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

Deps

Member
While I still think its really stupid to balance the game so soon, it's probably better for the health of the game. Either way, good shit SNK.
 

BadWolf

Member
That's a really beefy patch, great to see them act so fast again.

A lot of great info in that MMCafe article.

It's nice how their next project is undecided because everyone in the team is competing to have their fave series be the next one to be worked on lol.

As we were discussing a while back, they confirm that they balanced various things to be strong and will now be reeling back in what went overboard.
 

Loona

Member
I never thought the Lore in a Minute guys would ever bother with a KoF episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1erE2B8RDw
They set out to only cover the Orochi arc since they only have a minute, so Iori, Chizuru and the 97 ending can't even fit in the whole thing. I'm not sure the Leopold name for Goenitz is official though...
 

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Im not a fan of quick balance patches but if they patch it on October and let it be for a while its gonna be good for the game.

Hope they buff Clark tho :3

Gatoray ‏@gatoray_kof 6h6 hours ago
Concerning to balance, producer said, "It was mentioned in development department, the bird is wanpaku(わんぱく, naughty or improper)" #KOFXIV
Wanpaku as f*ck

Pick a wanpaku tier.
lol
 

BadWolf

Member
Im not a fan of quick balance patches but if they patch it on October and let it be for a while its gonna be good for the game.

In this case it's a little different since they had to submit the game in June/July to Sony to be able to make the August release date. They still continued to work on the balance after that and the day 1 patch had a pretty significant balance update. This is just a follow up to that.

Pick a wanpaku tier.

Welcome to KOF, where naughty tier isn't Angel or Luong but a dang bird.
 
The command input in KOF14 may also be tweaked
It's not a problem for beginners but hardcore players are having troubles with the current game since its input buffer is a bit too lenient. Neo-G is hoping to tweak things to make it satisfying for both parties

Thank fuck for that. I knew i weren't imagining this. At least now i can use Terry without his rising tackle coming out when i perform a block string into powerwave.
 
Have they said when they are revealing what the changes are going to be regarding balance? Or are we going to have to wait until October to see them?
 

GrayFoxPL

Member
im expecting Love and Nakruru to get nerfed like crazy.

Really hope they buff Ryo to the heavens.

esNTQ3L.gif
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
I knew i weren't imagining this. At least now i can use Terry without his rising tackle coming out when i perform a block string into powerwave.

LoL, I guess you're pressing an up-forward in there somewhere? Some things are input leniency, but some things also would be assisted by learning to clean up one's inputs.

Have they said when they are revealing what the changes are going to be regarding balance? Or are we going to have to wait until October to see them?

This is the first we're hearing about it. It wouldn't surprised me to see them start teasing confirmed changes as they are prepared. I hope they do proper example videos just as they did for KoF XIII.
 

petran79

Banned
Had a chance to play few matches. PS4 controller sucks for fighting games BTW.
Put difficulty on 5. Picked AOF team.

Can't say I was impressed with the new game and the shift to 3d. At least Xiii retained 2d game play. Grabbing opponents here is way more cumbersome than before. Game has much more in common with the combo based Xiii instead of the older games. With the added problems of 3d models. I was leading in the final round by a margin, then CPU depletes 75% lifebar. At least on Xiii doing that took some skill. Here you just connect two super moves. Controls are more lenient than ever.
All the lifebar management went to waste. Almost every single move connected with a special way more frequently than in previous kof games. Meter was so easy to build.
Xiv is much better than sfv, no doubt. But Xiv felt quite underwhelming. Maybe kof15 will be better.
Felt like playing SF2T and then moving straight to SF4 with the special and super moves. Same here when I compare Xiv to Kof98 and 2002
 

BadWolf

Member
Ryo is whiff city against smaller characters with his normals. His damage output is still solid and he jives really well with the advanced and climax cancel systems. His fireballs in this game SUCK, oh man do they suck so hard. Worse range, worse hitbox, worse recovery. He had one move he could use in the neutral without getting killed and they screwed it over. Still, he is capable overall and I understand why he got the various nerfs from XIII. Linking from cr.B into cr.C feels more lenient.

Joe is free on wake up lol, both the light and hard DPs have no start up invincibility. On the plus side his rush super is invincible on start up now, both regular and EX. EX DP also has invincibility so he does have invincible options but no longer without meter. Looks like heel kick has more push back on block, which is good.

Stringing three shoulder supers with Chin is so damn painful.

Leona is such a bzzch to deal with.

Having a lot of success and fun with Zarina. Her normals are great and her hit confirms and damage output are sweet. Command throw is very interesting and can throw the opponent off, the EX version is excellent for combos. Specials are unsafe. Combos are very satisfying to do.


