Response to LCD's why is no one sticking to KI rant

General Discussion
43

THIS. Actually, the whole post. KI launched as an online only game on one system that had no user base because it too was launching at the same time.

It also launched within a fighting game community that tends to be… Discerning and cautious… To put it nicely.

This game has had to scrap and claw from day one, but it earned a second season and it continues to gain ground and gain more fans and MS, not usually known for backing titles that don’t sell, has seen fit to give it a third season.

I am beyond tired of people talking about “why KI doesn’t sell,” like it’s in dire straits (number one) and that each of us marketing research analysts know how it’s selling and what would make it well more to the masses.

No, KI doesn’t need more bewbs. No, guess breaks don’t make people that would’ve otherwise bought the game turn their nose up en mass.

It’s a niche title in a niche genre that has fickle fans and after two years it’s still doing well enough to get more content. End of story.

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44

do i really have to explain everything?

Marvel has a fan base maybe 10000 or more bigger than KI. The more fans the more will buy - the more will play - the more will stay with the game - the more recommend it to others. And as you said Ki does not have that. Ki needs to please non KI Fans gameplay wise to grow. I can not say the game is fun and there is Deadpool in the game.

Small group is fine - if that’s the goal ok - reached. If you want to expand you need to convince other people. But in that case you need to know why they don’t want to play even if recommended by friends?

To the viewer stuff - just right now

KI - 6streams - 170 highest viewer count a tournament

MKX - 50+ streams - a random dude I don’t know 380 viewers. The guy you mentioned 1k. Others depending on day and time in Germany around 500-1000

The point is mkx has a big fan base, extremely ■■■■■■ netcode and still right now about 4times the viewers than Ki has. And nrs games don’t last that long normally.

You need to ask why others don’t play Ki. Make polls on shoryuken, eventhubs and all other big sites - if there are more. Not just on a site where only Ki fans are. Than take that feedback and evaluate what’s possible to change without ruining KI.

You can say everything is fine but at the end of the day you still need to know why people don’t play it you want to grow the Ki fan base.

45

I am pretty sure KI sells well enough. MS is supporting the game, but KI is deserving it

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46

This isn’t true - it had a single-player component with story, training, dojo, and survival. And just in case that’s not what you meant, it released in retail later on.

The number of Twitch viewers a game has does not equal a game’s entire fanbase, number of players, the size of the game’s community, or even necessarily how popular the game actually is.

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47

This.

OP you should check other topics and MAYBE ask some people on what to do. It sounds like you need a bit of help with knowing what actual tools you have at your disposal.

anyone who calls themselves “pro’s” need to know their tools and what they can do in the combo system to keep the fight in their favor.

You need to know more than a match-up. You need to know your own foe!

This.

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It’s a wonder how “guessbreaking” could be worse than bad netcode, but hey, I stopped playing CoD at WaW :smiley:

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I just had a match this evening where I was losing over and over again to a player that wasn’t even all that good simply because I was consistently getting locked out due to guess-breaking. The worst part was that I was doing it out of habit and frustration (I’ve had a bad night overall, and not just in-game), despite the fact that I knew how to read the ADs and linkers to each of the characters my opponent chose. I knew I could beat him and I knew how, but I just wasn’t doing it - if he really wanted to, he probably would’ve gotten away with just counter-breaking me at every opportunity. Even now I’m still flustered by it and I’m upset with myself even more for not being able to prove to him before he left that I am indeed a better player than him…

It just goes to show, no matter how good you are, even the good players make mistakes and/or have their bad days. Today was mine.

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50

No sorry, I meant downloadable only. As in you could only buy it online. No physical copy of the game until after season one was done. Apologies. I used the wrong term. :smile:

51

Dude, you’re comparing a multiplatform game in a series that transcended its genre years ago, has managed to stay highly relevant for over two decades and recently sold five million copies on the strength of its name, its longstanding lineage in pop culture, its production values, retail release etc to a game that hasn’t been around for 20 years, whose first season came out two years ago on one console that’s not known for fighters, was downloadable only and had 1/10th of the name recognition, quality assurance (due to said name recognition), current fanbase and brand awareness.

