How do you get high level 8 BA in '99?

I think I discussed this with Setsuna X but I missed the replies to that thread so I'm opening it up here again.

You all seem to be experts at this. When I play '99 on either my emulator or the PSX on level 8 I get lousy BA. I range between 400 to 570 BA. How do you guys do it? All of you see to get BA scores of like 800 like as though it was nothing. When I saw Gunsmith's little video of him getting his butt kicked by the computer in the DC '99 Evolution version his BA was in the thousands!

Why's my BA so low? Do I have to play more like an expert or something? From the numerous times I've played all I've figured out is that I noticed BA is sorta like a measure of your "efficiency".

* If you dawdle around a lot and waste time turtling the game seems to dock you down.
* If you wipe the computer out (hit'em a lot more versus how often he hits you) and I mean literally skool 'em you seem to get a lot of BA.
* You also seem to get a lot more BA in terms of your "accuracy" (number of times you hit versus the number of times your attacks were blocked or missed).
* Strikers and normal throws detract or at the very least aren't beneficial to your BA.
* Command throws also seem to not help your BA..?

How do you guys get those insane BA totals? My BA's laughable compared to all of your insane scores and I've been trying to figure this out for the longest time...

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"Ore no, kachi da!!!"

Dunno, like you I get poor BA. Gun's BA was probably high because there had been many many two player games, maybe they build up the more you play.

In challenge fights your BA doesn't count nor does it add to your current BA if you happen to win the fight. I did mention tha Gunsmith was playing it on the home DC version, most likely of which doesn't have competition unless he drags some KoF people to his house.

Here's a link to an image taken from the movie. Notice the 831 BA.

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/3328/webimages/gunsmithba.jpg

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"Ore no, kachi da!!!"

Best ask him, but he has been known to drag the odd bum into his house when desperate for a kof two player fix.

Ok the DC KOF99 is a game all by it self.In the DC version your average on lvl 8 is around 700-800,the only way you can higher than that is to do ALOT of throw DMs(every DM that hits without being blocked adds alot of BA so thus if you can't block it...)or throws(I got 884 for some reason on the US Evo,but that's fucked anyway)

On my "other" KOF99 my average on lvl 8 is around 500.You get higher BA on the DC so you can buy the Strikers that's all.But BA doesn't say much,now if they gave out grades like SF3 3s then that would mean something IMO

I disagree.. the SF3 Grading System is totally messed up just like KoF's BA system. I see experts getting C's and D's while intermediate players like me gets Bs and A's. Sometimes I don't even have to try to get the grades but yet I get good ones.

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"Ore no, kachi da!!!"

I did an FAQ of Battle Ability about a year ago, and tried to post a chit-noted version on the Neo Forums... it's here somewhere, but I can't remember the thread it is in. Oh well, I'll try to explain it a little bit.

Battle Ability is based a LOT on your attacks. Every character gets a standard 1-4 points of BA for ever regular A-D button hit, and each person's special moves counts for various points (depending on one's character). Regular grabs generally are 10 BA points, with supers ranging anywhere from 25-50 BA points.

Some other key factors when dealing with Battle Ability:
1. You don't get any bonus points for combos. Like for instance, doing Athena's Jumping D, Standing A, Standing B, Psycho Sword C will not give you any bonus points for landing a 10-11 hit combo. You will just receive 4 pts for the Jumping D, 1 point for the Standing A, 2 points for the Standing B (if both moves connect), and 1 point for every hit of damage the Psycho Sword uppercut does (anywhere up to 7 points). This is, of course, just an example for Athena. This doesn't mean that all uppercut moves in the game award you one point for ever hit it makes. Other characters with DP moves like Ryo, Kyo, Iori, etc... all have different point scores for their respected uppercuts.

2. I'm not sure if this is true, but I think you are rewarded battle ability for perfects. However, you are not rewarded battle ability for "sweeps"; taking out an entire team with only one character.

3. Striker hits do not count for Battle Ability. SInce it's an assist, and not something you actually cause, the system does not give you points for that.

4. If you do win a round, your battle ability score is given a bonus which consists of: Remaining time left during matches won, multiplied by the level you have it set on. That explains why you get considerably higher BA in higher levels than in lower ones.

5. If you defeat your opponent via "block damage" using a special move or DM, you won't be awarded points for that move. So, don't waste those supers if you're looking for higher scores.

