@developers
Please come help this poor man.
Restarted a couple times earlier to no avail. Just logged back in and I guess itās there now! So, yay! Someone somewhere pushed the magic button. Beat up Kan-Ra in the back alley and got me my cash haha
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Beat Challenging tonight. It was pretty fun. Lived up to its name.
I ran through with Sabrewulf, Fulgore, and Mira: Characters that I know how to abuse the hell out of the AI with.
Took no chances in the final fight. Went all out with the Fulgore buffs.
Ceremonial Dagger + Temperance & Vengeance + Nanobots = LOL. I even slapped on Shadow Lord and Fractured Ward to be safe, and had Wulf in the hot seat with another Shadow Lord out of sheer paranoia. Lucky me, I felled him pretty quickly.
Heās much more manageable than at launch. I think the difficulties are settling into a much better state. Normal might need some slight tweaks because of how hard the AI can rubber band sometimes, but otherwise itās coming along really well.
I keep finding myself staying up till 2am and forgetting to do stuff. I think Iām getting addicted or falling in love or something. 
Care to give some pointers?
And congrats, just started challenging last night after beating normal, still in the early parts of challenging atm.
Sure! As long as you donāt mind reading a bit. Iāve got a lot to say on this. Hereās what Iāve got:
Sabrewulfās sweep is monstrous. Wiggle back and forth a bit and you can trick the AI into constantly trying to take their turn back while youāre at sweep distance. Plus, heās got easy manuals, and the longer startup on leaping slash actually has the same effect as the sweep: They think that the blockstring is over, allowing themselves to get booped.
Fulgoreās Eye Laser strings are really good even after the Nerf, and as long as they donāt try and shadow counter you can loop them pretty effectively. And as noted by several other users, items that give Fulgore more meter to work with like the Bat and Potion of Greater Focus are absurdly powerful. Coupled with items that increase projectile damage, you can get a ton of unbreakable damage (hype beam, new combos off of Shadow Laser, etc) with relatively low risk since youāll have much more meter to work with.
Miraās bats are her greatest weapon against the bots. Light bats are quick, over a lot of space, and blow through single and even double projectiles and still hit the opponent. They also catch jump ins really well. The best part is, you can hit confirm into Traphine really easily if they hit on the ground, and the AI usually locks out on lower levels and even most mid-tier enemies, allowing easy damage (which, with Mira, is a metric butt tonne of damage), health recovery, or both. Her huge toolset makes her flexible and very dangerous, and her damage means that you can make every opening count.
For more general tips:
-Donāt be afraid to use heavy auto-doubles. If the AI decides its going to break you, thereās a good chance it will just do it. While it usually has a harder time with manuals and Opener>Linker, it usually just breaks when it feels like it. So going for huge damage is always a good choice. Even if you just do Opener>Heavy Double>Ender itās pretty good.
-In general, while you want to use the characters youāre most comfortable with, the AI has a harder time dealing with certain fighters. In addition to the fighters I used above, Jago and Riptor can both do really well. Jagoās Crouching Kick>Windkick strings and mashing Riptorās firebreath both trick the AI into thinking it can return fire when it really shouldnāt, which is really advantageous. These characters have good pressure, range, and even projectiles to help them out. Other fine choices for making the computer cry include Gargos (nothing like watching them Shadow DP minions from full screen), Sadira (run away air game and the bounce back from Heavy Widows Bite allow you to stay safe and keep constant pressure. If it works with Boss Shago, most of the AI will derp), and Omen (fireball pressure, Raging Demon, easy meter gain, and being able to abuse slide a bit help).
-Fractured Ward is your friend. Itās swiftly becoming my favorite guardian. It allows you to blow through most pressure, stuff reversals, reduce your damage intake and avoid punishment. Certain AI characters have ways to circumvent it, of course. Kan-Ra, Tusk, Fulgore, Riptor, and Aganos are all very fond of using heavys and multi-hitting moves. And any grabby character can ignore your armor. However, 90% of the time, itās a life saver. Itās probably the most passively helpful one. The Ram easy enough, since it lets you guess your way out of combos for free, but Iād rather not get hit. The Exemplar is incredibly powerful, but it takes some practice to get it right. While the Snake and Bat are really powerful, you need to open the opponent up again to make the best use of them, and if the AI decides to turtle and tech throws all day, your opportunity for reward may slip by. Fractured Ward is a straight up buff to your neutral; it actually allows you to open your foe up easier by turning you into a wall of unstoppable pain, which is huge.
