Recent posts by Corin on Kongregate

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Servers

I didn’t know anyone even played Kongai anymore.

Topic: Kongregate / Argue Beta Testers

I’d like to test.

Topic: Kongregate / Witches in Kongai!

The first one is awesome.

The third one is… Anex with a pointy hat. I don’t get why a witch would be striking such a dramatic, ferocious pose. She just looks like a repurposed Amazon (even without the hueg rack).

Topic: Kongregate / Introducing Underdog Week!

There are some treasures that deserve to stay buried. That is all.

Topic: Kongregate / Unofficial Kongai Challenge - Underdog Week

I agree with Amaya, Helene, Tafari, and Anex. I would add Zina to that as well as the Marquis (really, when was the last time you saw someone use him?).

I don’t think Juju and Onimaru are underused. Juju actually seems a bit on the popular side, I’d say. As for underused items, I’d say Origami Crane (can’t really blame people, there), Sacred Candle (great item, but doesn’t get much use because all the Amazon items are great, and more obviously so), Tiger’s Claw, and Ring of Curses.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Quickmatch - Get rid of stats

Agree, agree, agree.

I think this would make Kongai a lot more popular and more fun. It would also alleviate the problem of it taking 5 minutes to find a game if you’re level 6+.

I hope the devs will notice the overwhelming support this idea seems to have received from the community, and consider it.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai: Deterministic and indeterministic rewards

I think it’s pretty short-sighted to say that the only potential reward for winning a game of Kongai is a new card. I don’t consider a game where I didn’t win a card to be a waste of time (if this was the case, why are there so many people with a full set of cards who keep playing?). I know for me, the greatest reward of winning a game is to know that I managed to outwit my opponent, and the reward of having had fun playing. Of course, there are also the more tangible (and deterministic) increases to your level, and ranking if you play ranked matches.

Kongai is really more like chess, than a traditional video game. You don’t play chess so you can unlock more powerful pieces, or because each win makes it easier for you to win future games. Once you have a playable deck (which takes about 20 minutes for someone who hasn’t one a single challenge yet), that’s all you need. Having more cards does mean you can experiment more, but having a whole bunch of cards doesn’t really give you an advantage in a match against someone with six (suitable) cards.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Badges Please!

It would be cool if there were some interesting badges not involving points or wins. Like a badge for successfully intercepting 10 times in a row, or getting a flawless victory, but since it’s multiplayer, such things would be easy to stage.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Strategy

Rumiko is my main card, because she has some great long range attacks, and some good close range ones as well, not to mention, I have a low chance of getting intercepted.

That might be because you never switch? :P

Really, I can’t imagine playing Kongai without switching. Like people have said, that’s like playing Rock Paper Scissors, without paper. Once people realize you don’t switch, you’ll be a sitting duck for nukes (Power Lash, Pilebunker, Touch of Doom, Chi Blast, Dark Chi Blast, etc. etc.) that people usually switch out of.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Strategy

Back when I played andromeda, I probably used Crippling Shot more often than Rain of Arrows. But I play weird. ;)

That’s definitely weird. Speaking as someone who uses Andromeda in almost every deck, Crippling Shot is probably the move I use least (yes, even less than Trueshot). IMO, It’s really only useful against a character without viable range attacks who has very high or full energy (which doesn’t happen very often, since, such a character would have been very likely to have tried to change ranges that round), and even then an intercept or Rain of Arrows might be better depending on the context.

Topic: Kongregate / Homosexual discrimination?

Kind of flawed logic, don’t you think? Maybe people wouldn’t have kept slaves in the first place to avoid controversy.

Slavery has been around since the beginning of recorded history. It didn’t become anything close to “controversial” until well into the eighteenth century. Kind of a moot point though, since comparing heteronormative society to slavery or Nazi Germany, like we’ve seen in this topic, doesn’t really do anyone any good.

And zakia, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a plea for acceptance and equality that was so full of discrimination and stereotypes itself. The sentiment is good, but you might be a bit more careful about painting groups of people with such broad strokes. For example, Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the developing world (the U.S.’s is more than 50% higher), and Japanese or Chinese people probably wouldn’t appreciate being lumped together with all Asian nationalities. That’s like saying “Americans, Mexicans, Peruviants, whatever”.

Topic: Kongregate / Favorite Kongai Card

I love using ashi. sure she’s only close, but she can change the range to close after a turn or two. signature slice does awesome damage, and bleeding slice is great for the energy cost. Axe handle is way underpowered though. a fast attack is great and all, but 40 en for 20 damage is pathetic Phoebe is good too, powerlash does great damage and stun, while rapid lashes is cheap and strong. her other two attacks arn’t so good, but oh well

Axe handle is definitely not useless, even if it’s not energy efficient. It’s pretty much her only chance to damage cornelius without a valk charm, for one thing.

If I was using Ashi I’d go ahead and assume you’re going to move far, keep the range the same, and signature slice your face off. Then either switch out, rest, or power strike depending on how much health our cards have left.

Once she’s used her energy though, she’s kibble for ranged characters. Compared to a character like Andromeda, Ashi is so much easier to manipulate and kite. Ashi’s attacks cost a lot of energy (compared to Andromeda’s very efficient lightning arrow), and she doesn’t have the advantage of Andromeda’s reduced range change cost.

