How is this not paper/rock/scissors?
It seems to me that people who believe mind games and guessing games are the same thing enjoy KI’s gameplay, while people who know the difference find it shallow. But that’s basically how the series has always been received, so I imagine that’s what old fans want.
Why am I wasting time on an idiot, hello ignore button
Firstly, TAC combos, KI’s breakers and DOA’s counters are like 3 completely different things. TAC more so than the other two.
TAC’s are just…different. It’s sad when people relate TAC’s to the other two things because TAC’s are purely a guessing game with no mind games or reads involved. You can create mind games and reads out of KI’s breaker system and DOA’s counter system. You can’t with TAC’s and that’s why KI and DOA5 have developed competitive games around their systems while Marvel 3’s TAC system is pretty much just pure guessing into death combos.
With TAC’s there is no reading or visually looking for an attack the opponent is doing like how you look for auto doubles or linkers in KI. You get put in a combo and then are blindly forced to guess one of 3 inputs. There is no visual tell for the input the opponent is doing like an auto double or linker. They just press buttons in a basically invisible window and you guess. Guess the one right command, you don’t die but are pushed back to the far end of the screen. Guess one of the two wrong commands, you die.
With KI there is a whole element of visually looking for the auto doubles before breaking them. Meaning there’s no blind background guess of what to break like a TAC. It’s just the different strengths of auto doubles will test your reactions to different levels. Light auto doubles are the hardest to break, but do the least damage and raise the combo value the fastest. Mediums are a good medium but can also be reacted to if you’re on point. Hards are easy to react to, but those are usually set ups for counter breakers and if you break on it during a counter break, lose half your life with KV reset. They also have completely different animations depending on strength.
Then you have linkers which follow after the auto doubles and these you must break based on the amount of hits they do rather than looking for 2 hits of different speeds. Light linkers are basically impossible to break on reaction/the human eye. They are too fast and only do one hit. Medium linkers are 2 hits and are possible, but you have to be quick. Hard linkers are 3 hits and are the easiest to pick out but can also be used to fake medium linkers and can also hide a counter breaker in them. Linkers have the same animation per strength, but the animation and even the amount of hits can change depending on which special move was used. Some linkers like Thunder’s triplax or Orchid’s flik flak do 2, 3 and 4 hits instead of 1,2 and 3.
Then there’s manuals which are essentially one hit advanced auto doubles. These are basically like using auto doubles that are the speed of light linkers. Light medium and hard manuals all are too quick to break on reaction to the human eye. The only tell for them is that they have to be linked after the end of a linker, opener or in rare cases like Glacius’ ranged auto doubles. So if the opponent makes their linker draw out it’s obvious a manual is coming. Yet there’s still no way to visually tell which manual they are going to do. You can guess, but the timing is very strict and you either guess and get it right with the right timing, guess and get it wrong, or guess and get it right, with the wrong timing. The latter two obvious lock you out and put you in a guaranteed combo.
Which once you fight someone that’s good with manuals that takes you to going back to having to break linkers. Damaging manual combos usually involve links off medium or hard linkers, but you can always counter break to catch people or switch up to a light linker into light manual or any auto double and lock them out.
Then there’s shadow linkers and breakers. You can use shadow linkers to force a new part of the breaking system where they have to break the attack at multiple points (all shadow linkers do 5 hits and have wildly varying speeds, Orchid’s flik flak will vary from slow to fast during the 5 hits). You must break 3 of the 5 hits successfully to escape a shadow linker. If they screw up the timing on one of the hits they get locked out. You can also counter break their attempts to break on the first or second break. They can also purposely do one break to get you to go for a counter breaker, watch you whiff a counter breaker, then put you in a combo. Shadow linkers also add 0 points to the combo value/KV so they are free combo extensions if successful.
There’s other small stuff, but that alone shows that the difference in dynamics between TAC’s and KI’s breakers are very large. One has a whole meta game, reaction, read element to it. The other is just pure guessing that’s very one sided. TAC’s are basically broken rock paper scissors that aren’t in your favor since it’s either you do paper when they paper and don’t die or do something else when they paper and die. KI breaker system is much more of a meta game and can’t really be related IMO to rock paper scissors. It’s just its own thing. Fighting games in their most raw form devolve into a form of RPS, but it doesn’t work that way once all of the elements from the meta kick in.
Well to avoid further derailing this thread from what the original post actually asked, the truth is we don’t know how this game’s"hype"will be until its tested at a major venue like evo. The game has good presentation and lots of top players are playing it so that’s a good sign…however we don’t know if it will be another SFXT or SF4 to the FGC crowd.
If I had I make a guess based off my experience in the FGC I think the game will be mainly a niche affair for a dedicated few.
Thanks, that was very informative.
Once it gets to the point where players have memorized enough tells to break most everything on reaction, doesn’t it just become a binary guessing game of breaker vs counter-breaker?
I feel like KI players often abuse the term “mind game” to describe things that aren’t.
One is 100% guessing (TAC) whereas the other is reactionary (KI). The mind games come in when you as the agressor bait a combo breaker and in turn do a counter breaker.
It really can’t be explained any simpler than that though - one is a guessing game, one is reactionary.
