@Laban we got your stuff up on the front ppage.
Laban that was an epic write up, deserves the front page treatment it got. Gratitude, I all but forgot about this game, now Iām looking forward to it.
Indeed, throughout each Saga, thereās always a new Hero Team.
Spoilers, maybe
From KOF '94 to KOF '97, it was about Kyo, Benimaru, & Goro (with Iori & Chizuru playing a bigger role alongside Kyo starting in '96) in the Orochi Saga.
Once that Saga was over, they were pushed aside to make room for the New Hero Team consisting of Kā & Maxima during the NESTS Saga from KOF '99 to KOF 2001 while Kyo, Benimaru, Goro, Iori, & Chizuru became regular characters.
Then from KOF 2003, XI, & XIII, it was centered around Ash Crimson alongside Duo Lon, Shen Woo, & Elizabeth while Kā & Maxima became regular characters just like Kyo & the rest. Then Ash erased himself from existence in order to stop his evil ancestor.
My guess is that Team China will be the new Hero Team (especially seeing that the Chinese company that bought SNK Playmore wanted a team of their own).
Team China with Sie Kensou as the lead, finally starting on the Dragon Spirit arc.
The Dragon Spirit Arc is like the goddamn unicorn. Iāll believe it when I see it.
I actually think the Palace Wan team will be the main team. Not saying China team being the main team is impossible, but for each arc they seem to have totally new faces of a team represent each and Tung Fu Rue is in the China team.
Plus the Palace Wan team seem to be āentertainmentā related which I can see being connected to the Russian Billionaire (Mid Boss).
Also I can see them trying to make the games first female protagonist, which would likely be the acting mask girl.
Well from what we saw of Ralf from the trailer heās noticably slimmed down from KOF XII/XIII, I wouldnāt mind Clark staying a bit more bulky though, it fits his fighting style and itāll help to differentiate him more from Ralf again after they both looked like head swaps in XII/XIII.
Vice and Mature can keep the pantsuits, but Iori should wear a dress again.
Have they removed the affection system in 98UM? It does not seem to be activated. Or is it only available in VS mode?
Also is there an option for a background character to interfere in your behalf?
Nope, both of those are 98 vanilla specific mechanics. They caused more trouble than they were worth and made certain team combinations terrible through the merit of story continuity or basically pure random. It made more sense to the balance of the game to remove them.
According to Twitter user frionel, KOF XIV is in the 4th place of most viewed trailer of PSX15.
1st : FF7R
2nd : Uncharted 4
3rd : PS2 games on PS4
4th : KOF XIV
And Oda reacting to this support by the fans.
sorce :
https://twitter.com/frionel26/status/673988716256456704
I predict that KoFXIV will continue to look relatively ass (even if the quality of the models improve, I think the general art direction is pretty poorā¦ I sincerely doubt that plastic-y looking aesthetic is going to change between now and release) but will actually be awesome to play. With a large cast, new story, new characters, new boss(es), etc., a true return to KoF that really hasnāt been seen since KoFXI (over ten years ago!), nobody* is going to care what the game looks like even a week after the game is out.
Damage could stand to be a little higher outside of combos into DMs, but thatās easy enough to tweak. Aside from that, it seems fine so far. But am I the only one who is annoyed that EX moves are only available during MAX mode? Why not have access to EX moves at any time, since they have their own unique motions? They can still be āfreeā during MAX Mode, and cost 50-100% of a bar outside of it.
Regardless KoF fans, I think itās safe to start getting hype.
*Not counting anyone who wasnāt going to buy the game anyway. Sadly, I canāt say with any confidence that this will do especially well financially, but I think it terms of impact, it will easily find its audience.
Having EX moves exclusive to MAX mode is basically your powerup to do extra damage. Besides, itās no different from having to be in MAX mode to do SDMs in 98.
Letās just hope that shall KOF14 succeed it will guarantee us KOF15 and an even better game
Quite a few people have voiced their concerns about it. Me personally, I donāt agree with that notion. I PREFER the current system. Why? Because XIII showed us what happens when EX moves are in the game. Some people complain that XIII EX moves were too strong, but the real issue is that the game being balanced around EX moves meant that your regular specials sucked, because EX moves had to be worth doing. Non EX everything sucked, DPās, fireballs, juggle moves, everything needed to be toned down so EX was important and that sucks. Hellpockets, who also didnāt like the idea of MAX only EX, had the solution to tone down EX moves, but even if you did that, they still cost as much meter as a DM and wouldnāt be worth that cost. So what, you make EX moves cost half a bar? Fuck it. There are more important things to worry about than how to make EXās work in KoF.
