:: orochinagi

Seems like it's kinda dead here and I think I'd like to add my 2 cents on some balancing thingies. It's been in my head for a while.

Now I'm not going to ask for change to its fighting system. Nor is SNKP any more likely than before to make version 1.2 to balance everything (if they were to balance things out, they'd do that in ver 1.1, which all the bugs/overpowered crap are public knowledge). It's just more fun to make this more of a theory fighter or "what if" on making XIII a better game balance-wise. Again, this is strictly how I see the game, and your visions may differ. That's fine - just think of me rambling crap instead and say your thoughts if you want.

Here's a few characters in mind.

= K' =
We all know the story with K'. Insta Iron Trigger without lag, no need for any DC (or any) gauge for staple Second Shell->Minute Spike->Crow Bites combo (which can continue if you DC the Crow Bites). I'd like to make changes to his moves like below.

- Iron Trigger only connectable from low A, make low B not cancellable: Now K' is forced to do low B->low A into Trigger (if he wants to start from low B). This is more like his 2k2 OG incarnation. It also removes the repetitive jump D->low B->Iron Trigger combo and reduces the high-low game that he has. I'd also suggest making low A having a longer hitbox to compensate.
- Iron Trigger has more recovery time: K' can use his EX Trigger if he wants to cornerfark people with his Trigger and pokes. Normal Iron Trigger should have more recovery time so he can't just throw Iron Triggers without responsibility. This however does NOT mean the Iron Trigger itself is slow to come out.
- Minute Spike can't juggle: K' users will need to use his EX Minute Spike to trigger the staple combo. If you want a damaging combo, you gotta give something out. And that's a stock. This would however change his staple DC combo from repeated Crow Bites->(EX) Minute Spike into repeated Crow Bites->Black Out ala 2k2UM.

This would take out quite a bit of the bullshit stuff from K' but he still retains his f+A air juggle into Chain Drive stuff, but his overall damage would be reduced due to the loss of repeated Minute Spikes->Crow Bites loop. He'll probably have another way to get a 100% combo but it's going to cost more. This will also somehow make K' play like a powered up version of his 2k2 OG self.

= Raiden =
Raiden is fine.

Okay, maybe not. His drop kick, while requiring him to hold for 16 seconds (or 12 seconds for level 3 to get the hit anywhere property) is crazy good, changes the tide in an instant and maybe kill off the other guy while counterattacking (and from a GCCD even). Even if it changes the way you play (block and hold B/D), and it changes the way your opponent plays (mindless rushdown to beat the other guy in 16 seconds), but maaaaybe some balancing can be done with him while retaining his style of play, while adding new wrinkles. Maybe.

- Make him respect the law of physics: A big, burly, fat and muscular guy should not be jumping as if he got the bounciness of Choi Bounge (we can be thankful that he can't walljump...yet). Dude can probably jump over a HSKK if he wants (I encourage all Raiden players do try this when they face one that can throw a HSKK). That's wrong, and he should be jumping slower...and lower. Make it harder for Raiden to escape from your pressuring (he doesn't really need to though, but anyway). Maybe have him only able to barely jump over a regular fireball.
- Make his anti-air grab more vulnerable: (this may be just me) It doesn't have any invincibility (at least from what I'm told in the technical reference vids) on startup but it seems to still grab about 80% of every jump attacks. Otherwise it looks fine (jump arc and recovery time are fine), but I'd say make it possible for the other guys to trade hits so his grab will fail. Or a slighter change, change this move's input from dp+P into dp+K (no move properties changed), so Raiden can't charge both kicks while leaving the flexibility of an anti-air grab, or choose to keep both kicks, while losing an anti-air grab. he can obviously still do the poison mist thingy though (which is still a very viable anti-air). Actually, I like the second change more. So there's that.
- Drop Kick: This is what I think. Keep the drop kick and its timing, but make the level 4 an EX attack (with fancy blue gas-like effect). So, basically if you hold B/D for 16 seconds or more, it automatically becomes an EX attack, costs you a stock (if you have no stock then it's just level 3). The level 4 drop kick being an EX move would justify quite a bit of the bullshit stuff that he had. GCCD->EX drop kick->standing A->EX drop kick->stuff would be more bearable if Raiden needs 3 stocks to deal shitloads of damage (would this justify GCCD into level 4 drop kick? It doesn't, but it doesn't seem so ridiculous). This may also force them to less likely to charge for the drop kick when they have stock, as the 16 seconds is up, releasing B/D means a stock used. So maybe this forces Raiden players to play a more varied style. Hopefully, I guess.
- Drop Kick indicator: In addition to that, and just to make it painfully obvious to everyone playing him/against him, have an indicator of which level he's charging his kicks above or next to the power bar. Chin has one, I don't see why Raiden can't have one. So one would prolly say "B: Lvl ?" and another "D: Lvl ?" or something like that. And then maybe use colors to indicate the level as well. Level 0 is white, 1 is green, 2 is yellow, 3 is red and 4 is maybe flashing red with highlights that tells everyone "HOLY SHIET IT'S A LEVEL 4 DROP KICK WITH THIS GUY" and act accordingly (ie hide in the corner and never come out). And insta level 4 when he does hold for 16 seconds+ and somehow gains stock while holding.

