more of the same please.

1 Like
15

The S1 ranking system was unambiguously terrible in my opinion. It was so concerned with punishing a loss that it actively discouraged trying anything new, and its number of tiers wasn’t aligned with the size of the player base, leading to the skill desert in the 30’s where it was practically impossible to level up. The system was dumb, and one of the best things IG ever did was scrap it.

That said, there are definitely ways to improve the S2/S3 system as well. It was probably too lenient in bestowing the game’s highest rank, at least in the sense that there is an incredibly wide range between Killers. It’s a tough line to draw though - by the numbers, the amount of Killers in the community was actually extremely small relative to the online playerbase. I remember being quite surprised when Rukari (or maybe it was Adam :thinking:) told me the actual percentage of players who managed to make it there.

16

If you’re asking what I’d prefer for an all new KI4 on Scarlett? Then I’d say stick with the seasonal model because it allows each character to feel robust, fully realized and in no way rushed. That said there needs to be MUCH more content at launch than we got w KI 2013…this means more characters, features and functionality day 1. With that in place the successive seasons to follow could just focus on characters/stages and the devs wouldn’t have to be ‘filling in the gaps’ like they had to for the ENTIRE lifespan of KI 2013.

I’m really hoping MS is investing heavily in an all new KI sequel for Scarlett and the game gets a proper budget and sufficient dev time to reach its potential.

Edit: I should also say I 100% agree with LCD that the 1 character a month crap has to go. Launch the seasons with a group of characters at once (even if that means waiting longer so be it) and stop balancing patching the game so ■■■■ much, it absolutely kills the fun and the competitive scene and shrinks the community to newcomers who can’t keep up.

17

Ya know, I came here with the exact same conflict in my mind and you said it perfectly. Much appreciated!

I played this game for years, as opposed to months, because there was always more content around the corner; new characters to learn and unlock stuff for, new modes to play, new stages, etc and I loved how that was doled out.

On the other hand, the biggest minus on this game was probably the lack of uniformity in terms of content and storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, what we got, I really enjoyed, but trying to glean the full story from so many different places, especially in Shadowlords where dossiers seemed to be a mix of random information, history and current story nuggets. Mind you, this was still probably my favorite mode in terms of gaining items and guardians, traveling around to all the places and doing all of the things and what not, but still.

As you said, I’d like to see a singular, unified plan from day one that lays out all the features and modes ahead of time. For me, I don’t even need to know that plan in its entirety of the plan up front in order to plunk down my money. I just want it to be there so that when seasons start rolling out after the initial release, I know that all characters will be treated the same, I know what I can expect, and I can be hyped for all of that.

My assumption is that the first season of KI was probably rushed a bit to make the launch date, but for a potential follow up, I’d really want to see them start with something closer to a completed game. Instead of six characters, I’d hope for maybe 15 or 16 characters at launch, with more modes available, more stuff to unlock, multiple finishing moves per character etc.

I’d love to see any story related modes in the base game be expandable the way Shadowlords was, so that when new characters, stages, missions, story missions etc show up, it all feels like an organic expansion to the game and not this sort of separate thing that only really pays attention to the new crop of characters… Kind of at the expense of the older characters.

So yeah, I still love the idea of a seasonal model that stretches out for years, but maybe start out with more at the beginning and then plot out a unified course that all future content can fit in to nicely. That’d be my choice.

18

I mean, the bug part I get, but the creativity part? I dunno, I thought IG’s character designs were very creative. Or are you saying that they could’ve been even better with more time to work on them? If I’m not mistaken, and maybe I am, weren’t the characters plotted out in advance and worked on over time? I mean, it’s not like they started from scratch on March 1st and said “okay, I we have until April 1st to create a character, design their look, story, move list and get everything working in the game and balanced.”

Maybe that’s what happened and I’m totally off here, but my assumption has always been that while they were probably rushed more than they needed to be, that they still had time at the beginning of the cycle to get a lot of things going, at least. How much they were able to do, well, we’ll probably never know, but I would be curious to know how much that one month per character time constraint actually effected development (beyond some bugginess).

I didn’t mind them, and I don’t know how much the more vocal people were speaking for everyone else, but yeah, the general consensus I saw seemed to be less than favorable to such frequent balance patches. I mean, if stuff is legit broken, that’s one thing, but I kinda feel like the overall balance stuff should be a once a year, grand rebalancing, kind of deal. Maybe that’s just me though.

Nah I disagree with this. I don’t know many fighting games that release multiple character packs after launch and I wouldn’t want to see them in KI. I’d rather be forced to concentrate on the new thing than get several things thrown at me at once. I get that not everyone is like that though, so you’re obviously speaking for some out there, no doubt.

But I definitely prefer the slow, but consistent trickle of content. More stages, more outfits, more story missions and all of that stuff, for sure. But after the initial release, I’d still like to have that new character tease followed by the trailer, followed by the breakdown stream and then the actual release. I’m not saying that because it’s what I’m used to or because that’s how it was done before or anything like that. I think it was a legitimately fun way to go about getting new content and building hype and anticipation for the next character; to really give them a spotlight and get people excited to try them out.

As someone that doesn’t really care about ranks because my skills are, shall we say, lacking a bit… This sounds fine by me.

I’d like to see Shadow Lab order characters by wins under each individual character tab and break them up by Tiers as opposed to having the top point getters at the top, but that’s really my only nitpick as it would pertain to rankings (which is entirely different form the rankings you’re talking about, of course).