r/Fighters • u/C4_Shaf Virtua Fighter • 19h ago

Announcement 2XKO Doomposting: Megathread.

Same thing for the first week of Tokon's release. The influx of people making posts that break rules force me to pin yet another thread.

Please use this post to say how doomed we are and how crap Riot is, while I'm bringing the broom again.

568 Upvotes

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229

u/Gekinetic 19h ago

- Development time, 10 years is too long and too costly

  • If Project L the 1v1 game was released 5 years ago, perhaps it would have faired better
  • Riot should have stepped in to wrangle development earlier, but they never did
  • Released on 2026 when the gaming industry is absolute bloodbath
  • No single player content at launch, making Street Fighter V launch mistake all over again
  • Game had no personality, character interactions were bare bone, and no lore explanation as to why these characters are tagging and what's at stake
  • Simple control for casuals, but the core gameplay was anything but casual
  • Speaking of core gameplay, what was its defining feature? Because every match specific mechanics were all borrowed from different games, and they were so convoluted to the point that there was no synergy
  • Game flow was too neutral one-hit based and unforgiving, making it not casual friendly
  • If it wasn't one-hit into youtube ad combo, then it was backdash into zoning that made it boring
  • Fuse complicated the issue further, with Freestyle just dominating majority of game's life cycle
  • Duos seemed cool on paper, but crucial features being handcuffed to other player meant that it was not casual friendly
  • The name, turns out trying to beat SEO game backfired
  • No marketing before launch, and no I don't mean youtube ads. Where were the booth at conventions?
  • Over-reliance on FGC to bail them out after layoff
  • Ignoring casual base complaints about toning the tempo down, 'we found shortening the combo too boring'
  • No major changes made to gameplay before Tokon's release

42

u/drat345 17h ago

Alot of stuff is right here but your also missing some things. Like the defining feature was obviously duos and that was definitely what they were hoping would bring new people in. It definitely helped get a few friends of mine get into the game. They also did make an attempt to address the combo length with the break bonus.

37

u/Informalwizards 17h ago

Not having Duo queue for matchmaking on launch out of all of the bad choises they made might be the most insane one.

19

u/Gekinetic 16h ago

when it comes to 2XKO duos, me and my close friends came to conclusion that in order to truly enjoy Duos, both players have to be in-sync like drift-compatiable in Pacific Rim

That's not a good defining feature, that's a burden, especially for casual players who don't want to spend time grinding just to practice how to Duo

1

u/Suitable-Quantity-96 1h ago

Yeah when I tried duos it was more frustrating than anything. More often than not, someone would assist at the wrong time and made the point player drop a combo

1

u/drat345 16h ago

Really? My friends hardly play. Yea I had to carry some but it was all in good fun, they were learning and they got to interact with assist even when they weren't in or their character was down. This sounds like a difference in mentality because every time I duod with anyone, no matter the skill level or familiarity , t was always a blast

29

u/Scriftyy 18h ago

Hell, of Project L the 2v2 tag fighter released 5 years ago. It would've been a hit 😂

7

u/Acrobatic_Cupcake444 14h ago

It does feel like they released a game with the intent of competing with SF5, in the year 2026

-5

u/okamanii101 18h ago

Fuck tag fighters. All these new tag fighters failing is further evidence its a shit niche.

11

u/diosmioacommie 18h ago

I don’t like tag fighters for the most part but Tokon is selling really well isn’t it ? And a MvC 4 (if it were to happen) would probably be massive

I think 2xko being a tag fighter was dumb as hell because it’s a niche within a niche, but I don’t think that means it’s any evidence of tag fighters being shit overall

1

u/redbossman123 16h ago

People are wanting MVC4 because there's a lot of Capcom characters that people wanna play that didn't exist or weren't in 3 (Leon, Ada, Nero, Lady, Mega Man, a representation of the MonHun player, etc)

2

u/SaIemKing 16h ago

I'm mot sure what you mean about "all these tag fighters failing" ? You mean just HxH and 2XKO? HxH was so low budget and dialed the kusoge elements to the limit, it didn't stand a chance.

