Using Bonjour Services, so yes, there should be Wifi, Bluetooth, and internet (using GameCenter servers, as game is not profitable enough yet to have its own servers).
Do you think Game Center servers will provide decent multiplayer? I mean lags, crashes, player search etc. I know, you have no choise at this time. Just to chat about it.
Hi Masvil, I have to make some researches about it, is it so bad ? What is the average ping between two players from the same country ?
That training mode sounds great! ----////---- There are some special moves . You character starts career with 1 combo and 1 special. . . . If you play a quick match you get a random character, 2 specials, and 2 combos. Quick matches are a good place to try out different techniques. As you go through career mode, you buy more specials and combos. They cost 500-2,000 credits. Once you have some combos and specials unlocked, you can perform your specials by holding the "S" button. That changes the punch/kick buttons into your 4 special moves. Specials usually cost 30-50 energy to use in a match. Combos cost 20-60 energy to perform. And example would be: Strong Kick, Fast Punch, Strong Punch. . . . Once you get the timing down, the combos are fairly easy to perform. If you pause a match and bring up the move list, it will give you information about your specials and combos. It does take a little while to get a feel for the game. I struggled at first too. Once I finally settled into the Tai Chi Chuan technique it's been smooth sailing.
Hard to answer, there is no background. Consider: 1. Fighting games need EXCELLENT multiplayer servers because milliseconds do matter. 2. The most known iOS fighting games with online multiplayer are SF Volt, SFxTK and KoF-i 2012 and they use their own servers/networks. Anyway all you can do is to give the best of yourself and... let's cross the fingers I really don't know if/how it can be estimated. I bet no.
^ No prob! About GC, the only example that comes to mind is Trigger Fist. Lag isn't he only problem. Matchmaking with GC just sucks. And with that I don't mean that getting a match with 4 or more players was difficult. Even getting a single match with a single person took some minutes, just to get DC after a while. In fact, I think TF is the only online game with GC servers I've played, and I'm sure there's a reason behind that. That's my experience with GC, and it was clearly not good. Maybe with a fighting game it's better, but I won't hold my breath.
And then for usernames, achievements and sometimes leaderboards, but that's all. Their servers are never used for real time MP games, and when they are used there the game is a failure. TF was a really cool game. It was like CS in third person, and no game at that time offered the same kind of gameplay, but GC destroyed that.
While we're discussing all of this... I do want to say that if we have to wait longer in order for servers to get set up (even if its a month, two or longer), I'm all for it... I know it can be quite a bit of work getting your own servers set up. And I have no idea if that's even financially feasible for you ATM... I mean, I do hope the game is selling well, but this is the iOS, so hearing otherwise would not surprise me (or, I'm sure, anyone else here) one little bit.
No problem here with the wait either. MP can make or break a game, and a fighting game needs a big community, and even bigger when we're talking about an indie game. I'd say that a huge community is even more important than fast income. That's the only thing that can keep the game alive to get more customers and create a large fanbase for upcoming games. Just take a look at Capcom. They released SFxTK (I'm talking about both versions). The game wasn't perfect, and as such it didn't get a lot of sales. Instead of hearing both players and potential customers about gems and such, they made the 2013 version. With that they only managed to keep the community alive, but they didn't get a lot of sales with that. Now the game is dying, and in some tourneys there aren't even enough players to support SFxTK and now they don't know what to do with the game.
Oh, sure. I only played single player there. GC says it takes over 6 min to get match in that game. WTF.
