1581

When I play online, I set the online reccomended level to 3, which basically solidifies me having a less-laggy game, lvl4’s are almost impossible to come by in the US unless you got 100 megdown net lol. I have about 55 meg at my dorm and I get lots of Lvl 3 bars.

1582

I dunno, when a simple Normal > Command Normal > Super + HD Activate > Neomax combo does like 700 damage or so, I think knowing complicated HD combos become less crucial. Certainly in japanese/korean videos you dont see big HD combos very often.

1583

Mileage may vary, but I just added more fellow Norcal players to my PSN and just gave them the heads up that if I see them online that I’ll challenge them in KOF XIII. I’ve been playing within my area and the connections are passable to great as long as they’re wired ones. So that’s how I’ve been getting my practice in. Just need to contact people in the area.

Yeah I’m at the point where I’m all fuck it and will just do (with EX Iori) cl.C f.A BC cl.C xx hcb+D xx dp+C xx Maiden Masher xx Neomax. I’m not going to do the DP xx Command throw loops anymore. Sure if I do the basic loops during HD I could get 820 damage for 3 stock, but I’d rather not drop it a million times like I did at Ramnation. Can’t afford to let anything slip. The first combo I mentioned does 781 so there is a 39 damage differential (both combos starting from a cl.C f.A confirm.) So yeah, fuck it baybee~ Don’t need style, just need kills. Usually I could force enough errors in a round where they’re hit 3-4 times by singular normals, and that puts them into position to be killed by something that does 700 damage or less. If I hit a person 4 times with air to air j.D with EX Iori from hops, that’s 272 damage. If someone does a random DP after that, I could get a cl.C punish then go into that HD combo for 781. 272 + 781 = 1058. Or, a start off with a standard cl.C f.A xx C Rekkas for 245 damage. Doing one HD combo with 3 stocks after that is still 1026 damage.

So yeah, baybee the small combos. So theoretically, if someone does two random dps and I could get the punish on each, they’re done. Or if someone does a random Guard Cancel CD when I do a safe hop, I’m blocking and getting a free cl.C punish. BAYBEE BAYBEE BAYBEE

1584

Yeah, thats why I disagree with your earlier post about needing to learn fancy HD combos. I think KOF13 has a good balance in place, fancy combos are damaging enough to be rewarding, but they only do a bit more than simpler alternatives so they’re optional enough to make it ok not to know them.

It feels like it’s equally viable to wait for fancy combos or to use your meters asap for EX moves and other stuff.

1585

No, you still need to “know” HD combos, just not necessarily the ones that are too over zealous. You can’t not know HD combos. Sure there’s a difference between 30-60 damage on the type of HD combo you do, but you can’t just not do HD combos and keep doing 200 damage or so bnbs or 400 damage bnbs with drive when someone will hit you with 700-1000.

I didn’t say that you need to know fancy HD combos, just to “know HD combos.” Because otherwise, you’re going to be like me and lose tournaments and outplay most people there with fundamentals then get hit by an HD combo or 2 and lose the whole thing. It’s really aggravating.

1586

I feel bad saying this, but I am one inch close to calling KOFXIII a scrubby game compared to 2002UM/98UM.

1587

I actually find quite a few 4 bars. The problem is that the bars aren’t very accurate most of the time. I’ll only play Yellows if I know them personally.

1588

yeah same here, only friends with 2 bars are the only 2 bars I will play. I probably don’t get many 4 bars because I’m in Alabama lol and no one really plays kof13 online down here.

1589

I agree. I think a lot of people get the impression that HD combos have to look like a Desk video. Where it really has to be something that you’re comfortable doing and can land it a majority of the time with high damage (700+ depending on meter usage). There’s a lot of easy HD combos that can be done out there. Though I can’t land Billy’s for the life of me.

1590

This is true.

A lot of older KOF players who are new in XIII in my local scene are being destroyed by some “combo freaks” with bad fundamentals when they do a single mistake, although a lot of friends coming from 98/2002 and are still learning HD combos and players with great fundamentals are still in control of most situations, it doesn´t happen all the time but as you said when this happens is really disturbing.

And yeah a lot of people get a wrong concept about combos, they want to do achieve flashy stuff instead of effectiveness.

1591

Yes cr.B into shit into HD shit is arguably kinda lame and dumb, but so are King st.C: The Game featuring Kasumi j.D, and the Ralf Show. As much as I like a lot of older games I can’t pretend there isn’t stupid bullshit in them… though the stupid bullshit is honestly part of why I like them. HD combos might be offensive for multiple, but just put in some time to do something that’s half-decent damage and you’re good to go.

1592

I am with Laban on the HD stuff.

One of the thing I had to learn fast was how to do simple (as I suck execution wise), damaging HD combos without too much ressource (3 bars max).

Now that I can pull some 750+ damage in real match with at least two of my characters from anywhere on screen, life is a lot easier.