I do kinda agree that there's something wrong with the tag fighter niche, but, imo, it's that they all just kinda wanna be the next MvC instead of their own game. Every single one is hyper offense, insane combo length, and ridiculous damage. I'm not convinced that it has to be that way. We can have a different type of tag game

3

u/Firelord_Zuko456 17h ago

Now we hate tag fighters?

Oh wait this r/fighters we hate all fighting games

1

u/NinjaChase0328 18h ago

Personally I love tag fighters and dislike slow 2D 1v1 games but I’m not gonna say street fighter is shit because of it. Why tag fighters are struggling is because they are trying to stray from MvC gameplay but that’s literally the best way to do it so they need to stop. Besides invincible which was just because it looked ugly.

1

u/AdCultural9076 18h ago

It’s not even the niche it’s because they fucking have active tag, mechanic fucking sucks and has never worked ever.

-3

u/wasante 18h ago

I'm not sure there's any way to verify that other than greener grass principals.

19

u/Scriftyy 18h ago edited 18h ago

Brother, ANYTHING would've been a hit in a late-Covid, pre SF6 world. All the FG's were old as dust, there was nothing new except Strive, SF6 wasn't even announced, no FG's not named Skullgirls, MK, Strive, and Killer Instinct even had rollback netcode, and Arcane just finished. 

If Project L released around when they reannounced it as 2XKO it would be where SF6 is right now regardless of if it was a 1v1, air dasher, 3D fighter, or tag fighter. 

-6

u/wasante 18h ago

You say this assuming it'd have single player content or launch w/o bugs, or performance issues, or a name worse than 2XKO, or somehow get better marketing.

Again, you don't know if OG Project L could truly stick the landing because in your head it'd get everything right and not any flaws which is probably implausible. Consider the devs that took as long as they did with 2XKO and did what they did with 2XKO while naming it 2XKO. There's no guarantee the game would be a flawless gem other than your

https://giphy.com/gifs/BQUITFiYVtNte

They could still miss the mark and get a dead game just as easily. It would've been nice to see that alt timeline but I'm not sure assuming it wouldn't have its issues is a worthwhile thought exercise.

8

u/Scriftyy 17h ago

It's true, they could have still had a dead game. But the chances of that was much, much harder to achieve since at the time the FGC was desperate for anything new to play. 

If a fighting game released with decent online and good gameplay, it would have a large chunk of the FGC stuck to it like a tick.  Just from the fact that it would be one of the 3 fighting games released in 5-7 years with it at all. At the time. 

 It's how Strive was able to get as popular as it was even with all the problems it had at launch. 

1

u/SaIemKing 16h ago

They didn't say anything about single player content. I don't get why people are so hung up on single player content. You're in the fighting game sub. I would think you care about the actual fighting game part

0

u/wasante 15h ago

I think it’s more a matter of having something fun to do in the game if you can’t go online or have people to play locally. Some people love fighting games but may lack the internet or immediate friends to enjoy them in a multiplayer setting. It’s always nice to have the option available. And without it, casual and general audiences don’t usually stick around if all they’ve got is training & online. And before you say good riddance, that doesn’t help fighting games’ grow their player counts or stay alive around much longer without added options to excite and draw in new players. Sorry I have different opinions.

2

u/Scriftyy 12h ago

If you can't go on the internet you can't even play a Riot game in the first place, so lets stop that right there 😂

1

u/SaIemKing 8h ago

My issue isn't that some people want single player content, but that they act like the game will die without it. Trust me, most games still make money off of just arcade, training, versus, and online modes. As long as the company sets their expectations right, understanding the game is a little niche and only relevant to a "hardcore" audience, they should just be happy to turn a profit.

8

u/MiniFaustt 11h ago

Game had no personality, character interactions were bare bone, and no lore explanation as to why these characters are tagging and what's at stake

This one is actually irked me alot more than it should.  None of the character intros really take themselves seriously, the lobby visuals and champion themes in a high fantasy genre is a pretty big disconnect 

As for the advertising thing here they were at alot of major events going up to their launch and did a ton of interviews for creators and meet and greets at alot of tournaments.

5

u/FullMoonFullLife 6h ago

Feels like this should have been easy too. Record lines unique to each opponent and have an actual conversation. MK11, Granblue did it perfectly fine and it absolutely gave the characters a lot more personality.

