play the characters that you find fun to play with and master them. Thats what I am doing. I play team Fatal Fury sometime and have a blast winning with them.
As for scene, I really have no scene neither. I have to travel to play good kof players here because of DERP Marvel. I enjoy marvel, but I love kof more and would play that with a good player over playing marvel with a good player.
well XIII isn’t 98, I also wished with all these re-birth of the series snk would go the basics, a more 98 style kof xiii since i’m so bad with combos,lol. But they went the safe route with a 2k2 style game. Strong anti-airs is something I miss too, even the mexican uppercut was so effective in 95,sigh* those days.
in my experience playing against american players like laban, omerta and some random dudes in ggpo. It seems they have a strong understanding of the game, very good ground game and mix up options but I think some others stay too much on the ground and turtle a lot. Why limit yourself with some many rushdown opportunities that kof has. they could have the opportunity to finish the match in seconds but no they go all the way to back and I found myself chasing them the whole match.
I think many american players just can’t get rid of their SF habits
From an American perspective, sounds like people didn’t play enough old Marvel or anime games and weren’t used to non-traditional footsies and offensive/defense options. Footsies and space control exist in all types of fighting games and in many ways a lot of that stuff translates to this game in particular. I’ve also been hearing some local people whine that this game isn’t even like older KOF games, but definitely not anyone that has a non-exclusive SF/KOF background. Everyone around me locally with that background seems to love the game, myself included. I predict that the people that play or used to play more than just SF or some older KOF games will eventually dominate KOF13 into the future, that is if they care to stick with this game. It’s very difficult to get that mindset into your KOF 13 gameplay if you haven’t already been thinking about it and playing that way for years.
honestly jumpins are a little too strong for my tastes. there’s too many angles you can approach from that are unchallengable by AA from most of the cast and a lot of the time you’re relegated to just denying them space by using movement to make them whiff. its not what i prefer but ultimately still manageable. also, i consider low meter bnb damage to be a little too low for most of the cast.
I read you loud and clear. I thought it was just me. Nowadays, when people refer to KOF, they talk about this game, but when I hear those letters, I think about the older titles, mainly 97, 98/98UM, and OG 2002. Not to say this game isn’t well designed and very good, I just wouldn’t call it KOF, kinda like how most people don’t consider 99-01, 03, and XI to be KOF.
I don’t know how to describe it. It looks familiar, but it feels and plays like a new IP. Rapid fire jabs with little to no frame freeze on hit; makes it hard to buffer long commands. Blowbacks that lead to full combos on Counter Hit. Ex Moves; what’s 3S doing in my KOF? Lots of trading when you try to apply those old-school fundamentals. Lots of juggling for characters not in HD/MAX mode. Combos and meter management are so complex, I’m not sure what I want to use the meter(s) for. Every move seems like a risk (unless you got long-range game), and doing nothing most of the time will keep you from taking damage. Sure, there’s Guard Break, but that’s what Blowback/Guard Roll is for.
While I struggle to play this game at a high level, my 98 skills has improved a lot thanks to KOFXIII. Now I wish they’d bring 98UM back for Evo.
I think Laban is more frustrated by his local scene and not being able to level up more than anything else. Which is very understandable. Best thing to do (to steal page of JWong philosophy and I’m by no means a Wong fanboy) is just keep practicing your shit, train your jump ins, your reversals, HD Moves, etc. And keep looking for new challengers and upcoming tournaments. Try to find people through SRK or Dreamcancel who may live near you. You may be surprised.
actually, its just meterless damage that i find lower than what i normally like to see. and now that i think about it, i think that ex moves should probably be buffed in some way in order to make people want to use them more rather than stocking all their bar for combos (i’m aware it was probably busted, but i actually kinda liked original arcade for this and thought it would have been interesting to just give more utility to EXes for the characters who didn’t have strong ones).
Louiscipher is pretty much hit the nail on the head. With all of XIII’s stuff that I don’t like, I think I would have enjoyed the game and have been more prepared if I actually had a scene. If I actually had 2-4 people dedicated to the game in my area to play me often. All I can do now is just to try to find whatever job I can and try to have Fridays off so I can drive to Ramnation and grind there, perhaps biweekly. Hopefully I could also save money for majors and do better; but, I’m almost at the point that I don’t care about winning anymore or building a name for myself.
