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The King of Fighters XIV |OT| ¡VIVA REY DE DINOSAURIOS!

Deps

Member
Koreans seem to be getting used to fighting Nakaruru. TGS event just ended and both Vash and Verna won vs Madkof.
 

Hyun Sai

Member
Man, I really tried to make Banderas work, but I definitely can't play characters with such shitty normal moves. Will try someone else in my secondary "casual" team ^^.
 

BadWolf

Member
https://www.twitch.tv/msf_thefist/v/88722157

Starts around the 1 hour 18 minute mark. 4 players but double elim.

Less than a month since release and these guys are already firing on all cylinders. The best level of play seen yet imo.

Some notes:

- The primary way they seem to deal with zoning and fireballs is just moving forward and blocking.
- These guys don't mess around with bad rolls. The vast majority of players maybe either throw the opponent or stick out a poke, these guys chase them down with runs and hops and land full combos.
- They need to nerf Mature's EX DP and/or EX fireball. The stupid pressure she can get going aside, the chip and guard damage she can stack up is silly. The DP was balanced in XIII, don't know why they messed it up here.
- Vash's Kyo is so damn impressive.
 

Hyun Sai

Member
Less than a month since release and these guys are already firing on all cylinders. The best level of play seen yet imo.

Some notes:

- The primary way they seem to deal with zoning and fireballs is just moving forward and blocking.
- These guys don't mess around with bad rolls. The vast majority of players maybe either throw the opponent or stick out a poke, these guys chase them down with runs and hops and land full combos.
- They need to nerf Mature's EX DP and/or EX fireball. The stupid pressure she can get going aside, the chip and guard damage she can stack up is silly. The DP was balanced in XIII, don't know why they messed it up here.
- Vash's Kyo is so damn impressive.

There are many things I found really silly here, reminds me of the XIII arcade version :

- You already mentioned Mature EX moves.
- Love Heart crouch C -> double sword -> super / neomax is so braindead easy and so little risk it makes no sense.
- Athena / K' damage is insane for such complete characters with insane zoning tools.
- The Bird !

On the other side of this coin, there are so many low tiers characters with moves not only really weak / impractical + high risk compared to the easy / delirious shit some of the high tiers got, I'm convinced balancing was not done when they launched and they're still working on it. 50 characters is no easy task.

I'm sure I forgot things in that list, but I expect MANY buffs/nerfs along the cast coming sooner than later.
 

BadWolf

Member
There are many things I found really silly here, reminds me of the XIII arcade version :

- You already mentioned Mature EX moves.
- Love Heart crouch C -> double sword -> super / neomax is so braindead easy and so little risk it makes no sense.
- Athena / K' damage is insane for such complete characters with insane zoning tools.
- The Bird !

On the other side of this coin, there are so many low tiers characters with moves not only really weak / impractical + high risk compared to the easy / delirious shit some of the high tiers got, I'm convinced balancing was not done when they launched and they're still working on it. 50 characters is no easy task.

I'm sure I forgot things in that list, but I expect MANY buffs/nerfs along the cast coming sooner than later.

All, true. They just went overboard with some characters. A zoner like Athena shouldn't have a command grab that's better than most grapplers. And they basically reverted K' to XIII arcade status and gave him back the stuff which made him S tier there.

Aside from Xiao Hai mentioning a patch we know it would have been coming regardless since they said they would be fixing fuzzy guard, hopefully the patch comes packed with balance changes (like the day 1 patch). The faster it's done the better off the game will be.

The battle director did say that they only had about 11 or so days to work on balancing one character so hiccups in the beginning should be no surprise, luckily now they can just release a quick patch instead of being screwed like with arcade XIII.
 

DR2K

Banned
It looks like people just aren't playing this game anymore online. This game requires way too much knowledge and netcode isn't suited for some of the stupidly complex motions and everyone I've played in ranked has been playing KOF way too long. Short hopping fiends.


Qcf to hcf and all their variants are just fucking stupid and unnatural.

There is nothing in KOF 14 that promotes learning the game through natural play. You HAVE to go to training mode to know what the specific timing for super and special cancels are.

The game doesn't just ask you to learn 1 character, but 3 at a time and their order makes or breaks a match.