Alright so, I just downloaded the lite version of this game, and I'm... not sure I "get it". I'm a fighting game fanatic, and I can certainly appreciate the new concepts that KD brings to the table. I like how specials are handled, I like how damage is handled, I'm okay with how combo work, etc. What I'm missing is where the strategy is in this game. Two fundamentals of all the games I've played have been spacing and timing, but neither seems to matter here. Spacing seems somewhat relevant because your moves have a limited range, but it's really hard to tell what that range is, since the hitboxes are often longer or shorter than the character model. Some kicks can have the foot passing right through the other character, while other kicks seem to hit even when they don't actually connect. Mot of my matches come down to poking from slightly out of range, since I can't tell exactly how far my attacks go, and the AI can't seem to tell either since it keeps walking into my feet. And then there's the timing lack-of-issue. When dodge or block an opponent's attack, it's incredibly difficult to punish because most attacks have more startup lag than end lag. It's almost always possible to attack and then block again before getting countered. Combined with the insanely high chip damage, there's absolutely no downside to constant rushdown. Using the dash to negate hitstun is interesting in theory, but it's pointless when touch controls aren't sensitive enough to dash on reaction to attacks, ala SF3 parrying. The lack of options on wakeup also leads to rather lopsided games, as a single knockdown leads to the world's easiest frametrap, and more offensive pressure. I know the energy bar is supposed to limit offensive pressure in theory, but it fills up fast enough to not be a huge issue. I've played maybe 30 matches total now, and I can typically beat Pro difficulty with an almost-fully green star, taking at most 3 hits per match. I guess there's a 5th difficulty in the full version, but I'm not convinced it'll provide enough extra variety to be worth it. I can't imagine being able to do much more with the engine, than I've already seen. I really am curious about the other 6 styles, but ehhh... I don't know, I think I need someone to really show me what aspects of strategy I'm missing here. I really WANT to like this game, because I think it's insanely ambitious, and I love the customization aspect, but the gameplay itself isn't doing it for me.
Hi TigerPrez, and thank you for your interest in Kinetic Damage. I'll let other damagers tell their feeling about how many layers of strategy they can see, but I will try to cover the fair interrogations you mentionned from a technical standpoint. This is a long post, to make it useable for any further question about those points, so I split it into different topics so you can pick the one you're interested in. 1) Hitboxes : they're not mesh based, but cubic based, all manually pre-animated. Cubes can be the reason why you can sometimes see a strike hit while not being exactly touching a certain limb (small margin though). The reason I went this route was because like you see in Kinetic Damage, some movements / strikes are very dynamic. Air flips, swaying back and forth, spinning, etc... that's because I wanted each normal strike to feel like a special strike. If I used more exact hitboxes, the range knowledge you could have about your strike would have been useless, giving more importance to the exact position of your fighter's body at a precise time, mixed with your opponent's one. In short : it would have made your strikes more random. So I decided to sacrifice a bit of visual precision in order to give more to player's decision. If you decide to launch a precise strike at a precise time, your decision is guaranteed to be respected whatever the motion is. This gives more intuitive fights, based more on decision rather than randomness. Which is exactly the way I want Kinetic Damage to feel. In the end, with such a design methodology, it is easier and faster to tell what range is. And the only thing a player has to know in order to master his strikes is range, strike time, and recover time, freeing some brainpower for other mechanics below. 2) strike timings : Actually, launch times are either equal to recover times, either shorter, but never longer. Here is the base frame data for all Arts (= not changed by speed, range, etc, starts at 3rd line in doc) : Each blocked hit creates a hitstun that is equal to 30% of initial hitstun. If you look closely at the table, that means : - you cannot punish any strike with normal strikes - you can punish stand Strong kick (the most damaging) with quick normal strikes - the only situation where you can punish most of the strikes with a normal one after a block is if your opponent strikes again. Why did I put this constrain ? Because once again, I base my vision upon real fights : if you take a hit, may you receive full damage or block it, it is still a lecturing and strategic failure. So blocking does give you an advantage on the next round of strikes, but if you really want to punish an incoming strike, you either have to : - avoid it (crouch, jump, counter) - sacrifice a part of your health and energy with a dash forward (safer route, but more cost) Conclusion : in Kinetic Damage, punishing is not impossible, but harder, rewarding lecture and anticipation more than reaction. As I mentionned, reaction is still rewarded, but not the end of it all. Once again I wanted to take a different approach than all the other fighting games on this precise level, even for hardcore players. In short, if we have to envision a fight