To arms! Maximilian's call for a new KI

On your topic @STORM179 I think new players are more frustrated with being locked down than they are about being opened up. I think as you get better at the game the scales start to tilt the other way. But initial frustrations are when you don’t know how to get out of certain setups and feel like you can’t even play the game. Kan-ra def fits that bill. It’s also why zoners in general are notoriously hated by new players. Once you figure out your options those setups become less frustrating you start getting better at neutral and punishing and you start to realize the characters you thought were easier before because you could still mash and accidentally hit them out of their mixups are now the characters who are infuriating to play since you don’t have a flow chart solution to overcome them.

I dunno man. While I haven’t been new to FG’s in a while, I just don’t know that I agree with some of that. I think that you are generally correct about zoners and setplay, but I think Shago’s particular brand of nonsense (which 100% includes nasty setplay) is a lot more deleterious to new players. Not even necessarily because it’s “worse” than something like Kan (whose big nerfs were in fact mostly about making the MU more manageable for new players), but because it’s so much easier to do. Shago is similar to Rash in that I distinctly remember him generating a lot of salt early in his life. People were like “wtf do I do against this?”, and because of how easy it was/is to go into that stuff you see it all the time. Kan-Ra even at his worst was a semi-rare MU - Shago is and has always been incredibly common. Specifically because his kit is easy to use and difficult to deal with.

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I think we’re simply talking variance and it probably differs between players. Like zoning I have found it to be rather common for new players to rate characters with teleports in a similar fashion. A player of much higher skill will likely be frustrating to play to some degree, I simply think that the most frustrating for new players are the matches where they feel they are helpless to do anything. I’ll concede this absolutely happens with shago and it’s not relegated to just characters like kan-ra (lets be honest this game is full of set play dirt) I just think with characters like Kan-ra where you’re eating block stun from scarabs dealing with traps and command grabs that the helplessness seems more obvious. I think shago setplay can seem random and unintentional to a new player which makes it feel less frustrating.

Out of curiosity, can anyone point me in the direction of the latest, agreed upon Tier List?

I found on for 3.8, but not the current 3.9.

Honestly @STORM179 and @DeathBlooms2K8 I think you guys are splitting hairs. New players hate LOSING and more than losing they hate losing and feeling like they have no idea what they could do differently. Smothering pressure, zoning, and random shenanigans ALL fit this bill. Whether you find Shago or Kan-Ra more frustrating is going to depend on whether you accidentally learn Shago’s dive kicks can be blocked low before or after you accidentally realize you can use heavies to clear swarms.

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I know this isn’t answering your question. But honestly KI’s design and balance is so good that tier lists have never been a huge part of the community discussion. This isn’t to say they haven’t been discussed or character balance isn’t debated but in comparison to many other games they really are not that prevalent.

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That’s actually really awesome to hear.

even the de facto training character, sabrewulf, is competitive. jago who is basic ■■■■■ ryu is too. pick anybody and have fun!

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Oh, I never pick characters based on Tier Lists at all, I always pick who I want, who seems fun to me, and generally who I like.

I’m simply curious because it’s always interesting to see which characters are considered top and bottom and why; knowing such things is never a bad thing.

Why is Sabrewulf considered “the” training character?

I don’t know that he’s universally considered the training character, but Sabrewulf has pretty simple moves, quick normals and specials that are easy to understand and execute. Obviously truly high level play requires some commitment and high level understanding (not a ton of Wulf players making top 8s outside of season 1), but if you have a decent understanding of the game’s mechanics you can probably play a pocket sabrewulf that won’t embarass you.

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Mostly for ease of play and a straightforward and easy to understand game plan.

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There are a few reasons

  1. Aesthetics - werewolves are cool
  2. Ease of use - Has a ‘relatively’ easy move set that beginners can pull off
  3. Noob Tube - These easy moves and combos means new users can ‘feel’ really great while playing, while having relatively low skill. In essence they can pull of easy combos and moves and say “wow I pulled of something like in those commercials this is awesome”

This gives new players a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel good at a critical point in their interest, at the very beginning. If they were playing a more complex character, they likely would be losing a lot and then get frustrated and quit.

Of course those simple techniques will start to become ineffective as they meet more advanced players. But you ‘hope’ by then, their interest in the game means they will seek out and practice more advanced techniques and improve.

tl;dr - an easy to play character that makes you feel awesome for the beginning part of your journey

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Yeah, his game plan is pretty simple but effective. Plus the Back-Forward/ Down-Up motions are in my experience much easier for someone who is inexperienced at fighting games, like how I was. Add in the Rabid Doubles and he’s a very Noob friendly character.

I know combo assist technically alleviates this now, but starting in S1 the easier inputs were instrumental in getting me started with the game.

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Cool. I’m currently using Combo Assist, as I find it helps a lot with the game’s much faster pace over the Mortal Kombat franchise.

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People have been calling for a new ki or continued work on this one for like 3 years. If a new one comes out with the new xbox then great as long as its done well. If not, we should probably try to contact Microsoft and start a crowdfund for it by then and if this community raised enough funds for a ms approved developer to continue work on it, that might be our only shot at ever finishing this game.

