KOF XIII Theory Fighter: Re-balancing

[PenPen]

Here's some quick thoughts (or thought, rather) on Ralf. From my playing of him plus match vids, he can get close, but it takes more effort for him to be effective. How about I add a move here...(and we're running at a deficit now with this addition)

- Add Larf Kick: What would make Ralf better? Larf Kick for long range! Make it the old D version where he can jump over most projectiles, flies pretty high so anyone trying to meet him in air would get hit. Take away the juggle property if he hits the opponent. I'd not want to make it some easy attack that Ralf can safely pull out though. I think his KOF 99 version would be a good one here: Some startup, little pushback, and a charge time. Yes, charge time! This means something like Raiden's drop kick but without the multi-level crap and invincibility (in 99, Ralf actually deals much more damage if the move is held long enough, we'll just give this move one single level). Ralf can hold B/D for 5 seconds, release it and LARF KICK (the move is the same regardless of which kick button you're holding)! I was thinking of adding an EX version that can counter wire too, by holding BD together for 5 seconds and releasing together. But in actuality, he doesn't need an EX version. He only needs some way to get to the other side, and Larf Kick would be a good addition.

I also got a totally revolutionary idea about Kula, which is removing her followups to her qcb+D and BD. But it doesn't really do much, though. And it ruins her gameplay. More ideas later, I suppose.

[Robocop Two]

Okay apart from the system stuff I would like to add a few things about Ralf.

1) Ralf mid-screen is about pressure, he has almost 0 wall push and that's kind of his biggest (damage wise) problem. Mid-screen Ralf's mix up from j.A, j.+A or j.A, cr.B, st.C is okay but as a basic mix-up tool it doesn't have much bang for it's buck. If you are successful with j.A, j.+A you bounce really far away and can't get any real pressure off afterwards as the opponent rises too quickly, if Ralf could dash into cr.C range and get that off in time it would be good but the best he can do is roughly CD range. So once you realise that the overhead option isn't THAT threatening you block the low option alot more but even that as a standard tactic is hard to execute due to the tight timing of the link. So changes 1 and 2....

1- make the bounce off from Ralf's Bakudan punch a little less, not only will it make a successful guess more effective but if he guesses wrong the opponent doesn't have to dash so far and they might be able to actually punish with something small.

2 - Ease up the link from cr.B to st.C, currently it feels like 1 frame timing or possibly 2, make it 3 frames or 4 if you are feeling nice (although that seems maybe a bit too easy?).

2) Okay so let's presume Ralf get's in mid-screen but how does he land damage and I mean really macho damage, the type Ralf should be doing. Well to be quite frank he can't. He punishes well with combos into +C, cr.C, +K and he can do damage in the corner with only reasonable resources but he doesn't have any wall push and if he is trying to be offensive then he isn't going to land those +C, cr.C combos because of the jump in moves push back is too much. So if we presume that Ralf is going to do good damage as standard, maybe if some of the EX moves are changed then he might have a chance at getting some decent damage that way. Unfortunately most of Ralf's EX moves are crap, the character feels like he has had alot of shit thrown at him in the hope that something sticks, well not much has. The only good EX move in regards to combos is the EX ground punch, if you hit some one in the corner with that you get free A gettling punches afterwards, if you try to use +C, EX gattling punch you have no juggle state afterwards. If you try and drive cancel at the end and you get no hits because the opponent is launched too fast, if you try and drive cancel a whiffed A ground punch or A gut punch and then follow-up hoping the recovery is quick enough and you still can't do anything, the move is poor. EX Vulcan punch is a little better but you still have to expend drive meter to effectively do what all other characters can do without it, which isn't good enough. So here are changes 3, 4 and 5.....

3 - decrease the push back from the +A+C on hit but increase it a little on block so that you could link an A gattling punch mid-screen and so if it was blocked Ralf couldn't keep up the pressure. This would mean that while some one like K' can get big combos anywhere, Ralf would still need to use meter to get his damage but at least he would have a bit of wall push as well.

4 - Change the start-up of the EX gattling punch so that it's a little quicker, not as fast as the A gatling punch but still fast enough to combo +C, b-f+A+C. Additionally, change the hit effect to be closer to Liz's EX grab so that Ralf can juggle afterwards and slow down the ascent and descent. To balance this out, maybe it should have greater push back so that mid screen you can't really combo off of it apart from +B/D but at least it would mean his corner combos would be different to his mid-screen ones and his mid-screen combos would actually mean something even if they did require good meter management.

5 - EX vulcan punch and standard Vulcan are just plain wierd, juggles in the corner where Vulcan punch would hit don't allow for the EX version to connect? Now I can understand one or the other having different juggle properties but the move it's self hasn't found much of a use in Ralf's movelist I personally feel it should be more like his 12 verion where on hit it had good frame advantage (enough to link in a st.D). I know that +C has replaced those properties so I don't think it should be the new combo tool of choice but if you were to reduce recovery it could be something he could use to give his pressure style more variation and stop people jumping away and it could actually be used in juggles.

