Free Step Dodge

What's up?

as someone who has never played a KOF game before and KOF 14 will be my first, my question is how do people deal with jumps in this game? with short hops, hyper hops, super jumps, etc, it seems like committing energy to anti air is wasted cause people have so many angles to come at you with

I ask this cause im practicing Sylvie right now, and it seems like a lot of her go to stuff is designed to hit airborne opponents, but if my opponent can come at my with any number of hops, or just say fuck it and roll in on my, should I spend me time looking for jumps? Mind you this is coming from someone who’se only 2d fighting game experience is SF and MK

While there a lot of angles to jump in from, you also have a defensive mechanics to keep in mind as well. In KOFXIV (starting from XIII), if you back dash you will be put into a air reset position from normal moves. You also have the roll mechanic but you need to be careful while using it because it is not foolproof (you can get meatied on its recovery and thrown out of it).
CONT.

You also need to note that KOF is a rather fast paced game, especially in comparison to both SF and MK. For anti-airs, you need to be able to read them and go for quick normals. Against obvious jump ins, you can discourage hops and jumps with specific normals, depending on the character. You also have the Guard Cancel system to take into consideration (CONT).

Also can also make use of your mobility options as well while carefully implementing an offense and while playing in the neutral. You can use the jumps and hops in a way where you can also cover ground or defend yourself (example backwards hop j.D with Iori for example). All characters are capable of doing this to varying degrees. But, always be ready to block when the situation calls for it.