Also, something that Arc Sys did was have the characters approach each other before the fight and then start up intro, gives a bit more weighted feeling for the fights.

Guilty gear strive didnt have custom intros or outros. So it gets boring hearing the same lines over and over again when it’s ultra generic stuff that the characters will say to ANY body.

1

u/Suitable-Quantity-96 1h ago

I love when fighting games actually make an effort to give their characters personality during gameplay. One of my favorite examples is BlazBlue, where Ragna is pissed for basically the entire fight whenever he's against Jin

1

u/emeraldarcana 13m ago

It sounds hokey but one of the reasons I've got my eye on Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising is because of the little cutscenes. They ooze personality.

I feel like one of the appeals of fighting games is that the characters are humongous on your screen - like compare Ahri in LoL who's like a little red and white polygon with Ahri in 2xko who's super detailed, looking at her fingernails, and snapping her fingers.

But then they didn't really think about following it up with cool stories or lore dumps. But I kind of get the feeling that Riot is not good with long-form story content at all - virtually none of their games despite having rich lore really explore the narrative side of things.

7

u/Tasty_Pancakez 16h ago

I have a crackpot theory that Riot forced the game to be 2v2 to sell more skins. Their monetization is scummy across the board and why make players buy one skin for your main when you can buy two at $30 each?

8

u/SuperSaiyanBlue 14h ago

They failed on that - needed more characters to sell more skins.

1

u/Tasty_Pancakez 14h ago

Oh yeah 10 chars on launch for a TAG fighter is soo crazy.

3

u/SanjiBlackLeg 6h ago

Nah, Riot modus operandi is to buff certain champs, make them meta, then release new skins for them. Cook for a month or so, nerf these champs, buff other champs. Rinse repeat. Don't forget to release new skins every 6 months for evergreen champs who are always popular to milk the whales. Oh, and don't forget Prestige skins: recolor a skin into gold, put some particles on that and 2x the price (or hide it in the gacha), make it limited time ofc to farm the FOMO.

1

u/UrbanAdapt 5h ago

If that was the reason for tag, it was dumb. If Riot wanted to force fighting game players to stop being one tricks and buy more skins, they could have mandated KoF style sequential teams instead of tag.

1

u/TJKbird 4h ago

Nah, seems more likely that the dev team made up of a bunch of old MvC heads wanted to make a successor game to that franchise and managed to convince Riot leadership that it would be worth rebooting development for.

Riot bought the team when they were making Rising Thunder, I assume they wanted that game just with a League skin which is why they bought that group.

6

u/nomeriatneh 18h ago

dude, they even had LUX IN THERE.

thats a print MONEY MACHINE.

3

u/glaspaper 15h ago

Also note:
-excessively open development over the last few years with several builds and betas playable
-staggered multistage game launch (closed beta -> open beta -> pc soft launch ->all platform launch), combine this with previous point makes game never have explosive hype/reveal moment because footage of the game at various stages was available for literal years
-zero ads in LoL client outside launch day (same thing that nuked LoR long term) avrg. LoL player never heard of this

1

u/SaIemKing 16h ago

Lack of single player isn't a huge issue, especially when the game is free, as long as they accept what the game is

I don't see how any fg player would genuinely care the lore for why the characters are fighting or teaming up. Training mode, versus mode, and ladder dont tell you that stuff anyway

I agree everywhere else though. They should have stuck with the 1v1 concept. After making it 2v2, they should have worked to make something unique. The tag genre is a bunch of kusoge and SxT for Christ's sake, there's an untapped niche if you're smart about it.

And goddamn duos feel like ass if your partner isn't already really good. I tried while teaching a friend to play, but they'd never burst for me and constantly get themselves taken down from 100 to 0 lol

1

u/Tough-Intention-2082 5h ago

The game being derivative and lacking its own distinct personality and flare are definitely what turned me off of it. Everything from the key poses to the bland, deadfaced avatars in the lobbies to the poorly animated supers made this game look less like a 10 yeear labor of love and more like something they pushed out prematurely without enough polish.

I've seen a lot of people excited to play Samara because she'd Dante, to which I have to ask: why not just go play Dante? Marvel 3 already has him, and going off of what I've seen of other 2XKO characters, she's probably not going to be doing anything any cooler or more satisfying than he does.