‘Super long periods of low-to-zero agency are undesirable’
The fighting game community’s rip roaring weekend of tag team fun has come to a close as the 2XKO Alpha Lab test has concluded, and already developers from Riot have an idea of what needs to be twisted and tweaked to make the game more appealing to fans.
2XKO Director, Shaun “Unconkable” Rivera, took to X to list off three major areas of concern that he and his team are already honing in on as they aim to level up the 2XKO experience.
Perhaps the issue players were most vocal about on social media during Alpha Lab was that of overly complex controls. Where so many were worried that the League of Legends fighting game might lean toward being overly accessible to the point of feeling watered down, the inverse seems true at this early stage.
The game’s unconventional 6-button layout was confusing even to some FGC veterans like Chris G, a player who has displayed well above average intuition for competing in various titles at the highest levels of play. Curiously enough, accessibility was not one of the three arenas Rivera highlighted.
“I have received a bunch of questions from folks playing in and watching the 2XKO Alpha Lab,” begins Rivera, “so I wanted to answer a bunch like I did in a long form tweet last time. I believe communication is critical to how we will all make a great game together so let’s hop right into it.”
The first issue the 2XKO team is looking into is combo length as it seems players have rapidly been figuring out how to launch into extended sequences that makes the experience feel a bit like a single player one.
Rivera directly states in his post that “Super long periods of low-to-zero agency are undesirable,” and says players can expect improvements in this arena in the future.
Damage output in 2XKO is fairly high, as is usually the case in early pre and post launch builds of new fighting games, and thus we’re seeing some touch of death sequences. Knocking out an opponent in a single go is surely fun, but isn’t usually the competitive standard, and something that’s clearly too prevalent in 2XKO at this time.
Rivera doesn’t promise touches of death will be removed entirely from the game, which sets an interesting precedent in and of itself, but we can expect them to be toned down as he states “We don’t want 2XKO to be about TODs, and if they do exist, then they should be rare and require a ton of resources.”
The third area addressed is 2XKO’s tutorial and training resources, which don’t seem to be quite up to par yet. Participants expressed a more difficult than desired on-boarding process for 2XKO, and so we can expect developers to make things a little more intuitive and accessible in the future.
Were you able to play 2XKO over the Alpha Lab weekend? We’d love to hear if you experienced any issues (the above or else-wise) and how much fun the game was. Chime into the comments with your feedback.