I don't have an XBone and Killer Instinct; I have a PS4/PC and Mortal Kombat X. I love MKX, but hate the inevitable latency of online matches. This latency is not only a nuissence, but also a factor that can influence how the game is played completely from a strategic standpoint. It can also be a reason you drop quite a few combos which is critical in a combo heavy game like MKX. Listening to the BombCrew talk about the Shadow Fighters from Killer Instinct left me astounded that this isn't a standard in almost all fighting games that tout tight reflexes as a skill. This feature is much more attractive to me than latency matches online.

I should say that it is the concept that I am enjoying because in addition to not playing it, it is clear that it is not without its flaws. In the perfect world, the AI fights exactly like you, but as the crew stated, it takes multiple fights against all the opponents to truly end up proper. Even so, I think that this would only make me more excited to play the game itself; I would be constantly wanting to improve my AI, much in the same way that I get an itch to level up my characters in RPGs and what not. To add, the reward of training my AI character are raised exponentially by knowing that they would be fighting against other players. In a sense, the feature draws a positive reaction from me from even its flaw.

What do you guys think of the Shadow Fighter feature in Killer Instinct? Even if you have not played it, what is your opinion of the feature? Would you prefer this feature as is in Killer Instinct over online matches with latency? If not, what would the feature have to improve on or include, in your opinion?

*Is there a concept page for this? I couldn't find one, so if any mods know of it, could you please move this thread to that concept page?

I think it's a fantastic feature that will ultimately serve as a stepping stone for teaching new players to turn that 90 degree learning cliff most fighting games have into more of an 85 degree slant. There's no substitute for real players however because real players can adapt and change their playstyle mid-match, even a recorded shadow won't be able to recognize when to mix things up to throw the opponent off.

Without actually having played it (still waiting on that PC release MS) I would assume there's a way for players to see the "difficulty" level of a shadow which would help them guage how well they're doing in progressing their skillset. It would also help people who are less inclined to jump head on into online and lose 200 matches in a row brute forcing their learning process.

I could also see some really cool applications for teaching players combos, setups etc with shadows. Say a better player could create a "Fulgore combo shadow" and it essentially demonstrates how to do specific combos, timing, spacing etc. This could substitute people having to watch and replay youtube videos over and over to learn them.

Personally, I doubt I'd use it. I think if you're willing to lose a lot to online players and analyze where you're going wrong to improve yourself that still seems like a better option to me. However for people who aren't willing to do that? It's a fantastic feature and should be standard in fighting games to come.

I'm really interested in the system. As someone who lives deep in the woods with notoriously iffy internet, I would really like to have a decent compromise between fighting dumb boring AI or laggy humans. Though without having felt it myself, I stay a little bit pessimistic. I really dislike fighting AI and I'm afraid the shadows will be too close to that for me.

It's pretty awesome feature, it's amazing actually. It brings an intensity to Single Player fights that were lacking for me in other fighting games, you are playing AI but it feels so much better like your're playing online without the drawbacks of actually playing online.

This is an amazing feature, personally i think this is the next big thing to happen to fighting games. Better then NRS story modes imo. Just much more replay value and the fighting is better.

I haven't tried the Shadow Mode yet, but what Jeff showed looked really impressive. His fought like him and Jason's fought like Jason.

As @baronsamedi says, it's never going to be quite like a human opponent, but it looked so far beyond what any other fighting game has for AI at the moment. I think one of the biggest differences is the potential to actually take something away from the match. Against the AI in a game like Street Fighter, it can be very difficult to actually learn anything useful from a match other than punishes. It's often even very difficult to learn anything applicable about matchups from the AI, because the AI plays the characters in ways that people do not, because it takes things like reaction time and reads out of the equation.Even if more fighting game AI just faked reaction times, that'd be a step forward. Getting max punished the first frame you press jab or something fucking suuuuuucks. Current fighting game AI basically reinforces bad habits anyway. You can jump in at the start of the round 1000 times and it'll never pick up on that, so your chance of getting the hit is basically the same every time, so by the anti-air damage risk vs the damage of a full jump-in combo reward, it actually becomes the smart thing to do. Yuck.

I don't have good internet and I don't really live somewhere with a moderately populated online scene. I do have friends that share my interest in approaching the games competitively, but we don't often get to play together. So something like this to fill the gaps would be a godsend. Also, if more games follow the Mortal Kombat path of a more involved story mode, something like Shadows would be a huge boon to that too. The story might be really good, but if it's all wrapped around fights with mindless AI, that hurts.

The other thing that would be cool is if this ended up with a system where it could use the data it has captured to generate feedback. Better players will generally be able to tell where things aren't working out for them etc, but if a beginner can be told something like "You lost 60% of your health in that game from being hit while you were jumping" or feedback about how effective their meter usage was or things of that nature, that would be cool.

So I guess although it's never going to be as good as the real thing, it'd still be very useful to me with my current situation, it'd make single player content in fighting games enjoyable in ways that stuff really isn't to me, it'd probably make the playerbase better overall than AI does now... Basically, every fighting game needs to have this, so Iron Galaxy should clearly make it a middleware called "SpeedLang" or something.

@damodar: I agree in that kind of feedback taking Shadow Mode to the next level. It would allow you to learn not only from your real-time fights, but from the fights on your Shadow Foghter's side as well. Sure, it wouldn't be as visceral as feedback from your real-time fights (which I believe fighting games should always include), but it definitely would help. When I played Fight Night Round 4, the post-match statistics were eye opening sometimes and helped me understand where I was lacking.