The auto combo is of no help, you literally have to be a pixel away for it to even register.

The game is incredibly fun, but stupidly frustrating.
 

qcf x2

Member
It looks like people just aren't playing this game anymore online. This game requires way too much knowledge and netcode isn't suited for some of the stupidly complex motions and everyone I've played in ranked has been playing KOF way too long. Short hopping fiends.


Qcf to hcf and all their variants are just fucking stupid and unnatural.

There is nothing in KOF 14 that promotes learning the game through natural play. You HAVE to go to training mode to know what the specific timing for super and special cancels are.

The game doesn't just ask you to learn 1 character, but 3 at a time and their order makes or breaks a match.

The auto combo is of no help, you literally have to be a pixel away for it to even register.

The game is incredibly fun, but stupidly frustrating.

Who has a qcf to hcf motion? I think you're confusing yourself. I don't know what "learning through natural play" means. Order doesn't necessarily make or break a match. There is a meta game there, yes, but skill trumps all.

I think this game has a lot of depth (mostly by virtue of roster size), but I don't think it's as complex as you're making it out to be. Maybe it's just new to you / frustrating that Street Fighter skills don't really translate much. Personally that's what I enjoy the most, it's very fresh coming from SF.
 

JTCx

Member
Ok so i wasnt crazy when i said K' is a stupid character. That tournament solidifies it.

Has anybody seen any good Kukri play? I've tried using him on my team since Day 1 and its just not working out for me, hes solely the reason why I'm losing the vast majority of my matches. You can't really zone with him since his projectiles don't even reach full screen and can be hopped over. Can't play footsies/neutral since his normals are either too slow/short. It's really hard to reliably AA the opponent especially during full jump. I can see where they we're going with him by having a character all about setups but i feel like hes put in a wrong game with how everyone can just hop around with random moves and not get punished for it. I'm really thinking about dropping him but i still want to give him more time.
 

yella

Member
He's got almost no weaknesses... I'm still learning, and whenever I see someone using him, I think 'well, that's another loss'...
 

Xevren

Member
Really loving Beni in this, kinda happy with Benimaru / Kula / K' as a team for now. Been kinda all over the place with characters.
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
The only real problem I have with something like Athena have an awesome invincible-on-start-up command throw is that she now has this in a game where it's better than the dedicated throw characters. When Vice had hers, Yashiro had a variant, or Clark had Armor on his and crazy options like Shining Wizard and Frankensteiner, and Maxima had REVENGA + Dash throw, then... who cares? It's just a single thing she has access too that other characters have access + variations to.

But in this game, She's got a grapple that outdoes similar tools from not just Maxima, Clark, and Vice, but also other characters like MuiMui and Tung. This is a strength that starts on grapplers, and trickles to other classes, not exist exclusively on someone that has so much else.

If anything, that makes me feel like some characters could do a bit more with strength variants of certain moves (like A and C having more varied uses), and that some normals could be given better / clearer purposes.

There is nothing in KOF 14 that promotes learning the game through natural play. You HAVE to go to training mode to know what the specific timing for super and special cancels are.

Can't agree with this at all. My brother and I jumped into VS with a hell of a lot of characters before doing specific training with them.

The timing isn't tight at all. Like... at ALL. You can do move motions and button presses while a previous animation is happening, and the positive overlap of certain motions helps make many things easier. You can cancel from specials into supers at multiple points in the same move. Even super canceling fireballs can be done without the fireball hitting, or while it's in flight, and cancels from them will still work.

You're making a lot of complaints that the game is designed to avoid. It's smartly easier that basically any game in the series, and probably one of the most easy, yet still complex 2D fighters out there.

The game doesn't just ask you to learn 1 character, but 3 at a time and their order makes or breaks a match.

Not at all. Characters are made in a way where they can play any position, and get something our of the strength of those slots. And there are SO MANY shared motions between characters, and they basically do the same things. Such as Multi hit supers sharing the same 1 or 2 motions, fireball supers sharing the same 1 or 2, all Kyokugen people having the same motion for HaoShouKoKen, new character using motions old characters have to do similar things, etc.