So nice, there was some Angel too.
 

Xevren

Member
So what advice do people have with dealing with Nak if any? This character is really making me go crazy. I know how to guard cancel roll punish if they do fierce slash>follow up but smart ones don't really do that. Had some success with beni vs her with his command grab at times but it's still just insanely rough. Curious if anything really exists.
 

BadWolf

Member
So what advice do people have with dealing with Nak if any? This character is really making me go crazy. I know how to guard cancel roll punish if they do fierce slash>follow up but smart ones don't really do that. Had some success with beni vs her with his command grab at times but it's still just insanely rough. Curious if anything really exists.

Overall you have to look to the weaknesses of the player rather than the character, she herself doesn't really have any worth mentioning. Look at what they like to abuse and then try to deal with it. Just some general stuff:

- The further you are from her when she hits you with the air sword dive from the bird the more advantage she has on block. So being closer lets you at least punish with a command grab or regular throw.
- If they are spamming light ground sword slide a lot and she is ending up very close to you (especially when you are in the corner) then go for command grab or regular throw.
- Light attacks into light slide isn't a true block string, if they are using it a lot then stick an invincible move etc. in there.
- The bird cling is invincible but not once she gets on so if you notice them doing it a lot then jump up right away with a normal to hit her from the air. Some players are also 'option selecting' by hitting her with lights and if she goes to the cling then they hit a normal that hits high up (Iori's close st. HP, Andy's close st. HK etc.).
- The drop kick from the bird cling is positive on hit and on block. If you block it then prepare to block. You can also do a command grab if she is going to press a normal after the drop kick but the better players will do another bird cling or something after the drop kick instead if you keep throwing them after the drop kick.
- cr. HP is dumb and has crazy range, Nak players love spamming it and buffering into slide. Her recovery on it when she does it raw (it doesn't touch you) isn't really good though so you can go for a whiff punish by spacing yourself outside of its range.

The patch can't come soon enough.
 
In addition to the above, here is a list of things you can do to challenge her cr.C used in a common blockstring: http://pastebin.com/h846kbgZ

Regarding option selects against wake-up bird-cling, you can also input a hop normal, or OS a special like Kyo's rdp+B though that gets much harder. You might need to resort to that kind of thing if you don't have a high-hitting normal for the OS or if you find that it's inconsistent depending on timing.

Maxima can OS df+C in his regular pressure string which leads to decent damage even without meter since you can dp+K after that without having to cancel into it.
 
The command input in KOF14 may also be tweaked
It's not a problem for beginners but hardcore players are having troubles with the current game since its input buffer is a bit too lenient. Neo-G is hoping to tweak things to make it satisfying for both parties

I thought the controls in the demo were a tad less lenient compared to the full game. I like the controls for KOF14, so I hope they won't do anything too drastic.
 
Do we have any idea yet of how well this game has performed saleswise? I imagine poor sales in the west with decent to good sale figures in the east

Not sure if I want to know honestly. Last time I heard, I think it did sold near 25,000 units in Japan the first week which seems decent for a niche, 2D fighting game. The West? I am hoping it at least reached 5,000 units so far. :(
 

BadWolf

Member
Between the Korean matches and these ones, the game is so exciting at high levels.

Luis Cha owned El Rosa and is waiting in grand finals.

One Nak in top 8. The most used character is K'.
 

sibarraz

Banned
Not sure if I want to know honestly. Last time I heard, I think it did sold near 25,000 units in Japan the first week which seems decent for a niche, 2D fighting game. The West? I am hoping it at least reached 5,000 units so far. :(

5k units will be a super bomba that will make SNK not make more KOF

I'm sure that it will sale between 100k-150k, the game has a good following in LATAM, plus the game has the atlus brand which sells and a positive mouth to mouth.

Lots of friends were skeptical with the game until they played it, and realized that is a solid fighting game and a worthy entry for the franchise
 

BadWolf

Member
From gamefaqs user coder2121:

Interesting facts from the official KoF XIV art book:

Bandeiras
"There's something familiar about Bandeiras. When designer Ogura was drawing his design, he was like '"He's the new main character.'" He's not a main character, but he's loved that much." - Kuroki

Hein
"We had a hard time with Hein, as his character took a while to be determined. At first, I was thinking he would have moves based on chess. Also I was thinking he would be a clean freak who wouldn't touch anything except with his fingertips. I even considered having him throw away his gloves after each fight. I think you get the picture of how much we struggled with him." - KUROKI