This new system, I like it a lot. Why is that? Because youāre not trying to make EX moves worth using, youāre trying to make MAX mode worth using. If any of you have seen high level 98, you might have noticed that no one really uses MAX mode. Itās typically not worth using. They tried to fix that in UM, but what ended up happening is that Extra modeās Quick Max got tons of use and is one of the reasons that Extra is fucking busted in UM and Advanced MAX mode just kept being not worth it. On top of that, raw activation in Extra wasnāt worth it either, because youāre giving up your ace up the sleeve, the Quick Max. So this new system right, you only get EX moves when MAX is activated. EX moves are still strong, almost like XIII, in some cases stronger (Andy EX fireball). On top of that, it makes it so that EX moves are NOT the same value as a super, because in one MAX activation you get multiple EX moves. So is MAX mode worth using? Boy is it. Thatās really great, youāve fixed two problems in older KoF games right there. Normal specials get to be good because they donāt need to be designed with EX moves in mind and MAX mode is worth using finally because you donāt just get a damage increase, you get a toolset increase and your strength and utility as a character goes up. Well what about that other issue? Quick Max vastly outshines raw activation in 98UM to a substantial degree. Well this system accounts for that as well. You can use Quick Max to get some extra damage off of a confirm, which was basically the original intended use for Quick Max anyways, but you only get half of your MAX timer, which means Quick Max is ONLY good for extra damage off of confirms and does not replace raw activations. If you want to gain access to your EX moves, possibly use the new MAX super freeze to react to something, and boost your strength as a character, you raw activate. If you want to optimize your damage and really cash in on an opening, you Quick Max. They work together in an elegant and beautiful fashion.
This system is CLEAN. Iām talking about take a dump and donāt even need to wipe clean. It fixes so many problems that older KoF games had in such a simple way Iām shocked no one thought of it before. Hell, HD mode in XIII would have been fixed if when you activate to cancel a normal you only got 50% of the timer. I honestly donāt see a reason for the mechanics to NOT work this way other than it seems weird on paper. You might want to have access to all your tools all the time and thatās pretty understandable, because the MAX activation can be a tell that you want to use EX moves. But think back at XIII, what kind of properties were they giving to EX moves? Well they didnāt want the blue flash to be a giveaway so almost all EX moves are fast to the point of being unreactable. Itās either that or theyāre invincible and being used in a situation where reactions donāt matter. I donāt know about you, but Iām not a fan of that. Yes, the MAX activation is a tell. But at the same time, because youāve already announced that you want to do EX moves, they can get really creative with move properties. Iām gonna go back to Andy because his is the most blatant change and itās one we got to see a lot. Andyās EX fireball in XIII was a super fast unreactable fireball that ate other fireballs. Okay. Thatās useful I guess. But at the same time, how often did it get used? It was a gimmick. Ha ha! You didnāt see this coming! Now you take very small damage and I gain very little from hitting you with it! Now look at it in XIV. Itās fucking Yoga Catastrophe. It doesnāt matter if you telegraph it, you now have to be super cautious around Andy because this thing will lock you down and making hasty attempts to get away could cost you. That tool is INVALUABLE. And sure, it could have worked that way in XIII as well, but if it was that good his super would be pointless And that creates other issues. You shouldnāt design characters with tools that invalidate other tools existing. When a character becomes bogged down with pointless attacks they become pretty boring to play and you generally ruin the experience. You want to give the player options, and this system does that.
I mean I apologize for the essay and all, but this has been something Iāve been thinking about for a while since PSX and the info went up. People talking about how they want it changed also made me kinda want to put something somewhere outlining why the game working the way it does is a good thing. I donāt agree with the notion that you should change things because theyāre ālameā, everything ahould have a use, nothing should step on the toes of anything else, a mechanic should compliment characters instead of taking away from them. KoF is a series built on universal mechanics, and itās important that all characters benefit from those systems equally so as to not create disparity from a mechanical foundation. Thatās one of my problems with 3S, you have a universal mechanic that all but completely and 100% ruins fireballs forever, but then you design characters who still rely on fireballs. Your mechanics negate entire characters and thatās ridiculous. There are characters in XIII who really donāt have great EX moves, and there are tons of moves that are made invalid by the existance of EX versions. That is poor design, and what weāve been seeing from XIV is making strides to make sure nothing is invalidating anything else and that everything is good and strong and worth doing, and that is really important.
