Textual breakdown of 8/17 stream

No, I don’t have anything better to do. :stuck_out_tongue:

All points taken from this stream: https://beam.pro/MicrosoftStudios

#Shadow Lords:

  • Shadow Lords replaces Shadow Lab on main menu.
  • Early access to selected users estimated to start next week.
  • Rukizell will hand out shadow lords codes to early access players.
  • Three difficulties, normal, challenging & godlike.
  • Unlocks carry over between playthroughs to help with higher difficulties.
  • Shadow Lords is the story mode for season 3.
  • Season 3 cast are the stars but everyone gets a little love.
  • Shadow Lords is not a full cinematic mode like Mortal Kombat.
  • Shadow Lords starts you on a tutorial similar to the dojo for new players.
  • There will be an option to skip the tutorial mode for experienced fighters.
  • Only Kan-Ra and Gargos have voiced dialogue lines in Shadow Lords.
  • Both Kan-Ra and Gargos are voiced by the same actor. (Who is awesome BTW)
  • Shadow Lords has a lot of written lines of dialogue.
  • Kan-Ra was perfect for the shop, due to his love of artifacts and potions.
  • If you go idle in Kan-Ra’s emporium he has unique voiced dialogue.
  • First playthrough always starts you off as Jago & Kim Wu.
  • The “first time user experience” is a telling of the main story.
  • Second time through you can choose your captain and two other characters.
  • You can swap out characters during a playthrough if certain conditions are met.
  • There may be other surviving “Astral” beings like Kim Wu’s dragon.
  • You can deploy characters to complete missions without having to play.
  • Taunt button uses consumable items, don’t use them on accident.
  • Some team bonuses depending on team composition.
  • Example being having Mira and Maya on the same team.
  • Shadow Lords release date is September 20th.
  • Shadow Jago plays a part in Shadow Lords mode.
  • When Jago channels energy and is knocked though the portal.
  • That is when Shadow Jago somehow becomes his own person. ^
  • Shadow Lords is part of season 3, no extra purchase required.
  • Guardians were made so you can “break gameplay” in fun ways.
  • Between skins, consumables, everything else, around 100 unlockable items.
  • At least 20 different character modifiers in SL mode.
  • You do not need supreme edition to play Shadow Lords.
  • Free rotation characters are going to be playable in Shadow Lords.
  • Jago will be FREE to EVERYONE permanently after SL launches.
  • There will still be a rotating character so free players will have 2 to play.
  • Tutorial is only required to be played once, unless you choose to again.
  • Can choose to play with past items, or not. (New game + basically)
  • Some characters need to be unlocked before they can be played in SL.
  • Eyedol has his own quest chain telling the story up to when he’s resurrected & beyond.
  • Shadow Lords mode’s name was intentional from the start because there are multiple lords.
  • That means the forums were right in speculating the meaning of the “S” in lords.
  • Things can change based on who is in your team, some teams might not be good.
  • Gargos corrupts continents, summons “omens” and gives himself buffs.
  • Purpose of game is to stop omens to debuff Gargos for the final battle.
  • Omens are like mini-bosses with Gargos powers of their own.
  • You can send your characters out on missions alone, or fight them yourself.
  • Choices you select you might wind up fighting multiple enemies on missions.
  • Astral gems are fairly easy to obtain from fights.
  • Eyedol and Gargos are playable, you need to beat Gargos to play as him.
  • Eyedol when on your team isn’t a “Team player” might leave your team?
  • Some characters have different mission choices to pick while playing.
  • Not all characters are happy having to team up to defeat Gargos.
  • Some events will take characters away from your team…
  • New multiplayer mode will use Guardians and potions.
  • More features can be added based on player feedback.
  • Higher level guardians have better stats & can have secondary abilities.
  • You have to feed your pets but green pets don’t need to be fed.
  • Three types of buffs for players in Shadow Lords, Guardians, Potions & Artifacts.
  • There are unique things that can happen with the story depending on characters.
  • However there is one big “global ending” at the end of the mode.
  • As well as an ending if you fail.
  • Ultratech could be another plot point “after” Shadow Lords is concluded.
  • They can add expansion packs to Shadow Lords after the mode is released.
  • Eyedol’s quest chain is basically such an expansion, with new artifacts, etc.
  • Written dialogue in story will be localized, so everyone can enjoy in their language
  • The mode is still under development, they want player feedback.
  • An ultratech team would give you better odds on ultratech related events.
  • Though its suggested you have a more well rounded team for best results.
  • Daily rewards are the only real-time events, you’re not punished for not playing.
  • Different chests can drop after a victory in Shadow Lords.
  • Tank chests have more health but drop double rewards. (if you can crack them)
  • Skeleton chests require keys that come from lesser chests.
  • Some missions will have interaction between characters, to some extent.