Kim
"Air Houou Kyaku is a move where Kim attacks in the air and then comes back down to continue the attack. There are variations where he can do it on the ground. My favorite is where he smacks the opponent to the ground from midair and follows after them, which came from the Maximum Impact series version of the move. I wanted to pay a tribute. Thanks, Maximum Impact!" - WATANABE

Kukri
When Ogura designed Kukri, I felt like "This is it!" The model came out awesome and his animations made it even better. But how do I say this... Oda's personal touch was added, so the character came out kind of weird. In other words though, it came out SNK-ish. I have an actual model of the face. Hopefully one day I can show it to you all." - KUROKI

Kyo
"As part of the design goals, we wanted to captivate new fans. That's why even though Kyo is the main character, we decided to drastically change his hair and outfit. Of course, we figured previous fans wouldn't like it, but we wanted to challenge ourselves by trying to create a new KOF. If you play Kyo, fans will start to realize it's the same old Kyo" - KUROKI

Leona
"Due to designer Ogura, Leona's chest ended up being pretty robust. The effect of physics lended nicely to her chest's motion... The animation ultimately looked stunning, even becoming popular on the internet." - KUROKI

Love
"Love is also an addition from a slot machine, and at first I was hesitant to include her, but it worked out. Personally she reminds me of B. Jenet, but since she was created by the Fatal Fury dev team, I think it's acceptable." - KUROKI

Luong
"When we first saw her in-game, I was surprised to see her large stature compared to the other female characters. We had a random conversation about if we should keep her that way or not. I don't remember how it started, but we somehow ended up sticking with it. As an art director, I was hesitant, and I thought Watanabe would disagree. But instead he loved it, so we ended up keeping it." - KUROKI

Robert
"Robert's design changed slightly over the years, but since it's been more than 20 years, he started to look outdated. So we decided to rethink his image and modernized him. I asked Ogura to use a famous American actor as a reference. He came out pretty badass." - KUROKI

Terry
"Many of KOF's main staff came from the Fatal Fury series. Because of that, there were so many sentimental feelings towards Terry. It took time to finalize his design - even designer Ogura had a hard time. His model was recreated and polished four times, along with many retakes by the motion capture team. Due to all the hard work, the fans seem to love it, so I feel good about it." - KUROKI

Verse
"I asked Oda, "How does Verse talk?" and he responded with "Veeeeeerrrrrrrrse!!!!" I was like, "You've got to be kidding me, it's a joke, right?" Then in an early build, I heard him: "Veeeeeerrrrrrrrse!!!!"' - KUROKI

Angel
"When you think of Angel, you think of "'Unchain."' But to program these moves into her AI effectively, it took 3 times longer than other characters. When the difficulty is set to level 5, her Unchain moves become pretty tricky, so if you're not sure how to use them, please reference the CPU-controlled Angel." - ANDO

Athena
"We need to make various sound effects for KOF, and Athena in particular seems to have many. But since her character's pretty much set in stone, the work tends to be easy. She's a staple character, and she's a fun character to work on every time." - ASANAKA

Chang
"Chang has a big body, short legs, and carries an iron ball. Because of that, when he gets thrown or hit with some moves, various issues come up. He was one of the hardest characters to work with. During his short animation for the Climax special move, when his back took up all of the screen, I practically felt defeated." - ANDO

K'
"K' is the main character from the NESTS Saga. The same team that handled the BGM for K' in KOF '99 and KOF 2000 created his BGM again for this project. I love its electronic sound feels out of place in the Derelict Church stage. Isn't that sort of juxtaposition cool? I hope you enjoy the new K' Team BGM." - ASANAKA

Kensou
"I had a difficult time modeling Kensou's face. It would come out too young, too good looking, or too old, and I had to iterate on it many times." - KUROKI

Mai
"Mai is a very popular character overseas, so there was a lot of pressure to get her right. I'm confident she'll live up the expectations everyone has, so please look forward to her figure." - KUROKI

Nelson
"We had a hard time with Nelson due to his robotic arm. The battle system is 2D, so the arm needed to be placed in the back, but depending on the movement, it made things complicated for the game designers and the artists. At one point, I was like, '"Maybe both arms should be robotic.'" But in the end, he came out pretty cool." - ANDO

Shun'ei
"Shun'ei's design was done by a younger designer instead of Ogura. It's a design that's meant to be more appealing to the female audience. I felt it'd be nice if this character was the reason they'd play this game. He might remind you a little bit of Rock Howard... Let's just say it's the same people who were involved with his design." - KUROKI

Xanadu
"Xanadu was popular among the staff. I was worried because characters that are popular among the staff usually don't fare as well among players. On top of that, Oda's design specs were so personalized, it was concerning. But in the end, I think he came out well." - KUROKI
 

DR2K

Banned
I think K should be buffed so that all his specials automatically just go into each other. This way K players can just turn their brain off.
 

