SNK held a panel at TGS 2016 and many interesting details were mentioned. Here are some of the things that were discussed.
Next update during October
The next patch is slated for October. Neo-G is the main development staff supervising the update and he’s quite frank in talking about the upcoming patch: He wants to hammer down and fix whatever he sees as needing a tweak or an overhaul and he’s going to try and get as much done by then. Whatever he can’t cover by October, he’ll do so in additional updates.
The October patch is scheduled to feature the following:
– Fuzzy Guarding (aka F-shiki) will be taken out
– Character Balance update
– Online game system fixes
They developers are satisfied with their netcode but they want to overhaul some of the systems involved in the online, particularly the Ranking match’s matchmaking because it currently tends to match people regardless of their rank– More Rage Quitting Penalty
SNK silently added a harsher penalty to rage quitters in the 1.02 patch. They don’t think it was enough, so the next patch will feature an even harsher penalty– The command input in KOF14 may also be tweaked
It’s not a problem for beginners but hardcore players are having troubles with the current game since its input buffer is a bit too lenient. Neo-G is hoping to tweak things to make it satisfying for both parties– Other tweaks may be added
General feedback and balance topics
– According to Oda, SNK received a lot more positive reviews from customers than they were expecting
– One of the fundamental concept behind KOF was that “It had to be a game that’s fun to move around [the characters]” (Neo-G)
– When making KOF14, the developers knew off the bat that the game had to be fun, so they decided to make things as strong as possible and to balance them out afterwards as needed. People have been generally playing the game in the direction that they’ve expected.
– Mian for example can divekick and go back into the air, but doing so requires a lot of controller input. The developers are happy that players can actually do something which they’ve implemented in the game by theory. This was Neo-G’s doing.
– The developers admit that some of the moves might’ve been a bit “too fun”, like Nakoruru’s bird being able to break through all fireballs
– While some of the moves might have been too broken, they’re getting a lot of feedback that it’s generally fun with the characters in KOF 14 having strong moves.
– Their stance on the upcoming balance fix is like this : “Nakoruru’s hawk might’ve been a tad too naughty” “”We don’t want to change the gameplay that much”
………
Future Plans
– They’re getting a lot of requests for DLC beyond their expectations, so the developers are looking into what’s actually possible. Right now they’re thinking that Costumes looks possible, but they really aren’t ready to make any sort of announcements or say dates.
– “So for a major KOFXIV update, we’re hoping that we can do it starting from Costumes”. (Oda)
– As for DLC characters, they’re getting mixed voices from fans. There’s obviously fans that are asking for them, given that there’s still a lot of characters that aren’t in the game. But on the other hand the team is also getting feedback by users that they don’t want more characters since 50 is enough and they want to play them out before more gets added in. So as far as DLC characters go, the devlopers still need to think it out.
No plans to move on to a new game project just yet (Garou, Samurai Shodown, etc). Sony took a poll showing that Samurai Shodown is popular, so that helped Oda in trying to talk to his superior about possibly making the game. But the development team’s creators are sort of in a competition to make presentations to their superiors because they each have their favorite titles that they want to create. All in all the atmosphere is good, and Oda is optimistic that something can happen.
They don’t have enough staff. The developers including Oda and Neo-G are doing more than just their roles in the company. Planning, developing, managing the game post-release.. Neo-G seems to be seriously enjoying it, probably because he hasn’t been going hands-on in the development field for a while. They need more developers to join in their company.
Thanks to MMCafe ( you can see the rest of the panel summary there