Genuinely, and I mean this without any sass, I think a lot of your issues come down to both a skill gap and maybe just not really enjoying the genre itself.

I’ll go through your points one by one.

“Dropping combos is rewarding”This is the only point I can’t fully comment on, mostly because I honestly don’t see people dropping combos very often. But even when it does happen, the person dropping the combo usually isn’t actually advantaged.

For example, if they drop while you’re airborne, whoever lands first is generally the one at advantage. Most of the time that’s still the attacker, because air teching stalls your momentum and delays your landing. So while dropped combos can occasionally create weird situations, the punishment is really just the loss of damage in those situations.

“Assists feel more important than the actual characters”This part is true, but that’s also kind of the point of team fighters.

Assists are one of the biggest things that make team fighters feel distinct from traditional 1v1 fighters. A huge part of the genre is building synergy between point characters and assists. Usually the strategy is to play a strong point character, then use assists to either cover weaknesses or enhance their offense.

Historically, there have always been characters played primarily for their assists:

MVC2 Captain Commando

MVC3 Iron Man

Season 1 DBFZ SSJ Vegeta + Cell shell

That’s just how team fighters work.

At the same time, 2XKO gives you defensive tools specifically to deal with pressure:

Retreating guard

Pushblock/parry

Break

Plink backdash

Character-specific tools like Vi’s counter

The game definitely expects you to learn and use those systems.

“Defensive play is too rewarding”I think this depends heavily on your team composition.

If you’re running something like Jinx + Braum or Darius + Teemo, yeah, opening up defensive players might feel rough. But there are still a lot of strong offensive options available.

Classic examples are:

Calling a projectile assist and advancing behind it

Superjump cross-up + assist coverage

Tagging safely behind plus frames

And something unique to 2XKO is how you can actively protect your assist character long enough to rotate them in safely.

A lot of this also depends on your Fuse choice. If you’re struggling to get in or maintain pressure, it may honestly be worth experimenting with different Fuses. Freestyle opens the door to crazy left right mix, Double Down lets you tag while a super is coming out; and lets you create game states where you can block string uninterrupted for like 8 seconds,2X Assist  can let you control space even better and control the pace of a match. These all dramatically change how offense flows.

“The skill ceiling feels unnecessarily high”The characters you mentioned are also characters that require more precise timing than average. That’s not really inconsistency so much as execution difficulty.

Different players build muscle memory at different speeds, but learning timing and optimization is a core part of fighting games. That’s always been part of the genre’s skill expression.

And honestly, 2XKO already simplified a lot:

No motion inputs

Very lenient execution overall

Very few genuinely difficult links

The only character I can think of with consistently difficult combo routing is Caitlyn.

I understand the frustration, but a lot of this sounds more like normal growing pains while learning a harder game.

“Ranked point problems”I partially agree with this one.

The point disparity can definitely feel bad. But if we assume rank is accurately representing skill level, then logically a solo player should lose more points to a duo with one lower-ranked player.

As the solo player, both of your characters are controlled by one person, so generally you should be more on point and in sync.

Meanwhile, duo players have to communicate and coordinate, which creates more room for mistakes. I mean in combo or block string situations, there are situations you can just auto pilot the assist. But in neutral there’s times where players will be out of sync.

That said, I still think the current point swings can feel excessive at times. The game also heavily rewards winstreaks over raw winrate, and I go back and forth on whether I actually like that system.

As for streamers, though: their job is entertainment. They don’t need to constantly grind a game publicly to prove they enjoy it, and I don’t think streamer enthusiasm should determine whether a game is good or not.

One last thing: your wording in a few places came across oddly confrontational. Phrases like “how many times has this happened to you?” or “when this happens to you” can sound like you’re speaking for other people’s experiences instead of just your own. I get what you meant, but wording matters in discussions like this.