The 2XKO alpha lab test is well underway, and as expected players are digging into it and uncovering all manner of nasty combos and dastardly tech. However, through this journey of twitter-clip exploration a question has risen to the top of the general 2XKO discussion. Are overly-long combos any fun, and should they have a home in 2XKO?
By overly-long, I’m referring to those eye-watering combos that weave between characters, sometimes linking multiple supers together, that leaves the victim locked into a period of helplessness as their oppoent styles on then for ages. For some, this ability to pull off 15+ second combos is where the juice is, where all expression of mastery can be found. For others, being able to take your hands of your controller and check Twitter mid-match isn’t exactly riveting.
This debate is playing out online. On one side, thsoe who feel these long periods of essentially downtime aren’t great for the game. Game developer Keits from Iron Galaxy brought in his own research, which found that 6-8 seconds of downtime is where frustration starts to bubble up. Whereas, others like influencer Cosmonaut Marcus have spoken up about how fundamental overcoming this feeling is to the fighting game experience. The idea that you’re meant to lose a lot, for a while, and pushing through that feeling is how fighting games become rewarding.
Enter game director Shaun Rivera, who made a lengthy post on Twitter about how the team is looking to address this feedback. After expressing his pleasure at the number of people who have flocked to the alpha and pushed it to its limits, he wrote the following,
“We are seeing a ton of really creative things, but I want to underscore that: Super long periods of low-to-zero agency are undesirable. Thank you to all of the extremely talented lab monsters out there for giving us a lot to look at. We have work to do here so you can expect the game to improve in this area in the future.”
He also commented on touch-of-death combos, which were discovered almost immediately by testers. For those who don’t know, these are combos that can kill a character from 100% HP all the way down to zero. They’re situational, and often resource expensive, but nonetheless are incredibly powerful.
Rivera writes: “Right now, the damage is pretty high in general as we want matches to be fast and explosive. When it comes to TODs, we have been mostly seeing clips of folks using the Ahri back assist unscaled damage bug (sorry about this), supers you can combo off of, and Yasuo full meter dump in conjunction with Double Down and Fury Fuses. The combinations above are expected, but listening to your sentiment, feedback and reviewing the data to get a better understanding of what is happening in a match vs training mode has been extremely valuable.
“I want to be clear that: We don’t want 2XKO to be about TODs, and if they do exist, then they should be rare and require a ton of resources. We have some work to do here to address some of the easier ones, and thanks to all of your feedback, I feel confident we can improve things.”
So it certainly appears as if these longer combos, those that remove player agency, will be tampered with a little bit in the near future. But is this the right move? Looking at other tag fighters, games like Marvel vs Capcom 3, extended combos and even touch-of-death combos are part and parcel of the high-level experience. It’s part of the high level skill expression, as is movement and defensive play aimed at avoiding such combos. Would limiting the length and power of such combos take away something valuable for the overall 2XKO experience?
Or, in hopes of getting more players invested than other tag fighters, is it a worthwhile sacrifice? The alpha lab test has intentionally included not just fighting game diehards, but non-fighting game people coming in at the ground floor. This group essentially represents the early influx of League / Valorant / general gaming playerbase expected to at least try 2XKO on launch, and if they are bouncing off in droves, who does that help?
It’s something to think about, as well as what sort of impact a proper tutorial, entry-level experience, and ranking system would have on new player retention. Maybe this is only so frustrating because we’re throwing Jimmy the 14 year old Valorant player up against all manner of freakishly skilled fighting game player. Lab monsters, able to sit down and optimize a combo for hours while Jimmy just wants to land a super.
Do you think combo length and touch-of-death combos need adjusting, or is it too early to make such changes? Let us know below!