The 2XKO alpha lab testing is well underway, and as expected, players are digging into it and discovering all sorts of vicious combos and underhanded techniques. However, through this Twitter clip exploration journey, one question has become the focus of 2XKO discussion. Are overly long combos fun, and should they have a place in 2XKO?
By overlong, I mean those dizzying combos that characters weave between, sometimes chaining multiple supers together to leave their victims helpless for a period while their opponents last for a long time. For some, this ability to pull off a combo in over 15 seconds is the highlight, a sign of mastery. For others, being able to put down the controller and check Twitter in the middle of a match isn’t terribly appealing.
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The debate has raged online. On one side, there are those who argue that this long downtime is bad for the game. Game developer Iron Galaxy’s Keits conducted his own research and found that 6-8 seconds of downtime is when frustration starts to set in. Others, like influencer Cosmonaut Marcus, talk about how important overcoming this feeling is to the fighting game experience. You’re bound to lose a lot over a period of time, and overcoming this feeling is what makes fighting games meaningful.
Game director Shaun Rivera published a lengthy post on Twitter about how the team addressed this feedback. After expressing his joy at the large number of players who flocked to the Alpha test and pushed it to its limits, he wrote:
“We saw a lot of really creative stuff, but I want to stress one thing: prolonged periods of low activity are not desirable. Thanks to all the very talented lab monsters, there was a lot to look forward to. We still have a lot of work to do here, so you can expect the game to improve in this area in the future.”
He also commented on critical hit combos, which testers figured out almost immediately. For those who don’t know, these combos can kill a character with health from 100% all the way down to zero. They’re situational and usually resource-intensive, but they’re still very powerful nonetheless.
“Right now, damage is pretty high overall, as we want games to be fast and explosive,” Rivera wrote. “When it comes to TOD, we’re mainly seeing people using the Ahri support non-scaling damage exploit (sorry about that), combo-able supers, and Yasuo full-gauge dumps in conjunction with Double Down and Fury Fuses. The above combos are expected, but it’s valuable to listen to your sentiments, feedback, and look at the data to better understand what’s happening in matches vs. training mode.”
“I want to be clear: we don’t expect 2XKOs to be associated with TOD, and if they do occur, they should be rare and resource-intensive. We have some work to do here to fix some of the easier issues, and I appreciate all your feedback, which I’m sure we can improve.”
So these longer combos, the ones that take away the initiative from the player, will definitely suffer some in the near future. But is this the right approach? Looking at other two-player fighting games, like Marvel vs Capcom 3, extended combos and even lethal combos are an important part of the advanced experience. It’s part of the advanced skill expression, as are moves and defenses designed to avoid such combos. Does limiting the length and power of such combos take away something valuable from the overall 2XKO experience?
Or is that sacrifice worth it in order to attract players who are more invested than other fighting game players? The alpha lab testing intentionally includes not only hardcore fighting game players, but also non-fighting game players who are just getting into the game. This group essentially represents an early influx of the League of Legends/Valorant/general gaming player base that is expected to at least try 2XKO at launch, and if they leave in droves, who does that help?
It’s something worth thinking about, along with the impact that a proper tutorial, onboarding experience, and ranking system would have on new player retention. Maybe this is so frustrating simply because we’re pitting 14-year-old Valorant player Jimmy against a variety of highly skilled fighting game players. Lab monsters who are able to sit down and spend hours optimizing combos, while Jimmy just wants to get a super skill.
Do you think combo length and critical hit combos need to be adjusted, or is it too early to make such changes? Let us know below!