When you learn the motions and basic Normal->Command normal structure in a KoF, you've learned almost half the cast. When you learn the way hits can combo into command throws, you learn that for nearly everyone that has a command throw. Overheads can be super-canceled out of on basically everyone, and they don't require difficult links to make them worth using. RUSH combos require you to be close for them to work... but guess what? Jump-Ins ALWAYS land you in the perfect spot for them! And jump attacks are one of the basic things new gamers want to do.

In my time playing in Single-Character lobbies, the mode was LOADED with people who wanted to focus on learning 1 character. You can tell these people were not pure KoF players, but transitional fighting game players. Maybe you should practice there until you're confident in a new addition to your team? I found it a lot more populated than single play modes usually are in other King Of fighters.

Also, party play allows you to just play 1 character under normal team rules. If you're daunted by 3 characters, let 2 other players carry you for a while, and pay attention to how they play, too. Especially if they're playing characters you like.

And this isn't even mentioning Onlien Training mode.
 
GGs Khalil. Probably not very fun for you since I'm a total scrub. I got a lot to learn still.

The game is incredibly fun, but stupidly frustrating.

The learning curve is definitely pretty steep. The fundamentals are still completely lost on me and the only character I do "well" with is King because I rely on her specials to cover up that fact.

Is there any extensive frame data list out on this game yet? I feel like if I could start learning what button(s) I could or should push under certain circumstances that would help a little.
 

Deps

Member
I think if you have prior fg experience, kof14 isn't too difficult. Initially, I was really turned off by the 50 character roster(yeah yeah yeah), since it seemed like it would take ages to learn matchups, but most characters in KOF are very similar. After you learn one shoto or grappler the rest are easy to learn, kof is more of a systems game.
 

Amedo310

Member
A video about K's ein trigger to Second Shell at mid-screen. It kinda shows the different between Kyo's Hcb+Ks too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVLUrN06Tds

Here's the video description:
In the video, K''s Second Shell is shown at two different distances from the opponent at mid-screen. One after doing a meaty crouch B and the other after doing two crouch Bs starting at the same position.

One meaty crouch B makes the opponent blocks the Second Shell.
Two crouch Bs starting from meaty position makes Second Shell whiff and can be punished.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although Kyo's hcb+D lost low invincible, it seems to have a smaller upper hitbox at start-up compare to hcb+B. The hcb+k that punished Second Shell at the end of the video was hcb+D. Hcb+B was the move that was counter-hit by Second Shell.
 

qcf x2

Member
Really loving Beni in this, kinda happy with Benimaru / Kula / K' as a team for now. Been kinda all over the place with characters.

Yeah, I recently discovered how awesome Benimaru is in this. Always think of him as the low spin kicks guy but this iteration of his character is very fun and does very good damage from all over. He has oddly poor walking animation though.

Me too and it's killing me. Need to pick a team and stick with it.

This. I talk myself into switching characters so often, yet I know the people I end up matched against are just using some combination of Iori/K'/Mature/Nakoruru/Kyo/Kula. I'm still team Sylvie despite her awful range, and Mui fits nicely as an anchor for me, but for the lead position I always talk myself out of staying consistent. I think I'm actually solid with Hein and I get surprising (to me) mileage out of Xanadu as lead, but I don't think I've found "the one" yet.
 

Hyun Sai

Member
https://twitter.com/GO13151/status/774984425629036544

Go1 is playing KOF XIV. And he's a K' player.

It's Go1, I wouldn't have it any other way lol.

Any idea for the last 2 ? I know he used Nakoruru Athena and I don't remember who at that fist week tournament in Japan.


Well, I decided to stay with "fond memory" characters. Sie Kensou and Terry from my 98 days, and Mai because I loved her in XIII. I may also work on Robert (also played him in 98), but I don't feel comfortable with Terry yet (he is so different from XIII), so his play needs improvement.
 
i still don't have a real team. i pick kim and then whatever. iori, billy, geese, terry, alice, sometimes robert. i don't like to pick the most popular chars you see online all the time because zzz.

i hope they keep balancing the game.
 
It looks like people just aren't playing this game anymore online. This game requires way too much knowledge and netcode isn't suited for some of the stupidly complex motions and everyone I've played in ranked has been playing KOF way too long. Short hopping fiends.


Qcf to hcf and all their variants are just fucking stupid and unnatural.