Generally when an opponent has a Helene or Ashi in their deck, it makes me very relieved, since it almost always means an easy kill. If they have an Andromeda, it worries me.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai: What exactly does leveling up accomplish?

My point is, does it affect your survival in the real world at all?

Do wristwatches, cars, nice haircuts, or straight teeth? No?

Seems like a pretty poor criterion for assessing the value of things, unless you’re only interested in food, water, tents, and first aid kits, and consider everything else useless.

Topic: Kongregate / Homosexual discrimination?

I’m an atheist and I’m amoral, and I could care less about other people’s sexual orientation. However, over the years, I have found gay men to be extremely annoying and even offensive. They are offensive not because of them being gay. It’s because they are show off. They can’t shut up about being gay. They can’t stop shoving their sexuality in your face.

Over the years, I have to say, I’ve found all atheists to be extremely annoying and even offensive. Not because they don’t believe in God, but because they’re always walking around flaunting their atheism, trying to shove it in your face. Why would anyone even mention they’re atheist on Kongregate? It’s a gaming website, not a place to talk about religious beliefs. I don’t see how that would even come up in conversation. If you’re an atheist, just keep it to yourself. People don’t want to hear you bragging all the time about how unbelieving you are, and how many times you’ve read the complete works of Nietszche.

Topic: Kongregate / Favorite Kongai Card

I can’t believe no-one has said Andromeda yet. She’s definitely my favourite. With Herbal Remedy she’s unstoppable. People try to stall her with rangedancing, and she just slowly regenerates back to full health. It’s not uncommon for me to take out two or three characters with just Andromeda. Rain of Arrows and Lightning Arrow are godly moves.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Suggestions

Randomly choosing range at the beginning would also give some cards an advantage (that is to say, cards strong at both ranges), so that doesn’t really solve the problem.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Suggestions

If you keep getting kicked from games, I would recommend doing ranked matches. You can’t get kicked from those! Unless you’re playing with people you know, I’m not sure I understand the advantage of joining random non-ranked games instead of doing ranked games, unless you’re trying to play people who aren’t around your skill level. And if that’s the case, it might not be a big stretch to imagine why people might feel inclined to kick you from their game.

Some people enjoy playing 5-card games.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai Suggestions

I sort of agree with 1, or at least can empathize with how annoying it can be to try to find a game when you’re a high level.

3 has been brought up a lot, and the answer seems to be that there’s basically a zero chance of it happening. As for 2, meh. I think card chances are fine the way they are.

Topic: Kongregate / Big, Ugly "Starter" Label on Kongai Cards, and Compulsory Starter Card Picks

I think it makes perfect sense that the starter cards are unsightly. They should be. They’re basically provisional – and you’ll be all the more grateful when you win the “K” version in a game.

Topic: Kongregate / False-positive: an Error of Judgement by Kongregate

Killer, you seem perpetually in need of a nap :P

I wasn’t speaking with any authority. I said “I believe”, which means “take this with a grain of salt, I’m not an expert”.

Topic: Games / Phoebe's Rapid Lashes and Chi reflect

I believe Rapid Lashes has a speed of 8, so with Valkyrie’s charm it could actually activate before Chi Reflect, as strange as that seems. Now whether Kongai devs ever intended this to be possible is somewhat questionable, but I’m sure they must have realised that with Valks and Quickening Powder, attacks would be able to exceed speeds of 9 and even 10.

Incidentally, when I play Phoebe vs. Yoshiro, I see Yoshi’s doing Chi Reflect all the time, which strikes me as so bizarre. You have 6 light resist, why would I waste 35 energy hitting you for 1×5 damage? Even deafening crack would be better.

Topic: Kongregate / False-positive: an Error of Judgement by Kongregate

Yeah, I could actually see this being done fairly quickly. I believe the person who programmed Kong-bot’s AI said that they did it in 15 minutes. Since it’s, as far as I know, fairly deterministic in its actions, if you found a team and strategy that worked quickly once, it would work again and again and again (I doubt in those 15 minutes he managed to write an adaptive AI).

Regardless, it’s hard to see how it was decided that the score was an instance of cheating. Is having a score that is much higher than the second and third place scores enough for it to be deleted?

Topic: Kongregate / PAX Tafari Code

Check your damn whispers. :-P

Reminds me of that time I brought gummi bears to class and the teacher was all “I hope you brought enough to share with everyone”, and then I was inundated with 10,000 forum posts and whispers from people begging me for gummi bears.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai - 46 of 46 cards

I didn’t say Sharpening Stone was a bad card, but I’ve played a lot of games and only seen it used a couple of times. Valkyries Charm and Herbal Remedy appear to be much, much more popular.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongai - 46 of 46 cards

Like people have said, there really is no consensus on three “best” character or item cards. I’m actually surprised that not only are the cards well-balanced, but that people seem to use them with fairly even frequency. There don’t seem to be any cards that are really over-used or under-used (though perhaps that’s less true with items – I do see tons of death masks, valkyrie feathers, tomes etc. and see very few cranes, sharpening stones, and rings of curses though that’s just my impression).