I wanted to give KOFXIII's netplay a couple of sessions before I made the call on it. So here's the call: it's bad.
It is not the absolutely unplayable online we saw in KOFXII and most of SNK's Xbox Live Arcade games (Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is the sole exception). However, that doesn't mean it's good. It means it's playable with a little hassle and major caveats. Note that I'm located in New York City and playing on Xbox Live: I'm told that the situation is a little worse on Playstation Network.
First off: there are not a lot of available opponents. Of course, this has a lot to do with KOFXIII's terrible choice of release date (one week after Ultimate Marvel 3, which is easily the biggest game in tourney circles right now), but the bad netcode makes the situation worse.
When you're searching for matches, players' connection speeds are listed at anywhere from 1 to 4 bars. 1-bar is effectively unplayable, and 2-bar is very laggy. These are out of the question. Unfortunately, the vast majority of players I see have 2-bar connections. This means that starting a room and simply waiting in it (like the mode where you can practice while you wait) guarantees you a match that isn't worth playing.
You should notice this right away, but the best way to test the amount of lag you're getting in a KOFXIII match is at the character select screen. Just take note of the time it takes to move the selector a single space. That's the lag of a single input. If you see a significant lag here, imagine how much fun you're not going to be having when it's taking you that long to, say, block a punch.
This is especially a problem because KOFXIII is such a fast game. A lot of combos depend on whipping out commands as fast as you possibly can, and on a 2-bar connection these combos will drop. It won't necessarily be your fault: the input just won't come in right and you won't do your damage. Needless to say, this is very, very frustrating.
3-bar is more reliably playable, though issues remain. 4-bar is much better, but I have only seen three or four players with this connection status at all. When I have checked profiles, the 4-bar players have all been in the same city as I am. I suspect that people in less populated areas will have a much harder time playing online at all.
As the arcade is a dead institution in most of the US online play is vitally important for these games. It's not something you want to screw up if you want the game to have a thriving community. Neither SF4's nor Marvel's netplay is the best ever, but it works well enough for the highest-level players. The best C.Viper player in the world had no problem tearing me a new one on Live a couple of weeks ago.
Local scenes and private get-togethers can't keep these games alive by themselves, especially not the smaller games. The fighting game bubble is on the verge of popping (mark my words, it'll be Street Fighter X Tekken), and this is the best exposure KOF will probably ever get. The patch for online play needs to come as soon as is possible.
I did say suggestions: there are a couple of other, little things, related to finding good connections in this terrible online hellscape. You can set the connection speed you want when you start up a room, but as you'll eventually learn this serves only as a friendly suggestion to other players: people with bad connections will still turn up in your room, and you can't kick them out either. You just have to take your ball and go home. Both of those points have to be fixed: if I'm never going to have a good time playing against a 2-bar connection, then I never want to see a player with that connection speed come into my room. This is especially bad in ranked matches, where you can't back out.
In conclusion, my color edit for King is Panty, my color edit for Yuri is Stocking, and it's going to be pretty much impossible to make Kim into Garterbelt.
WHY is it so hard to get good online play like Blazblue Continuum Shift?? This game and the entire series is DEAD if a patch for Blazblue style lag-free online isn't out within a week. You can't have 2 Failed games (KOF XIII only because of the online lag) and have such a small following then still expect your game to do well. I seriously doubt they did ANY tests for this awful online play. I love the KOF series and I don't want to see it fail because it never had the right tools to begin with.
IN CONCLUSION:
Sort out this terrible, unplayable online lag and input delay and you've got yourselfs the game that will revive the KOF series. If you don't then watch it crash and burn.
Posted by: Joel | November 30, 2011 at 02:22 PM