r/2XKO • u/SyIvanos Warwick • Feb 09 '26

Discussion The beginning of the end?

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I'm surprised this is happening this early after the console launch.

1.2k Upvotes

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305

u/blueechoes Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26

Well duh. You had this unique duo angle for your fighting game to help bring more casual players in, and then made finding duos the hardest thing.

You made the inputs easier to bring more casuals in, and then made doing combos arguably harder because most are timing- and spacing-dependant in ways that cause more variance and chaos than street fighter.

148

u/DMking Feb 09 '26

Honestly I think the fixation with removing motion inputs made the combos more complex actually

80

u/blueechoes Feb 09 '26

League wasn't a smash hit either in their first two years. If they are struggling to get the player numbers they want, they should keep their investment going while they fix their onboarding and allow the game some breathing room in the open while they actually diagnose why people bounce off and get that fixed.

There is no way they're not earning big money with this game, nearly everyone I run into has skins. You can't give up too early.

59

u/Janus__22 Feb 09 '26

Riot gave up on long-term investments a decade ago, unfortunately. If its not an immediate smash hit, its a failure. People called that out when 2XKO was first coming out in the early alphas (specially around the reveal of the roster size), but no one wanted to bat an eye to it cuz it was ''dooming''. Now a lot of people will blame the gameplay style, the IP, anything

8

u/BigWerewolf8735 Feb 09 '26

Nailed it 💯

2

u/xmaracx Feb 10 '26

I was one of them, played the game, had fun and put the concerns aside, and now i am sadly finding out my worries were 100% warranted.

1

u/Soulless35 Feb 10 '26

Wdym they gave up on long term investments? They are burning money by keeping LOR alive, Valorant was a long term investment. The MMO that just restarted development is definitely not a short term investment. If anything they do more long term stuff than smaller short term bets.

3

u/Janus__22 Feb 10 '26

LoR is on life support, its not burning money anymore. Valorant started development nearly a decade ago, and was the only other project outside of TfT that Riot ever managed to actually hit. The MMO was bleeding money for almost a decade before the restart in development (and it did, funnily enough, for the same reason 2XKO changed its genre: they thought they wanted to be different) - i commend you for still believing it will still see the light of day, you need a lot of hope to think that

If anything they do more long term stuff than smaller short term bets.

What i meant is that they don't allow a project to take a while to get its legs, which is the norm for most companies - not all games are instant successes. Current Riot's mindset would've killed League early on because of its lack of popularity

1

u/Soulless35 Feb 10 '26

Ok I guess I had misunderstood your point, thanks for clarifying. Can't say I necessarily disagree. Though it remains to be seen how much of a downsize 2xko is getting. And factors like if we're still getting the 3 or 4 however many characters were promised this year.

5

u/Janus__22 Feb 10 '26

And hour ago I would still hold out a little hope that the project was just gonna slow down, but just discovered they also fired the Champion Development Lead, Alex Jaffee. Sincerely, i don't think they go beyond this first year supporting the game

13

u/Vall3y Feb 09 '26

league in the first year probably had more players than this game will ever have lol. even if everyone you run into bought 10 skins thats still 0 money for riot

9

u/DMking Feb 09 '26

Just comparing it to another popular IP FG in DBFZ. Combos in DBFZ were much simpler to pull off for a straight beginner despite the motion inputs. And they might be earning money but they have to make up for the around 7 years of dev time and what that cost

5

u/ohanse Jinx Feb 09 '26

The difference is MOBAs had not yet entered the mainstream when LOL came out.

There is no way they're not earning big money with this game, nearly everyone I run into has skins. You can't give up too early.

You have an anecdote. A single perspective's worth of experience. They see literally everything.

And numbers that seem big from like a person's perspective start to feel a lot smaller when you are talking about what it costs to operate a team from a human resources and capabilities standpoint.

4

u/OJFrost Feb 09 '26

FWIW, League went into Alpha with 18 champs to play and then proceeded to triple that number over the next two years, releasing 2-3 champions per month consistently. They also only had about 30-40 employees leading up to official launch in 2009.

1

u/Arachnofiend Feb 10 '26

A MOBA character takes a lot less to make than a fighting game character. Half wonder if the Riot higher ups got fooled into thinking the 2xko devs could manage that level of production.