I’ll just go back to the origin of things. I started playing KOF back in mid/late 2009 back when DandyJ first released his KOF guide. I was a 4chan scrub (already started getting sick of the denizens of the site, been around since 2005 and was showing signs of decline in summer 2006 and already pretty shitty by 2007) that decided to try to learn how to play KOF early by learning the basics on GGPO by playing the older games so I’d have a slight upper hand on those when “KOF 12” comes out. 12 came out, was shit, and I decided to keep playing 98 (and 2002 because Feez wouldn’t learn 98 because there was no K’ or Kula, I hated 2002) and just figured/hoped that XIII would come out. The only reason I became decent was because I kept playing on GGPO, expecting nothing of myself but to just pragmatically improve each part of my gameplay and just play the game for the enjoyment of learning. I’d discipline myself not to use Guard Cancel Blowback because most scrubs blew all their meter on it and and I didn’t want to associate myself with that. I learned that all pressure has an opening and a chance to reverse the situation (rule of 2 or just being abare) and get out while having a lot of meter to burn when I’m on offense and kill with a DM or 5. I disciplined myself to not DP and just to only block on oki outside of a few reversal command grabs. For anti-air, I learned how to just absolutely control space with normals and to press the right button at the right time and spacing. I just associated DPs (for better or worse) with scrubby play and just disciplined myself to space better. Of course, doing DPs in the proper spacing as an anti-air tool is a great asset and it was only until this year that I finally disciplined myself to do reaction DPs since I was always bad at that and just supplemented my weakness with properly spaced normals. I read Maj’s Footsie Notebook at the time of my learning and learned a lot about fighting game fundamentals that actually applied to KOF greatly. But, I did all of this not to become #1 or expect to be a name or anything, I just truly enjoyed 98 and KOF that each time I played or lost, there was something to learn or focus on improving.
With XIII, I guess my downfall was using this opportunity to show what I have learned and to show my pride in the time I put into KOF. So it was the opposite for me, I had the mindset to prove that I became better (I know that I’m not the best especially since I have players on GGPO to constantly remind me I need a lot to learn) but I had no longer the opportunity to actually play the game so I can focus on learning. So not only have I had my pride shattered, I have no way of even playing the game so I can lose a lot and learn a lot. I feel that I was forced to stagnate. It feels even terrible when it feels as if SNKP just “intentionally” shat on me by just making grounded normals weaker, meterless damage and individual hits weaker (so spacing and zoning is generally weaker), online is trash, reversals became very strong now with EX versions, and the system rewards those that do grind out the bigger HD combos and meter manage and convert with big loops (even in 2002/2002 UM, Max Mode combos weren’t necessary to win although Max Mode combos were required to play certain characters to their fullest such as Nameless; at the least, Max Mode combos weren’t required though). I know SNKP didn’t really intend for this game to really shit in my face, that would be conceited and arrogant of me. It’s just their design decisions totally played against my greatest strengths and the very work I put my entire being into, and rewarded those that know how to just do whatever and convert into bigger damage and have the execution to do so. It’s as if SNKP made a game to reward those how to do Angel infinites and May Lee nonsense in 2002 and nerfing characters or tools that actually have a means against these characters. A hyperbole, of course. But my sentiment is similar.
I think this KOF could be something “I wanted” if a few things were tweaked.
Readjust the hitboxes of grounded anti-air normals (which I feel isn’t that hard)
Readjust meterless damage and 1-2 Stock damage without Drive but leave alone HD combo damage and etc. (this one is more difficult in regards to number crunching and making things prorate correctly)
Fix the collision boxes to make characters not do the “I cross up but land in the front” kind of stuff, return the natural deceleration speed of hops after their apex (so empty hop lows and etc. are more viable)
Tweak Takuma’s and Mr.Karate’s j.CD (why do they have a downward hitbox at all? In the past, the move was so good that it was designed in a way to whiff on crouchers easily and would have to commit to a j.D or j.B instead [Takuma did have a lower/easier hop arc compared to the cast in older games as well so the lower hop arc is fine with me])
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-> Perhaps an overall all tweak on jump-ins maybe. I think the situation of being a Grasshopper game would be already alleviated with anti-air normals being fixed up. Benimaru’s j.D wouldn’t be an issue if Kyo’s cr.C returned to 98 or even 2002 status among other characters in the game that have a dank mexican uppercut normal such as Terry’s df.C, Robert’s cr.C, King’s cr.C, Shen Woo’s cr.C, Leona’s cr.C (this shit used to be sooooo good), both Iori’s cl.C, both Kyo’s cl.C and cr.C, Daimon’s df.C, speed of Elizabeth’s cr.C, Duo Lon’s cr.C, Yuri’s cr.C, I think Maxima’s df.C, and Ralf and Clark’s df.A. A lot of times, these moves are too slow and trade/lose or simply have some sort of jump-in completely veer around it but still land on top and hit them. I think the case is in the grounded normals and otherwise, jump-ins are still normal and fine for the most part.