Raiden still would basically get to keep most of his stuff intact. But it's changed, he can't just sit back and try to keep charging both kicks so he can have one more anti-air option. He still can do bullshit drop kick combos, just that he really needs all the stocks to make the bullshit work, and do a bit of improvisation when the stocks aren't there. Obviously, if the Raiden player is really familiar with him, then you're still screwed anyway.

= Elizabeth =
In beta, Elizabeth couldn't do that uppercut thingy DM as a catch-anywhere anti-air. But then she becomes extremely boring. So SNKP probably thought that making her uppercut thingy DM an everywhere juggle move a better experience for Elizabeth. Well...she's still boring (except to the other playerwhen she lands that super). But at least she now has some crazy super that she can throw off as she hits someone in the air with pretty much anything.

- Make her uppercut thingy DM an exDM: I'm just using stocks to justify balancing am I? Anyway, make this an exDM, retain the juggle anywhere properties. There can be a DM version, something like her old XI version with the uppercut into vertical jump into ass whipping x1 hard knockdown, but the DM version won't be a juggle anywhere move. That would be her exDM version. This does make her have 2 exDMs, but not a lot of people really uses her other super much...right (I don't use her, but I never saw anyone use her other super while I'm facing/watching Elizabeth)?
- Make someone use her NeoMax: Would more people use her NM if her uppercut thingy DM becomes an exDM, maybe more likely, I guess. But still pretty low. She can probably do an ex counter into a meaty HD combo that would likely deal more damage, and even less stocks (remember she can still do dp+P into qcf+P etc). What I maybe would like to do is to make this a grab. You'll probably be all like, wait Pen, if it's a grab, she can't do her NeoMax in HD combos! Actually we'll keep the old properties of this move if it's done as a max cancel. This will also keep in the line of making Elizabeth an offense oriented character. Nobody will probably use this in their HD combos, though (I do admit this is poorly thought out generally...as this would mean additional wakeup game fun if she has 3 stocks).

My problem with Elizabeth is currently every combo would end with her uppercut thingy DM, and it happens so often that you're obliged to shake your head every time it happens (I do). With this 'upgrade' she can still do the uppercut thingy as an exDM, and you would lose the weird combo where she does two uppercut thingies DM in the same combo and make me shake my head twice. She would be keeping her dp+P and qcf+P comboing tomfoolery, which in HD mode can do shitloads of damage. I'd want to change that if possible, but I'm really not an expert in Elizabeth. I'll stop here for now before I say something retarded (I prolly did), I will probably get back to this if I have the time/interest to revisit Elizabeth's balance.

= Kyo =
Unlike other characters, Kyo's stuff doesn't include some bullshit advantage or batshit insane properties, but he does have some minor things that needs to be taken care of.

- Increase lag of hcb+K on block: I originally thought that his qcf+D would need more lag, but some characters can buffer in-between hits, so that's fine. dp+C is really good, but if it whiffs or is blocked, he's in for a combo. But his hcb+K on block actually either gives Kyo a frame advantage, or at least a 50/50. This results if Kyo users (like me) doing his hcb+K out of the blue and hoping it either connects, or get blocked, where I can start pressuring up close or throw the opponent, unless they are a grappler or has a grab move. That's not very nice. Make Kyo users think twice about throwing this out out of the blue. Give him an extra few frames for the arm push on block. Maybe a little bit of pushback on block as well to even it out, but do make it punishable on block, even with a weak or far attack that mostly won't follow with anything unless you do an HD cancel.
- Decrease lag of qcf+B: Nobody uses this move, especially on block. Doing this on block means freebie combo for the other guy with Kyo firmly placed in front of them. With lag! Anyway, reduce the lag to a more manageable time. Probably make it feel like his hcb+K on block as above. Pushback, but other guy can retaliate with something. Still, you don't have any incentive to use this move even with this improvement. But it won't be omgwtf bad.
- Increase lag of rdp+D: I dunno about you, but when Kyo lands after whiffing his rdp+D, he can react immediately. Give him a few frames of recovery time when he lands. I originally wanted to increase the lag of his rdp+B as well, either by making Kyo jump higher (thus giving opponent more time to react if he whiffs, plus launching the opponent higher), or just plainly giving him more recovery time. But the first one would probably add some new fancy combos for Kyo (at least it would prolly make his rdp+B->dp+C repeatable for a few more times). The second one will probably take away his rdp+B->dp+C HD loop. Eh.