On average, Battle Ability on Level 8 in KOF '99 (on home cart anyhow) ranges from 300-500 Pts., with some instances people being able to score well above 600. My personal highest is with a team composed of Chin, Andy, Blue Mary and Mai which gained me about 683 BA points. Second place was the full roster of Team China with about 650 or so. At average, anytime I did a "sweep", I scored roughly between 375-450 BA pts.

On the Neo Geo ML, I did an extensive Battle Ability FAQ which went into heavy detail about the Battle Ability scale for Team China. I broke down every move, and counted how much each character's moves would score, then listed a couple of combos that would help rack up the points quickly. If you're a member of the DHP list, you may still be able to find this post somewhere in the archives for 1999/2000 (if they are still available).

If you own a KOF '99 Home Cart and you want to find out how your favorite characters score in Battle Ability, do what I did... set the level of the game to Level 1 and put it on Survivor Mode. Select your one character and play the game. There will be a running total for Battle Ability throughout the game located right above your character's life meter, and since the AI will literally do almost nothing, you can try various hits and see how they score.

BTW, my highest BA score EVER? 1411 Pts... with Chin Gentsai on Level 8 after completing Survivor Mode without continues.

[This message has been edited by VinylBoy (edited April 18, 2001).]

Thank you VinylBoy! I did notice the BA tally-up in '99's Survivor Mode but I figured it was different from that of the arcade Team Play mode. How did you figure you get that bonus? I don't remember getting a bonus score in '99 after beating a character in Survivor Mode.

In regular arcade mode, how are BA points carried over? If I end up getting 9999 BA from a battle (using that K bug) the next battle it'll drop drastically to about 2000 or so. Are the arcade points calculated differently based on averages or something?

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I eat King sized pancakes for breakfast, Terry-aki burgers for lunch, and Meat Jhun for dinner. All I need is Kyo BURN'em.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Iie-Kyo:
Thank you VinylBoy! I did notice the BA tally-up in '99's Survivor Mode but I figured it was different from that of the arcade Team Play mode. How did you figure you get that bonus? I don't remember getting a bonus score in '99 after beating a character in Survivor Mode.

In regular arcade mode, how are BA points carried over? If I end up getting 9999 BA from a battle (using that K bug) the next battle it'll drop drastically to about 2000 or so. Are the arcade points calculated differently based on averages or something?

Click to expand...

The bonus that I talked about doesn't apply with the Survivor mode. Since you have a running total, after defeating all characters (including yourself and the bosses), you're bound to have BA way above 1000 points. Besides, surviving that many matches with only one life meter and no continues, who needs a bonus?

Also, I don't think BA is actually carried over to the next match in regular Team Mode either. After every round is completed, BA is reset to zero and starts from the beginning. This way, if you win again, it will be able to tell whether or not you scored higher or lower than your last match. The only way to actually prove this is to use the Survivor Mode to figure out your character's scores for every move, then have someone watch closely to your fight against AI during a regular Team Mode fight taking a score themselves, PLUS keeping running totals on time remaining during winning rounds during a battle to add and multiply by the level. And, of course, if you lose and have to continue, your BA is reduced automatically by 1/2 for that round, or something like that. It's certainly not an easy thing to do to say the least.

The bonus is just an educated guess... to be very honest, I really don't know if that is the set formula, but it has to be something to that extent. For even if you win three matches in a row in Survivor mode on Level 8, your battle ability will not be anywhere near the 400 point mark.

The only other thing I didn't get a chance to look at is the team rankings... I figure that the top 5 are based on average BA from all matches fought in one complete game.

Try experimenting as well... it would be good to further improve on the already existing findings. That's how FAQs evolve, ya know...

goddamn. I hope that has no relevance in terms of KOF2K's BA scores. hell, my highest BA was only 362. sigh... oh well...

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Use Seth as a player,you should get higher BA than others

My highest with him is 467

Kyo and Iori give excellent BA. The clones do too in '99, they're hard hitting.

I still think it's based on an average, VinylBoy. Like I said, if you do the K' 9999 BA bug the next fight will drop you to 2000 points or so. No way can you get 2000 BA if your score was to end up being reset after a fight. It's gotta be averages or something...