There is nothing in KOF 14 that promotes learning the game through natural play. You HAVE to go to training mode to know what the specific timing for super and special cancels are.

The game doesn't just ask you to learn 1 character, but 3 at a time and their order makes or breaks a match.

The auto combo is of no help, you literally have to be a pixel away for it to even register.

The game is incredibly fun, but stupidly frustrating.

Also, I actually think people are not playing this game as much because it is a really niche fighter that many people seemingly do not even know about. I think only the hardcore SNK fans and some of the fighting game fans are playing this regularly. Casuals or the average gamers are probably going back to their shooters also since fighting games can be intimidating, especially if the gamer does not have patience.

I really hate some of the crazy super move motions and ! agree that they are not practical at all and this is coming from someone who grew up on fighting games. Qcf to qcb to 360 motion to forward, back to qcf back to 720 motion isn't really practical for most people, especially if you have a laggy connection.

Yeah, learning 3 characters probably is overwhelming for most casuals. Sort of reminds me of Tekken Tag 2's requirement for proficiently learning two characters.
 

DR2K

Banned
EX Mature doesn't really care about the bond between a girl and her bird.

https://youtu.be/BwY34a478dY

Sometimes this game likes me. I've already gotten a couple of OCVs with Mai since posting my rant.

One thing really weird about this netcode is that I have to back all the way back to the main screen after a ranked match to get a connection. This also happens with DOA5, probably my router.

EX Mature is ridiculously fun.
 

Loona

Member
Yeah, that's essentially what I am having a hard time with. I jump around to so many teams instead on concentrating on a few. Think I narrowed it down to Terry, Andy, Leona, Mai and King for now.

This is why I like using the character information screens you can access from the player profile menus - I liked the XIII version more since it gave you win percentages for characters, but it basically lets you see which characters you win the most with, especially if you look into the screen that only lists you online games.

What I try to do is take my least used characters to free play and party mode to build up some statistic information on how well I do with them, and take my most successful ones to Ranked while also trying to focus on their trials.
Over time those with a lower win ratio are put aside, although still given a small chance at redemption through free play is they're the least used ones, while the most successful ones, while used the most get put on trial more often, and if they can't cut it, others with a higher win ratio eventually replace them. It tends to refine my character choices over time, making the difference clearer between whom I like and whom I do well with.

There's still the pending factor of character order and how that affects the stats (a character that only gets to beat the opponent's last character tends to get a higher win ratio but fewer matches, for example), but that's something one can try and figure out from personal preference and affinity within the trio at hand.
 
It looks like people just aren't playing this game anymore online. This game requires way too much knowledge and netcode isn't suited for some of the stupidly complex motions and everyone I've played in ranked has been playing KOF way too long. Short hopping fiends.


Qcf to hcf and all their variants are just fucking stupid and unnatural.

There is nothing in KOF 14 that promotes learning the game through natural play. You HAVE to go to training mode to know what the specific timing for super and special cancels are.

The game doesn't just ask you to learn 1 character, but 3 at a time and their order makes or breaks a match.

The auto combo is of no help, you literally have to be a pixel away for it to even register.

The game is incredibly fun, but stupidly frustrating.

yes, it's a fighting game

you have to learn the things to do the things
 

BadWolf

Member
Shanghái Tournament Grand Final 2016

So there were tournaments for the game in Korea, China and France this weekend, nice.

ET's Beni is a beast (he was one of his mains in XIII as well).

Buff K'.

Has anybody seen any good Kukri play? I've tried using him on my team since Day 1 and its just not working out for me, hes solely the reason why I'm losing the vast majority of my matches. You can't really zone with him since his projectiles don't even reach full screen and can be hopped over. Can't play footsies/neutral since his normals are either too slow/short. It's really hard to reliably AA the opponent especially during full jump. I can see where they we're going with him by having a character all about setups but i feel like hes put in a wrong game with how everyone can just hop around with random moves and not get punished for it. I'm really thinking about dropping him but i still want to give him more time.

He's one of my fave new characters, so fun and cool. His fireball is good and the EX version is a great anti-zoner tool, they also aren't as easy to hop over as regular ground fireballs (Billy for example can't vault over it with his command normal like he can with other ground fireballs).