#Unlockables:

  • All characters get unlockable Mimic skins. (even guests)
  • Unlocked Mimic skins are both the color & the smoke effect.
  • “New cool shaders” that can be unlocked in Shadow lords. (unclear what a shader is)
  • Lots of things to unlock through Shadow Lords.
  • You must beat Gargos in Shadow Lords to unlock Astral plane stage.
  • It can then be used in any mode after that point.
  • They weren’t sure if the stage is unlocked in normal or challenging mode.
  • There is not a stage ultra on Astral plane.
  • Astral plane was not originally planned at the starts of season 3.
  • IG found the time to add in Astral Plane so Gargos had something special for SL.
  • Omen and Shago are getting colors and accessories. (finally)
  • Other colors to unlock in SL mode besides just the mimic colors.
  • Other stuff coming…

#Miscellaneous:

  • On the point of season 4: “We’re not there yet! Talk to us later!”.
  • “All kinds of great stuff coming all throughout this year.”
  • Max did work on Shadow Lords cutscenes/trailers.
  • Stay tuned for info on tournament funds.
  • Currently there is no plan to do an updated arcade mode, but it could happen.
  • Season 3 soundtrack will get a digital, CD & vinyl release.
  • The KI team would love to do a fully voiced KI story mode someday.
  • They would love to add more stage ultras, given they had more time.
  • When asked about Shago colors 10 & 11 being re-released, question wasn’t really answered.
  • They can’t say ultimates are coming this season but they know we want them…
  • “Stay tuned” for possible news for HDR support. “We’ll see”.
  • ARIA’s stage ultra animation is goofy looking on purpose.
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“Later” That’s mean we will see Season 4? I hope it’s happening…

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I sure hope so.

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This was my favorite part. They said that Kan-Ra says something like “It seems like you think I enjoy your company. I don’t.”

Maybe you should rewrite this as “Aria’s stage ultra animation is cheesy on purpose.” They said this because they believe that KI is not meant to be a game taken super seriously. And I agree with them on that, personally.

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Edited it, though despite what they say the animation isn’t the only problem. That stage ultra takes to long, the animation is visible for an extended period that just makes it look super bad. >__<

I was just correcting your note about what THEY said. I wasn’t taking your opinion into account because that wasn’t part of the stream.

Though personally I think the animation is just great lol

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I getcha.

Hopefully this is useful to someone, I kept wanting to browse the info without watching the stream so after not finding a write-up I decided to do one myself.

Killer Instinct ‏@KillerInstinct 6m6 minutes ago
"A GODLIKE breakdown of today’s Shadow Lords stream from xCrimsonLegendx. Check out the bulleted details: insert link to this thread here"

Looks like you got noticed :slight_smile:

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@xCrimsonLegendx thank you for the breakdown! And thanks @rukizzel for pinning this so we can see it!
A buttload of information, and lots of good news! New Omen/Shago goodies, Free Jago for all, plenty of skins, lots of unlockables and variables… This is getting really deep, and I really like it.
Thanks, @developers for all the cool business. Can’t wait to play! I’ll need to watch the archive myself later.

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Thank you, OP!

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Wow, I’ve never had a thread stickied before!

Hope the info helps out, if I got anything wrong feel free to let me know so I can update it.

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Characters will LEAVE YOUR TEAM? WHAT???

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Thanks for the breakdown!!

Great to hear. My only reason to play Kim Wu this season. And it’s a pretty good reason(…for a casual player like myself=).

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I just went though and re-worded some stuff, I was kind of in a hurry typing as they spoke and I’m not the fastest typist around. I fixed a ton of spelling errors and fleshed out some vague wording I used on several points.

Thanks very much for doing this. I didn’t even know there was a stream and I’m not a fan of the Beam interface currently (access wise). This stream also clarified a few things that I was wondering about. A real shame that the KI cutscenes only have Gargos and Kan-Ra’s voices, would’ve been good to see the entire S3 cast speaking their lines. Who knows. That could happen with expanded quest chains I’d guess.

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That’s an interesting one. I’d better brush up on those characters.

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Also, I’m kind of half and half on Jago being permanently free.

Agree: An extra character that everyone can learn. Allows for people to have multipple characters to fight as in the “demo”.
Disagree: As much as I like the fact that people get two characters in the free version, Jago I would consider the most overused character online/offline (because of dojo etc as well as ease of pickup/wins with him). I thought it would’ve been interesting to have two rotating characters maybe but possibly that’s just me.

Watched the archive. Beam is not a kinda service for watching things back if you don’t have stable internet at the time. Couldn’t find a way to lower the replay quality which was a bit of a bummer.

But that’s not important now.

Looks like a ton of fun to play. I like that personal skill and proper equipment use play such a high role in Shadow Lords. It could mean the difference between life and death…

Happy about mimic skins and other skins, as well as the Shago/Omen goodies.
The RiptorxGlacius dialogue was Oscar worthy.

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I kind of like having one permanent character, it makes the game more free to play than it was. Before it was more like a rotating demo. Now non-paying players at least have one character they can main and learn without fear of them being gone the next day, something stable to work with helping them make the decision to buy more content.

Plus if everyone has Jago that means people should be able to combat Jago fairly easily right?

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