How did you figure out that the number of bonus BA you get way based on your time remaining x your level? It's obvious you get more BA when you play level 8 but how'd you figure out that formula?

When my arcade had '99, the highest score there was at 521 BA. The machine was set at the standard level 4 MVS setting.

Geez, I have enough difficulty getting 500+ BA in level 8 at home!!!

I think they changed the formula in KoF 2k. The computer gets progressively harder as you advance through the stages. Maybe the game internally changes the level while you're playing, usually resulting in a higher BA after each fight? I noticed that my BA averages around 350-400 by the time I hit Zero. In '99 I averaged between 200-350 when I finally got to Krizalid.

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I eat King sized pancakes for breakfast, Terry-aki burgers for lunch, and meat Jhun with sloppy Joe and Kim chee for dinner. All I need is Kyo to BURN'em.

I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the forumla a little bit in KOF 2000... but then again, I haven't taken the time to really get into KOF 2000 like I did in '99. One doesn't have the free time like he used to...

Here are some other keys for raising BA... characters that have the ability to do more than 1 hit with their C or D attacks usually gain poits quicker. For instance, Chin Gentsai will get 8 points for his Jumping C, since each punch registers 4 points. Similar attacks for Blue Mary's up-close D kick (that does 2 hits), or others that do automatic two-hit moves (Kyo's Foot Sweep) should do the same. This only applies to REGULAR moves, not special moves and DMs.

And again, NEVER kill a character with a DM through block damage. You won't get credit for that move... sometimes, even using a super after a striker assist will not give you credit for the DM attack as well. This has happened to me with Athena and Chin before.

As for the bonus formula? Like I stated before Iie-Kyo, I'm just making an educated guess. You may be right about the averages of BA for the top 5 "Team Rankings"... it makes sense that the machine should create a total of all your calculated scores then divide them by the number of rounds you've fought.

Now that I'm actually working out some of the numbers, I'm starting to believe that the formula I originally thought doesn't necessarily work. Here's why:

1. Figure out (on average) how much time it takes you to defeat a character in Team Mode. For this example, I'll choose 35 seconds (out of a possible 60). Take that, and multiply that by three. (35X3=105).

2. Use Survivor Mode and go through 3 matches on the level of your choice. Remember the total score you receive after those three matches. At average, I think you'd receive about 50-150 points a match, so for this example I'll use a number like 90. (Multiplied by 3 gives you 270).

3. Add the two numbers together... BA points and the "Bonus Formula" of time above... (270+105=375).

375 sounds like the average number for BA on Level 8 in KOF '99. Obviously, if we were to multiply the time bonus by 8 (like I originally thought) before adding it to your regular fighting points, the BA score would have been 1110 [(105X8)+270], which we all know would probably not happen in Team Mode in KOF '99 for Neo Geo, but it may work in a similar way for the DC version... that would explain why some BA scores in Evolution were far above 800.

There has to be something else to it... maybe self-imposed penalties for using lower levels. Maybe the level is used as some form of divisor, whereas at Level 8 it divides your score by 1 leaving it untouched (since it's the highest level)... and that number decreases by 1/8 for each lower level.

Using this theory, we take the 375 for BA listed above:
At Level 7, you'd get 7/8 of that BA or 328 (375 X .875)
At Level 6, you'd get 6/8 (or 3/4) of the BA, or 281 (375 X .75)
... and so forth and so forth. All these numbers are rounded off or is truncated at the decimal point, of course.

At Level 1, you'd get 1/8 which actually equals only 46 (or 47, rounding up to the nearest 1). That's why I don't think this formula is 100% correct either, but then again I've never played KOF 99 on Level 1 in Team Mode.

I'm only trying to guess what this formula can be... it obviously is going by some sort of point scale, unlike the grading system used in SFIII: Third Strike. The exact formula I'm not sure of, but if we keep probing like this, we're bound to find it out eventually.

[This message has been edited by VinylBoy (edited April 19, 2001).]

Makes you wonder what the SNK guys were thinking switching to this strange BA system in '99 instead of your usual points system. Maybe they were trying to be original? (then again in 2000 the ability to call in strikers [*cough* assists *cough] at anytime isn't that original...)

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I eat King sized pancakes for breakfast, Terry-aki burgers for lunch, and meat Jhun with sloppy Joe and Kim chee for dinner. All I need is Kyo to BURN'em.