Fighting Games

[Zevox]

So, this is something I've been meaning to do for a while. It's been a long time since we've had a fighting game thread last more than a couple of pages here, but the one time we did, I know regulars there were treating it more like a thread for the entire genre in general, not just the game it was supposedly for (BlazBlue). So, let's give that a try. This is a thread for discussing any fighting games, from Street Fighter to Soul Calibur to Smash Brothers, whatever you may fancy.

Myself, I've been playing a lot of Street Fighter x Tekken lately, but my favorites of the genre are really BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, and UMvC3. I'm also a fan of Skullgirls and the Smash Brothers series. But right now, I think what I'd most like to talk about is the upcoming DC fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us.

The demo for Injustice just came out today (on both 360 and PS3). It's pretty bare-bones, including only an offline versus mode, a trimmed-down arcade ("Battle") mode which only goes to four fights, and only three playable characters (Batman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor), but it's good for previewing how the game will play. I've been on the fence about whether I'll be getting it, because I wasn't really a fan of Mortal Komat 9 (and for anyone who might not know, it's being made by the same developers who made that game). I knew they were changing some things compared to that game, but wasn't sure if they'd be enough for me.

And the demo has helped there. As previews had already told us, the game has hold back to block instead of MK9's block button, which is a big improvement for me, and the buttons are a BlazBlue-like light-medium-heavy setup with a fourth for character-specific abilities, which I also like, but will like more when I can customize the button layout (the default one is a bit weird for someone used to BlazBlue and Marvel 3's layouts for this sort of 4-button fighter). It does feel a lot like MK in terms of input timing though, which I don't especially like. Still, I am getting the feeling that I could get used to it, much like I have with SFxT, which also has things about the input timing I don't like. The game is also a lot faster than MK, which is a double-edged sword at times (oh my god how did Doomsday go from halfway across the screen to in my face in one dash?!), but something I probably prefer on the whole.

I am finding that I don't like the stage hazards, though. The ones that characters can just grab and throw at opponents are big, unblockable (!), and do a lot of damage for a single hit, and the stage transition ones (where a character bounces between hazards while being blown from one section of a stage to another) do almost as much damage as a super. They just seem like way too much to me. They can be turned off, at least in the versus mode, but I can't help but fear that they may be always on in online ranked, which is usually where I go to play, since it gets me fights the fastest in most games.

Something that was a big surprise for me is that they've actually included frame data in the game, on the moves list screen. That, to my knowledge, is a first for the genre, and something I have to applaud the devs for doing. Though, it does lead to a point of confusion for me. Going by the data provided, I should be able to do a Street Fighter-esque link combo with, for one example, Wonder Woman's crouching light (+12 on hit) and standing light (8 frame startup)... but it never seems to register as a combo. I don't think I've always missed it, as I can do tighter links than that pretty reliably in SFxT, and I've been trying this in versus mode with nobody on the second controller, so I've had plenty of time to try it. So I'm not sure whether the combo counter just doesn't register standing links for some reason, if it's actually not comboing for some reason, or if the frame data is wrong. Can't imagine it's that last though, as there should be no reason the developers don't know the proper frame data.

So, yeah, that confusion aside, I think the demo is convincing me that there's a decent chance I could get into the game. It's still hardly my ideal fighting game, but it feels better than MK did, and there is a fair portion of the roster I'm interested in. Plus, well, I don't really have anything else coming out anytime soon, so it's not like I'm inundated with new games draining my wallet and free time right now. I'd say I'm now pretty likely to pick it up at launch.

So, anybody else interested in Injustice, or want to talk about any other fighting games?

[A Rainy Knight]

I'm pretty much just a casual when it comes to this genre, unfortunately. My head hurts when I start thinking about combos and frame data and hitboxes, but I've enjoyed some games in the past when the AI isn't too demanding. I've played some BlazBlue, Soul Calibur, Skullgirls, and Dead or Alive, and I've really enjoyed Persona 4 Arena and (of course) the Super Smash Bros. franchise.

What games would you recommend for someone who might want to ease a little deeper into the genre at some point?

[Zevox]

What games would you recommend for someone who might want to ease a little deeper into the genre at some point?
Hm, kind of a hard question for me. I get the feeling I didn't exactly take the easy route into the genre, starting as I did with BlazBlue and MvC3, but those are what I like the most, so in a sense they may have been the best starting point for me personally.