Its like comparing Spec Ops: The Line to Call of Duty and wondering why people don’t play Spec Ops more than COD, as if it did something wrong, without looking at the myriad of mitigating factors separating the two titles.

I don’t think the question revolves around changing core gameplay mechanics to suit people that don’t like the core of the game, especially if that comes at the expense of those currently playing.

If certain aspects can be improved upon to make the game better, great. But a PC port will help. If pros, the twitch crowd etc don’t want to pick it up after the PC port, then so be it.

I want to see the fanbase expand as much as anyone else, but not at the expense of the game’s identity.

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52

that’s true really. Everyone gets what I call a “bad gamer’s day”

I agree with you on that manner. KI’s not as well recognized because it had a 19-20 year gap between the last KI game in this one.

I also agree with you on that the game’s core mechanics should not be affected. I don’t what KI to be another MVC3 just because someone isn’t/doesn’t want to/doesn’t know how to/isn’t aware of/ find ways to keep their combos from being broken.

This. I simply cannot stress this enough.

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53

Not that I’m picking on this post in particular – it’s entirely possible that you’re impersonating the views of other players without necessarily shating them – bit I’m getting really sick of this.

A random guess on a wakeup DP, ultra or throw in SFIV can also “turn the tide and slap the prize pot out of your hands”. It’s getting to the point where guess-break complainers should be held to account: from now on, if anyone complains about guess-breaking without explaining why unreactable pressure game and oki are acceptable, we should really consider flagging that ■■■■ as spam.

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54

There’s been a large amount of “give the consumer the thing they want” sentiment in games journalism recently, and I think it’s overly naive. You need creative freedom and exploratory design to discover new, revolutionary ways of doing things, and that requires ignoring idiots on news blogs and message boards a lot of the time. Relying too heavily on surveys and focus testing the game to death is a great way of building something functionally identical to the logical end point of generic focus test-driven game design – that is, Call of Duty – but not great if you want to build something at all interesting.

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55

how does evaluation destroy creative freedom?

The problem is you guys read what you want.

How does asking Why exclude creative freedom, revolutionary ways of doing things.

Explain it to me please.

Still no one answered to why does no one ask players that don’t play (anymore).

56

You don’t get the point.

If you join a conversation between two you should read what has already been said.

And you are right KI does not have the fan base like mkx. That’s why you should ask the gamers that don’t play Ki why they don’t play.

This forum is getting really annoying with only read what they want attitude.

Im out on this topic

57

To take this a bit further, Marvel was changed to a best-of-5 game at all stages of tournaments because most players felt that best-of-3 sets were too high variance and “random”. It is a game where literally a random guess in neutral can (and will) eventually kill your entire team; take, for instance, ApologyMan’s team. It tries to win the neutral one time and then unblockables your team to death, and he’ll sometimes be really random to do that. He’s a high finisher in every tournament he enters, and almost won EVO this year, and if not for tournament nerves or messing up hard combos to actually execute his gameplan after an opening, he would probably win a lot more.

It doesn’t, at all, and I don’t think any of us think this. But some people on the boards will offer “it’s not enough like traditional games - you should make it more like a traditional game” as their evaluation, and this is a bit dangerous.

It’s because many of them have already told us why, so we don’t need to ask them again.

I read a lot more on this forum than I probably should. I think I’ve given every well-presented idea a fair shake, and even some not-so-well-presented ideas. So, to say something civil, I think this claim is unfair.

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58

I agree on all this Infil. Creative freedom can be sacrificed if one follows too heavily in “what the customer wants” needless to say though both sides of the argument seem fairly divided.

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No, I did get the point and I read the whole thread. I also read LCD’s thread and watched his video that he started that topic with, but if you feel compelled to leave, that’s your prerogative.