This would probably make Kyo a more balanced character, but most of his stuff is based on his recovery time. He's fine otherwise to me. But still a very good character regardless (I'm a Kyo user, I'm biased). I'd probably try to make his fireball larger but it's really minor.

Maybe more new balance ideas for other characters later. I do have Ryo and maybe Maxima in my mind though, so I'll definitely get to them. And there's other characters that I'm fine with and not touch them as a result. We'll see.

PenPen wrote: = K' =
We all know the story with K'. Insta Iron Trigger without lag, no need for any DC (or any) gauge for staple Second Shell->Minute Spike->Crow Bites combo (which can continue if you DC the Crow Bites). I'd like to make changes to his moves like below.

While pretty much everything is bad (I really can't get why some players says that he is balanced P:) the absolutely worst thing that K' has is his ability of doing a 50/50 of huge damage on the corner. His neutral short jump D is too quick and a delayed crouched B can easily add to the trill and create the mix up; if his neutral jumping D hits a crouching enemy then he will be able to combo after it and that's the bad part. If the D doesn't hit he is 100% safe and can repeat the mix up again (and again and again and again); the worst possible thing about this is that it's not that hard to block if you are calm, but this is pretty much almost impossible to knock off even if you properly foresee it, they should either slow down the jump, or greatly slow down the jumping kick.

= Raiden =
Raiden is fine.

Yes he is <3 Raiden is pretty much the best well rounder grappler of the game even without the Drop Kick, so yeah.

- Make him respect the law of physics: A big, burly, fat and muscular guy should not be jumping as if he got the bounciness of Choi Bounge (we can be thankful that he can't walljump...yet).

No. Raiden & Big Bear have always, always had this psychical capacity, be it Fatal Fury 1, 2, special or the 3D game. He is full of helium so deal with it (I remember people complaining about this back in the day and going to argue about this as well, har har). Oh, and his EX anti air move is invincible.

The thing that pains me the most is that the silly Drop Kick doesn't even work like it did in the old games. Back then we had that the short charged drop kicks came out fast, but traveled a really short length and had incredibly fast recovery; that meant that you could use them for the offensive and you could thick throw after them. The long charge Drop Kick were much slower to come out & recovered like crap (completely punishable), but they traveled a large distance and damage was obscene.

That actively translated that Bear players need to actively decide which Kick they would want to use and for what for. The fact that they placed all of the positive attributes on the strongest kick for XIII is just stupid and destroyed the incredibly tough philosophical dilemma that actual Bear players needed to go through in order to use the move effectively (In fact I remember that pretty much nobody aimed to the 20 seconds charge kick because living that long with your oh "so cool" jumping kick was insane).



There are a tons of things that could be added but I'll don't spit out 90 pages for this. Most of the characters that aren't used that much don't have that many "serious" issues that need a complete revamp of the character but instead they have very few weak areas that are most likely going to be "fixed" as the characters gain more moves with more upcoming games (in theory)..... Compared to the guys, the system is little bit farther off from being what's needed, even though the current system is pretty good, what I would like to change pretty much is:

- Increase life. Most "all resources combos" take 1000 life exact, by increasing life to 1200 or something you'll make it so that characters are tougher to take down, but you won't increase life that much so that basic old school combos would become completely devoid of use, extra life will probably require extra round time though.

- Take out stun. Do us all of us a favor and remove Takuma's over 100% life "cheap resources" combo loop (other characters can take advantage of stun combos, but not to that extent).

- Tweak HD cancels a little. If you'll notice, in 2k2 characters can do something like 4 or 5 cancels if they use the doko cancel bar to it's fullest. In XIII characters usually border the land of the 10 or 9 cancels; and while with some characters like Iori or Vice that won't get you huge damage out of it, with others is just stupid. Reducing a little the amount of cancels that a character can do will make whiffing those low damage uppercuts much less terrible. Between eating an easy 60~70% combo and eating an easy 80%~90% combo there is a great difference.

