2XKO Alpha Review: The Good and The Bad

[@pat_squared]

Minor thing but it kept bugging me. Health Recovery in training is set like a timer instead of just recovering when the combo ends. So if you do a level 3, the long animation means that by the time it ends the HP has recovered. I think it still tracks the damage numerically but i wanna see it too.

[@SimoneBellomonte]

Pfp (Profile Picture) and / or Banner Source (Link to full Image and Artists Names?) 🗿

[@UNCONKABLE]

Hey Broski, just wanted to say thanks for the excellent 2XKO Alpha Lab review, and I am excited to see if/how your thoughts change after you try the next version

[@pinkserenade]

my goat

[@Vinoyl]

Great to finally see a real review of the game instead of flaming gimmicks that people get rolled by

[@ohpeep3723]

I've only seen nothing but people overpraise the game

[@jpVari]

What does this mean? Honestly not sure what that phrase means

[@raisinbman]

That's broski content in a nutshell. It's nice having an fgc member who isn't afraid to actually give an informed opinion instead of saying 'hmm we should wait 2 years for the foremost Dr. Bosconovich player to tell us his tier placement' and/or memes and talking in circles. Every other genre has guides and reviews but the fgc is stuck in the past EDIT: and like clockwork...

[@dontworryaboutit5490]

@@raisinbmanany examples of this fantasy you made up?

[@SimoneBellomonte]

​@@raisinbmanI agree with your take on broski, hes just a nice guy, but i also gotta agree with the reply below yours..., can you give some examples instead of adding an edit mocking the person asking a legitimate question? Lmao You became what you swore to destroy. 🗿

[@rigel442]

The CPT World Warrior UK champion!

[@SimoneBellomonte]

Can i get a link to the Top 8 of which tournament he won? Ty. 🗿

[@ReyMercuryFGC]

Save states in Training Mode is the one thing i want the most added for final release. Especially in these kind of games where the Infinite Prevention System is Hitstun Decay, you cant do math to figure out the best combo routes, you gotta instead mash your head and try all the options available on every step to find out what does more damage. Having save states IS SUPER IMPORTANT to save hours of time labbing! Also, health bar numbers would be nice. I'd love to know how much health Braum has in contrast to Ekko.

[@rooksdoubleohseven9919]

Doesn't Fury also give you cancels too.

[@ReyMercuryFGC]

@@rooksdoubleohseven9919 What? im not talking about cancels what do you mean? i think you replied to the wrong comment didnt you? if not explain im sorry im not getting it

[@SimoneBellomonte]

​@@rooksdoubleohseven9919What does that have to do with his comment? Did you reply to the wrong pershreon? Lol

[@KTSamurai1]

for the fury fuse, i think it would be great as a second step into the game after pulse it being passive is a feature for me. pulse is great because it helps you understand the flow and feel of combos so you can learn the manual ones more easily. double down, 2x assist, and freestyle are great style expressions for players who know the game very well. for me, fury is a nice fuse to have in between. youre either starting to learn manual combos or youve finally got them down and now you want to focus on using them effectively. your mental stack is quite full after you move off of pulse. fury being passive and acting as a bit of come back mechanic is really useful in this way, you can focus on applying what youve learned and when you inevitably fuck up you have a way to get back into the game i think 2xko needs 1 or 2 "in between" fuses and fury, or something like it, is a great way to bridge the gap. i agree that it's weak but i think that might be a feature in the same way they pulse is weak. it's not meant to be competitively viable, it's meant to free up your mental stack a bit as you progress not trying to be snide or anything but this may be a blind spot for people are your level. you can pick up a game like this brand new and more or less master it very quickly. but i think having more of a gradient with a passive pulse is great for the learning curve. would love to hear what you think about this approach, though. i am but a scrub

[@happycamperds9917]

I agree but I think they should maybe move the dash cancel to it's own fuse.

[@KTSamurai1]

@@happycamperds9917 yeah the dash cancel being part of fury just kind of confuses me to be honest. am i furiously dashing? because im mad?

[@pingouuiin]

I played the whole alpha without knowing the inputs for burst and pushblock lol The menus are definetly the 1st thing I want them to improve so I can get the information that I need fairly quickly (I'm too lazy to go on internet to search it)

[@tylerwells5750]

Fully agree on your opinion of combo length. I could get comboed by Ekko or Yasuo forever and be mostly ok with it because their combos look sick and are relatively easy to follow. On the other hand, getting comboed off of Ahri S1 looks kinda boring and samey and often feels like torture

[@brisioso]

Maybe I’m facing all the wrong Yasuos, but I firmly disagree with the community consensus that Yasuo combos are fun to sit through. I think he has the most tools in his kit and the potential to have the sickest combo game; I just find that the vast majority of Yasuos I face go for the exact same BnB wall bounce triple air slash into OTG super 1+2 finisher. I’ve seen that combo so much more than all the Ahri BnBs that everyone keeps complaining about

[@alfredomartinezmazuela9328]

​@@brisiosoI think that is just the reality of people not labbing and just going straight through the lobby, but optimal Yasuo combos look nice and he has a lot of ways to vary his routes, but Ahri just does the same thing and the fact that is the most damage combo just makes it boring to watch no matter what level of player you face

[@Kait0s]

@@alfredomartinezmazuela9328 I've been playing Yasuo since day one and yeah, i've been using the same BnB most of the time because it's relatively easy to execute compared to his other combos. The stance cancel ones are super easy to drop, and while they do deal more damage, i'd rather have more consistency. That and bc this BnB specifically can easily combo with tag launcher for an Ekko wallbounce into mixup in case i can't end the combo with the meter dump.

