In a recent interview one of the SNK devs mentioned that they read forums and various websites to see what people think about the game. I don’t know if this includes English websites, or if they read this one, but I thought I’d write a little something just in case they do.
Dear SNK,
KOF13 is a great game, probably the best in the series to date (in my opinion). I got 4 of my online friends to buy it and was very excited to teach them the game, but unfortunately there are some major obstacles in doing that. I just want to suggest a few things that would improve the experience:
1: Add an online practice mode that functions identically to offline. I feel like this is absolutely crucial to teaching a new player the game. There’s so much to learn in KOF and it can’t be taught easily with the limited health and constant character switching that happens in 3v3 online matches.
2: Add online 1v1 with best of out of 5. 2002UM featured this, why doesn’t 13? My friends complain that it’s too hard to learn 3 characters at once when they don’t yet understand the basics of the game. This is a fair point. For beginners it is much easier to learn 1 character at a time than 3.
3: Add lobbies and spectator mode so online friends can watch how the game is supposed to be played. My newbie friends complain that they can’t watch me fight other people to understand the pacing and flow of the game. There is YouTube, but this is a more detached method of learning than seeing something first hand and being able to ask about it (via XBL parties).
4: Work on the online a little more. North American cross continent play is still poor. I convinced a west coast friend to buy the game but we can’t get an enjoyable online experience (I’m east coast).
Of the 4 people I got to buy the game, 0 play it. I feel like they would have given it more of a chance if only these features were implemented.
Other than that, thanks for the great game, SNK!