I can say that I find Street Fighter x Tekken has been good for practicing fundamentals of the genre for me. The things you can do in that game are not as insane as in the others I play, so I'm less likely to just be overwhelmed by someone doing crazy stuff I've never seen before or just can't possibly react to before it kills me. It's also possible to avoid the higher execution that the game usually wants from players, with link combos being difficult and easier chain combos being badly punishable if blocked, by using particular characters, mostly on the Tekken side, who have easier-to-do unique chain combos that are either safe on their own or can be canceled into a special move that is safe. It's also a game where you can't block while jumping, which is difficult to get accustomed to if you're used to games where you can, but it does encourage learning to do proper anti-air attacks as well.

UMvC3 may be better for learning the basics of comboing, though. That game very readily allows you to cancel attacks into other attacks, and has a built-in easy, pretty well universal combo that every character can do which is reasonably effective (light, medium, heavy, launch, jump medium x2, jump heavy, knockdown - each character has some way to end this with a super as well, either in the air or after the knockdown). It is very fast-paced, though, which could make it harder. Not to mention that most people who still play it now are capable of some fairly crazy stuff, and the online is pretty rough, with a noticeable input delay even under ideal conditions.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm an old-school Street Fighter player. Aside from the addition of super combos and the occaisional attempt at a knock-down hit, I basically play Street Fighter 4 just like it was Street Fighter 2. I also like original Soul Calibur and the first two Smash Bros games, and used to be quite a shark at Killer Instinct (but I've found that I don't remember that game well enough to be any good anymore).

I haven't played MK since MK4, and I haven't been paying any attention to recent MK or DC Universe fighting games.

Hey, does anybody remember Bloody Roar? I wish they would make a new one. Bloody Roar 4 was terribad, but the ones before it were awesome! I think my favorite was Bloody Roar: Primal Fury on the Gamecube because it had the guy that turned into a penguin, LOL.

[Zevox]

Hey, does anybody remember Bloody Roar? I wish they would make a new one. Bloody Roar 4 was terribad, but the ones before it were awesome! I think my favorite was Bloody Roar: Primal Fury on the Gamecube because it had the guy that turned into a penguin, LOL.
I recall playing Primal Fury on the Gamecube as a rental, but that was back before I started learning how to play fighting games well, and was basically just button mashing and spamming special moves at the time. I did think that the whole transforming Were-animal theme to it was cool, though. I'd probably try it again if a new one came out - though I haven't actually tried any 3D fighters since really getting into the genre, and don't know how well I'd weather that transition.

[Giggling Ghast]

I did try the demo. It was pretty bare bones, but it did put me on the fence about getting this game and I was totally off the fence before.

I actually did like the stage hazards, and I find that while they're unblockable, you can easily cancel out their use by hitting an opponent. I'll be damned if I can figure out how to activate the stage transition hazards, though the AI opponents sure seem to know how. Ouch. I'm still not quite sure how someone like Batman survives being punched through the Earth, but I guess all the DC characters are getting a power-up in this game.

Generally, I found Wonder Woman was the easiest to use of the three characters.

[Zevox]

I actually did like the stage hazards, and I find that while they're unblockable, you can easily cancel out their use by hitting an opponent.
If you're close enough and react fast enough, sure. That's rarely been the case for me (especially the "react fast enough" part, as the game is pretty damn fast).

On the flip side, I've had computers toss them at me right after a knockdown, which I'm pretty sure is a completely unavoidable setup if you happen to get hit in the right position. Yeah, not happy about that.


I'll be damned if I can figure out how to activate the stage transition hazards, though the AI opponents sure seem to know how. Ouch.
Near the edge of the stage, use back + heavy attack (X on PS3, A on 360), or in the middle of a combo hit back back + R2/RT. The former version is hard to do because the attack is extremely slow and hard to combo into (though you can hit R2/RT to spend one meter giving it armor), the latter version is much easier but costs 2 meter.