Now here’s a list that I really want to happen but is based more around what I would like to say and is more open for debate. I’d be just fine with the changes above but this will really make me wet with appetite.
System Change
> Add in push back for the attacker upon jump-in on block like in old games. Push back is only induced on the receiver. So when the receiver is cornered, there is no pushback that is induced and the attacker maintains the same longitude. Imagine if Chris was in this game with j.CD. He’d be able to indefinitely blockstring with this in the corner just because there is no longer push back for him to push him outside of a “perfect” spacing to continuing to do so. It’s almost like doing SFII Hyper Fighting Blanka neutral j.HK trap without needing to do the walk forward.
> Return the old guard crush. Make it a small window of time for when the player could actually get a combo off of a guard break. Make it so that the attacker has to time the actual break on a jump in so he can land and do a full bnb, or break with the first normal in a bnb and continue with a special or command normal into whatever. Guard break will still be good because you don’t have to count it anymore as there is a physical gauge to look at and will still land chunky damage if you do a Drive combo, but totally blocking won’t be ass and more comfortable doing.
> Take out the Hit-Stop/Freeze Frame for guard rolls to be like old games.
> Take out HD because it makes it too similar to 2002/2002 UM. I think KOF XIII should play on it’s greatest uniqueness and take out HD mode but in lieu place in 3 bars of Drive.
>3 Bars of Drive expanded
Each bar could be used as normal, each for a drive cancel/super cancel.
Each bar could be also used to activate 98 style Max Mode, damage boost upon activation. I will still call this “HD Mode.” It will activate and still have a bar that will gradually run out over time just like how HD natural does in XIII and how Max Mode does in KOF 98 and in 2002.
During activation, still could use remaining Drive bars to do Drive cancels
Using a Neomax during HD Mode would consume 1 Drive Bar, doing a Super into Neomax from Max Mode will still only consume 1 Drive Bar. So if there is 3 Drive Bar Stocked, activating uses 1 bar, doing a combo from special to super uses 1 bar, then Max Canceling will use the last bar. Activating HD Mode will use 1 bar, then doing a normal bnb without specials or supers straight into Neomax will use 1 bar, then there will be one drive bar left over.
There will be no meter build at all during HD Mode for the instigator.
Using a Neomax from outside HD mode will consume all 3 Drive Bars.
For now I want to say, after a Drive has been used outside of HD mode to do a juggle combo, no more of the following hits in that combo will build Drive meter; but, will be still be able to build Stock meter. The reason being, having a game with 3 Drives will greatly reward those that already have crazy juggling Drive combos that build back into themselves. The game would greatly need juggle property revision per individual character and the easiest solution I can think of without diving into the intricacies is just to halt the build of Drive after the first Drive cancel is used. There will still be ramifications that need to be tested if this is could actually be done, but for me this is the most easy/interesting way of doing Drive and HD and not accidentally making a game that does 100%s and rewards certain characters over others.
During the new HD mode, characters will still be able to “Drive Cancel” on block, but will do so by consuming the remainder of their drive bars. Meaning, if a player activates and uses 1 out of 3 Drive Bars, to do a drive on block will consume 1 of the 2 remaining bars of Drive and doing another will completely leave the player without any drive during HD. Doing a Drive Cancel on hit during HD mode will still be the same.
The ability to Super Cancel on block outside of HD mode will be maintained, most things super cancel on block are unsafe anyways.
Air activation, for now, will be the same
Return of canceling Normal Attacks into roll a la 98um/2002. Doing so, though, will consume Drive rather than Stock. During HD mode, doing this will consume the timer bar rather than Drive bars, unlike doing Drive cancels during HD mode. The change to this technique is that this roll could be completely thrown during any part of its being, but cannot be punished by striking attacks. Normal Rolls have a recovery time where they could be punished with an attack, but could be completely thrown. Guard Rolls could neither be punished by striking attacks or rolls, could at the least be meatied on recovery but not punished. The return of “attack rolls” (most probably it has some other official name) will be completely throwable but not strikeable. The receiver of the throw cannot throw break at all.