My system stuff that would need changing is a far bigger list and too large for one website to hold so I think I won't post that one for now :lol:

edit. after playing a few more games I think I need to ammed my list of changes a little.
1 - the risk/reward on the dive punch is not good enough really, it should be safe but on hit he shouldn't bounce away quite so far.

2-5 - fine as is.

6 - The A version of his gattling punch is punishable on block, make it safe as all versions of the move seem quite poor outside of combos and they occassionally mess up the input for +A/C

7 - +A+C is too slow, people can tap you, see that you are doing the EX version with armour and stop to block the move. The move is pretty pointless, it wastes meter in it's current form and if you are unlucky enough to be a victim of the cross-up glitch then it can mean that you don't get your nice EX ground punch as an anti-air but a gut punch that does nothing.

Also the C version of the gut punch doesn't quite have enough +frames, it needs 1 or 2 more simply because you aren't in a situation where you have truely good options as all his other buttons are too slow to make use of the frame advantage. If you are playing against Yuri it seems like her cr.B will beat anything you put out and if you hop to go over her cr.B she has more than enough time to do a standing A to beat out any hop attack. You are in effect at frame advantage with NO ADVANTAGE. Alternatively you could just buff his cr.D by making it a frame or 2 faster or some of his other buttons as well.

[Gunsmith]

we had a little chat about rebalancing...

http://orochinagi.com/2011/07/kof-xiii-2-0

[SonicTempest]

I was going to post this as a new thread but then I remembered this topic existed. So, RISE FROM YOUR GWAVE

This is mostly inspired by a topic I read over at SRK (http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?th ... os.163798/) which is actually something I've discussed with some people like Iie-Kyo a few times. It's also something I've been thinking about and figured I'd start a thread here to get some opinions.

DISCLAIMER: I don't play XIII at high level but I have a reasonably good grasp of the mechanics and how they interact. Feel free to point out my ignorance if you deem it necessary.

So, on to the topic at hand.

After watching a lot of match videos of high level play (Evo, NCR, MLG etc) I've come to believe that while KOFXIII is largely well-assembled, there are a few things that still strike me as a bit off. Most of these relate to HD combos - to be specific, I think that they are too big a determinant in how matches play out, and need some tweaking.

Right now you see 70-100% damage HD combos being busted out a lot. While they're flashy and do make for a nice spectacle for people watching, I don't know that they necessarily make the game that much more interesting to play. It mostly tests the dexterity of the person who's executing them, and it means that a single opening can lead to a massive build in momentum, or even the loss of a character.

The common retort to this is 'but they take skill to pull off!' Well that's certainly true - execution is definitely one of the skills tested in a fighting game. But do note I said 'ONE OF' - there are other skills you also need to have, and I think the presence of HD combos in their current form puts a bit too much emphasis on execution over other skills like movement, spacing, reading the opponent and so on.

Another common counterargument is that doing that much damage on a single character doesn't really matter because you have three characters on your team and anything can happen. Not going to deny this - it's certainly possible to fight your way back from two characters down, but a lot of it revolves around the use of (drumroll) HD combos.

The console version actually facilitates this to some degree, because of the change to how much meter you gain while being hit. This was a big change from arcade to console, ostensibly to make it so that you had to think about whether to go for that big combo or not, because if you did, you would be giving your opponent meter! I guess this works as a balancing mechanic but it's rather clumsy, in that the solution to getting hit by long combos (all else being constant) is usually to land your own long combos using the meter that your opponent kindly just donated to you.

In addition, I think the risk/reward ratio is still kind of skewed. Right now a large part of why HD combos are so effective is that you can get a lot of bang for your buck. With two drive cancels outside of HD most characters can't pump out that much damage (50%-55% perhaps, with the exception of Takuma) but using those two drive stocks to go into HD yields disproportionately more benefit. Yes, there's added execution complexity but it's not terribly insurmountable for most people (and features like auto-dash make it a lot easier to do things like HD activate off light attacks), so for the most part, if there's an opening and you want to do as much damage as possible, a HD combo is the way to go. Granted, meter management factors into this somewhat but most characters are still capable of doing 60-70% even only spending two stocks (either comboing into NeoMAX or SDM).

There are a bunch of other things that help contribute to this, such as damage scaling being relatively lenient, having lots of moves with unscaled hits, having lots of moves that are anywhere juggle (this is a pet peeve of mine), NeoMAXes only costing two stocks in HD mode and so on, but those are the major ones I wanted to touch on for now.

So.

Thoughts?

[Iie-Kyo]

Of course, SS and I have been in a lot of discussion about this and it's been something that's been bugging me since the beginning of this game's iteration's life. I'm probably just too OG to adjust to the new game, but this HD system was something that I was worrying about since its very (re)ception in 13 arcade.