My issue is that when you invoke MKX as something that has more fans, more streamers, more watching streams etc as evidence for a reason to ask the question “why aren’t more people playing KI?” is that you’re comparing apples to oranges.

I think that KI’s building a following, at least enough to warrant a 2nd and 3rd season, but it’s not going to have MKX’s numbers for a wide variety of reasons that I mentioned previously and I don’t think that makes KI deficient (if that’s what you’re implying).

It probably wasn’t though, but if the idea is to generally question how KI can bring in more fans, I tend to think that MS and IG already talk about this, work on this etc.

They raised a ton of money for tourneys, they’re very responsive to their fanbase… If there’s something they can do that’s within their budget, I tend to think they’re doing it. Just a guess though, as I don’t work for MS or IG. :smile:

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60

S1 had to deal with the disaster that was the release of the Xbox One.
S2 had to deal with the release of Mortal Kombat X.
S3 will have to deal with the release of Street Fighter V.

Sure, KI’s growing a fanbase, and I’m absolutely happy about that, but I’ll be among the 1st to tell you - it’s a heck of a climb…

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61

All I can say to this is that the best songs ever written are not number 1 chart-toppers. It’s been proved time and again that the masses aren’t the most loyal of people and those that swarm to something one day will ditch it for the next “big” thing another day.

You all want KI to be the hottest sheit in the bowl, but you all miss the point that that’s how it’ll burn out quickest.

MKX has had to pull all the stops and bring in movie guests from some of the biggest blockbusters in the world. They’ve already failed themselves by doing this because they’re not relying on their own merits to get everyone’s attention.

Using Mahvel for an example is kind of funny, given that most matches consist of the exact same combos, characters and relies entirely on first hit for the win, unless they drop the 1 of 3 combos they had to learn.

It proves that people are drawn to big names and familiarity.

Let KI make its own name and make its own mark. Yeah, it’s not going to out-sell the sell-outs, but at least it’ll be pure.

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62

Great point. While I’ve been a dyed in the wool MK fan since the very beginning, MKX really turned me off to the brand. The story was lackluster, the variation system felt contrived, the faction mode was borderline worthless, the netcode was horrendous and the gameplay didn’t feel very fluid. But my main issue is that they monetized this game every which way possible.

I’m not against WB making money, but the high cost of the DLC, the ridiculously expensive day one packs, the pay to win iphone game that has to be played to get certain regular game content, plus the guest characters instead of regular characters…

MKX came out in April and I think that I was done with it before July hit. KI has been out for two years now and I’m still playing it a fairly decent amount. MKX might’ve sold more, but I’m willing to guess that if you ask the average MK fan and the average KI fan how happy they are with their game, you’ll likely find KI fans to be happier overall. Just a guess though.

Now, I’m not against saying “what can MS & IG do to help make KI sell even more and bring in even more fans?” and having that discussion. But to be fair, it’s not like they just put out a product and say “here” and then disappear.

They’ve been active on the boards, engaging with their fans (more than most devs I know of), they’ve created a new website with better boards for their fans, they’ve done surveys before season two and season three to get feedback from fans, they’ve done a drive to increase pot sizes for tourneys, they’ve patched this game a ton, they’ve done streams and textual streams and they’re putting out a PC version (at fans’ request)…

I mean… What more can they do? They already have a great product. They’re trying to make more inroads in to the tourney scene. To me, they’re doing all that they can short of pumping tons of money into making commercials, getting ad space on websites and in print mags, etc. Maybe we’ll see some ads prior to season 3’s release, but honestly, I can’t imagine any type of media blitz being a cost effective strategy.

Maybe I’m being selfish, but I’d rather see MS pump money in to the game itself, rather than trying to convert players that didn’t get on board at any point in the last two years. If a PC port doesn’t convince them, I tend to doubt that seeing an ad on IGN or a TV commercial will.

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