Number crunching and proration values will have to be completely recalculated, I think this function of HD is more interesting but can’t be put in as is with the current damage values. I still want meterless and non-drive combos to still play a major roll in damage output but to make Drives worth it but not too strong to make the former not feel like it’s not doing damage.
For now, I want to say you can’t cancel any attacks into straight HD Mode; but, I’ll leave in HD bypass. Doing so, though, will consume 2 Drive Bars.
Max Cancels still only occur in HD mode. Though, I don’t know if I would want to change it so that a character could do outside of HD Mode: Normal > Command Normal > Super > Consume 3 Drive for Neomax. I’m leaning towards “no.”
This post is already large enough.
For those that actually take the time to read my long ass posts about me complaining or dreaming about game changes that will never happen, thank you. Since I can’t even play the game for now, I just want to talk about some game changes and debate/argue over it. I just want to throw out some ideas and have people criticize it so I can further refine, in my mind, the game I want to see XIII be. To be honest, since I have free time and I’m a loser, I might want to dick around and find a way to edit the values of KOF 98 or 98um using MUGEN or something and just make the ideal 98umFE then maybe move on to doing other stuff.
My next post will contain changes I want to see per character in KOF XIII that are to be considered within the current build of KOFXIII and not my loldreammatch version of XIII. Thanks for all the support guys and hopefully one day I’ll be able to play you guys offline at some Major or EVO if I can find a new job.
Wish listing because that’s how we did it back in the day and I have nothing better to do:
(Changes wanted based on current Console Build of XIII, so no Climax changes in affect.)
being a positive change
bing a negative change
= being some form of neutral change
"returned to normalcy" (whenever I say this, I mean back to 02um/98um status of speed [start up/active/recovery], hitbox dimensions, and push back.)
Normal Kyo
Return of Far A and Far B, have a return of stronger grounded anti-air normals to supplement his fireball/projectile.
j.D being able to hit all crouchers using the tip of his kick, to really supplement his air-to-air game and his anti-air spacing.
Chain cl.B into cr.B and cr.A but not vice versa and into nothing else.
cl.C fixed so things don’t veer around it
cr.C returned to normalcy
j.CD returned to normalcy
j.2C returned to normalcy
Kyo is an already solid character with good damage output and doesn’t really need much change in general. I feel, though, that his zoning is what gimped and most people just play him as j.2C the character. So I decided without touching anything else that he’d more more fun if he got normals and a few other minor tools to return his spacing game and not making him over reliant on dumb stuff. Over all, his corner lockdown and shutdown should be much stronger now and keep the opponent in check and really round out Kyo’s moveset. Chaining cl.B into cr.B and etc. just makes him even more like Old Kyo in terms of spacing because it gives him a free hop j.B/j.2CD after a blockstring rather than needing to do three cr. Lights into hyper hop for a cross up. This helps beef up some of his close game since I’m a stickler and I don’t like his current j.CD and j.2C which is just simply braindead pressure stuff. j.CD might be cool if left alone but j.2C is a tool that is supposed to lock down but in turn sacrificing a large combo opportunity. But now, it does both. If j.2C returned to normalcy, it’d be fine anyways since in the corner, he gets a guaranteed df.D even with the huge push back. So most probably he’d get j.2C > df.D xx Hop Kicks or j.2C > df.D BC Activate. So by no means is it nerfed hard, but it’s not a free ticket to ride.
Objectively, Kyo gets better but not necessarily in damage output. Players will have to play more smartly with him, but will feel better that anti-airs will be stronger to shut people out when needed. Pressure is still there, if anything it’ll be improved. Nothing actually adjusted to make his damage better so he should be just fine.
Benimaru
Have Far C hit all crouchers, hit and block
j.CD returned to normalcy with the great downwards hitbox. If grounded crouching normals get fixed, he’ll need old j.CD back.
Taunt becomes an unblockable
st.B returned to normalcy (just making it slightly “snappier”/faster.)
