Killer Instinct Textual Stream 01/29/15

This week’s Killer Instinct Textual Stream is available now via Adam Isgreen. You’ll learn some new information regarding the next Season 2 character the war golem (whose reveal is set for next week), some tidbits about Cinder’s story, and even a tease for a possible Season 3 character! The majority of the textual stream is provided for you in the post with the rest available at the Ultra-Combo forums.

Character input “feel” of S1 vs. S2

There was a good thread started on how the feel of input was different on the early S2 characters from the S1 cast and it’s a side-effect of a philosophical change on how we handle input windows. We realize that this resulted in tighter cancel windows and thus a different feel for a few S2 characters. We’ve been investigating an optimization to address this without breaking any existing combos and hope to roll it out by the end of Season 2. It’ll be added on one character at a time, as we want to take care we don’t break anything with the existing characters and balance.

A word on B.Shago-

We see many comments on how it should be “easy” to add B.shago as a playable character, or “just add” one of his moves to shago, and I’d like to clear that up. Short version: It’s not easy at all.

As even DH said long ago, he’s not meant to be a player character, and behind the scenes that’s very, very true. In order to become playable, B.shago’s moveset and controlling scripts have to be rebuilt from the ground-up. His animations look good, but they also need cleanup for regular play, as they cheat in many places we can’t cheat for a playable character. And of course, with a moveset that crazy, he’ll need lots and lots of balance time.

Such issues spontaneously improved in 29% of the men for suggesting that factors can be controlled, lowest price for viagra including lifestyle, were behind the Erectile Dysfunction reversal. But to treat such sexual disorder in men, there has been a gigantic growth in a number of people consuming ED medications and tadalafil 5mg online its growing by each day. It can cheap cialis pills lessen some significant side-effects of aging, such as enhancing mental and physical ability. Since it is a serious medicine, you would need producing prescription of a levitra 40 mg doctor, when buying the anti-depressant.

Combined, this means the only way you’ll see b.shago as an independent character is if we sacrifice a full character slot to him. We obviously didn’t do that this season, as we wanted to provide more diverse characters in the full slots instead of a half-clone of Jago. Is there still hope? Sure, but we’re going to wait until we’re through season 2 first before we even start thinking about what we could do with him.

What is the golem’s special ability that’s never been done before in a fighting game?!

We built a character around the phrase “stuck between a rock and a hard place”.

The golem does something no other fighting game character has ever done, and that’s change the boundaries of the board by creating walls behind himself or behind the opponent. These walls are considered the new stage boundaries, so you’re not teleporting past them, but you can jump off them (if your character has wall jump) and use them just like a “real” wall. More detail on all the nuances of them and the rest of his repertoire as we roll into February!

Q&A:

Can we expect the possibility of more than nine colours to appear for each character in KI?
Let’s get to 9 first and then see what’s up. =)

What would you guys think of making a character who curses player action for a limited time? For example, if they connected with a certain move it would specifically/randomly curse light, medium, or heavy attacks so that when they performed moves with one of those attacks it either locked them out from using them or actually dealt potential damage to them for using them.

At one point during design phase, both Kan-Ra and Omen had these kinds of abilities. Obviously neither have something like this now, but we’ve discussed something similar for an upcoming character…

Will story mode end in a cliffhanger to tease season 3?
What do you think? Should it?

Why is the match countdown counter not in seconds? It’s always puzzled me.
It’s 2 real seconds per unit on-screen. We did this because the timer was way too fast at 99 “real” seconds, and we didn’t want to go to a 3-digit timer.

Can we have a Hunter S. Thompson themed costume for Sabrewulf? He’d look amazing with a torn floral shirt, cigarette holder, and those signature hat and glasses.
LOVE the idea. We’ll keep it around for later. I can already imagine how good it would look. Kan-Ra could likely sport it too.

Have you guys given any thought to adding an alternate survival mode where, instead of having power auto-refill a certain amount at the end of each match, players can knock small “prizes” out of the opponent during the match with great combos, and maybe a bag of prizes out of the opponent by finishing them with an ultra… (snipped for length)
The mode you suggest sounds like the one from GG Xrd, which would be pretty involved to build. We have another mode coming this season that’s very replayable, but nothing that inventory-focused / RPG-ish is planned for KI just yet.

Hey Adam, just curious as to what the plan is for the Mike announcer. Will you guys continue using it or just replace it all together? Also, who is this mystery announcer that has been filling in for Mike in season 2?
Eventually we’ll have to completely replace the Mike announcer, as it becomes harder and harder to support it without Mike. Our audio director has been filling in the new lines in the meantime.

Dude. Headtracking. What’s the deal?
Turned it on and everything graphically broke, which is the real reason it was turned off in the first place. Turns out it’s not a trivial thing to adjust (has to be done per character, per state), so we’ll have to look at it when we have more time (post S2).

Have you guys considered a Japanese arcade release for KI?
We talked about this a long time ago during S1 development, and I would love to explore the idea still. Likely would have to happen post a season so there’s a full build for the arcades. I’ll need to talk to our Xbox engineers about the possibility for a forced-title booting, non-dash dropping version of an X1 to run the title… Hmm…

Are you going to make more holiday accessories?
Yes! What holidays do you think we should do and what accessories? Keep in mind we’ll keep sprinkling a few each holiday amongst the cast, covering the ones without first.

The power of 3 Omen bars is killing the balance of the game, it will continue that way?
Considering you haven’t played him yet, you arrive at this conclusion how, exactly?

Does Cinder have a full face or just eyes?
Depends on if he’s formed his mask or not.

Will accessories be updated to match the selected color instead of always looking the same? Currently some combinations with the newer characters (ie: TJ’s classic costume with a full set of any accessory) lead to there being absolutely no difference between all of the selectable colors.
We’re working on giving you better color options for accessories. Still in the plan during S2.

Do you ever intend to go back and rewrite the AI to play the game from a base of proper fundamentals and human flaws?
We have a new mode coming in a few months that will help immensely with this kind of training. Stay tuned!

Do u guys have plans for more fireball heavy characters?
You can assume Cinder has fiery stuff at his command but beyond that, no.

Random lore question: does Cinder like working at UltraTech and being a guy on fire constantly? Or is he really cynical towards UltraTech and just does it because he prefers not to be constantly on fire?
If it wasn’t for Ultratech’s assistance, by the end of Ben’s transformation, he would have melted everything around him as he expanded while consuming all nearby matter, then finally collapsed and detonated like a miniature sun going super-nova. UT has given him a way to still be “normal” in some regards (i.e. a guy constantly on fire can’t really do mundane things like sit in a chair or ride in an elevator), so he respects that, but it also holds him hostage in some ways to UT. Fortunately, he happens to agree with ARIA’s goals, so it doesn’t bother him that much.

Adam, you mentioned that you have backstories planned out for characters not in S2 (Kim Wu, Tusk, Gargos). This makes me wonder if you do have some designs/characters/stories in mind for a potential third season that aren’t part of the KI canon? You don’t have to go into detail, I was just curious of how much of a universe you’ve created.
I have at least 3 other characters besides Kim and Tusk that I’m thinking on for possible inclusion in (a possible) S3, one of which is a sibling to an S2 character…

Like the news and content available on KIC? Feel free to leave a donation and contribute to its growth. A donation of any amount is appreciated and welcome!
[paypal-donation]