I have a feeling the funds would come fast though as they seemingly did for each new character they sold, people want this game finished and would probably speak with their wallets. I think the first thing that would need to be done to fix this game is work on the engine so we can put skins and moving intro characters during loading and also would help the load times a lot. The reason for that is because primarily skins would sell a lot and that could be the engine that continually provides financing for future KI development on top of crowdfunding.

The game really just needs a lot of tuning and financing to do that, a new game outside of new graphics probably isn’t necessary, I’d be more than happy if this was one of those games that just started small and got financial support from beginning to finish to get there, to be able to do that though, there needs to be profitable and reliable systems in place to provide the funding.

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the idea of crowdfunding is good, the thing is its gonna have to be shilled hardcore so it can get the attention from the playerbase. it did work with flying colors last time, however consider it was only somewhere over 100k iirc, i do not recall the exact amount that was raised. i just know that it happened pretty quick for shadow jago(?). its been so long lol

moving intros you say? like how the old school killer instinct was before the fight started? man that’d be awesome to get back again, it felt like you were watching a gladitorial TV show in a dystopian future

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The problem with crowdfunding a game is that the expectations of the community with regards to how far a dollar goes in game development are pretty outrageous. Based on the experience with this game people will contribute $100k and then demand a $4million product.

I think the prior experience with the Shadow Jago fund and then the tournament fund were pretty mixed. Certainly it demonstrated there was interest in the community. But then there was a lot of impatience and dissatisfaction. And from my side, I’m not entirely sure MS managed it all that well. I couldn’t guarantee you that all the tournament money went to tournaments, for example.

I think the most realistic expectation is a season model like the one they introduced with KI 2013. Hopefully season one is a little more bulky and full featured. But we’ll see. I’m still not convinced we’ll get anything at all.

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yeah it would have to be a mutually agreed upon developer between ms and ki comm, and it would have to be agreed on what was going to be done in what order and laid out how much each thing would cost. I think that is the best chance outside of a new KI, if we could get the engine worked on to allow new skins and faster load times which IG says was “too hard” basically, a lot of money would be brought in on skins alone outside of the crowdfunding.

You would have to approach it like a well run business if you really wanted to fix KI. Could charge 2-5 dollars on each skin, maybe 10 for really fancy ones and I’m sure the KI comm would gladly pay those prices if they knew what it was going towards as far as new development and probably just because they wanted them.

I’m generally against crowdfunding a game like KI, which is owned and published by a company that is decidedly not indie or cash-strapped. Apart from the (to me anyway) inherently problematic nature of the model with respect to a large corporation, there’s also this:

Generally speaking, gamers have ■■■■■■ ideas about how much things cost to make. Indivisible, Lab Zero’s (of Skullgirls fame) newest title, raised just over $2M during its crowdfunding phase. Being extremely generous and assuming the company pockets fully half of that amount, that still makes an indie-developed 2D action-RPG (a decidedly ambitious one to be sure, with gorgeous sprite work and a number of guests they likely paid royalties to use) a one million dollar undertaking. The rough numbers the KI devs threw out to estimate the cost of a character ($100,000) and a stage $75,000) in an existing engine are pretty high, with bare-bones Season 1 coming in at a $1.4M price tag before adding in any networking functionality, UI, or single player content. The title was free to play and MS gave it 3 seasons so obviously there’s a market and opportunity here, but frankly I’d prefer not to have to foot the bill up front as a consumer. MS has sufficient money to invest in their IP’s.

I’d give them a C. The Shago fund was handled well, but there was considerable confusion and a notable lack of communication with regards to the tournament fund. It did all eventually get spent (Yami had a breakdown somewhere a while back), but there was a definite period where it almost looked like MS just pocketed the money and ran. I imagine a hypothetical crowdfunding for a full game would be handled much better than that, but I agree it highlights another unnecessary (to me anyway) issue that arises from the model. Let the devs focus on making the best game they can - I don’t need them babysitting the community to make sure all the backers are happy and sufficiently informed.

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I disagree pretty strongly with that idea. Much as I love KI 2013, the game is already close to the point where its systems begin to collapse under their own weight. And not in a semantic “the game isn’t finished because A/B/C don’t have ultimates and X/Y/Z don’t have stages” kind of way - in terms of core gameplay mechanics and character options. KI has a lot going on already, and I think it’s pretty easy to argue that it already shows some of the strain of maintaining a highly diverse cast that’s this big.

Judging from the PC and 1X versions of the title, long load times appear to be a hardware issue as opposed to an engine issue per se. More to the point, engine migration/evolution is neither cheap nor fast (which was IG’s actual point, as opposed to “wah it’s too hard”), and if you’re going to do that there’s probably not much reason you wouldn’t just build or license another engine that does everything that you want it to natively. And again, if you’re going to go to another engine anyway, you kinda may as well just go ahead and make a brand new game, and get all the good publicity and marketing that comes with that.

This might come as a surprise to the people who pay much attention to me here or on social media since I pretty consistently shill KI, but I emphatically would not at this point pay for more KI costumes. I wouldn’t pay for another tournament fund, and I wouldn’t pay for them to overhaul the engine. I’m more than happy to pay more-than-full price for a title I love or that shows great promise, but I’m disinclined to pay MS to add more stuff to a game that is 6 years old and already sufficiently complete for me. They make a new KI and I’ll throw another $40/season at them easily, but I wouldn’t give them money to prop up a game that is finished and has been for some time.

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