Benimaru is a good strong character that already shits on people in the corner with good Drive combo loops. All of his stuff that makes him good is already here, and we don’t need to give him Shikuu Kakategoma and try to figure out how to balance that move for this game. His biggest strength kinda in part due to the fact that everyone else’s normal anti-airs weren’t as good as before, so his j.D won cleanly in a lot of situations. So if I propose that everyone else’s anti-airs gain normalcy, Benimaru would just be one big bird that will get shot down. His XIII style any height air-raijinken helps him out, but he really needs old j.CD to help him maintain his pressure if he really wants to get anything done. Most of the cast has good air-to-airs anyways so doing a hop back j.D with Kyo will help check an early hop forward j.CD by Benimaru. In the mindset of KOF 2002, I want Benimaru to have a good Far C that forces every croucher to block, so Benimaru has a way of pressuring opponents in a lower committal way than Raijinken, but in return doesn’t do any chip. But when it does hit, it feels pretty chunky unlike st.B at times. The Taunt is just for just cuz. It takes a long time to start up and it only does 10 damage. The worst that could come out of this that it makes the “meaty” Lancer mindgames scarier on wake-up. It’s okay anyways since it’s slow start up and most people would just do an ex reversal or something to get out of there.
Daimon
df.C returned to 98og normalcy
j.D returned to 98og normalcy (instant overhead)
98 style df.C xx qcb+B > dp+A unblockable pound
j.CD normal hit > qcb+B > dp+A “becomes a thing”
Daimon is another character that’s pretty much “there.” He almost has all he needs and has nothing blatantly stupid so he doesn’t need nerfing. Since damage is already pretty low in the zoning aspect and people can still kinda shit on Daimon on pressure, I was thinking he should get back the old df.C that made him a monster in 98. Giving him unblockable pounds will also make his anti-air more of a threat without needing to sacrifice corner position and I doubt the pound itself will do more damage than a df.C xx qcb+B > hcf+A. Since the pound is pound, giving him access to set up a guaranteed pound shouldn’t be that bad either since I don’t think there is any way to do more damage after a pound (like giving easier access to a move for certain other characters might lead into bigger drive cancel combos that could loop into dangerous things, and I don’t feel that with Daimon’s pound. With the j.CD hard knockdown from mid or full screen, you could choose to either pound for more damage or just run in and get good oki. Sacrifice one thing for the other.
How the unblockable pound will work is that if Daimon could somehow complete a command roll then pound before the opponent could get up, the pound will hit. So the opponent that recovery rolls will be hit by an unblockable pound, an oponent that decides not to recovery roll will still be hit anyways as an otg. Hard knockdowns will also apply but Daimon usually sacrifice getting close for the damage from pound (which in XIII’s system, won’t do much.)
Otherwise, that’s that. Having old df.C will pretty much make him complete and make him a complete monster. His HD is simple and made of damage so he has that down. Nothing else was really affected that will alter his largest damage to do even more damage so he won’t really be doing 100%s or doing made damage of of wack stuff. People would really have to play good ground footsies against him now since his df.C is just THAT much better than a good Daimon would most probably confirm into HD off of it. j.D will be good, but it doesn’t change too much.
That’s enough wishlisting for now. I think I’ll go over one team at a time in which I’ll discuss what I want for each character and why and feel free to talk about my suggestions in a constructive way.
If you think something is stupid, say so and please state why. Then we can actually have dialogue and try to sort these things out. I honestly don’t hate and do like XIII, and I just want us as a community to kinda sort things out of how to make things better. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be listened to. Maybe not. But when the time comes when SNKP or someone will listen to us, we know exactly what we want and not accidentally make a worse game than the solid game it currently is right now.
No offense dude, and I’m trying to be as honest as I can. Your post kinda’ comes off as ‘I got smashed for these reasons, please fix them.’ that’s how it comes off. As for me, I played the OG KOF’s and I respect them but I don’t really like them. I spent almost a year and went through 2-3 controllers to try to get decent at them. And I didn’t get pissed if I lost but the controls are so stiff in those games (98 especially) that I have to over exaggerate my motions on the D-pad to get anything out and I broke the damn things many times over because of this. So after like 6 months altogether of trying to get into both 98 and 02 I gave up. The controls are a huge turn off to me and the TOD shit in 02 is the icing on the cake. It seems like the Mexican way of playing either game (jump in) is very strong and I just couldn’t quite get it and find it very amusing if I play other fighters and a Brazillian/Hispanic dude just wants to jump in no matter how many times I successfully AA them they’re just going to keep doing it until it works.