Well, what would you call it? You can also Counter Breaker, do a combo that is easy to read, bait the Breaker and punish.
Just a guessing game, like Trouble Brewing said. There’s not a great enough variety of options and rewards to warrant the breaker system being called a “mind game.”
I would call the Breaker system mind games, just one that can be expanded upon. Combos can be reacted upon given the situation. I also believe that since breakers are seen as a “second-chance” mechanic, that it will be seen unfavorably if not done well.
Light auto-doubles/linkers/enders are the fastest hardest to break but do the least damage.
Heavy auto-doubles/linkers/enders do the most damage, but are slow and easy to break.
Medium auto doubles/linkers/enders are the well… medium.
Heavies are also prone to being bated into counter breakers, extending damage. There’s a reason to do each thing.
There’s also manuals which are supposedly harder to break, but those are another subsection of the combo dynamic.
That said, counter breakers are too much of a risk. Whiff and you’re open to a free punish to the combo system (not to mention you lose all of your potential damage for not doing an ender). It’s not like combo breakers will cause you to lose 25% damage. If you’re better than your opponent, you won’t really need counter breakers (or at least that’s the way I see it).
Whats the difference between a guess and a read? Whatever your answer is, it what you do all the time in all fighting games, then someone fucks up and gets punished. The difference is KI brings it into the combo system, that’s all. You have to constantly work for your reward in KI so the other player has to fuck up twice, once for getting opened up and once for locking them selves out.
Something I’ve questioned for a while now is, if heavies are apparently so piss-easy to break, why do they still grant the fullscreen blowback and elimination of all potential damage as the significantly harder light breaker? That’s the sort of thing I meant when I said there wasn’t that big of a variety of options and rewards, because no matter what you break, the result is still the same.
You clearly haven’t played the game so can you stop posting acting like you have? Mind games are there and the breakers aren’t a “guessing game”… You can react the animations easily… unlike the TAC in Marvel.
That’s why I said they can be expanded upon. Having different outcomes for the different breakers would make for more possibilities. As of now, it’s just “if you’re right then you’re free, if you’re wrong then you pay.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but having more variety in the combo dynamic would give the players more possible outcomes to think about.
To expand on counter breakers, I think they’re too much of a risk. If you’re the better player by a wide margin, why would you expose yourself to the combo dynamic?
Even between players where the skill gap is close, if you go for a counter breaker and miss, you put yourself in a position of playing catchup. As of know, I think counter breakers really only work well if you’re behind and need to go for the win. This video from Max is a good example, although this isn’t high level play of course.
youtube.com/watch?v=FKnJH1WCeL0#t=02m40s
Maybe I’m wrong somewhere, but that’s what I’m seeing.
Wait a minute, that card!
Umm, what?
ssf4 + upgrades ~30$
xbox360 = $200
stick = ~$100
$300-$400 if you get a nicer stick and the game is mad old.
Firstly I’ll just say that it’s best to have actually played the game for a long period of time before making any real judgments on the combo/breaker system. It’s one thing to see it on video, and another thing to actually play with it against people regularly. I know a lot of people here still can only make quick judgments based on what they see on videos at best.
Again, I’ll say that I’m not sure I see a specific need for different breakers to do different things. It wouldn’t hurt, but I don’t really see the system becoming that much more dynamic through different breakers doing different things. That just muddies up the abstract combo/breaker system even further for newer players and sometimes just letting something simple create its own depth is better IMO. People are doing fine with the way the breaker system is as of now and it would just be change for the sake of change. You are already in a bad position for getting hit so there shouldn’t be extra benefits to utilize and master that would start to make being put in a combo a good thing.
HP auto doubles already work as the main set up for counter breakers. They also do the most damage so there’s enough of an element for both players to work with there. There’s the incentive for the opponent to break it since it’s easy to break and will do the most damage to them of all of the auto doubles if they don’t break. Which then creates the incentive to mask it with the counter breaker and forces the breaking opponent to respect the HP auto double.
This can also get rather character specific. As a Glacius player I probably use counter breakers more than any other character. Partly because he is the only character that can do long ranged auto doubles. Which means outside of a couple characters with meter, if I hit someone with a long ranged auto double I can do a counter breaker pretty much for free and only risk some positional disadvantage at worse if I miss. This obviously doesn’t work as well if I’m at a life deficit, but it’s an interesting character specific use. It especially helps because he only has one linker from that range and his ranged auto doubles start to get rather easy to read once you’re used to them. He can’t manual from far range that I know of outside of f+MP into auto double which can only be done with that normal.
Every other character must take a combo if they screw up outside of Sadira and Orchid when they are in instinct (they have counter break OS’s with their instincts so you get stuck in their instinct projectiles if they whiff a breaker). Which means the strength of counter breakers is specific between characters. In general though they are useful for turning the tides and give you incentive to use HP auto doubles in your combos without the opponent wanting to break them. Which ups your damage without having to look for a lock out. They are especially useful during a shadow linker because they can grab up any attempt to break a shadow linker.
Ya know what will help with the hype?
A mode that features orchid and sadira sucking each others titties. It would be called"killer CUMbo"mode.