[@maymainssharedonebraincell6022]

"surprise, take a break, surprise, take a break" 😂

[@brokentempest4268]

​@@brisiosothat is the fuse auto combo, the easiest yasuo combo that is quite effective

[@nayn5]

Thank you for talking about the burst bait mechanic. Hadn't seen anyone mention it but it is so weird how the game handles the explosion and the following bounce!

[@_Xroud]

Thank you! The tutorial being so barebones was one of my major concerns, they invited people of all skill levels randomly and had barely any onboarding for the new players. I personally know people that tried it couldn't figure out how the game works and wrote it down as something that's not for them and I've seen streamers who had the same experience. A lot of them wont even give feedback since they barely touched it and feel alienated. They should've made a proper tutorial or should've kept the testing to the more hadcore audience because in this state a lot of those invites were basically a net negative for the game.

[@JoIhnnyRage]

nice review. I especially agree with the take on Ahri. Not only is her range into bnbs insane but her block string is also the same as her combo routes making her take zero braincells to play.

[@FayeOkay]

really good review! regarding fury, i think it has a niche in that it's the only (non-pulse) fuse that does something when your partner is dead. because of that, it'd be cool if fury activated immediately if your partner dies. it seems good flavour wise too, because of course you'd get angry when your partner is down! just a little more power in fury and it'd have some potential as a 'comeback' fuse where the others want to jockey for an early game lead, or snowball their momentum.

[@iliakatster]

I disagree with the round start movement bc without strong air movement, it'll just end up like mvc where the two characters just rub up on each other, which fantastic for grappler players like me but the zoners are going to be very unhappy.

[@ShinUltima]

That said, there is no Vs. game that I'm aware of where grapplers actually benefit from the round start movement - either you're going up against a rushdown who is going to try and mix you up ASAP, or you face a zoner who will pushblock you across the screen before you can do anything. This likely has much to do with grapplers being generally bad in Marvel games though.

[@d0nt_]

21:14 Braum parried me straight into an ad, what perfect timing hahahahah

[@unrighteous8745]

I need an option to turn off screen shake and then this is my dream fighting game.

[@goodie2shoes874]

I hope Ahri isn’t completely gutted going into the full game. It may from the team not reworking the orb change from the evo build.

[@aristaljunior]

About the training mode another thing that i would like to be added other than save states is the frame meter just like the one we have in SF6, that is extremely helpfull not only to see frame data but that also helps a lot with timings in combos that you have to hold for an exact amount.

[@mykal4779]

and for getting down link timing!

[@Hurtdeer]

id really like to see the animation of some, if not all, level 2 supers sped up a bit. meter gain is so fast and sometimes you can end up seeing them a bit too much. I'm a little bit sick of it being snack time at this point

[@fromundaman]

Glad to hear someone mentioning the issues with defensive mechanics costing a bar of meter.

[@lilifoliaenvt]

2XKO has been my introduction to the tag fighter genre, and my takeaway from the alpha so far has been "This is a fun game but the onboarding experience was unacceptably bad for a newcomer to the format." I'm no stranger to 2D fighters and concepts like push blocking and parrying, but I had no clue 2XKO even had those mechanics as the tutorial straight-up didn't mention them. I ran my first few sets against my partner who's got a lot more experience in fighting games and was following the development more closely than I did, and I only discovered some of the game's mechanics in the middle of our games while asking her how I was supposed to deal with her Darius. If I'd not had someone to play against to learn the game and just gone right to the online lobbies I think I would have gotten wrecked repeatedly and just given up on it, which is a shame because 2XKO is *really good* once you clear that initial hurdle.

[@lilifoliaenvt]

*10 minutes ago* Me: Ugh, there's no defending that. Both you and the assist are out, I'm in the corner, chip damage kills, I don't have wakeup super. How do I defend that? Partner: Uh... Oh, you could wakeup attack. Me: What? Partner: Yeah, wakeup attack. Hold down and press S1. It's invincible. Me: _What?!_ I should not be learning key wakeup options secondhand on the last day of a playtest. This is not okay. They've _got_ to fix the tutorial before the next playtest window.