- The auto dash from HD cancelling needs to go. I don't care how much you whine that Shen or XX don't have low combo without it, the player needs to learn to dash in order to combo instead of falling sleep pressing buttons and doing quarter circles to get the damage going. High Damage should, in every game; be a privilege for the players that really work their skills; this is what really made 2k2 soo good, there it was this whole field there for players that wanted to take their skill levels further & further even beyond intricate, unnoticeable strategies (take that 98'). XIII partially lacks that, pretty much the only characters that have a "certain level of difficulty" when doing HD combos Terry & Ryo (and to a certain extent Mature, because players are really not capable of telling what's good / necessary with her). It's sad that having hard to do HD combos are one of the factors that actually "lure away" players from some characters.

1. Remove juggle from Raiden's drop kick. That is all.

2. Reduce juggle properties from every move in HD mode so that there are never combos that last more than 2 seconds (not including NM finish). 10+ hit combos do not belong in KOF (unless it's a multi hit character like Shameless). The damage scaling is not as important - the flow of the game is.

3. Reduce damage inflicted by K' and Liz so that they can keep their long combos but then require high skill to play effectively.

If anyone wants to discuss this on a podcast, let me know!

i have a lot of things in mind that i think should be tweaked, even the system itself

but for rebalance changes, a lot of it is just raiden. and more specifically, his dropkick. raiden would be fine without it, but that move by itself looks like the most broken thing in a fighting game ever. either it needs to not be comboable after it (causing a slide-knockdown reaction or at least something very low altitude that he can't catch after his recovery), or it needs to have a repeat move penalty where hitting it the 2nd or so-th time in a combo means the damage is severely weakened--but using something like a hyper drive in its place is not so penalized. OR, he could just have extended recovery time on hitconfirm with it. i won't mind if he combos a bit more freely on an EX version or at least a drive version. that drive meter needs more purpose than "lol more combo hitz" speaking of which

k' looks like he can frametrap the fuck out of anybody, so he really just needs less frame advantage on his moves

the rest of this post is just systematic changes, and since it's on a tangent, it's spoiled so nobody really needs to read this part, and it probably belongs in the system discussion anyway, so if needed be, i'll probably just post it there later

Toxic I'd block quote you but it's probably going to create a wall of text on top of another, but let's try...

While pretty much everything is bad (I really can't get why some players says that he is balanced P:) the absolutely worst thing that K' has is his ability of doing a 50/50 of huge damage on the corner. His neutral short jump D is too quick and a delayed crouched B can easily add to the trill and create the mix up; if his neutral jumping D hits a crouching enemy then he will be able to combo after it and that's the bad part. If the D doesn't hit he is 100% safe and can repeat the mix up again (and again and again and again); the worst possible thing about this is that it's not that hard to block if you are calm, but this is pretty much almost impossible to knock off even if you properly foresee it, they should either slow down the jump, or greatly slow down the jumping kick.

Whoa, whoever said K' is balanced probably probably never seen the game. You do bring up a good point about his jump D - it's extremely good. I would agree on slowing that down as well. Make it slower to come out so the opponent can react/counter if necessary.

No. Raiden & Big Bear have always, always had this psychical capacity, be it Fatal Fury 1, 2, special or the 3D game. He is full of helium so deal with it (I remember people complaining about this back in the day and going to argue about this as well, har har). Oh, and his EX DP anti air move is invincible.

Well this isn't Fatal Fury...right? Anyway I'm just thinking of ways to get Raiden to run away less and reduce options of finding ways to get himself away until the timer is up. This is probably a minor change anyway.

And I was implying his dp+P, not his EX version. I'm fine with his EX version (especially if the dp+P becomes a dp+K meaning they need to press dp+BD). Apologies if that confused you! I also pretty much decided on the fly that if they change it to a dp+K it's probably better for whomever that's facing him.

The thing that pains me the most is that the silly Drop Kick doesn't even work like it did in the old games. Back then we had that the short charged drop kicks came out fast, but traveled a really short length and had incredibly fast recovery; that meant that you could use them for the offensive and you could thick throw after them. The long charge Drop Kick were much slower to come out & recovered like crap (completely punishable), but they traveled a large distance and damage was obscene.

That actively translated that Bear players need to actively decide which Kick they would want to use and for what for. The fact that they placed all of the positive attributes on the strongest kick for XIII is just stupid and destroyed the incredibly tough philosophical dilemma that actual Bear players needed to go through in order to use the move effectively (In fact I remember that pretty much nobody aimed to the 20 seconds charge kick because living that long with your oh "so cool" jumping kick was insane).

That's interesting stuff you had...in fact, one of the problems in here is that nobody uses his level 1 or 2 drop kick. They're slow and crappy and has much less range than levels 3 and 4. SNKP could prolly just remove level 1 and 2 and people would play him the same way.