That’s my experience, I come from a 3S/Garou background. Never had a problem with controls in either game. Took the time to really level up in 3S where I guess I could be considered as decent but not even blip on the radar compared to Japan. I suppose because of this I just don’t see the flaws in 13 when compared to it’s predecessors. It seems like some OG players don’t like 13 purely because of EX moves. I of course took to them like a fish in water.
As for changes to 13 I can’t really say I agree with your changes. Yeah CD pressure is good, but it’s character specific more than anything and if someone wants to spam jCD on you, there’s ways of getting them off. The only things I don’t really like about 13 and would like changed but it’s probably not going to happen:
1: Remove being able to tech throws after doing an unsafe special. This is just odd in general but a lot of people don’t seem to have a problem but it’s difficult to unlearn just throwing a guy when he has a sliver of life left when he does something unsafe.
2: Remove air HD activation. What is the point? I believe only 2 characters have air neomax (King and I think Mai?) and I don’t think it’s possible to do anything if you activate in the air as opposed to just, you know, jump in whatever, then HD activate into your HD combo.
3: Make HD activation a single separate button, no longer B+D. Accidental activation is an issue, and it takes a while to get basic HD combos down but I notice even when I’ve got the combo down, I can do it 4 times out of 5, and for one reason or another HD doesn’t activate or I get something I didn’t want. I’ve turned on input display and I run through (in this case a basic Clark HD crB, crA, activate, A Gatlin, etc) and sometimes I just get A Gatlin’ without activating, and sometimes I get C gatlin with activation. I look the inputs and sure enough it shows me hitting B+C so what gives?
4: I will agree that some wonky crossups need to be fixed but I think they were fixed in Climax.
It’s partially that, but if the reasons “why I got smashed” were fixed, then I’d be bodied even harder by players that have been playing since the 90s. If anything, it’ll bring the older peeps back and make the amount of work I have to do even harder. I’d have to still deal with new Athena tech, Mature tech, Hwa Jai tech, Liz tech, Duo Lon tech, and etc. and still get owned until I play up the match ups more.
But even from my position on the matter, I have had talked to more experienced players and even players that played KOF since Console came out and pretty much I have the consensus that people wished that zoning did more and that grounded normals weren’t stuffed that hard. That’s pretty much it other than weird damage differentials that skew risk and reward. I can play from 98og to 02 to 2000 to 02um to 98um to 97 and XI. There are things I’m used to and things I’m not used to and new things to learn and understand, but the games had good anti-air and collision detection.
I have had new players say to me they wished that their anti-airs weren’t just cleanly stuffed or traded. I see many older players don’t care about the ex moves but just don’t like how the spacing plays out. So I know it’s not just me on the issue of spacing and losing. But I can’t deny that yeah that writing this up is in part of my sentiment to me losing. But I could say if these things were fixed up, that I’d still lose because there are players that will simply out play me because their spacing is stronger. I’d still lose to MAD_Kof in the same manner as if I were to play him on GGPO in 98 (I did see footage of him play before against Dakou as I recall on GGPO/Arclive.)
Well let’s go over your changes:
“1: Remove being able to tech throws after doing an unsafe special. This is just odd in general but a lot of people don’t seem to have a problem but it’s difficult to unlearn just throwing a guy when he has a sliver of life left when he does something unsafe.”
Yeah I’m okay with it either way. Doesn’t really affect too much so why not.
“2: Remove air HD activation. What is the point? I believe only 2 characters have air neomax (King and I think Mai?) and I don’t think it’s possible to do anything if you activate in the air as opposed to just, you know, jump in whatever, then HD activate into your HD combo.”
Why take it out when people haven’t explored too much with it? K’ can get great air-to-air off of a counter hit j.CD and confirm into HD Bypass j.CD for the juggle and lead into ex Minute Spike and go into a big combo. Daimon could get a hard knockdown with j.CD, hyper hop foward while air activating and do hcf+C as an OTG and lead into bigger conversions. I feel that there is more in the game to mess around with in terms of air activation that could lead into interesting set ups or scare an opponent into another situation. I almost found one with Ralf and thought that I could do deep jump-in BC and do an air activate with j.C and force a low or overhead situation that would lead into super into neomax for 80% from an instant situation. Turns out it didn’t work because the point which Ralf’s Dive could drive cancel is no longer an overhead, so I have no true set up for a fast high low situation. But it’s this sort of creativity that needs to be exercised with this mechanic and just taking it out is just really dank.