The way I deal with jump-ins is QCB+LK (has invincibility post start up) and his teleports (especially against long jumps). His teleports are great for this since he not only gets out of the way clean but leaves a sand image behind which the opponent can land into so you can start your own pressure immediately.

His sand tornado kick, st. CD and close st. D all have frames with low invincibility (you can test this by going over fireballs). This also means that if you do st. D point blank then the opponent can't throw you.

yes, it's a fighting game

you have to learn the things to do the things

Hold the phone, are you saying I can't pick up a new fighting game series and start kicking everyone's ass from day 1?

Tekken 7 pre-order canceled.
 

qcf x2

Member
I really hate some of the crazy super move motions and ! agree that they are not practical at all and this is coming from someone who grew up on fighting games. Qcf to qcb to 360 motion to forward, back to qcf back to 720 motion isn't really practical for most people, especially if you have a laggy connection.

Yeah, learning 3 characters probably is overwhelming for most casuals. Sort of reminds me of Tekken Tag 2's requirement for proficiently learning two characters.

Seriously, where are you guys getting these motions from? Show me two characters with ridiculous super motions. The most atypical motion in the game is probably f, hcf + button. Everything else is a one or two motion variant of qcf, hcf, qcb or hcb, all of which are a lot more practical/intuitive than the down-charge supers from SF past.

As for learning 3 characters, weird nobody complained about it with the versus games?
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Learning multiple characters in KoF, and this one especially, is not very hard once you realize the degree of commonality between characters and character move sets. Not to mention common commands and common super cancel sequences.

Casual players may not understand even that much, that commonalities between two characters or across a game's combat system is even a thing to look for. So sure maybe the game could use some form of extended tutorial that demonstrates that.
 

Loona

Member
Via SRK, Chinese version censorship:

Luong
Zarina
Mai
Angel
Jiggle nerf

Mai with the granny panties -_-

I like a lot of these more than the original versions - especially Luong's (her design doesn't need that odd cleavage to work well - it kinda dominates the design once you notice it) and Angel's (she looks good/nicely casual in pants).

I actually just tweeted Oda about the possibility of making them DLC for the rest of the world.

Only Mai's feels a bit weird, but such is the weight of history. The bouncing could be come an option, I guess, if someone finds that too distracting.
 

Pompadour

Member
Seriously, where are you guys getting these motions from? Show me two characters with ridiculous super motions. The most atypical motion in the game is probably f, hcf + button. Everything else is a one or two motion variant of qcf, hcf, qcb or hcb, all of which are a lot more practical/intuitive than the down-charge supers from SF past.

As for learning 3 characters, weird nobody complained about it with the versus games?

But they did? Regardless, for MvC3 you get a ton of mileage out of LMHS + MHS at lower skill levels. People can get by learning one character and then picking a good assist and having an anchor character with good supers. I was never good at Marvel but I got fairly far at launch learning Wesker, using Hagger's assist, and X-Factor zoning with Arthur.
 

BadWolf

Member
Slightly OT but it seems that Xiao Hai was in Japan recently and was running sets with Japanese players at an arcade in various KOFs.

Luckily someone was on hand with a cam to record a set between him and Koukou:

KOF XIII Xiaohai vs. Koukou (Japan)

I've been wanting to see these two go at it for the longest time.

For those who may not know, Koukou is one of Japan's best KOF players. He easily has the best Kim and Claw Iori out there and his Duolon is one of the best as well. If you want to see what relentless pressure and good execution look like then this is the guy to watch.

Set spoilers:
Xiao Hai basically got owned for the most part, only won three matches and in most matches couldn't even get to Koukou's anchor character.
 

TreIII

Member
Yeah, that's essentially what I am having a hard time with. I jump around to so many teams instead on concentrating on a few. Think I narrowed it down to Terry, Andy, Leona, Mai and King for now.

Pretty much the only consistent member of my squad has been King Dino. I haven't really been able to concentrate on anyone else, really.
 
Set spoilers:
Xiao Hai basically got owned for the most part, only won three matches and in most matches couldn't even get to Koukou's anchor character.
Sheeesh, that's pretty bad. Xiao Hai is still the undisputed king in 98' though, at least from what I heard and remember.
 
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