[@TheResidence.mp4]

Very valid criticism, explaining the mechanics of your game succinctly is one of the most important thing in fighting games. A tutorial this weak is unfortunate, I imagine a future patch improves it

[@chaoticstarfish3401]

Fighting game Alphas and Betas are typically more concerned with testing the functionality of online features (so much so, that the ones I played didn't even have tutorials or training modes; in that sense, _2XKO_ is quite a step up from other games). The game will undoubtedly have more polish and beginner-friendliness in its presentation in its official launch version.

[@MegiDolaDyne]

@@chaoticstarfish3401 Definitely true, but it's still important to voice feedback about these issues during alpha/beta testing so they know what people are struggling with.

[@azharoth]

tbh honest, you're right about the tutorial, BUT, it's also your fault because everything was explained in the movelist of the characters in the training mod. The pushblock, the parry, the get up attack, everything. Yes the tutorial is really bad, but honestly it took literaly 30 seconds and a bit of curiosity to learn all of that. In my opinion, if you don't take at least 1 minute to go the training mod at your first session to learn the moves of your character the fault is yours.

[@runbaa9285]

Honestly, my biggest complaint regarding the design of the game itself would probably the control scheme. For a game that advertises itself for being accessible for everyone, I don't think the amount of buttons the game has by default is particularly intuitive. New players mostly won't mind, but I find that experienced players are often the ones who have the biggest trouble with the control scheme, which is interesting. The character designer for the game mentioned in a podcast with Kinda Funny Games that they're looking into the controls, but I really wish for an alternate control scheme with fewer buttons and maybe simple motions, like how DBFZ does it. It's always nice to have options.

[@leoschue8071]

incredible to hear "this character's BnB goes on for top long, it looks like an infinite that you do for 3-4 reps, it's so monotonous" from an oro player

[@CodemanS1]

Somebody got hit by stones too much in V

[@shyco321utube]

Yeah some games like dbfz have gotten players way too used to watching someone else play for 20 seconds doing a boring basic combo

[@leoschue8071]

@@CodemanS1 nah, i was talking chicken combo. been doing a lot of 3S lately

[@dpokan]

Things I forgave because it's Alpha, balance, tutorial, menus. I never got really comfortable with the input scheme. It feels like too many buttons, I didn't like ddS for super or holding down the button to get alternate version of command normals. Maybe I didn't get used to the controls because I stopped playing whenI was sent to the Empty Lobby purgatory.

[@JahovasFitness]

I don't think combo length is all that bad rn. Ahri is definitely the biggest offender of long "boring" combos, but tbh almost everyone kinda suffers from that rn. A lot of combos involve looping some of the same things rn and you don't really see the "average" player getting too crazy with combo variety. Hell, Braum stuff mostly consists of alternating between held S2 and your preferred flavor of heavy button atm. Yasuo is pretty much the only character in the alpha that can really switch up his combos given his tools. Combo length will almost definitely get reduced a little because of feedback from more casual players, but I think it'd do wonders to give the characters more ways to string their combos so you're at least not watching the same 20 second+ combos all game.

[@Grux_ASG]

For me im used to never optimizing characters, I was able to pick up the really intuitive easy routes and had a lot of fun

[@kl_085]

The burst bait inconsistency is a training mode bug. You can see a "COMBO LIMIT" banner incorrectly appear on burst block which means it can't lead into a punish.

[@JahovasFitness]

For the section on fuses, I have to agree that Fury is the least beneficial. It being the comeback fuse is nice, but planning around making comebacks isn't very reliable, and no character available atm can really work as some Dark Phoenix type. Everyone's better off with the more oppressive 2x assist coverage or Freestyle shenanigans or the ezpz damage dump potential of double down. Also, hot take, I think they should make it so you can pick a fuse for each character. If this game didn't have duos as an option, I'd be fine with one fuse per team. However, due to the potential skill gaps and playstyle preferences you and your partner can have, I think it's detrimental to have only one fuse. My friend who has never played the game before might be better off with Pulse, but that hinders me as well since there's no fuse benefitting me in that situation. Allowing one fuse per character could also open a lot of strategy as you can pick fuses base on character strength as well. Maybe you'd like to use Double Down but it only really works doing one character into the other and not vice versa, so you might use 2x Assist or even Fury for that particular character instead. Doing it this way would allow those to have one fuse available if they want to double stack while also preventing situations where your team comp is hindered because you and your teammate have different tools you'd like to make use of. Double fuse is potentially very volatile, but given that this is still in a testing period, I think it's worth trying out at some point. I just really want there to be a solution to the potential issue of clashing fuse desires.

[@Spabobin]

If you have something like P1 Pulse + P2 Freestyle, would Freestyle's 2nd tag apply when P2 tags to P1 or vice versa? It can't logically work in both directions Or for 2X assist, does the player using it get to call their teammate twice, or do you get to be the double assist when your teammate is on point? I can see why they wouldn't want to deal with questions like that. Maybe only allow it for the other 3 fuses, but Freestyle/2X take up both fuse slots?

