As the vision of Riot’s fighting game becomes clearer, people have a lot more to say.
Riot Games’ 2XKO Alpha Lab 2 concluded last weekend, and we’ve got a wave of opinions coming in for the highly anticipated tag-team fighter.
A lot of significant changes went into this second alpha test, along with the inclusion of a new character. It’s been over half a year since the first Alpha Lab, so how’s everything shaping up so far?
One thing to note is that the 2XKO Alpha Lab 2 was aiming to improve the game’s variety and defense. Those were the chief complaints in the previous alpha lab. Riot has gone into great detail on how they were aiming to solve those problems.
There were also other impactful changes, such as turning the Fury and Pulse Fuses into universal mechanics. Fury is now a comeback mechanic that anyone can use after losing a character. Pulse is a toggle that turns easy-to-execute auto-combos on or off.
The introduction of the Sidekick and Juggernaut Fuses also allows players the option to play with only a single character. Together with further balance changes and refinements to gamefeel, this alpha really laid the foundation of what the game will be like on release.
More Tuning Necessary
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news. Even though the 2XKO Alpha Lab 2 only lasted for three days, players quickly found glaring problems with the game.
The biggest problem seems to be that defense has been overbuffed to the point that matches are taking too long. The combination of all the defensive options in the game has made it difficult to land meaningful damage to opponents. So much so that rounds are frequently reaching the time limit as the optimal strategy has been to take a lead and then harry your opponent from afar as you run away.
It’s not exactly the most exciting way to play the game, especially for a tag-team fighter. The fact that matches are settled by rounds rather than by which team is eliminated first, a staple in every tag-team fighter, has been called into question as well.
Then there’s also the elephant in the room: the minuscule 10-character roster announced for launch. People were already getting their fill of the six playable characters in the alpha, so the remaining four will have to really bring something unique to the table if Riot wants to spice up this roster.
At the very least, Riot has been very receptive to feedback as evidenced by the changes between the two alphas. They’ve also planned a bigger beta test later before releasing the game this year. For a game that’s gone through so much extensive testing, it’ll be interesting to see what the finished product will be like.
Banner image from Riot Games.