I don’t know if anyone will agree with me but…
I think a HUGE part of 13’s gameplay is punishing. That makes up easily 50% of the metagame. Because you have so many options and you can do so much damage off of one good setup, it seems like just looking for that one mistake or baiting a mistake is just as if not more beneficial than typical KOF style rushdown.
You can look at any high level tournament and see a lot of that. One mistake equals 500 damage or TOD.
Punishing is a huge part of any game, the thing that makes XIII different from other games and other KoF games even is that the damage doesn’t reward going for resets or mixups in older fashions because cr.B turns into a kill combo. The risk/reward is horribly skewed because of how easy it is to get damage in XIII, mostly thanks to HD.
The game isn’t ***MORE ***focused on punishing than any other game, the problem is that people don’t go for risky stuff because you don’t need to. This is probably the least reckless KoF game ever made just in the sense that playing incredibly safe all the time is probably the best idea, you don’t need to go for tricks and you don’t really want to because if someone sees through your trick, you’re dead, where as even if your trick worked you’re maybe getting an additional 100 damage or whatever. In 98 for example, most high end BnB damage topped out at 60% or so with a meter, but going for a reset could end up killing. You were encouraged to go for resets and mixups because the damage you got rewarded it. That’s not the case in XIII and because of it, most of the damage comes from punishing, because people don’t want to risk anything.
I was referring to the game being more focused on punishing in comparison to the other KOFs.
And I just explained why it’s not more focused on punishing than other KoF’s, it’s less focused on resets, which encourages safe play and makes most damage come from punishing. There’s nothing that makes the physical punishes better outside of damage, the actual punish tools are the same, the issue is that reset damage isn’t worth doing resets. Mixups in general aren’t as good just because the damage is too high without going for them, so you see punishes more often. If HD damage was nerfed you’d see less punishes and more risky play because it would be worth it.
if there is one thing that makes punishes a factor, its the fact that you can convert off of pretty much any footsie normal into HD fairly simply
So, how do people feel about NECXIII afterwards? KOFCAST is gonna go up later today (www.twitch.tv/kofcast) and they’ll be talking about it, but we don’t even have results up for our game on SRK…or anywhere as far as I know. What do you guys think?
I think it is something that definitely needs to be talked about. I know some people have posted their views in the Kof 13 fb group.
It’s a serious problem to be sure, but I feel like that is because we’re not as force anymore. I feel like we’re at a point where gathering new people to play this game is difficult.
I think one of the reasons to this is people have kept saying that the game itself is “hard”. Personally, when i picked up the game i found it easy to get into and adapted rather quickly. I’m not sure if that had to do with a year of competitive sf4 or not. (i’m a 09er) But with any game the longer its out the larger the skill gap increases. It’s also that the game isn’t getting promoted like it used to, not saying people aren’t putting forth their best efforts, (shoutout to alex valle) , but it’s not being put out there like it should. And also Big E just announced FREE entry into KOF XII at upcoming Winterbrawl with a guaranteed pot of $1,000.
There’s a lot of factors into why KoF isn’t “huge” that branches further out than just the incident this past weekend. a lot stems from just about everything in the FGC as a whole.
But the same can be said about other non mainstream fighters as a whole.
KoF is a hard game. The thing is, there are so many games out now that most people see no reason to continue trying to get better at KoF because there are easier games out there that give you just as much satisfaction with a lot less effort. So why spend all your time trying to be an execution monster with KoF when you can take that time and be good at 2 or 3 other games instead. It only becomes worse when you realize the skill gap between top KoF players and casual KoF players is so huge that they see no reason to bother entering a tourney. You can be a casual marvel/SF/ect player and still hold your own, but you’d get bodied in KoF, and that’s no fun. It’s a game that you have to stay in practice with because it’s so execution heavy. Even I can play some street fighter which I haven’t played in over a year, and still play footsies with someone.
Like Shin Oni said, this is a problem with a lot of non mainstream fighting games, it’s just something that you have to deal with. Mad props to Atlus for keeping up with the pot bonuses.
What do you feel can close that gap? I mean, there’s probably info or skills that they have in the game that make it easier, but do you want to see more videos, high end play, or something that would make the gap easier to bridge? Or is it just impossible? Also, you can still play pretty good footsies and neutral game if you understand the game enough. That’s not very much an excuse especially if you have a pretty good knowledge of the game. If you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and some decent reactions, execution is a non-issue.
I also feel like long winded HD combos are overrated. Knowing one pretty good HD is great and you don’t have to have super crazy execution. There’s a handful of characters that have really hard combos, but a day or so in training mode’ll clear it up.
In any case, back to what I was asking, what could bridge the gap between casual players and regular players?
SNKP needs to make Garou 2 with GGPO or some other roll-back based netcode and don’t load the game up with comeback mechanics.