[@JahovasFitness]

@@Spabobin In the P1 Pulse + P2 Freestyle scenario, the way I see it working would be that the pulse user on point can tag to the freestyle user and the freestyle user can switch back to their point, but if the freestyle user is on point they can tag the pulse user in but the pulse player can't tag right back since they don't have that benefit due to Pulse being active. Similar case with your 2x assist question. If point selected the 2x assist then their partner can use 2 assists but if your partner didn't select it then the original point lead doesn't get to call assist twice. I can definitely see it being confusing tho, and it might be a little clunky or unintuitive at first. Again tho, we got a long while before game fully releases so pre-release testing periods would be the best place to try something like this anyways. However, I think the idea of making some fuses take two slots to avoid headaches like that is an interesting workaround as well.

[@pedroscoponi4905]

I really, really enjoyed this beta, and I agree with most of the feedback on this video. I wonder if the problem with the round 1 lack of parry could be solved simply by giving both players 1 bar of meter to start with, or a fast passive meter generation for the first, like, 10 seconds of the match. Maybe that causes problems in other ways. I think most people dislike the _idea_ of the ToD more than the actual thing? It sounds really terrible even if, in practice, 90% of players will never even see one. If they're hard to do and they cost a lot of resources, I don't actually have a problem with them. The wall bounce on burst block looks very fun and dramatic, but it's definitely finicky. If they can find a way to keep it while taking away the jank, that would be awesome, but it's not necessary.

[@DjOneOne]

game def feels closer to sf6 first open beta than an actual first alpha. ended up being pleasantly surprised you can feel the dna in the game if you’ve played bbtag/uni/melty and i will look forward to future versions. agree on save states especially when you are labbing 20+ hit combos and you need the hitstun decay to lab the ender was actually the worst also: the game NEVER tells you that any air hit grounded normal can be jump canceled on air hit/juggle which is p massive for routing imo

[@theuzi8516]

There's just one minor(?) and super subjective "bad" I want to add: I haven't played an FG that feels this "corporate". Like, if there ever was an FG made by a committee, I assume it would look, sound and feel like this game. Idk, it's definitely an "it was revealed to me in a dream" level of bs gut feeling but it's there.

[@thesyclemonte6571]

Ditto

[@harryvpn1462]

This is crazy

[@MegafanX123]

As i said in another video, the feel that i have with 2XKO its that they pretend to make a fg easier when what makes a fg hard (and an actual fg) its the neutral. By only removing the inputs will only show this faster. If they did a fg with inputs but no difference between high/low blocking, and no knockdowns (And anything that has become a term such as happy Birthday, plink, kara cancel), with air blocking,the genre would be much more accessible.

[@VoidEternal]

I didn't even realize that Yasuo has a down-forward Heavy (the launcher) or Down Heavy Air command. Shit was weird finding that out via youtube combo tutorials.

[@QwertYuiop-yt3uh]

Down forward heavy is a universal launcher btw, so every character has it. You are right that they dont mention air down heavy as a unique move in the movelist for some reason, probably forgot. I also think every character has one too. They also dont mention teching/air recovery in the tutorial nor the universal move list either.

[@SomniaCE]

I think the idea behind gating defensive mechanics behind meter is to justify both making them and the characters stronger whilst maybe making the act of using them more intuitive for new players. I agree with Rooflemonger's idea of starting each game with the point character having 1 bar

[@EditorSebas]

I got into the alpha, and I didn't even know you could dash in after a parry, I thought it was like a guard impact from Soul Calibur

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

the game left me feeling completely cold about it when i was initially very excited the lobby was excellent. everything else was... okay for me it boiled down to how the game felt like it should deliver satisfying moments rather than an overall satisfying experience. counters feel good; burst and burst bait feel good the rest of the gameplay just feels fine, and so strangely without commitment to any given character's power fantasy i'll use KI as an example: riptor's set-ups and zoning tools don't just feel great for one key moment - they are fun and satisfying to use throughout a match (and conversely, they feel great to beat from the opponent's side). hisako feels great when you're just dialed-in and using her wrath meter and counter mechanic, or when you've moving effectively with her. jago feels great when you are successfully dominating the mid range space. saberwulf feels great when you are able to get in and get the rushdown started, and learning how to get in is also fun and satisfying 2XKO just kind of lacks that. i never felt like i was doing my thing and that thing was fun in and of itself the game seems to be really focused on frame data and hitboxes/hurtboxes, and that's fair enough, but IMHO if those things become too much of the focus then the game feels... sterile it's nice that parrying feels exciting, but like, what about the 99% of the rest of the match? shouldn't that also feel exciting? because, IMHO, what i played didn't

[@Alecres]

For me some combos in this game can be 20 seconds long and feel like they are 40 specially ahri, maybe it’s the hitstuns + cinematics, but I played long combos fgs before that didn’t burned me out like this game did

[@outlawdg]

