The Great Divide

General Discussion
21

Bass got 2nd at Evo this year, and is currently posting like 5 KI sets per day to his Youtube channel.

Why would you want him to leave?

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22

It feels like the people complaining are just upset because they’re not able to perform like they used to. Like keits has said before, players need to ADAPT. My 2 cents.

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I gotta agree with those saying that S2 community wasn’t much better. I got into KI and started visiting these forums about early-mid Season 2 around the time Riptor came out and remember a lot of negativity over IG, the general direction of the game, the tons of balance patches over the months, various bugs, the designs of S2 characters, and so on pretty much until the end. Wasn’t enough to scare me off from the game as I was having way too much fun learning it, but it was definitely there.

As far as the problems in the community now, I see it as a two-sided issue:
One one side, I think a good chunk of the people getting negative on KI are being overly dramatic and too eager to downplay and bitterly criticize the game - especially compared to other Fighters. I’m getting tired of hearing about SFV and such like they’re the golden children of Fighters that everyone should play instead of KI within our own community. It should be similarly obvious to anyone that has played and followed those games that they aren’t anywhere near perfectly balanced or frustration-free either.
And on the other end, I think a lot of people arguing against complaints are way too harsh and dismissive toward those who make these grievances like they have no legitimacy or points worth considering. I’ve seen plenty of posts in discussions here that read like they’re basically saying ‘Your complaints/suggestions are idiotic and you should feel bad for saying them.’ Just like downplaying and resenting the game, these types of comments are toxic to the discussion and divide the community.

I’m not really sure where things will end up, but I hope the negativity starts to settle down once S3 reaches its climax soon.

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24

I was also there to read some of that toxic crap spewing in the old forums, and much earlier when KI first got announce in E3 2013. It left me uncomfortable to sign up because I didn’t want to be washed up into that nonsense.

IMO, there’s seems to be this sense in some parts of the community, kind of a sad one, that because KI got reintroduce in over 20 years since it went into hiatus, people were going to be in some extend, divided over what KI was gonna evolved into with its mildly different combat mechanics, character designs, story, and overall presentation because we’ve had different ideas over the years on what could KI be in this generation of fighting games. I mean, some of us want KI to be great game, but we just have different ideas on what each of us wants to make it great.

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@sajam thx for the KI chat stream bro! Man, you had me over here like “preach, brother!” and “GET 'EM!!” I’ll definitely be retweeting this!

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Simple 2 pronged issue


Issue 1: Balance

  • Everyone will agree that a character needs a nerf,
  • Then, the character gets nerfed, and some people think its too much, some people think its not enough, some people think its “just right”.
    In that above scenario, a SINGLE group of opinions has been divided into THREE groups of opinions. When you consider the fact that this same process applies to EVERY CHARACTER IN THE GAME
 You can easily see how people get so divided.

Issue 2: “Respect”

So, we have our problem of “blanace division”, so step 2 is to look at how this “division” is handled in the community.

Is it handled respectfully? No.

Good players Bash bad players for complaining too much, Bad players Bash Good players for complaining too much, and no-one is willing to find a middle ground, or respect others’ opinions.

Even when people try to have a “civil discussion”, what they usually do to ACHIEVE that civil discussion is NOT RIGHT. Most people think a “civil discussion” means that you dont use bad words, and be nice. But there is MORE to it than that. People need to not only be nice, but also STOP CLINGING TO YOUR OWN OPINIONS SO MUCH. People like to have these “civil discussions”, but in reality, they will NEVER give up their own opinions, so the end result is


You get 2 people who are TALKING NICELY, but REFUSE TO ACTUALLY LISTEN TO EACHOTHER. That is how you get threads that are 300 posts long of people being nice, but still being arrogant and de-progressive.

A good counter-example of this from another community would be MKX or SFV.

Those games dont get updated too much, so people’s opinions dont “divide” as much. When someone finds something bad, there is plenty of time for that opinion to exist, spread, and eventually become agreed upon. When something is TOO good, there is plenty of time for that opinion to exist, spread, and eventually become agreed upon.

So in the end, you get a game that may have MORE PROBLEMS than KI, but the community gets along better because most of it’s members have the same mind-set about those issues.

KI changes so much, that instead of everyone agreeing on issues, we just argue and wait for the next update to prove ourselves right or wrong.

(Probably the other 30% of the people who leave, are just people who think the game changed too much from the classic games. Can’t really help that.)

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27

So, in other words, you want us to simply keep an open mind


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Theres a lot more to be learned from that, but if keeping an open mind is what you got from it, then yes.

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Oh, don’t worry. I read (and understood) the entire thing. :wink:

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30

The issue of our divided community is like Hamlet’s view of life “a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

(No, I’m not calling anyone an idiot, calm down)

The idea that we are somehow more fractured as a community than in the past is not true. Much of this drama is just drama and it’s heightened by the fact that people tend to forget what we were arguing about last year and concentrate on what we are arguing about right now. People will come and go from the community for a variety of reasons. That’s all normal. People will argue about stuff, especially on the Internet. And people will be tempted to blow the above completely out of proportion. But we shouldn’t.

5 Likes
31

So I got around to watching this Sajam steam/video and wow, that was great.

I still stand by what I said about Bass and Larry’s chat vid, but this video here I feel like anybody who calls themselves a KI player should watch from start to finish at least once. I would love to see (actually I dare somebody) to watch that video from start to finish and attempt to argue against the points he made in that video.

