you know... some times i think KI should slowly work it's way into an SF/KI hybrid type of game with less emphasis on combos to make the game more exciting from an outside perspective.
No No, it should be based on Short Hops pressure like KOF! *personal Bias*. I dunno... I think in a game like this, it's fine to have a character that changes the feel within their own gameplay. Kind of like how Combo has his special combo trail: everything looks like an ender.
I still love how unique Glacius looks, for example. Almost like watching a Mu or V-13 in Blazblue. You can say "These types wouldn't meet in any other game but __!"
like... the only time you can combo is when you use a shadow opener or something and shortening the average combo chain. Adding things like air blocking and stuff...
To first part, I could see that as a chara style, but how would that help normal play? Real combos are some of the most hype things in a fighter. If anything, the fact that pro-level combos are so short and "anti-KI" seemed to be the biggest buzzkill. Even when people got lockouts, normally, they didn't take damage to the limit... they just landed their ender and begane the wakeup meta again.
As far as air block... eh... I could see it making it easier for people to move aggressively on each other, but I don't think it'd change much without airdash. Which is something I don't think this game needs universally; the lack of aerial safety emphasizes the footsie game, and the lack of UBER GAT-LIKE DPs makes it so jumps are actually useful for more than SRK-FADC-ULTRA style damage-for-little-effort tradeoffs.
it always seems like the times when the game is at the best is when the combo chains are the smallest... and the least devastating.
the average combo in the new KI is higher than the typical maximum in the original game...
Best from which perspective though? Do the quick little 20~40% damage combos draw crowd attention? If anything, I figure one who doesn't know the mental game of KI would just find it dull. The EVO chat actively disliked the fact that the combos were so short and riskless. Which is sad, because KI is built in a way that should be 100% against such a thing happening.
In a way, KI feel similar to Blazblue to me. Everyone is doing small, pick-apart stuff for a time, and then, when the game gets close, it all comes down to one large-damage combo or special...
... except most of the players we saw never landed the large, name-of-the-game stuff. It just stayed "Street Fighter", but rarely became "KI-2013". The way a lot of these people played it just never did KI's strengths.
I had a lot of fun watching things like Spinal and Thunder play. They really seemed to be moving like KI. I loved the SF-ish aspect of the footsies, that looked great and technical, and really spoke to the solid foundation of the game. The conditioning and reads were also very nice, and spoke to the foundation of modern KI...
...But when combos started to end without max damage (I was very surprised by this), risk were not taken, instincts were used for run away instead of maxing damage or turning to the tide... eh. It's like watching a KoF 98 player play XIII, without doing any of XIII's system-specific things.
Kinda makes me worried for Maya, actually. The way many of these guys played, she'd never get to level a dagger. It'd just be weak, "I could do this with anyone" light attacks into enders over and over... :-/