I feel alot similar to everything you said here especially the parry costing 1 bar, my immediate thought was it should cost a chunk of the burst gauge, how much though is debatable, maybe a 4th, maybe half? and would you get it back for successful parry? It shouldn't be costing 1 meter though I clocked that pretty quick if that's meant to be the counter play to darius, it puts his character at a system mechanic advantage just for picking him because sometimes the meter build up can be slow, especially if you're losing

[@darkwalker269]

Honestly I like otg assists. I think they are a big party of combo structure and a balancing tool for asist ultility. I think my issue is every other "type" of combo extension (wall bounce, ground bounce, corner slump) is limited to once per character. Making ahri asist only otg once per combo, i think that is the answer

[@BrosephJest]

I don't think the combos are too long, they just feel long since the hitstop is huge. reducing that and blockstop might make the game feel faster in general

[@RagingKarma2]

something im surprised didnt get mentioned anti air lights are a thing. Constantly through my gameplay i have and have been anti aired light and its kind of crazy. Just full air combo from a very uncommittale move is just wild to me after having a SFV situation.

[@gillgillgillgillgill]

i want pre-round start movement so bad! that's by far my most important feedback!

[@hiryuzerotwo6437]

Great video review. Are you going to be covering Garou COTW at all?

[@ungabunga4783]

I think the training mode in this game would benefit massively from a frame meter like sf6, even more than sf6 itself. There absolutely massive cancel windows in this game and a lot of combos need cancels at ambiguous windows. Not critically important because the age old eyeballing it method works just as well as always. It would be nice to have though.

[@Doople]

I think Ahri kit is just boring and not just her combos tbh. Seems way too simple to me. Basically only the one special was worth using in neutral and everything else was basically combo filler. I know her old kit was too complex but this seems too far in the other direction and personally i rather have too complex Also first rounds felt significantly less fun and i agree its because of the lack of defensive mechanics

[@andersonneil2293]

I hope for training mode they add the Tekken "take over from replay" feature

[@roryofmeow4989]

The impression I got is that while it is very fun (especially with friends), for a fighting game advertising itself to newcomers with its one button specials and general encouragement to play with and against friends, and the free to play model, a tag system is a bit much. From a casuals perspective, the game requires people who want to invest time into learning the game to know how to play 2 separate characters, deal with heavy tag mixups, multiple situational defensive mechanics necessary for keeping yourself alive in games like this, and the entire fuse system knowing what it can do and how it can benefit you and your opponent, it might be a bit much for a casual to wrap their head around, let alone people who are jumping into the genre with a game like this. And those who are more experienced in more one-on-one fighting games will have to get used to the weird special move controls which tend to feel very uncomfortable and unsatisfying (including me). Additionally, with a free to play model, champions are most likely going to be locked behind a grind and paywalls, which is already bad in most fighting games since the main you wanted could be just lying around and you have no way of knowing until you grind or cough up some coin, especially in a tag fighter where you need people having fun with multiple characters (also, a character’s combos being fun in training modes does not necessarily make them fun to use in game. I like to lab J.P combos in SF6 but I don’t like his game plan. Free characters in training modes doesn’t mean anything when you can’t get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses in a real match.). To me, it seems like 2xko could be digging its own grave trying to appeal to the casual market and the greater fighting game community at the same time. Strive is also like that, but it has a legacy of multiple games allowing people who are unsatisfied with the game or feel underwhelmed by its newer (streamlined) systems can just go back to older titles for their fix, a very poor solution, but a solution nonetheless and 2xko has no legacy. So while as a fighting game player, it’s very fun, it comes with the problem of competing with MvC and Skull Girls for “craziest tag fighter” when I don’t think it’s even close to that level of stupid fun. Additionally, having no older entries for fans to fall back on, 2xko has built itself as a gateway drug of sorts, and while this is a great thing for the larger FGC, it may prove to actually harm 2xko in the long run since the people who it actually brings in might move on to a more loaded and mechanically dense game. The same thing happened to me and Guilty Gear where I liked Strive, wanted more from the game, and moved to Xrd as a result. This has always been at the back of my mind concerning the entire existence of 2xko. As someone who has only heard talk of this game through influencers and the part of the FGC that can afford to go to EVO, most of my thoughts are from when all I had to go off of was KZbin and the occasional forum, finally getting my hands on the game and seeing the lesser hardcore FGC take a look at it, my concerns remain. To summarise, I believe that 2xko is a fun game that will eventually drop off hard like many of its 2v2 fighter contemporaries after its post-launch honeymoon phase due to its weird control scheme alienating more experienced players, massive learning curve alienating newer players, fun mechanics that don’t push the boundaries of fighting games nor feel as interesting as its competition, and the eventual release paywalling characters which will make the game less fun for those whose characters are locked behind a free to play grind. I know this tangent really has nothing to do with the gameplay, but I feel that as a mid-level, semi-competitive player, I really have no business discussing core system changes, especially since this an alpha, where it is expected that things will be very different as we get closer to a proper release. Especially since I like to look at a product’s core design and structure, rather than the products as it is. For example: I buy a dishwasher that cleans dishes and dries them too, but it doesn’t clean cutlery at the same quality as the dishes. Overall, a great product with everything I could want. However, whilst all the complaints were focused on cutlery, I had failed to notice that the actual wiring is extremely faulty, and it breaks the whole dishwasher leading to it not cleaning or drying as it used to when I first got it. This leaves me dissatisfied and having to find a new dishwasher, and most likely not with the same company as they had proven that their dishwasher is lesser compared to others already on the market. This was the feeling through the whole alpha and all the advertising: What really makes 2xko better than its competitors with less than said competitors? With all that being said, I want to be proven wrong because the team behind this seems very passionate about making the best game they can and for that I hope they take the proper player and professional feedback and turn the game into one I can see being a huge success. Thanks for reading this goddamn TedTalk.