“3: Make HD activation a single separate button, no longer B+D. Accidental activation is an issue, and it takes a while to get basic HD combos down but I notice even when I’ve got the combo down, I can do it 4 times out of 5, and for one reason or another HD doesn’t activate or I get something I didn’t want. I’ve turned on input display and I run through (in this case a basic Clark HD crB, crA, activate, A Gatlin, etc) and sometimes I just get A Gatlin’ without activating, and sometimes I get C gatlin with activation. I look the inputs and sure enough it shows me hitting B+D so what gives?”
Dunno, just sound likes your execution needs work rather than a valid need of having an HD Activation button. Don’t even know why you’d want to do Gatling at that point of the combo. I’d rather just a cl.C or something after activation then do Gatling if I need to. By the way, it’s B+C.
“4: I will agree that some wonky crossups need to be fixed but I think they were fixed in Climax.”
Yeah, because it’s a big issue when Billy does a jump D at Kyo and Kyo’s cr.C completely phases through Billy. Like if a game is like that, the collisions boxes are just slop. Or when Iori does a cross up that is a cross up but the animation shows that he’s in front and lands in front. Climax says it might fix it, but that’s what they said from Arcade XIII to Console. It still occurs too often, it’s just now you can’t just hyper hop over any character standing for free.
Overall, dunno dude. I come from a Third Strike and Garou background as well and the way I think about the game is pretty much different from yours. I thought that 98 at first was pretty slow, but it turns out it wasn’t that bad and the motions and button presses were slow and rhythmic so it’s good. I’m a pad player, so I don’t really know what the deal is. Shit like cr.B, cr.A xx Final Showdown is cake. 2002 I can admit feels like ass, that’s why shit was fixed in 2002 UM. Coming from SF and dabbling in Guilty Gear and Melty Blood, KOF 98 made sense, applied DandyJ’s guide and Maj’s Footsie Notebook and became decent at 98 and played it for almost 3 years. I dabbled in other KOFs and things transitioned smoothly. But XIII just has a few issues that need to be addressed before becoming one of the best KOF games made, and pretty much the aspects that make it a grasshopper game.
Like you have to be honest with the game. Many of the character’s movesets are well designed to make sure everything has a point and purpose (except dank cr.Cs) Terry’s moveset is one of those kinds of examples. In the past, his main blockstring and form of pressure was mainly in Burn Knuckle. Just blockstring into it or do a hitconfirm into it, all of it was the same. Now in KOFXIII, SNKP made Burn Knuckle unsafe on block but is the main special you want to cancel into to end your combo. Power Wave became better in the sense it’s the main way to end your blockstring with a special to chip and maintain advantage afterwards to continue your pressure. In return, it’s really susceptible to guard rolls and is a risk to do. Crack Shoot became relevant as it actually hits crouchers now and is the safer way to end blockstrings without being susceptible to guard rolls, but upon block it pretty much signifies the end of your momentum as most characters could reversal cr.C or press buttons during their advantage to stuff you and the only thing Terry can do to win is either block or commit to an invincible move that is unsafe on block. In the old games, all Terry had to do was pretty much use one or two specials and the main one being Burn Knuckle and just use that in conjunction with good normals. So how SNKP designed the game in general is really, really good and really fleshes out each character. They even added in new things with characters like Mature and Chin that I’m not used to and that I lost to hard. I’m not saying “Oh yo, Mature should be nerfed hard or Chin should be changed so he played exactly like old Chin because I’m used to playing against that.” I just want tools that are designed to work like they should to actually work.
Characters in general have really well thought out movesets in this game but gets overshadowed by a few things that are core to KOF, or lack thereof. It’s strong ground game and strong reliance on spacing and basics. Even in a game like XI where hops were king, many characters had good normals to still check with and cleanly won out in the situations they were supposed to win in. In XIII, normals are pressed in situations they’re supposed to win in and due to the game’s wonky detection, just have moves fly through each other or reward the jump-in. It’s not even about me losing and being a little bitch. Many other people see the janky coding this game has and it needs a bit more work.
On the last note, yeah there were ways to get around people doing j.CD on you. It was called cr.C, oh wait.
Anyway while everyone is whining about the game, I guess I’ll throw in my thoughts.
Straight up, the difference between 13 and older mainstays like 98 or 2k2 is basically the emphasis on precision, in that you don’t have a lot of freedom to do ‘stuff’ because it’s so easy to convert off of small things that any mistake is punished hard outside of the first minute of the match. There’s a lot less doing damage with basic normals, movement, etc. and a lot more using those things as a gateway into forcing a low/throw/cross up situation into big damage.