The tracks have been laid for fighters not made by Capcom to take off. There’s a variety of reasons why the game is dying and we could argue over what caused it to happen or just ignore that the game is dying. That’s not going to do anything and we need to move forward. The game simply does not have that infrastructure like Marvel to self-sustain for so long.
A Garou 2 with GGPO with the return of Just Defend and maybe some modified form of Line Sway. With the original cast and maybe 5-10 more characters. It would be a hit. Garou has that crossover appeal. Capcom players like it. SNK/KOF dudes love it. It’s accessible and yet not too easy. And has that name brand recognition.
A 13UM or 14 will only do so much. The diehards would buy it, but that makes up a very small market. Plus you look at how well the revisions of Marvel and SF4 have done and they’ve all sold significantly less than the last game. They need to give KOF a good 3 or 4 year break and do a sure thing.
online
edit - hd combos are fun (for some players) but dont do anything positive for the game other than making people play tighter (arguable)
unfortunately online hurt KoF the most because casual and newcomer players want to be able to play others online and feel like they’re doing good/playing well/have others to play with.
while people keep saying KoF is “hard” it’s really not. People are not used to an actual fighting game execution. It’s claimed to be hard because people have to actually put extra time into learning 3 characters, their normals, their combos, and possibly 1-2 HD combos. Add on the big special move inputs that can confuse even veteran players at times, it can be more downhearted than hard. But people see it as “why do all that when there’s not enough people playing to warrant my training?” then head back to capcom/mainstream land.
In this current generation, you need online for fighters to have a thriving casual scene which in turn makes the actual scene a bit more alive because you’re able to keep those casuals entertained and possibly more interested to be more than casuals. This has been said many times though beforehand for any fighter that isn’t KoF. It doesn’t help that everyone and their friend keep praising how “KoF is hard” and kept saying “mission combos are actual legit combos” which then turned most players off. It’s nice to say all this but it does more hurt to the game than good.
again, a lot of shit plays a role in why KoF or any non huge current game gets shunned. Most of the blame would go to would be potential players who play but lose interest. But We can’t fault players for losing interest. Fighting games as a whole right now are way too casual so things are catered to the masses of casuals.
Yeah, imo, bad online is what hurt KoF 13 the most. Especially for guys like me who aren’t able to make it out to RL sessions very often at the moment. Even though I love the game, seems kind of pointless to keep training when I don’t see myself being able to put that training to use anytime soon.
I think an “ultimate” edition with good online and new characters would do wonders for the scene. But financially I don’t think SNK would go for it.
I know a lot of you have already made up your minds about the game and where you stand, but I still want to get your opinions. I’m working on a survey to get an idea of what people want in KOF XIII events from a viewer and player standpoint.
If you guys could check it out, share it around, and fill it out, I’d appreciate it. Anyone can fill it out, even if you don’t actively play or watch the game. There’s a free copy of KOFXIII for one lucky winner too.
Thanks.
After chatting it up with a friend yesterday, I honestly think the whole KoF ordeal at NEC was a bit overblown. I understand where romance is coming from (and other complaining) but considering other non mainstream games also don’t get main stage time (like you know…anime games) It’s hard to justify the main stage part.
My big problem with KoF at NEC was running it on sunday and not on saturday and then top 16 on sunday. You have no clue how player’s schedules are when it comes to leaving and KoF ran all the way up to like top 3 marvel finals (which was like around 11ish IIRC.) But KoF not getting any main stage time is more of a personal complaint than a justified one. Especially when there are other big games that don’t or didn’t get on the main stage at NEC. (Persona didn’t get on the main stage and it had a pretty huge turnout.)
while I have no clue how they decide what gets on the main stage, (Honestly not too sure how MK keeps getting up there. Seems to always take forever as if they’re doing top 32 or something sunday morning/afternoon.) I would think number would obviously play a role. But whatever. My point is I don’t necessarily agree with the “KoF not being streamed on the big stage” complaint. It was still streamed considering I don’t think it was going to get any stream time at all for top 8.
I’m actually looking for tournament organizers and community leaders who want to run KOF XIII.
I’ve got more than 200 entries in the survey. I think it’s credible enough for use. So if you’d like this information, send me a PM.
I’m not too angry over NEC though not having the results up when all the other games were done (Even Persona) was a little infuriating. I feel like if we want people to play more, we need more casual sessions. Atleast, that’s what people are asking for. More information needs to be put out there and more opportunities to try it out without feeling like you’re losing money.
No, Kof not getting main stage is kind of a problem honestly. You can’t say well Persona/Blazblue didn’t get it either. Those games had their own stream set-up for them and everybody who wanted to watch anime finals were in the anime room watching it. Meanwhile Kof gets a team tournament run on 2 set-ups with no stream and the actual tournament run on 4 monitors with almost 60 people in the tourney with no stream to speak of. I’ve never felt so shafted at a tournament before.