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Leona
"Due to designer Ogura, Leona's chest ended up being pretty robust. The effect of physics lended nicely to her chest's motion... The animation ultimately looked stunning, even becoming popular on the internet." - KUROKI
Ogura pls :(

Verse
"I asked Oda, "How does Verse talk?" and he responded with "Veeeeeerrrrrrrrse!!!!" I was like, "You've got to be kidding me, it's a joke, right?" Then in an early build, I heard him: "Veeeeeerrrrrrrrse!!!!"' - KUROKI
lol

Kensou
"I had a difficult time modeling Kensou's face. It would come out too young, too good looking, or too old, and I had to iterate on it many times." - KUROKI
Yeah it shows V__V

I still think it's a bit too soon to do a balance patch, even with Nakoruru kicking my ass to the moon & back online.
I partially agree lol
Not a fan of early balance patches but if they balance it now and let it be , its gonna be good for the game.
I dont think they're gonna rebalance it every 2 months or so like MK so im not worried.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
I partially agree lol
Not a fan of early balance patches but if they balance it now and let it be , its gonna be good for the game.
I dont think they're gonna rebalance it every 2 months or so like MK so im not worried.
Yeah, I hope that SNK doesn't pull a NRS with constant balance patches. Even Smash 4 was a bit too trigger-happy with the balance updates (though we're probably in the clear until the rumored NX port).

Capcom has the right idea in terms of how long the metagame should develop before pulling the trigger on balance patches, but one could argue that a mid-year patch after EVO would be fine.
 

BadWolf

Member
Yeah, I hope that SNK doesn't pull a NRS with constant balance patches. Even Smash 4 was a bit too trigger-happy with the balance updates (though we're probably in the clear until the rumored NX port).

Capcom has the right idea in terms of how long the metagame should develop before pulling the trigger on balance patches, but one could argue that a mid-year patch after EVO would be fine.

Capcom had numerous beta tests to balance SFV and they had to balance 16 characters. And whatever DLC characters they are releasing are considered to be on the weaker end of things because they don't want to risk ruining the balance.

Anyone who thinks SNK could balance 50 characters from day 1 is nuts. SNK knew this and had fun with it by going all out with various moves, knowing that they could just balance things out later while letting people have fun with powerful moves and tech. And I wouldn't be surprised if they let some of this stuff stick even after the patch.

Acting quick like this is definitely the right approach and was clearly planned, though here's hoping they aren't just looking at toning down the bad apples but also buffing the underused characters as well.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Capcom had numerous beta tests to balance SFV and they had to balance 16 characters. And whatever DLC characters they are releasing are considered to be on the weaker end of things because they don't want to risk ruining the balance.

Anyone who thinks SNK could balance 50 characters from day 1 is nuts. SNK knew this and had fun with it by going all out with various moves, knowing that they could just balance things out later while letting people have fun with powerful moves and tech. And I wouldn't be surprised if they let some of this stuff stick even after the patch.

Acting quick like this is definitely the right approach and was clearly planned, though here's hoping they aren't just looking at toning down the bad apples but also buffing the underused characters as well.
I didn't really expect everything to be perfectly balanced on Day 1, especially with a large roster. I was just hoping that SNK would let things rock for a while until the stuff that's truly OP reveal themselves rather than just the early struggles of those still trying to adapt to the game. For example, back during MvC2, Iceman was a problem. But as time went on, people learned how to counter him, then the metagame evolved to what we know MvC2 for now.

And buffing the underused characters this early is another thing that I have an issue with. For all we know, one of said underused characters could be OP but we didn't figure something out, yet.
 

BadWolf

Member
I didn't really expect everything to be perfectly balanced on Day 1, especially with a large roster. I was just hoping that SNK would let things rock for a while until the stuff that's truly OP reveal themselves rather than just the early struggles of those still trying to adapt to the game. For example, back during MvC2, Iceman was a problem. But as time went on, people learned how to counter him, then the metagame evolved to what we know MvC2 for now.

And buffing the underused characters this early is another thing that I have an issue with. For all we know, one of said underused characters could be OP but we didn't figure something out, yet.

There's letting things rock and then there are things that are silly. K's slide shouldn't be safe on block and let him land a full launcher combo with Ein Trigger anywhere on the screen. Damn near every team in yesterday's top 8 had K' in it, this will be the norm if things are left as is.

Good luck having characters like Choi, Chang, Syvie etc. be OP.
 
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