I'd maybe think of making one of them (maybe a level 2) as one of those moves that crumple the opponent (eg fully charged C SHEN WOO PUNCH LITE), but is blockable. So Raiden can follow with stuff, but has limited time to do so. Level 1 maybe has some other use that I have no idea on, yet. That's what I think.

And Gun, you're just being senile, go back and play 98!

Hadoolket, system change suggestions are ok in this thread. And I'd agree on reducing the damage on a second hit of the drop kick, but this feels like the system is setting a special rule just on him to make it more even. I don't really like setting a part of the system for one guy...the guy should adjust to the system. But that's just how I see it.
-----------------------
Anyway, some more stuff I thought of. I forgot to add that I'm thinking this on a more realistic approach (or a minimalist approach if you're pessimistic) on how to make better balance without making craploads of totally new animations. That's how I'm trying to do...go wild on your ideas though.

= Ryo =
My problem is Ryo is that his range simply sucks (if he has a stock, he can throw a HSKK, I know that). Now I'm seeing more Ryos in the latest vids, and actually doing decently against the big 3/4, so that's a good thing (it may be because they're in a ratio match).

- Increase range of his f,b,f+P: Nobody actively uses this move unless they were trying to do an HSKK and this came out. Make his zenretsuken get a farther range (a bit more would help) so that he can catch opponents jumping in better and connects easier in combos.
- Make his parries better: It's always underused and is best used for showing off. So...let's increase the show off potential first, by making his parries work like XI, where you can act like Daigo and cancel a parry into another. I'd also recommend adding the blocking effects of his parry, slow the movements down for a more dramatic effect to give additional time to allow Ryo to cancel it into something else (just an additional half second would probably do it). Probably quite annoying if he's trying to parry every hit of some multi-hitter special or super though.
- Give him back his flying karate chop: I was thinking of something else entirely, but I can't really find a way to circumvent on making him travel a far distance, while keeping the stuff he already has. So...flying karate chop, qcf+K would be back. It can just be an overhead hard knockdown attack with an arc like Andy's hcf+K move (B version around halfrscreen, D version around 3/4ths of a fullscreen). Make the D version lag longer and kinda unsafe on block. EX version would be a much faster fullscreen jump with more damage. By thinking about adding a totally new move, I will now set myself on fire.
- Give more range to his f+A: Make Ryo move forward slightly more than what he is currently having. It would help out Ryo on getting to a safer distance where he could punish you with stuff (esp in corner) on reaction ala 2k2.

So this would make Ryo better. He would have a better chance on standing on his own, on top of his qcf+P move which is already quite good. Now he has the flying karate chop as an additional weapon in his arsenal at long range.

= Maxima =
Is Maxima a balanced enough character? I guess. In beta he could do hcb+K->qcb+P following and HD cancel into other stuff, but he lost that (SNKP probably realized that this will lead to more crazy stuff). I'd prefer to add a little high low game to Maxima though.

- Give him his Mongolian: Not only would the Japanese revel in making more viral Mongolian vids (in HD!), this would give Maxima a valid high-low game that he currently lacks. It can definitely be a slow move that doesn't connect from his close C/D like Kyo in XIII. It can't cancel into stuff either even if cancelled into aside from supers, but you can go into HD mode from there. So it's strictly used as a wake up high-low game option into HD or super (like Ryo's f+A, just way slower).

I originally thought of these other ideas...get his MAKSHIMA REVENJA back as a super, but his double VAPA KANNUN is pretty much a universal super that can be used on almost any occasion. I also had the really fancy thought of giving him a forward air dash but this is probably too revolutionary for KOF. Next thing you know, I'd probably suggest that Iori's dp+P can act as a dust attack and he can follow with air combos.

= Guys I'm fine with =
I'm okay with Beni, Goro, Chin (I know he's good but he does require learning), Ash, Joe, Kim, King, Mature, Shen Woo, Duo Lon, Robert, Leona. I guess Mai (I think she can be improved but it seems like Mai is the new fad in my local arcade), Iori (I really think he is no different from that old Iori sans fireball), Takuma (combos just go on forever) and Ralf (some minor improvements would really help) are borderline ok for me. I wish Vice, Athena and Hwa Jai would be better, because nobody uses them. But I'm unfamiliar with them. There's that for now. I hope I can get more thoughts later on.

PenPen wrote: = Ryo =
My problem is Ryo is that his range simply sucks (if he has a stock, he can throw a HSKK, I know that). Now I'm seeing more Ryos in the latest vids, and actually doing decently against the big 3/4, so that's a good thing (it may be because they're in a ratio match).