[@Sterlingr89]

Well thought out review of the alpha. i didn't actually pick up on what they were doing with the combo spacing, and were thinking just there were weird collision issues going on (since it even happens to pulse combos). Hearing you connect it to being a combo length gating mechanic... makes me hate it even more (if it is indeed an intentional choice). In general though, I think the general combos are in a weird spot where they are not actually that long compared to other games, but just FEEL longer because the animations are too long (or the stupid freeze effects on hits are or something). Pre-round movement should be a thing, second that for sure. The kind of emphasis on a "braindead guaranteed" first hit move is already a problem for half the current roster (Yasuo's s1 also can do that, as can Darius's S2), and can only get worse as they add more character with long range attacks. Hard agree about push block and parry. That's the main reason I didn't practice parrying as much, and haven't generally noticed many others parrying (outside of top tier folks in their videos). It seems rediculously over-harsh that when you whiff a parry, not only are you getting punished with (usually) a full combo, but you also lose meter on top of that. It's literal insult on top of injury. Also, fury should just be S-Groove from CvS2. There might be only one man willing to master Fury at that point, but, hey, he's fun to watch both on video and in person at least, lol.

[@CaptainStrudels]

Where the fuck was the FYI about training mode assist + reset to permanently put your rear champ on point lmao Oh well maybe I'll remember for beta

[@PaleNightingale]

The idea that there is too much damage is wild too me. The game has 2 chars to kill AND 2 rounds to win. Games like DBFZ with 3 chars have no rounds and killing a team counts as the equivalent of winning 2 rounds in Street Fighter. Having both makes me feel like 2XKO sets lasts wayyy too long. They either need to make rounds go by a lot faster, or remove them.

[@Patinho7590]

What do you think about the state of chip kills? To me they seem quite a bit too strong right now, especially with teams like Darius/Illaoi with Double Down

[@Jay-mx5ky]

Pulse as a fuse is good, in my opinion, because it incentivises veteran players to teach new players how to play, and it gives new players a reason to learn and lab.

[@frostbite787]

My complaint is that it seems like good anti airs are pretty rare for some characters. The ones that are universal are pretty bad at actually beating jump-ins (ahri and braum especially)

[@JustMe-hc2kv]

Congrats on your World warrior W, big man ☝️

[@leboiofbois1005]

I wish I could’ve played the beta more as I played on analog stick, and when it didn’t work I tried to use joytokey as a workaround, but something about it flagged vanguard and wouldn’t let me play :(

[@YUSSUFXVI]

I feel like the lack of a good tutorial was indicative of who this alpha was intended for and how many beginners they likely let into it, this may be anecdotal but out of like 5 of my friends I happened to be the only one to get a code (the only fgc player)

[@Aldebaraan88]

If it's on PC at launch it's not a PC port

[@antoniotruong5647]

Combo length isn't the issue (to an extent). The long repeating same boring moves are not fun to watch. You can have a long combo with lots of flash and style then it's hype.

[@garbageknights]

I used Fury, because i was new and wanted the passive but not so new i wanted autocombos. Also i hate using autocombos

[@Frogfish999]

For fury, I think it's a cool option for players who don't really want to learn anything yet but also don't like auto combos. I'm pretty comfortable with fighting games so I want to figure out the combos myself but I also didn't really want to learn a fuse during the alpha so I took fury, but I think I would like it better as just a stat buff and take out the dash cancel stuff.

[@Calhasnopals]

Kinda sad to say I didn't get anything out of my time with the Alpha. I really enjoyed 2v2 with friends, but the actual mechanics and general gameplay just did not speak to me. I'm also not particularly looking forward to spectating this game because I suspect we'll primarily be seeing 1v1 instead of 2v2, which I think is the far less interesting format for this games mechanics

[@zobdos]

Fury is nice when you play 2 bruisers with slow mmoves like Braum darius / Illaoi Darius

[@pointynives]

My main issue with 2XKO is that I haven't seen anything and gone "God damn that was sick". It feels like it's missing something and I'm not sure what

[@alkalinemk1588]

Im really curious how many league players are going to get into this game or if it will be all FGC ppl. The league players will hopefully adapt they just need to put up with getting mercilessly beat with jumper cables by my dad.