The execution requirement for the HD combos in this game IMO is way too atrocious. I get a feeling the reason why SNK went this route was to make the game more "marketable" to a player who likes seeing long flashy combos. Moreover, certain characters have a very effort to damage/reward ratio that makes them almost no-brainers to use over others. Ash's Sans Coulette HD combos require ungodly amounts of execution and positioning, which increases the risk of dropping them and you get so much less mileage out of it than Shen does. Of course the most obvious fix for this is to nerf the amount of mileage certain characters get out of HD mode (Shen, Mr. Karate, Takuma, etc) but that still doesn't address the primary issue of this high ARTIFICIAL execution barrier this game requires.

And yes, this is me bitching about the execution, because as SS pointed out, you shouldn't need as much execution as this game requires when you have good fundamentals. I think KOF 98 and KOF 2k2UM did it right with the execution part - combos required a bit more effort than simple 2-in-1s, but once you got it down (and it didn't take that long to get it down) you can get right into the meat of the game - the footsies, spacing, etc.

Ultimately, my general suggestion to hone this game to its greatest potential would require essentially a new KOF. I would lessen the general dependence on HD combos, remove that retarded console change where you get meter for getting hit (herp derp comeback mechanic, admittedly a lot less stupid than MvC3's), make that HD meter fill on its own (something that borrows from KOF XI's skill stock system) and generally make the game less reliant on long combos involving ridiculous amounts of juggling. If you're going to keep the HD combo system, increase the amount of damage scaling done off of lights if you go into an HD cancel combo from them (BBB HD cancel is fucking stupid and is one of the reasons why the top tier characters are top tier) and also require the opponent to MANUALLY input run after doing an HD cancel activation. There's your little element of execution for the people who are complaining I'm making the game too easy.

General damage in my opinion should be raised while removing the ridiculous amounts of juggling and hits necessary to output said damage. I'm saying let's get this game back to somewhere between KOF 98 and 2k2 UM levels of damage, where a good 3 B&B combos from most characters will kill you. SDMs AND NMs should REQUIRE you to enter HD mode (similar to entering PowerMAX mode in 2k2UM) in order for you to do them. By lessening the dependence of HD meter combos, more emphasis will be placed shorter combos requiring Drive Cancelling, which I'm actually completely fine with.

Of course, the entire cast would have to be rebalanced for these changes, but it's what I think would be necessary to make this game feel more like a blend of the old KOF with the new. KOF 13 as of this moment feels too much like some other game that just happens to have KOF characters in it and just happens to run on something that has many resemblances to the old KOF engine, but with all these changes that just makes the game... not feel like KOF.

[Toxic Avanger]

Removing juggling is definitely not the answer and would be just dumbing down the game. This is like the first SNK game were you have an absolutely and completely free system, and it doesn't have any infinites at all. This was already "clear" in XII, but the guys of SNK obviously over-tested and calculated absolutely everything so that the inertia of juggling wouldn't get you a dumb and infinite loop (and there are plenty of those in 2k2 and 98, well. some of them were patched in the arcade game but they are gone now). Also there is a lot of optimization that one can do while playing, this makes it so that KoF XIII is like the only KoF were one can continuously pretty much never "stop learning" and that translates that at any level, the more you play and "observe" the way the game plays the more you can improve and is pretty much boundless. This is a HUGE "different" from the previous games were the "never stop learning" was restricted to one or two characters in the cast (players could only truly improve at "the engine of the game", execution and character handling was generally arguably pretty simple).

The problem itself with the game is that all damage is too generalized. Sonic Tempest mentioned that by using 2 drive cancels one can get 50%~60% damage. This is more of an un-estimation. One usually needs 1 bar and 1 Drive cancel to get pretty close to 50%, and by using 2 or 3 bars and that drive cancel getting 60% is too likely.That means that even if you "take out of the game" HD mode and several drive cancels in a row, matches would still be faster at KO than in the previous games, I know this because a lot of the guys here are too mentally challenged to do HD combos and they still are in the lower 70% range of damage. Most of this would be "disguised" if one could set basic life at 150%, and I was actually quite saddened when I realized that I couldn't do that in the console version (like you can in XI, and the UMs).

About HD mode, it was obviously done like that to please the current gen trendy players that are totally overjoy combo focused games. And it's obviously too strong -as mentioned- in the original 2002 one could do like 4 or 5 doko cancels with the gauge out at it's fullest and you had to manually run or adjust far range attacks to do the combo and in there the mode itself was thought of strong then. Now you can do roughly 9 to 8 cancels and you have an auto run for the mentally crippled. It's obviously beyond ridiculous; and the saddening part is that even though the current HD mode has an obscenely easy entry level and broad range of easy application, half of people still call it "hard to use" and the other half players liked it, so it's probably going to stay there for good.

And about the stock gaining, some guys call this game SNK's magic plus it's obviously wrong.

Actually, I remember that with the crew we usually argue "which other game has such an overly simplistic combo system", as in, "land a normal attack, and by pressing 3 or 4 buttons in succession and knowing you can get 80% damage". And we are like, we can find in equivalent in how easy is to do. Even 3D games were combos are made with a single direction and button, it isn't as easy (because you usually need to take mental notice if the move is counter of it connected from close of afar or from the sides, and take into account the size and inertia of the enemy and etc). Even kusoge-s like Angel Eyes with their auto-jumps are harder to cheese