between 2 very skilled KD players, we will have more insightful matches, where fighters have to see further in their opponent's game to truly own them, instead of just waiting for a strike to come (aka turtling). Suppressing turtling was part of the design vision. That was the "free" version of punishing. But to ease the pressure a bit, I also gave "panic buttons", aka special counters for certain classes (at the cost of energy and recover time), and dash forwarding armor for all of them. 3) the Dash forward armor : Dash forward will be a very, very important metagame at high skill levels. As mentionned in "how to play" section, not only does it negate hitstun (at the cost of taking full damage and 20 energy), but it also juggles your target for the duration of a stand LP or LK launchtime, if you interrupt a strike. Controls for it are intuitive (double tap forward), but not too easy to execute (= takes some reflexes preparation and ~0.1 sec to perform), because it is very powerful : letting any player cancel his opponent strike into a counter means that hardcore players will basically be able to "silence" anyone, chaining with a combo or a special. This had to be balanced on an execution standpoint. It takes some training to master the double tap quicker and quicker, but doesn't take that long. I don't consider myself a hardcore player concerning controls, but I can now succeed in interrupting most of the strikes I want. The only constraint is to plan it a split second before, and that's the way I wanted it to be, as it's not a Reactive, but Aggressive defense. Once you're in a "dash interrupting mindset" though, you can chain interrupts in shorter and shorter times. Reactive defense is defined by avoidance moves (crouch, jump, etc). 4) the Wakeup game : Wakeups are given a lot of options, considering you have a 0.3 sec window once you wake up to create a wakeup armor. During this window, whatever strike you trigger will give you an invincibility during 0.2sec, like explained in the How to Play section in the Title Screen. There was a more detailed discussion about it in the now closed Upcoming Games thread if you want. Also another mechanic detail : energy refills 50% slower when you're down, and does not refill when you're in a hit state. Which means knocking down your opponent gives you a big advantage on strategy. This will be another kind of important decisions at competitive levels. 5) the AI difficulty : A few variants in the AI design can make two same level AIs fight very differently, like mentionned in this AI explanation video (subtitles available). 6) Strategies and mechanics : On top of all these metagames, there are also a lot of other mechanics that are designed to bring other layers of strategies : - Perfect Strikes : Each strike has a % chance to be a perfect strike, independantly from being a critical. A perfect strike puts a debuff for 6 seconds, depending on the limb you hit. Each class has more or less chance, depending on its Precision stat. Head -> max energy is reduced by 30% Torso -> Health Recovery -100% Arms -> Endurance -30% (endurance = amount of damage absorption on block + amount of damage before being stunned) Legs -> -30% overall speed (strikes, movements, etc) Additionally from that flat % chance, you got a 30% boost on a strike being critical and perfect if you're striking a dead node. Plus ... those debuffs can be stacked up to 5 times. That means you have different choices about how you want to disrupt the "inner system" of your opponent. Your opponent is a special masher ? Aim at the head to cut his resource. Too fast for you ? Aim at the legs. He's blocking way too much ? Aim at the arms. Too much time between each of your successful hits ? Aim at the torso so he doesn't recover. - Stance switching : And that's where the stance switching game comes in. switching stance (double tap down) reverses your health star, putting front nodes to back, and vice versa. It also reverses the side you're hitting. Strategy possibilities.. Plus .... mindgames with stance switching : for example if your opponent has his front side completely destroyed, you can guess that he will want a reverse stance at all costs ... except if you're reverse stanced too That means you'll see moments where both fighters can stand against each other, only trying to read at what time the other will switch stance. (also considering stance switching is open to quick strike counters). That precise stance metagame was inspired by Competitive Taekwondo fights, for connaisseurs. And .... on top of stance switching, grabs are forcing your opponent to switch to your stance. I'll let you imagine the implications. - Specials : Each special was designed to be unique, not only visually, but mechanic wise. I won't expand further here because there is really too much to say about all the different ones, but you can find an example of metagame around one special in this post. ___________________________ TL;DR version : Kinetic Damage is designed to feel easy to handle, but hard to master. That's why it needs a bit of exploration to see the big picture, and why for hardcore fighting gamers it could feel at first either too simple, either limited until they discover all those new mechanics, as the only common ground with what we have been used to play for 20 years is target combos and blocking. But don't worry about depth, as I'm litterally a game mechanic whore. I'd humbly say you can trust me about having taken the time to think, design, and refine a large amount of strategy choices for any kind of player. Basically this is why the punchline for Kinetic Damage is "Think. Arm. Strike." ___________________________ I hope I answered at least a part of your interrogations. But without a doubt, the best players will be the ones who will be ok to leave a part of their good old fighting game legacy behind, and take some time to explore every underlying mechanics Thank you for your feedback, which doesn't fall on deaf ears