Only problem : I will never be able to do good with some characters à la Takuma, as I fail to do this damage with them. My choice of character is therefore limited.

1593

But Takuma’s damage is easy, once you learn how to do cl.C, f.B xx [db]~f+D you basically get a free 900 damage 1 meter HD combo. His BnB’s also follow the same suit, if you get that combo down he’s like the hardest hitting character in the game for the resources.

1594

So true, once you learn cl.C, f.B xx [db]~f+D, you can do insane damage with Takuma. He can get over 400 damage on a meterless corner combo, 650 damage for 1 drive and 1 stock and a relatively easy HD combo that does almost 800 damage with no stocks and 900 damage with 1 stock.

1595

Update is live for some people on PSN. Should be coming to more people soon. Reportedly the online has been improved, to paraphrase, a red bar connection felt like a yellow bar, but at this point it’s speculation. Also among the new features for online, is to filter matches by latency.

1596

http://atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9943

Good news. (Europe got it first lol).

1597

Haha, a lot of the older KOF players feel that way. But when you look at actual tool sets, the game is really well designed and almost more so than the past KOF games. It’s just, yeah, damage ratios and rewards are really really skewed. It’s just that factor that puts it between a great and a bad game, no “good” middle ground.

To be honest, in the end I really enjoy the game. It’s just I’d most probably be more comfortable with meter management and doing HD combos in real matches if I actually had competition to play or if online was decent. If someone could hit me with a stupid HD combo, then I should be able to do so too. Since I could actually force more errors, I should technically win. But yeah, it doesn’t feel good at all to be hit by a bad player just once then pay a whole life bar just for it at times.

Old KOF has much more dumb, gimmicky, stupid “stuff”, but there were ways to space around it (Kyo and Iori fundamentals to rape Ralf spacing in 98 and etc.) and that those tools didn’t lead into something like 70-80%. Ralf or King still had to hit you with 4-6 st.C to get maybe a good 60% off your health, but that means there had to be 4-6 instances of errors to actually earn those hits, all of which are susceptible to counters at appropriate times that lends into the meta-game of things.

Which leads to KOF XIII, they cut down a lot of stupid stuff in general from Old KOF as well as from Arcade to Console version. Tools are really well designed and each thing has a purposed and isn’t really annoying or dumb like stuff like Chris’ dp+P grab or O.Yashiro’s qcb+P or Arcade XIII Kula’s EX Ray Spin. But now the issue is damage output. If damage output was actually handled well, it would be one of the best KOF games conceived. Now it teeters on being a scrub game since people don’t like how people that don’t know HD or optimal combos lose out even if their spacing and basics are on point. XIII forces the player to need to know HD/Drive and meter management in that sense. Games such as 02/02um didn’t place emphasis on it and didn’t really require the player to need to use it to win.

So yeah I still love the game. What I want to do is go to EVO and hope that the producer is there again, and then rally a lot of people to bug him about damage output. Keep current HD combo damage, but buff up meterless combos, singular hits, and bnbs into 1 bar DMs without Drive. It’ll encourage smarter play, more emphasis on spacing and good footsies, and helps out the lower execution (or beginners at fighting games) players by giving them something to work with as they learn the KOF system.

I remember the days when Kyo’s cr.B, cr.A xx Final Showdown did like 45% in 98. I could still hop onto GGPO to do that anyways, haha.

All that said, all I really want is a good KOF game with Lucky Glauber, Heavy D!, and Oswald in it. Now that’ll be a blast. Closest thing to that is 98umFE (doesn’t have Oswald obviously) and I swear, that title will never come to the states. And if it did, everyone else will just play XIII, which isn’t a bad thing really.

Edit: Fuck 02 OG though. That game is mad dumb. Worse than XIII Console.

1598

Does anyone have a link to the Norcal vs Socal 5v5 at SCR?

1599

Well, thats why I made sure I said “fancy” combos. Sure, a normal > command normal > super with bc activate > neomax might technically count as a HD combo, but it really isnt the same thing as a “real” HD combo that uses lots of drive cancels and loops and stuff. And it will still do 700 damage or so.

1600

Yeah, HD combos are strong as hell in this game. I’ll only bother with lengthy ones if I’m short on meter or something or want to save my stocks. But if I have two/three stocks? Bout to kill the last character? Whatever>DM>NM. Or just skip the DM. At least EX moves and Drive cancel lead to pretty good damage. IIRC Kyo does have 100% combo no HD but it’s 5 stocks+corner. Takuma might as well not even know HD is in the game. And it is easy to get down if you keep it simple.

It is a gripe that cannot be ignored since it’s so strong but some of the older KOFs have their bullshit too. The only difference here is the in XIII a lot of the cast can do big damage BS just varying in how easy it can be done. The high damage capability with NM is scary. I kinda like and hate it at the same time. The high damage demands you respect it or get crushed. When damage is too low, people let their guard down.