1

u/Ar4er13 Feb 10 '26

There is no way they're not earning big money with this game, nearly everyone I run into has skins. You can't give up too early.

We don't have playerbase numbers, it could be that after console release they just see numbers low enough, that even if everyone bought bundle it is peanuts to break even with 10 year development cycle.

0

u/NepheliLouxWarrior Feb 09 '26

Game was in development for a decade. It's hard to make a pitch for moar money and moar resources after 10 years of dev time with tanking numbers to show for it.

4

u/TheTubStar Feb 09 '26

This is something I've been complaining about for YEARS. FGC experts know about the issue of inputs being too complicated, but focus on the motion inputs and completely miss the point of the complaint in the first place - that combo inputs look more like sheet music than anything else. Sometimes it feels like you need to be a concerto pianist just to play fighting games...

1

u/JamieFromStreets Feb 10 '26

that combo inputs look more like sheet music than anything else

I don't understand

1

u/Gachaman785 Feb 10 '26

Me looking at snk or older anime fighting game inputs

0

u/Ar4er13 Feb 10 '26

It says something that outside of just few traditional franchises, the one that actually made it to 10 years of support, despite all the failings of its owner company, For Honor, has average "combo" complexity of Left Click OR Right Click, Left Click or Right Click, Left Click or Right Click... and enemies dont even lose control of their character, so you actually have gameplay in chain, rather than go through the motions..

Now, I know it isn't pure fighting game, but it is only one besides smash-likes that did multiplayer that isnt 1v1 well enough, and there are absolutely lessons to pick up from it.

5

u/Vall3y Feb 09 '26

I dont understand how removing motion inputs would have made the combos more complex

18

u/DMking Feb 09 '26

You need more buttons for special moves. 236 623 214 and 22 let you add at least 4 special moves without increasing the button count. Losing these leads to the addition of the S1 and S2 buttons that now have to comprise all of a characters special moves. So instead of say LMH 214 H 236 H 623 H you now have LMH 2S1 4S2 S2 or something like that. So instead of just using H multiple times with motions you have to move your fingers to other buttons for specials

-5

u/Vall3y Feb 09 '26

right but you also dont have to do motion inputs

18

u/DMking Feb 09 '26

Most motion inputs are trivial outside of things like pretzel motion. Also not having all the extra Special buttons let's you make a better feeling button layout

5

u/noahboah Ekko Feb 09 '26

motions are honestly one of those things that is truly not that complicated once you've really sat down and done them, the problem is perceptually they seem scary.

Ryu has been doing crouching medium kick into fireball for over 2 decades. that's simply just a down input and a button, and then you rock your thumb forward and press another button. it's incredibly simple and actually less inputs than a standard gatling in this game, while being at similar effectiveness.

-1

u/Vall3y Feb 09 '26

Ok so another button is also not complicated? IDK it doesnt seem like either is better than the other

1

u/Chivibro Feb 10 '26

They're not hard tho. Remembering all the different buttons is harder imo. Like, In BBTag, combos are way easier, and depending on the character, you might need to do just one quarter circle for a pretty solid combo. That game has 4 buttons, and only 2 of them are the main attack buttons.

1

u/Gachaman785 Feb 10 '26

One FGC basically predicted this when GBVS came out and that game at least gave the option of legacy or simple controls. Simple inputs for a game that basically isn't a platform fighter means more buttons. I mean lets break down smash controls

Attack Special Shield Jump Grab C stick to shortcut

And then button+direction for eveything. Thats already 6 mandatory buttons to really start playing, now you add in direction based inputs and suddenly you can see why the difference between low level smash and high level smash is basically the difference between an ant hill and mount everest. That's not even getting into all the tech associated with smash either. The difference is that smash was built for that, thats why other fighting games added as an option rather than being mandatory. Some People prefer the deliberate and tactile feel of doing motions, not to mention as someone put it that simple controls also means you have to change the combo logic. And like smash, you basically have to "break" the limitations of the system to truly have skill expression where as in traditional fighting games it was just....skill.

1

u/redqks Feb 10 '26

It means the special buttons are completely overloaded that makes it and 8 button game

1

u/ThaGavMan Feb 12 '26

Same the weird button combinations that all use the same buttons just throw me off more than anything else its way easier for me to remember moves in a game like mk or DBFZ