- Make his parries better: It's always underused and is best used for showing off. So...let's increase the show off potential first, by making his parries work like XI, where you can act like Daigo and cancel a parry into another. I'd also recommend adding the blocking effects of his parry, slow the movements down for a more dramatic effect to give additional time to allow Ryo to cancel it into something else (just an additional half second would probably do it). Probably quite annoying if he's trying to parry every hit of some multi-hitter special or super though.

Actually he has a better active range than many other characters. his far standing D -> Kohken has good but not great range (a lot more range than the other Kyokugens, and from even further he can do far standing D -> EX Hyenshippu. Compared to stupid tier characters what Ryo lacks the most is a "safe" EX move used to stop the enemy, that & easier HD combos; personally I think that to this Ryo a good add would be his 2k2UM Qcb Punch move, it was usable in juggles and make it so that the EX version has some invincibility and better speed and we are set.
His parries already work like that, he can cancel them with their own and can parry off many multiple things; I remember parring a character that did 4 quick crouching Bs with 4 individual low parries.

= Maxima =
Is Maxima a balanced enough character? I guess. In beta he could do +K->qcb+P following and HD cancel into other stuff, but he lost that (SNKP probably realized that this will lead to more crazy stuff). I'd prefer to add a little high low game to Maxima though.

Hmm, My main grip with Maxima is that if the enemy is crouch blocking many of your attacks will whiff and that isn't pretty when it counts, Maxima right now isn't really "weak as hell" (he is more effective than he was in both 2k2s); but his gameplay is a little bit too focused into certain things, so adding extra variety wouldn't hurt. Adding the Mongolian & perhaps something else could easily mend a good part of that.
I really miss his close standing A, it was the best move for kara canceling into throws.

No. Raiden & Big Bear have always, always had this psychical capacity, be it Fatal Fury 1, 2, special or the 3D game. He is full of helium so deal with it (I remember people complaining about this back in the day and going to argue about this as well, har har). Oh, and his EX anti air move is invincible.

Well this isn't Fatal Fury...right? Anyway I'm just thinking of ways to get Raiden to run away less and reduce options of finding ways to get himself away until the timer is up. This is probably a minor change anyway.

Don't spoil people's Zero G fat fun!, and I mean that!

I have one suggestion after watching Terry players fail repeatedly in Japanese match videos - make his Burn Knuckle the way it used to be so you can use it to apply pressure and move forward at the same time. Right now it works more like MOTW Terry's Burn Knuckle but in MOTW Terry had other options to apply pressure (like his power charge). Right now he's limited to poking a lot until he has meter at which point he can try and go for that one drive cancel combo that does about 40%.

Huh, making the Drop Kick consume a gauge was one of the very first things that occurred to me when pondering about this.

Perhaps making the level 3 one consume a gauge and the level 4 two (while granting them the privileges of those kind of moves). Would that be unbalanced in the opposite direction?


Let's not forget, SNK is not a company that makes balances. They make nerfs. Huge nerfs. Remember Athena from 2k2 -> 2k3 -> XI?

I can see it happening like this: "K' is overpowered? Well, let's just halve all the damage that he causes!"

Im kinda limited to the game since I have physically played it but from what Ive watched these are the things i would change.

- WIth raidens dropkick, it should only be comboable on counter and comboable whenever with ex version. In saying that, should cancel the ability to charge two of them by either making the move holding both buttons or the system not registering a double button hold. Or go total different and the move is only good for breaking guard which in turn allows for a followup combo, but the dk is still not usable in combo.

- I think his XI incarnation was good cos he had lots of options but wasnt high tier. Also be like OG 2k2 and only have cA into +A as someone stated above. Have only a +D follow up from +D (so there is no +B option) making it unsafe on block ala 2k2um

- Eliz hmmm I dont know where to start with her haha

Toxic Avanger wrote:

PenPen wrote: - The auto dash from HD cancelling needs to go. I don't care how much you whine that Shen or XX don't have low combo without it, the player needs to learn to dash in order to combo instead of falling sleep pressing buttons and doing quarter circles to get the damage going. High Damage should, in every game; be a privilege for the players that really work their skills; this is what really made 2k2 soo good, there it was this whole field there for players that wanted to take their skill levels further & further even beyond intricate, unnoticeable strategies (take that 98'). XIII partially lacks that, pretty much the only characters that have a "certain level of difficulty" when doing HD combos Terry & Ryo (and to a certain extent Mature, because players are really not capable of telling what's good / necessary with her). It's sad that having hard to do HD combos are one of the factors that actually "lure away" players from some characters.