[@User-pu3lc]

I miss the Ahri EVO combo routes where it took the opponent in the air, slammed them down, then otg’d them to continue. Looked really cool. The new BnB route is pretty mid.

[@OandMalibu]

11 mins ago? I’ve never been this punctual.

[@gingercoleslaw615]

I’m 4 minutes less punctual than you.

[@malttz9129]

8:47 WELL League used to make you pick Ashe and do Thornmail on HOWLING ABYSS, riot is quite not the best at tutorials

[@trippersigs2248]

My only major complaints for the alpha are the tutorial and no sbmm. REALLY feels like a misstep to not have those thing when youre letting people play for the first time. You can have brand new players jump into a match againsst someone WAY better and just get blown up by a tod and not even know how to burst. Hell i play fighting games and didn't know that here was a parry until like 4 days ago.

[@Zakaru99]

According to the devs there was sbmm, in that it places you in a lobby based on a hidden rating. It's just not communicated in any way in the game and its everyone's first time so the ratings haven't had time to work themselves out to accurate skill estimators.

[@dragondogbark]

​​@@Zakaru99i was gonna say i felt like i was playing against my skill level in most cases.

[@ThePoodle]

I play on an NS pro controller, and that absolutely did not work with this game(steam games are the only thing that support it) BUT i've been wanting to learn keyboard/leverless, and the simplified special inputs made it so I could still have fun and play pretty well even on a new controller.

[@HellecticMojo]

I think fuses in general are kinda bad as a system conceptually. I can't think of a single game where style/groove system improved the balance of the game. I really don't think pulse will make casuals play either because they know they are on training wheels unless pulse gets buffed to SF6 modern tier of viability and will think pulse is a waste of time. I think its a design system that will hurt the lower ranks a lot because there will be a lot of unnecessary growing pains as players struggle to pick their mains AND the fuse that they need to strategize with.

[@megapussi]

this is an incredibly minor thing but the buttons being S1 and S2 gets really confusing with combo notation. It feels like an unspoken rule among all fighting game devs that you dont name them like that lol.

[@Aregulargameplayer]

Hotashi posted a big doc with his opinions, and as "oh a youtuber gave you that opinion" it is to say, I do agree with a lot of his points. That duos are amazing, and the game is fun now but is easily full of degenerate and unfun stuff that could add up negatively over time that makes not want to take it too seriously.

[@pinkserenade]

I hope they address the control scheme because right now, it feels counter-intuitive

[@kerb755]

replay as picture in picture and without that goofy fast forward to the current game state. im not particularly intrested in this game (not a tagfighter guy), but the lobby is pretty damn impressive.

[@Platanov]

Just as a spectator of this game, my only real complaint is that the 'hit' sounds aren't great. There isn't enough distinction in the sound between when a character gets hit vs when they block. The hit sounds need to be more slappy, right now they sound more like a 'thud', if that makes any sense.

[@kevingriffith6011]

8:46 What's that? A Riot Games product not including an adequate tutorial? I mean, I'd say I'm shocked, but I'd be lying.

[@superbeta1716]

I don't think the tutorial issue will carry over to any new potential players seeing as this alpha was not really as big, almost anyone who isn't super into fighting games even knew about the alpha (and that might be another issue by itself, if you are not on the fgc you probably didn't know about the playtest so it's already a failed step from a marketing standpoint)

[@heymemesaucevichaelhere9595]

For me I just really hate the defense, because of the lack of good reversals, Darius is the only character that feels good to play on defense for me because he has an actual DP. Level 1 supers AT LEAST should be a universal reversal and their lack of invincibility feels awful, wake up attack seems like a band-aid solution and a pretty bad one especially since it's limited to wake-up only unlike even drive reversal from SF6. I really don't like the reliance on pushblock and parry as the defensive mechanics and retreating guard doesn't do anything in corner.

[@DSzaks]

Even if ToD is removed for a lot of characters by fixing the Ahri assist bug, do people really find it fun when a single hit will take off 90% of you HP bar? I grew up w/ old school fighting games, and its things like that that keep me out of a lot of these newer titles. For me fighting games should be a back and forth over multiple engagements, not just a test of who can get the first hit off.

[@Kait0s]

A complaint i have that's been SUPER ANNOYING is with pushblock. Having pushblock be tied to your dash button is awful. The amount of times i blocked Darius DP to only then accidentally pushblock him away trying to dash in to punish bc of this is unheard of. They need to change it to some other button or combination... For retreating guard it's fine to keep it as back+dash on block, it's intuitive. But something that spends an entire bar of meter shouldn't be that easy to missinput. Maybe make it the same input as a grab in SF6? That would be S1+L in this game.