Wow, killer post KD. @TigerPrezX: The Tai Chi Chuan technique has a lot of range, the strikes can connect without the hand/foot actually striking your fighter. I think the swirling "energy field" might be a little confusing at first. I really can't top the last post about strategy. Each technique plays completely different from the next, and there's no right or wrong way to use them. With my Tai Chi Chuan character I build up "Qi Burn". It's basically damage built up over just a few seconds. Lets say the "Qi Burn" was up to 400 damage. I can use the "detonate" special and do 200% of that damage (for 40 energy), or I could use "heal" 150% for 30 energy. . . . Just those two specials make a "game within the game". The third special is "push". My character has a lot of range, so if somebody gets too close (like after they dash) a push will buy me some space . . . You could also jump in with a kick immediately followed by a push, and start working your opponents into the corner. (That's actually a good strategy against other slow techniques). The fourth special is kind of counter. I can choose to counter either a punch or a kick, if I guess wrong the counter is ineffective. . . . It's actually useful against some of the fast techniques, or if you know the AI is going to try to jump kick you Also all of your combos require energy. So managing that energy bar is really critical. When you see you have an energy advantage, it can actually be a huge advantage. . . . . And if you just took some serious damage, there's a good chance your opponent doesn't have much energy. It helps keep the game balanced. The dashes also cost energy. Forward dashing is a big part of the game, I believe you basically take the damage on the way through, but it's still a good way to get in. If you have a lot of energy and your opponent doesn't, you might try to grab them. They will use up their energy trying to push you off, you will keep the advantage. Where you strike also matters. There's 6 nodes (head, 2 arms, torso, 2 legs) dead nodes can't heal and will spread the damage to other nodes. But switching your stance and going after the healthy nodes will be faster. And also just picking you character is a big part of the strategy. I just started a career profile with Ninjitsu and it's like a totally different game. *Edit: Forgot to mention that Legend difficultly is a good bit harder than Pro. The game also has challenges where you fight opponents with a strength multiplier (up to x2).
Well, I have to say thank you for such a full and informing post. Based on that alone, I'm going to buy the full version once I get home tonight, just to try the other styles and Legend difficulty. At such a low price point, I don't feel bad paying just to support a developer. You have a very interesting take on blocking, definitely different from what I'm used to, and the frame data really spelled that out for me. It's incredibly difficult to duck a s.lk or jump a c.lk on reaction, and flatly impossible to dash through on reaction, so you either have to dash on intuition or resort to blocking. And since blocking is so heavily penalized without giving any real advantage in return, it leads to a VERY intuition-based game. I'm... not sure yet whether or not I like that, but it does make sense, and I respect the choice to make it that way. I'm still not sold on the execution of double-tapping to dash. There's a reason iPhone platformers are notorious for poor controls. In my experience so far, dashes only work about half the time I try them, and I can't dash on reaction against even the slowest attacks. I don't think it's a lack of reaction time on my part; I can parry my way to perfect matches against Gill easily. Similarly, I can only complete about half my combo attempts, and this is coming from a MvC2 Magneto player. It's just the nature of the iPhone. And maybe it's just because I haven't played Legend difficulty yet, but I've never had an opponent that forced me to pay much attention to energy. After unloading a special or a big combo, there's always a way to stall for more energy. If the opponent blocks, I can block again and recharge before they can punish. If they get hit, they get knocked down, and I get more time to recharge. And when all else fails, a string of max-range s.lk/c.lk pokes can stall somewhat effectively just because it's so hard to punish. I guess so far, the bottom line is that Pro hasn't been challenging enough that I NEED to master advanced strategies. Just knowing the combos and abusing blockstun and knockdown has been enough to score near-perfect wins. I love the stance-switching mechanic, and I love the specific node damage effects (something I haven't seen since Fighting Vipers), but I haven't really NEEDED to take advantage of those things to win either. But yeah, I'll give the full game a chance just out of curiosity. I'll be back with more feedback later. ^^ One suggestion I AM sure of would be to add a cast of default characters, not to replace the random opponents, but maybe as "special" opponents. Maybe two named characters (one male, one female) for each style, each with a small pre-set range of personality variables? Unique dialogue/taunts would be nice too. Part of branding is just giving consumers something specific to latch onto, so we can become fans of those details.
