The 2XKO alpha lab testing is well underway, and as expected, players are digging in and discovering all kinds of nasty combos and dastardly techniques. However, through this journey of Twitter clip exploration, one question has become at the forefront of 2XKO’s discussion. Is there any fun in overly long combos?
What I mean by “over-the-top” is those dizzying combinations that weave between characters, sometimes linking multiple superheroes together, which leave victims helpless for a period of time as their opponents style themselves for years. It’s always been like this. For some, this ability to pull off 15+ second combos is part of its appeal, and the epitome of all mastery. For everyone else, being able to take your hands off the controller and check Twitter during a game isn’t entirely enthralling.
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The debate is taking place online. On one side are those who think long periods of downtime are bad for gaming. Iron Galaxy game developer Keits brought in his own research and found that 6-8 seconds of downtime is where frustration starts to set in. However, others like influential Spaceman Marcus have spoken out 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 that feeling is what makes fighting games worthwhile.
Enter game director Shaun Rivera, who posted a lengthy post on Twitter about how the team is addressing this feedback. After expressing his delight at the number of people flocking to Alpha and pushing it to its limits, he wrote:
“We saw a ton of really creative stuff, but I want to emphasize one point: low-to-zero agency for very long periods of time is not an option. Thanks to all the incredibly talented Lab Monsters for giving us a lot of stuff worth looking at we still have There’s a lot of work to do, so you can expect the game to improve in this area in the future.
He also commented on Deathstrike combos, which were discovered by testers almost immediately. For those who don’t know, these combos can kill a character from 100% HP all the way to zero. They are situational, often resource expensive, but still very powerful.
Rivera wrote: “Right now, damage is pretty high overall as we want the game to be fast and explosive. Speaking of TOD, we mostly see clips of people using Ahri back assist unscaled damage bug (sorry about that), you Yasuo Full Meter Dump can be combined with Double Down and Fury Fuse, the above combination is expected, but there is value in listening to your emotions, feedback, and reviewing the data to better understand what’s going on.
“I want to be clear: we don’t want 2XKOs to be TOD related, if they do exist they should be rare and require a lot of resources. We have some work to do here to fix some of the easier problems, thanks for all your feedback , I believe we can improve things.
So these longer combos, the ones that remove player agency, are definitely going to be tampered with a little bit in the near future. But is this the right move? Looking at other tag team games like Marvel vs Capcom 3, extended combos and even death combos are an important part of a high-level experience. This is part of high-level skill expression, as is movement and defensive play 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 it a sacrifice worth it to gain more player input than other tag team players? Alpha Labs testing intentionally includes not only fighting game die-hards, but also non-fighting game folks from the ground up. This group essentially represents the early influx of League of Legends/Valorant/general gamers who are expected to at least try 2XKO at launch, and if they bounce back in droves, who does that help?
This is something worth considering, and what impact proper tutorials, onboarding experiences, and ranking systems can have on new player retention. Maybe it’s just frustrating because we’re pitting 14-year-old Valorant player Jimmy against a variety of highly skilled fighting game players. Lab monster, able to sit and optimize combos for hours, while Jimmy just wants to get super.
Do you think combo length and death combos need to be adjusted, or is it too early to make such a change? Let us know below!