For me I think the biggest problem with the game is hd mode. Now don’t get me wrong, I love combos. I love long combos. The longer I can make the other guy sit there and watch me do damage to his character without being able to play, the more fun I have. Hokuto no Ken was really fun for me! I enjoyed doing the 100% combo with Raoh with no meter required. But at the same time I realize that 1 hit leading into 75%-100%, no matter the execution or cost, takes away the competitiveness of a game. Especially in a game like KOF where the defensive options are closer to the traditional side rather than new school…there’s no pushblock, air block or flying away. Roll is worse than it has ever been in a KOF game (which still seems strange to me). CD counters do so little damage, they might as well give the other guy life back. And since roll sucks, GC roll suffers along with it. Add to that very ambiguous crossups (at least its not arcade ha!) and the fact that you can os to catch rolls to either side on top of that. A game like this, to be truly called competitive at a time where people are more intelligent than they’ve ever been regarding fighting games, can’t have 1 touch kills. It’s not the mid-2000s anymore.
It’s weird because KOF13, like most games, has a pretty logical slope when it comes to resources= damage. Generally, when you look at the average damage you get for so much meter and drive, you get diminishing returns. This is how it should be; you choose to either take the most ‘bang for the buck’ damage, or you spend more and take an extra 10% here or there, the benefit being that you’re paying extra to get that damage here and now, rather than saving and hoping for another opening. But when you take HD mode into consideration, the damage slope is completely linear, all the way up to 100%. It makes no sense. It dumbs down meter management because you can’t use hd bar for anything except doing combos. The decision is literally ‘hey, spend 50% and do 50%, or save the whole thing and do 100%’. Or if you’re mr karate, spend none and do 50% and just save for invincible reversal into 50% or 80-90% hd combos. ;7)
For the longest time, myself and most of the people I played with had the hardest time finding anchors. Trying to balance what fits the player’s style, having hd combos you can reliably do, etc. A friend of mine (who is an excellent fighting game player) would always say ‘no matter what character I pick, no matter if I’m usually good with them and enjoy playing them first or maybe second, I always suck with and hate playing last’. Eventually It became clear why that is. The late game in kof13 sucks. No way around it. It’s not the worst ever, that award goes to you know what…but it’s certainly not good. It’s clear the devs wanted to artificially create tense moments with these types of combos, where one guy has 10% and the other guy has 90%, yet it’s still a 1 hit game. Oh well, guess I’m just getting old ha!
You are too good and too old. Thinking about it more, the most un-fun part of the game really is last positions. And you’re right about the conversions and precision. When I think of that though, I guess that shows how sloppy I am I guess or willing to commit to whatever. It’s not like I randomly DP or go for cool reversal super jump j.D with Clark and gimmick by doing a command throw as I’m touching down from the whiff (thanks 02 Clark players,) but I guess I’m more willing to press buttons from disadvantage to get people out or press a few buttons to pressure without the fear of huge conversions if I space well enough.
Then I think that leads into why a player like Karou can play the way he does and wins. He plays in an old school kind of style of KOF, but he does play in an extreme fashion of doing nothing and watching the opponent. Then he uses his great reactions to just make sure he converts well. But otherwise he just really does nothing. I used to complain that I’d have to force 20 errors to win but it’ll just take 1 error to kill me because of how the game works. Then you get a guy like Karou that’s actually willing to play that patiently and willing to do nothing and actually take the time to force 20 errors without getting hurt. Then he plays characters that enables him to do so such as Ryo, Mr. Karate, Raiden, Daimon, etc. Even then, he ultimately didn’t get into top 8 for KOF XIII.
Oh well, thanks for your input. I think I’ll pick up Ryo now for sure thinking back on things now.
I felt the same way watching him play. He simply takes the least amount of risk possible, and chooses his places to attack very carefully. It actually reminds me a lot of how Viscant plays mvc3. In a game where 1 mistake can cost you everything, he plays to minimize the ‘randomness’ of the game so that he can play as consistent as possible.
I wouldn’t consider it whining, just nitpicks. To put it in perspective I consider KOF13 to be my 2nd favorite fighter of all time, just behind 3S.
As for HD Activation; I will admit my execution is nowhere near Desk but when you have input display on and you clearly can see that you hit the B+C buttons and you still didn’t get an HD activation, I don’t know what to think of that.