KrsJin:
I really don't find the game all that inherently hard.

I was gonna say I don't find this game hard at all, but I've been playing KoF since 94'. ;)

Kendrick:
I did grow up playing fighting games. Like SF2, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes and MK1-2 (mostly at Double Play Sports in Golden, as a kid, which went out of business, then at home sometimes with friends). Games have only gotten more complex and harder. KoF having tight frame-requirements is a lot tougher on us when it's running at 60 FPS. Then you have all the extra-sub-systems and meters that have been piled on over the years. Plus the arcade scene died.

So maybe some old fighting game cats like that games have gotten increasingly more complex and hard, but I'm one of those guys who's on the other side of the fence. I really want a game to be relatively easy to learn, for combos to be short and sweet. I think this encourages more players to pick up the game and gets more people able to focus on strategy and less on dropped combos and execution in general. Plus, there's more player-interaction time. Did you notice when you have these long drawn-out combos, that there isn't any player-interaction for the duraction of the combo?

I've yearned for a new fighting game to come out that is simpler and more back to basics. I don't who's decision it was to drop HDR from tournaments around here, btw haha.

I disagree with this, because games HAVE gotten increasingly easier over the years. Execution is more lenient in pretty much every recent fighter compared to its predecessors. Even KoF13 is easier to play than old KoFs. I guess if your metric is SF2, then games have gotten more complex. But I don't think anything is more complex now than, say CvS2 with its 3 different grooves, ratios, 209348029809 different movements, counters, rolls, small jumps, etc. Or Alpha 3's isms, or VS and tech hiting normal strings.

Games are easy mode nowadays. That's how they get the casuals.

People stopped playing HDR because it sucked.

Also, I don't separate execution and strategy. They're two sides of the same coin.

Conviction775:
I've found KOF to be the easiest to get into.

I completely agree. It's just when you try to graduate to a higher level play, the execution requirements become a lot more evident.

And yeah, any game you want to be good at will require a lot of time. I just don't prefer that time is invested so much in attempting to adapt to the super-tight execution requirements.

So KoF probably isn't for me, that's all. I was playing it a few hours a day, and mostly that was playing other people. Then as people more and more began to edge me out because they capitalized on opportunities better with their bigger combos, I'm like "Okay, better go back to training mode". The Mai combo is a good example, because I actually worked the c.lk, s.lk, s.hk into my game pretty well. Tacking on a little HD and Neomax when I have the meter made perfect senese. Whereas with other characters, I might come up with big combos in practice mode, but it didn't mean as much because setting up for them in a real fight was still a question mark.

When I put this KoF game down, it's with a sour taste in my mouth. I glady devoted lots of time to it, but I realized it's simply not my cup of tea for the long haul. It's simply not a pleasant experience to attempt to take my skill to the next level with.

Fighting games will never cease to be hard, because there's always the opponent and other player. I just like games to be hard for different reasons.

I know all about persistence and putting hard work in to get good. That's why I've progressed so well with whitewater kayaking and am already doing Class V runs cleanly (learn to do a kayak roll. It takes a lot of persistence to get it in practice and even more to get the 'combat rolls' in real river runs). Of course that also has to do with overcoming fear and stuff.

I'm being as objective as possible about this. I know it's my own shortcomings that are why I won't be great at KoF. I am choosing not to get any better at it, and move on to some other games.

Can't say what game will tickle my fancy for the long haul, but I can confirm SCV is nice online if you play N/S America rooms. Thanks for recommending the game KrsJin. I can see it's definitely more forgiving, execution-wise. It's a bit harder for me to get into initially, but I'll be giving it a fair shake.

I think the most frustrating execution thing in this particular iteration is when drive canceling a QCF into a DP motion (or vice-versa). Elizabeth's trials I know have this in spades. That's definitely an issue specific to this KoF, but everything else that's hard is just KoF being what it is. I have a lot of trouble doing half-circles on a pad, so characters that have half-circlex2 supers are pretty much off-limits to me. But XIII compared to, like, 2002...talk about easier execution.

Leona HD combos make my hands cry

Thanks, I wanted to see those!

Ryry is real good. You can tell just by the spacing and patience he has. Seems like everyone is whoring out Beni right now. Wouldve liked to see a joe or Mai.

Thanks to Pixel I now have a copy of this game. I can't say how much I'll play it, but I'll at least have a team, and the game will be in my rotation. For now I'll fool around in mission mode.

So I watched all those STA Ranbats last weekend and felt like I leveled up my game just by watching (I guess 6+ hours of KoF will do that). I've been playing online a bunch since then and I can definitely feel a difference in my play style - my W/L ratio has really shot up and I've actually been able to beat most people I encounter. My biggest problems now are execution (still) and getting rushed down by someone that really knows what they're doing. I have been attempting to use HD combos whenever I see a chance, and that's been going alright so far (though I have yet to land a NEOMAX). I also have problems against certain characters, like Mai, Clark, and Mr. Karate.

Good shi Yang. If you got Kim questions, ask Halfro, his is legit.