Awesome stuff from Sajam there.

32

So that video is basically 45 minutes of straight truth. Wish I’d seen it live.

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33

First off I have a large amount of respect for you and all that you do for KI.

I just don’t like pro players crying all the time, and thinking that just because they play in a tournament they should be heard more than someone else.

I don’t focus on who wins what. Some people can win, and place better simply because not everyone can afford to go to the tournaments.

Yes, I know there are online tournaments, but then you run into someone getting upset, because they lost due to lag.

All ranting aside, what makes their opinions more valuable than someone elses?

1 Like
34

But no one said anything so stop. Why are you even talking about them this thread any about them it’s about everyone. Stop putting all the flaws of the community on them when it’s everyone fault. The top players do a lot for this community and anything you should be happy they help bring people in and represent us, we want people like LCD and bass representing us.

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35

I’d much rather have Sajam represent us.

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36

So let me understand this. You want Bass to leave because of your theory that “pro players.” such as him, are “crying all the time.”

So allow me to rebuttal, where have you seen Bass, outside of this instance, go on record to voice his opinion on the game and what he would like to happen and you would deem that as “crying”?

You wish to tell someone to go away from express their opinion about the game, because you find it fits your narrative of suggesting that they’re “crying?” Give me a break, this is the last thing a community should be doing to other people. It’s a waste of effort.

But none of this has literally zero to do with what Bass has the right to do, much like myself, or anyone else that participates here. Voice their constructive criticism of the game.

To me, I say nothing except in some situations), Bass hasn’t even said things along the side of “I’m a competitive player, I know exactly what should be done, and you should listen to me instead of another Joe Schmo casual player.” If you can’t take the idea of someone who takes the game a little more seriously voice their criticisms about the game, then don’t listen (or do and move on), it’s that simple.

Move on, have fun, and continue to play KI.

5 Likes
37

Everyone


This is a perfect example of someone wrongly saying that a pro’s opinions aren’t any more important than others.

Pro opinions should NOT be held as permanent truths, or be the ONLY things anyone listens to, but it is a PROVABLE FACT that UA Bass would know more about balancing than any of us.

Fighting games are all about math, and that math can be analyzed in an amount of depth that none of us have ever gotten close to.

The pros, however, are more educated in that math than anyone.

Heres an example:

Who would you want doing your taxes? A small child, or an experienced mathematician who gets paid to work in the field?

In the SAME WAY that you would choose the mathematician, you should WANT to hear the opinions of the pros.

UA Bass has played more matches, spent longer in training mode, and studied more matches, in multiple fighting games, than most of you people complaining about him could do with 2 years of non-stop trying.

Pros may not be 100% right, but i SURELY trust them more than 97% of the people on this forum. (ESPECIALLY when they seem to all agree with eachother.)

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38

I have shared my opinion and that is all I really wanted to do.

Bass might have me on watching matches, but that is it. The fact is he is not old enough to have spent more time with fighting games. At least with me.

I have people to help on the fourm, so don’t worry about me dragging this out anymore.

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I also don’t like pro players crying all the time, I wish they would spend more energy coming up with in-game solutions to problems, just like they would have to do if they played any other game. If there is a particularly egregious example of game balance that needs addressing, then tell us about it with a non-angry explanation and full examples and be willing to discuss it. But this doesn’t work that well when you cry wolf at tons of small things in the game. Suddenly their opinion is less valid because when something actually does need changing, it gets drowned among complaints that don’t make sense.

However, because they do play the game in tournaments often and they do see high level stuff, they do have an opinion that is worthwhile for the devs to hear. They just need to be better about articulating it.

Either way, the answer is not to say “please leave our community and don’t come back” (especially Bass, who only very recently started voicing his concerns and still does the community a great service with video content). The answer is to keep encouraging them to act better (and to let them play other games when they want a break).

Their opinion isn’t more valuable than anyone else’s.

In theory, they have more game experience and should be able to articulate with more clarity and in-game examples as to where the game needs adjusting, but it hasn’t been the case in practice.

9 Likes
40

Here’s the deal as I see it (ooo 18% battery, can I finish this? Let’s find out!)

It’s fine if a person wants to stop playing. Bass is not a bad person for wanting to play other games. Lord ■■■■■■■ knows I “quit” SF4 in frustration a dozen times over, because sometimes when you play too much of something you get burned out. You need something different. It happens.

It’s fine if a person doesn’t like the game. It’s a subjective thing, who cares. Like, honestly, what does it ■■■■■■■ matter that marlon rando doesn’t like KI? Let people have their own taste.

Here’s what isn’t fine: going on the forums, into stream chats, on twitter, and spreading bullshit everywhere. Claiming the game is bad for objectively untrue reasons is gonna get you no sympathy, especially if it’s in the middle of a post about how you’re quitting. Also, there are DEFINITELY some players I see saying they’re leaving and I say: good ■■■■■■■ riddance to bad ■■■■■■■ rubbish. Not naming names, but I’ll leave a blank space here, and if you can fill it in with the name of your favorite ■■■■■■■: ( )

Some people are just dickheads. Some people harass others, constantly start fights, refuse all other points of view, spread misinformation, and are just bad. I don’t think there’s any reason to mourn losing them, and whenever I see those names pop up in a stream all I can think is: why are you here? I thought you were leaving, why are you still ■■■■■■■ things up?

4 Likes