Approaching 3v3 style of battle (new to KOF)

[Rhombustible]

hey all,

new KOF player here, coming over from street fighter and wondering how you guys approach the 3v3 style of play. I've watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r75Lz1Drp8g  (wow, the hops are crazy) and it explained some of the differences from SF, but i'm more curious how matchups stack up in KOF as opposed to other fighters. I'm used to completely focusing in on one character and taking notes on each matchup (what i can easily whiff punish, what pokes are good/bad, and finely tuned things like that. do you guys do the same on a multi-character scale? and should i focus on just playing one character at first or should i be jumping into the 3v3 style? I know meter management between rounds is important in SF but i'm not sure what the standards are for KOF. thanks in advance!

[Ginorm]

Also being new I've been doing some homework on this as well, and here's what I've picked up so far:

• The basics / fundamentals stay true no matter which character you are using. While there are of course differences between characters the basics stay the same. For example hops beat lows, jab beat hops, lows beat jabs. The things you learned from DandyJ stay true pretty much across the cast. So once you learn the fundamentals it should be fairly easy to translate those fundamentals to each character you want to pick up. Meaning that learning multiple characters in this game should be faster then say SF.
• Learning MUs are similar to other games, each character has pros / cons, safe and unsafe moves, etc.  That still will need to be learned, but in addition is understanding how they may be played based on placement in their roster order.  Characters in the first position will be batteries, building meter rather then spending it, so they probably will have good meterless conversions and don't rely on meter. Characters in the last position will tend to convert meter into big damage, or are fundamentally meter hungry. Some characters will be great in certain positions but bad in others, while there are some that are good in any position and therefore may have a different game plan based on where they get placed.  Honestly it is really not that much different from learning MUs in other games, just need to learn in addition how they may play differently based on their roster order.
• Meter management is more complicated then I've seen in other games.  Things that are important to keep in mind is your first character has a max 3 stocks, second 4 stocks, and last 5 stocks, and you gain a stock when you move onto your next character. So even though you want to build meter with your first character, what happens once you get to 2, or close to 3 stocks?  Spend it? Save it?  Does your 3rd character "need" meter to be successful?  Are you still on your 1st character, but your opponent is on their last?  Also what do you spend it on? MAX Mode? Super, into Advanced Cancel? Climax for the kill even though it's only their 1st character? There are a lot of situations that can come up so it's difficult to say without knowing your roster and the particular situation.  So I'll say this. SF meter management is pretty simple in comparison and it's not going to change that much if you save or spend like a fiend. Here meter management is a big deal because meter has such a big effect and games can be won or lost based on how meter was spent.  So my advice, and one I'll be looking at early on myself is once you solidify your roster, is figuring out what situations should I be spending meter in each order position and what you should I be spending meter on for each character.

For myself, I'm going right in on the 3v3 play, but not before spending a little time with my chosen characters to learn some basic BnBs etc in training.  Right now my team is looking like Terry, Maxima, Vice or Terry, Luong, Maxima depending on how I feel about Vice and whether I want Maxima at anchor or not (depends on what I can get without meter).  

Ultimately if you feel more comfortable with hitting singles with 3 characters to give them quality time I say go for it. Do what you think will be best way to learn. Myself I just wanted to get into the team action sooner because  this is what separates this game from others for me.

[solidshark]

First off, welcome Rhombustible to DreamCancel. I think Ginorm said a lot of what I would've suggested for getting into the 3v3 format. I agree with just jumping right into 3v3, but would advise slowly trying out characters that appeal to you, one by one, after you've got at least one team you're comfortable with.

In sticking with this game, there's a good chance that you're going to have several teams, several back-up teams or just characters you like to mess around with; the more characters you know and learn, the more your team(s) dynamic will change to your benefit.