-On Deployment: Donāt be afraid to deploy if you want rewards but donāt want to deal with a really powerful opponent or want to save time. When making big deployments, make sure you buff yourself up with damage/defence Nanobots. This will allow you to use less expensive items and Guardians to get near guaranteed results, as well as making it much more likely youāll succeed on higher level deployments (and even mid-tier multi part battles!). However, lower level deployments can be more hassle than theyāre worth. Youāre more likely to fail a deployment than you are to lose to an Easy AI, and using items to ensure success is usually more expensive than itās worth. Easy fights should always be personal. Medium can be done most of the time if youāve got the skill and maybe a light consumable, but deployment with Nanobots is still pretty well worth it since you save on other items. A good guardian makes Level3 fights (both deployed and personal) much more manageable. Higher level fights like Very Hard and Impossible enemies usually have high enough rewards that deploying with big items might be less expensive than actually fighting, depending on skill level.
-Look for missions using mimics that you want to unlock, and have characters you want to unlock skins for on your team. This seems pretty obvious, but just thought Iād throw it in there. 
Sorry for the essay. I just kinda kept going and going with my ideas. 
Hope they help!
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I still like the Bat, but the Snake is growing on me. Quick tip, if you are close enough a wall and go straight into opener>Ultra, Instinct Cancel>Manual/AD into Wall Splat Ender to activate Bat>one chance into Ultra and follow ups can save you from using a health consumable after your turn, Bat guardian doesnāt seem to wear off after the Wall Splat ender. Very situational, but good to know.
Only on my first playthrough, about then turns in so far, but Iām loving it. Itās exactly the kind of single player content Iāve been looking for in a fighting game, something that has replayability outside of just being another way to practice once youāve seen the cinematics.
I do hope they continue to include additional content though, as the speed with which Iām filling up this archive makes me wonder what more they have planned.
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Well, beat shadow lords on challenging today, got back my Astral Plane and levelled my first character (Mira) to level 50, so had a good day, except for losing badly at the random character tournament, but had fun notheless 
Iām over my salty phase 
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I completed SL today. That resurrection thing is pure BS lol. Also can I ask is there any actual ending for the s3 characters because I finished it with tusk and all I got was that general ending (which isnāt much considering the time u spent playing it)
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I think just Gargos has an ending.
Why do character endings not exist? It makes no sense.
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Well that just turns me off the mode. Itās great for lore and cut scenes but whatās the point if they donāt have personal endings. I mean does tusk win and die or Kim actuallys wins and saves the earth? Does mira the over the coven or goes balcony to maya?
This disappoints me greatly 
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My biggest complaint and the one thing they can remove from the mode is having stuff that makes you or the AI unblockable.
No.
NO NO NO!
Blocking is like one of those very very fundamental things in KI let alone fighting games. Having to pass up one mission or another because the PL4 Tusk or Mira has Rage is irritating. Itās even worse on characters like Shago or Wulf where blocking is crucial to deal with their nonsense.
Blocking may be one of the fundamentals of FGs but having modes or options that remove your ability to block for a match or 2 are just about as old as FGs themselves as well (you could probably say MK3 or 2 was the earliest). I know Soul Calibur 2ās weapon master mode was very similar to SL and there were several matches that had block removal, and the difference there is if you wanted to complete the mode & unlock everything you HAD to go through these matchupsā¦there was no choice. At least here you get one.
& @Sasuke99I , although Iām a bit disappointed with it as well, it kinda does make sense. I mean with the Alliance and every one being on it pretty much, it makes sense that they all get a team win.
And within the game you see the consequencesā¦for example I killed Maya with Mira after turning her. You dont really need a slide at the end, repeating it (although an alliance summery would be nice). I would like a Maya vampire skin/outfit though, since its a possible plotpoint in the game its a missed opportunity (now they simply used her retro)
Shadow Lords is the telling of one overlying story, each character doesnāt get their own ending because there is only one āendingā to the mode. Either you defeat Gargos or you die trying, yeah it sucks and I wish there were more cutscenes but it is what it is.
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Grinding like this to get no character ending turned me off so much.
LIE, this mode was advertised as seasin 3 stroy mode. After the KI novellas , no devs came to notify we will have one general ending and a few specifics. We got hyped up that we would fell the novellas in game and get story progression from where S2 left off. SFV and KI , why cant we simply get arcade mode ?
The whole mode has story scattered through it.
That said if you dont enjoy playing the mode, dont, character endings wont change the experience of the mode itself.
And if you feel the mode is grinding, I dont see why you want a lot of different endings to grind even moreā¦
What exactly are you accusing me of lying about?
Its not a lie, there is one general story that involves the entire cast. To counter your argument, it was never āadvertisedā to have unique endings for each character either, you just assumed it did.
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