I'm going to have to politely disagree on this one. The HD canceling IS the leveling playing field and what I felt like was missing in 2k2. In 2k2(UM) I wasn't the best but I could pull off the most basic BC combos and do the dash. I did feel it was harder for others and easier for some. Correct me if I'm wrong, when you BC cancel in 2k2(UM), your character maintains the same dash speed as they normally do.

In XIII, and I could be mistaken, it seems like the autodash makes everyone have the same dash speed which is awesome.

I believe there every game should have a certain amount of depth so that more skilled players can differentiate themselves and I think XIII still does have some good HD stuff that still separates the crowd without leaving out a handful of characters at the wayside.

However let's say I do master BC combos in 2k2(UM), it really rewards a small percentage of the cast, maybe 10-15% of the cast at most can really make use of the BC combo system, sure there are others that can still do it but only 10-15% truly excel with the BC system and hence that severely affects the balance. Can you still stay competitive without BCs? Sure. It doesn't change the fact that if you don't use it it almost feels like you're not playing the game like SNKP intended for you to. All the skilled players gravitated towards BC characters and it just made the rest just feel kinda inferior.

As for giving Shen more options, I think that's a great idea, it actually gives a lot of characters more options this way and once again levels the playing field. It's like some characters have great low hit starters but some don't; problem fixed if you throw in HD into the mix.

Maybe we'll never agree completely but does 2k2(UM) have more depth (especially if you factor in the character roster) over XIII? Certainly, not going to argue that. Do I feel that XIII is a refinement of 2k2(UM)? Absolutely, I feel SNKP really got the system right--and it's not easy to improve (again my opinion) from 2k2UM.

Kane317 wrote: I'm going to have to politely disagree on this one. The HD canceling IS the leveling playing field and what I felt like was missing in 2k2. In 2k2(UM) I wasn't the best but I could pull off the most basic BC combos and do the dash. I did feel it was harder for others and easier for some. Correct me if I'm wrong, when you BC cancel in 2k2(UM), your character maintains the same dash speed as they normally do.

In XIII, and I could be mistaken, it seems like the autodash makes everyone have the same dash speed which is awesome.

That's actually a pretty weak argument. In 2k2 the only characters that had problems running when activating Max mode were Chang & Maxima, and even then it was because their punches were too slow and not because they couldn't catch up, but that could easily avoided by running with Jabs. Oh and a lot of characters could Max activate from Crouching B's in 2k2, mind you.

The reason of why some characters couldn't pretty much do anything in 2k2 with Max mode was because they pretty much didn't had moves to cancel into each other. Examples are easy; Clark & Maxima had only 1 (well, technically 2) moves to doko cancel out off; but those moves couldn't even be looped into each other which ended up in extremely short combos. And that's it.

XIII addresses this by intentionally giving the characters moves to loop into and out to; pretty much Maxima and Goro are the only characters that can't loop easily moves over and over, but even then they still have certain options designed in there to use some of their cancels.

I agree with the HD activate and auto running as I dont think it should be in there TBH. To me it just reminds me of "dumbing the game down" like ST was to sf4 in how they do Supers and now 2k2um with xiii.

Butttttt thats just me and this is coming from someone that hasnt touched xiii yet. I still want a bit of execution challenge when playing and I know xiii would give me that but its more repetitive loops you got to remember then anything else.

I've some new ideas with Vice (used her a bit in practice mode to get the hang of things) and worse ideas with Kensou. While system discussion is interesting I'll be skipping that as usual, I'm just going to do characters.

I also know that I missed Kula in my characters, but I don't use her, even though I know how she works. The only change I can see thus far is to make her slide followup after her qcb+K something that doesn't hit airborne opponents.

= Vice =
It sucks to be Vice because her movelist is more limited than anything prior to this (maybe not 96?), and then as it turns out, game breaking bugs cause her to be left aside until it's fixed. It also turns out that the HD combo she has (shoulder ram into Decide) has gradually decreasing damage, and Decide does no damage at all. Regardless, the damage is done anyway - nobody uses her! Here's what I'd suggest.