JohnGrimm:
Nice post explaining your position. I canāt say Iām 100% convinced, but at least now I have a better understanding of why SNK would have done it this way.
I too have an issue with moves invalidating other moves, and especially with systems invalidating whole characters (side note about 3S: I do agree with you, re: projectile characters getting invalidated, but do note that most non-EX special moves would have sucked in that game even in the absence of parries; but I digress). However, it depends on the game. I think SFIV did a pretty decent job balancing Specials Moves to EX Special Moves (not not EX Specials to Supers - the former clearly invalidated the latter). But Iām definitely in the āI would like all my tools at onceā camp (Iām still of the opinion that W-Ultra should have been the only option for Ultra, and moreover, that that should have been the only option since SSFIV).
Concerning KoFXIV, I stil think EX Specials should also be available outside of MAX Mode - just adjust their costs/properties to suit. EX Specials could cost, say 75% of a bar, if 50% is too cheap and 100% too expensive because it puts them on par with DMs. DMs could also have a higher minimum damage scaling threshold to further separate them from EX moves. I agree with everything else, like Quick MAX duration between 50% of raw activation.
That said, it would definitely be harder to balance Specials/EX Specials/DMs this way. And when trying to pump out 50 characters out the starting gate, I guess it makes more sense to do it the way it is now.
The thing to remember with EXs, is that when they were first added in Street Fighter (III), they basically took the place of level 1 supers from the Alpha series (especially noticeable with Ryu whoās supers became EX moves). Super Arts on the other hand were basically level 3s. This is why supers became quite important, match up changing elements in that series.
With KoF on the other hand, EXs didnāt really take the place of anything. Which is where the issues that John mentioned come in, since you end up having to adjust the existing tools, often for the worse, to create a place for them (something that actually happened in SFIV as well with certain characters).
I just thought of something that I havenāt heard anybody mention or talk about. We more or less know the roster of the game already, so them now the question that needs to be asked is, What next. Is Kof going to go the Street Fighter route and try to keep the game alive for 5+ years, Are they going back to their old ways of yearly releases(like that of a sports title), or will they just fade off of the face of the earth like they have done more recently. If they drag the game on(like Street Fighter V) they stand to benefit from building a new fan base over time and make additional revenue via dlc, but will never get the chance to upgrade to a better graphical engine or potentially work on other projects(you know, cuz they have a pretty small team to start with). Yearly releases with little to no post launch dlc, gives the team more time to make adjustments to the games(such as graphical enhancements) and could possibly be much more profitable. However It could alienate fans who just arenāt up for buying a new copy of more or less the same game every year(you know, the same shit that made SNKP go bankrupt in the first place) as well as hurt the games competitive community by keeping it from ever building. And I think we can all agree that no one want SNKP to just vanish again.
I canāt decide which one Iād prefer, Iād love to see new teams steadily added to the game like Team Orochi and the American sports Team, but I would also like to see more fine tuning to the game mechanics and graphics over time after launch, which would be some what hectic to do with the first engine(or so I assume. I donāt actually know how these things work)
Seeing the game in action has me very excited, too bad I donāt have a ps4 
Still, Leona is looking nice and I canāt wait to see some Billy gameplay. Iām happy to hear theyāre striking a balance between short combos for players that donāt like doing them and players that love them can still do it. Also, itād be great if they can buff the damage a little bit. The neutral in KOF is so great.
Also, pls bring heavy d! back. And Terry. Obviously sometime soon.
Well, with XIII SNK showed that they didnāt mind the revision style of development. This is definitely a game that could be kept alive with revisions. Balance patch+a team or two for $15 or something and call it XIV:Overdrive or some nonsense. I donāt know, Iām kinda interested to see how it goes. I would be kinda disappointed if they jumped ship to a new game after putting this one out because this looks to be the best collection of mechanics in a game in the series. That might sound like blasphemy to some of you, but really every KoF game has its problems, even 98. From a mechanical standpoint this could be my favorite KoF game, so Iād like them to stick with it for as long as they can, but maybe theyāll decide to jump straight to XV since so many people are making that comment, since apparently the graphics are so bad people want to distance themselves from the game as quickly as possible (those people are idiots).