[@harryf9885]

Yeah the tutorial is a big deal because this game has other aspects that are designed to cater to newer players like the one button specials, and if they don’t have good tutorials new players will struggle anyway. Especially since they clearly want league players (most of whom likely have minimal fighting game experience) to play. If the new player experience is frustrating for any reason, bad tutorials, difficult inputs for basic things, and bad matchmaking that puts you with much stronger players sometimes they will fail to majorly capitalize on the League association.

[@Art_Beat]

Even if TODs are rare, it feels significantly worse in this game compared to other tag games if you're playing as a duo. It's not so bad when you're playing solo bc your opponent spent a bunch of resources and you still have a chance to come back assuming you weren't already on your last character, and if you were on your last character then at least you can jump into the next round. But if you're playing as a duo then you could just get killed full to zero off of a single neutral interaction and suddenly you don't get to play the game anymore. In terms of game balance it's fine, but it makes the game more boring as a duo player, especially since you ALSO don't get to play the game for the entire time you're getting combo'd. The touch of death showcased in this video is almost 30 seconds on it's own, so you could spend a full minute or more literally just staring at the screen doing nothing except the occasional last stand.

[@GameMaster00744]

Hilariously, Darius being ham early game is extremely on brand

[@evilded2]

8:14 yes

[@peyot7384]

Pogski

[@wizardswine4621]

I've never been a big fan of round start movement, but seeing 2XKO without it made me change my mind.... the vibes are off

[@ayonafulls3364]

Damn 8 years for this? Not surprising by riot videogames.

[@joeyrhubarb2558]

Off the cuff idea for Fury: 10-15% damage boost at all times and you can dash cancel at the start of the round. If you dash cancel, you lose the damage buff and the fuse reloads after 7 seconds, reapplying the buff and allowing you to do the dash cancel again

[@finnExterminatus]

Yea tutorial was shocking. Its an alpha, but they had yeears to prepare for it and , as you say, its the first major public impression and it outright doesn’t even MENTION 5 out of 7 universal mechanics. Not talking that the tutorial „explains“ anything, it just mentions things you can do, it doesn’t even explain why or when and on top not even mentioning 5 universal mechanics is unexplainable to me.

[@SouthernCali-f1n]

Comes out in 2 years

[@sloesty]

Knockdown should be a knockdown..juggling after a hard knockdown is just silly imo, even if there is precedent for it. What unlike about games like street fighter 6 is that a lot of combos lead to knockdowns but there are a few situations where you can get juggles. And combos sometimes can't be long unless its a punish counter. Additionally i like how in sf6 u can go apeshit if you spend all your meter. Sure, bison does 80% of your bar, but takes him all his meter.

[@hiimpranav]

its not a riot game without unintuitive menu navigation

[@RatedPR]

I don't mind the TODs, Ahri's combos are my only complaint tbh. Maybe is my lack of understanding but I feel like baiting a burst doesn't feel like enough

[@Draconilian]

I did not enjoy the alpha, I'm a league fan and lifelong fighting gamer so I'm the target audience and not having fun with this alpha made me extra sad as a result. My problems from least important to most is that I found combos too long and too damaging, and I'm accustomed to under night combos which can be similar but with shorter super animations. Second the overall pace of fights was pretty silly, I've never seen a game with such damaging combos and also so many time outs. Fight timer probably should go up by 10 or 20 seconds. The ability to stall is surprising. And most important I found the neutral mostly not fun to play. Limited air options with some character exception, the ability to run away and lame out, and the presence of assists that can be easily tagged into all make the neutral feel very swingy and uncomfortable on the ground and the air. I want to love this game so much but if these issues are not changed and I don't get any characters I truly love playing then I won't see any reason to play this over guilty gear or sf6 in the future

[@paz8723]

People really need to judge stuff as it is and not as what they want it to be. Its a tag fighter. Many people are trying to mold as something else.

[@sebasoler5347]

Only The Good and The Bad?? And The Ugly? What about him?

[@happycamperds9917]

In a best of 3 game with 2 characters and a burst I feel like TODs are 100% fine.

[@superbeta1716]

I would rather get ToD faster with harder hitting combos than getting combod for 60% health for half a minute, I don't see how can people enjoy these kind of heavy combo games

[@LiteralmenteFadul]

As a skullgirls, gg and a former dbfz player I just find it funny ppl saying the combos are too long. They are very normal combos for an anime fighter.

[@yoyoguy1st]

I think if you are used to skullgirls combos there probably isn’t a combo out there that can break you. You can get up, make a sandwich and come back in time for the reset mix-up.

[@AirventOS]

The real thing that takes to long is the character intros. If you hate ahri combos, then you should understand watching the same 4 animations every match start SUCKS.

[@SuperEvilCake]

no teemo no buy

[@Goku0467]

i no know how the fuck my 3rd gen pc run the game with 0 lag 😁😁 riot really want players.