- Give her the old Decide back: I don't mean both versions - one of them being the current "GET OVER HERE" move is good (with no damage). The other one (maybe the B version) would give her something like the old Decide, where she tosses the opponent to the other end, and does mucho damage. The damage can be lower, and SNKP can prolly recycle the CD animation with her doing the CD to send the opponent away. And make this move finisher (the CD attack) HD cancellable, so she can do something like hcf+B -> qcb+P, and combo away from there (in theory, you can prolly do hcf+B->(HD) qcb+P->(HD) hcf+B/D and repeat). This also increases her damage potential in HD combos. The EX version would be the same, some low damage would be nice though.
- Make her dp+AC more useful: I really don't see much use for this...except it comes out faster, a high/low game (apparently it's an overhead zomg). Give it invincibility so she can pass through fireballs, to reduce her inability to get close, where she's the most effective. It's okay to make something compensate for her invincibility, maybe a higher arc so it's easier to react.

With the low damage output in HD combos, hopefully the 'new' Decide would provide some help. Maybe her blade kicks move thingy (qcb+K) would be nice, but I wouldn't want to add more animations as theoretically I used all the budget for Ryo's flying karate chop and Maxima's Mongolian.

= Kensou =
Kensou in this iteration is a jack of all trades, master of none. I am generally fine with Kensou, except for the low damage output for his qcf+P chain and nobody uses him. I actually have a few slight changes to suggest.

- Increase damage for his qcf+K standalone: Currently, it does pretty pathetic damage for a move which looks cool, and is blockable. In short, it's not worth doing it unless you're doing it as a part of his qcf+P chain. Increase the damage by a bit.
- Open a can of worms by making his first qcf+P free cancellable (not into another standalone qcf+P obviously): Make it so that yes, you can do another qcf+P into qcf+K to end the chain, but here's a bunch of cool stuff that you can do in the first qcf+P! There'll probably be more damage potential by cancelling off the first qcf+P. I don't think I made an infinite out of this...hopefully. And qcf+AC is the same.
- Far C is an overhead: It sorta looks like an overhead...he sorta moves forward a bit...and he has no actual overheads to speak of (aside from jump attacks), why not make it into an overhead attack that can't be cancelled, aside from going into HD? That'll work.

This will still make Kensou a jack of all trade with an overhead, but still not a master of anything, maybe the freedom of cancelling into other stuff from his qcf+P. Even in this iteration Kensou would still feel like a low B xN into qcf+P on hit confirm character, which is boring. But this makes him less boring. Maybe. The overhead adds mind games!

Ah i like that, just like Mature in 2k2um. I agree to that since I am a vice user and maybe trying to use her in xiii would be abit of work.

Or evn give her the +B/D kick and ability to cancel like 98um so when used in combo can link to other moves (frame advantage??) but the pushed would still be evident so i wouldnt turn out into an infinite.

So combo like sC, +B, cancel, +A, follow up (sorry if i have notations mixed up but im using 2k2 notations)

Thanks...I just look at Vice's damage and had to be sad because her damage kinda...sucks if you get into HD mode.

Anyway after some playing I got a few ideas with Terry. He is a low ratio character. I don't see any people playing him much at all here. Here's what I'd suggest.

- Make his far C cancellable: His far C is super cancellable, but to make him better, make it cancellable to any special moves. I find it pretty easy to connect his far C, so this would pretty much improve his damage potential.
- Add pushback on block for A Burn Knuckle: The A version of Burn Knuckle isn't as safe on block now. I'd add some pushback on block to make this semi-safe again. C version is fine - long range and dangerous for Terry on block.
- Make his df+C cancel window longer OR give more range to his df+C: I know it's coming out fast, and it has always been a move that has really short cancel frames. This is more in the name of "get more people to play this guy and give him a slight advantage" instead of really balancing things out. I also considered giving this move more range, so low B->low A->df+C can be connected from pretty much anywhere. But this is an either/or proposition, you can't have both, or else Terry will become easysauce for everyone to use.
- Make his Power Wave more like 98: I'm pretty sure that all projectiles in this game are of a smallish size (I touched on this with Kyo but decided against it). Terry needs a bigger Power Wave, maybe 30-50% bigger. What this does is also increasing the size of the projectile's hitbox on all 3 versions (yes, even the EX version), so it's easier to hit someone. The C version can work like 98 Terry's as an option for opponent's wakeup, where it's big enough to counter on things that they plan to do (eg jumping). This is just resizing the sprite, so hopefully the few pennies left in our budget can cover that.
- NeoMax/ex Geyser is not range dependent: The problem I have is that if you got the opponent in the corner, the NeoMax or ex Geyser will do relatively crappy damage because it will hit beyond the screen edge, where obviously either characters won't be able to reach. But anyway, somehow change the properties so when the first hit connects, the rest of the move will connect. People see both moves as a giant blast of stuff anyway, so you can change the hitbox properties while keeping the effect. I also considered to make either super a juggle everywhere move (kinda like Elizabeth's super), but...maybe not.

I'll stop here now.