Actually, that's something that surprised me, and I expect many will overlook initially. Apparently, the game has a universal mechanic where you can spend 2 meters to cause a groundbounce, wallbounce, or (near the edge of a map when doing the wallbounce version) stage transition. Forward forward R2/RT for the groundbounce, back back R2/RT for the wallbounce. It's at the bottom of everyone's "combo attacks" move list. Odd mechanic, didn't expect it. Can't help but wonder how useful it will be, since the way the game limits combo length seems to be to make enemies drop faster the more hits they take in a juggle. Might not add enough damage to be worth the 2 meter most of the time.


Generally, I found Wonder Woman was the easiest to use of the three characters.
She's just about the only one I've been using, yeah, though in my case it's because I'm not really interested in playing any of the three in the demo, but I'm even less interested in Lex and Bats than her. I haven't been able to figure out a good use for her sword and shield stance, sadly, just been going with her lasso stance all the time. It seems to work though - she has good mobility (I love having an air dash), solid range on her normals, and pretty easy combos from safe starters. Ex Lasso makes a good combo ender too, doing extra damage and powering her up and her opponent down for a bit.

Edit: Wait, does Injustice have pushblocking?! I'd swear the computer just pushblocked me. Need to figure that out...
Edit 2: Didn't figure it out myself, but a google search says it's hit R2/RT when blocking. Costs 1 meter though. Hm, that's gonna take some getting used to.

[Zevox]

Okay, I think I'm done with the Injustice demo for a while. I'd forgotten how bad playing against AIs in fighting games can be. They're always either too easy or too hard, because they can read your button presses and choose how to react.

I am left with another concern, though. You build meter a lot faster by getting hit than by hitting your opponent, which seems very ass-backwards - the player that does well gets less rewarded than the one doing poorly. And more than that, since meter is used in the game's combo-breaker "clash" system, that could make that system extremely abusable. Especially since if the defender wins the clash, they regain about 33% health or so.

Though maybe that will change. According to this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ff-5ldQ9Gp4) from one of the game's beta testers, the demo is an old build of the game, so a number of things will be different in the final version, including damage numbers for various things. So, I guess we'll just see how many of my concerns get addressed in the final product.

Anyway though, if anyone is interested in playing any of the games I mentioned in the first post (UMvC3, SFxT, BlazBlue, P4A, Skullgirls, Smash Bros.), I'm usually up for matches. My work schedule is a bit erratic, but I'm usually free in the evening (EST), and I tend to play for an hour or so later at night most days. I'm on 360 for most of them, but I have P4A on the PS3 as well, and will likely get Injustice for the PS3.

[MLai]

I'm an old school 2D fighter player whose favorite 2D fighters ever:
(1) In terms of gameplay are Samurai Shodown 2 and Marvel Superheroes (MSH).
(2) In terms of aesthetics is Samurai Shodown 3.
(3) In terms of plot is King Of Fighters '97.

And yes, I play SF4 like it's SF2.

But I've since grown out of the 2D fighter phase as I found that it gradually reflected less and less of the old school anime fighting aesthetics that I loved to watch as a kid. I used to like those games because it was like anime characters fighting each other, not because I want to learn 10-hit tap/link/cancel/buffer combos.

Nowadays I like one fighting game: Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. This game alone, out of everything out there, recaptures that sensation of old school movie/anime fighting, while being quite modernized and deep on its own.
I'm waiting for Tekken X SF, the 3D fighting game. That game, I want to see. Let's see if Namco can successfully translate SF characters. CBA'ed to play Capcom's 2D version.

[KillianHawkeye]

But I've since grown out of the 2D fighter phase as I found that it gradually reflected less and less of the old school anime fighting aesthetics that I loved to watch as a kid. I used to like those games because it was like anime characters fighting each other, not because I want to learn 10-hit tap/link/cancel/buffer combos.

Just as a note, anime-style 2D fighters have still been around recently with titles such as BlazBlue and Persona 4:Arena. Also the indie game Skull Girls. I know there are some others, I just can't remember their names.

[Zevox]

Just as a note, anime-style 2D fighters have still been around recently with titles such as BlazBlue and Persona 4:Arena. Also the indie game Skull Girls. I know there are some others, I just can't remember their names.
Yeah, BlazBlue in particular is extremely anime. I mean, just look (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsVHj6jcMQ) at it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68tSUOL-kVo). You don't get much more anime than that.

[Cespenar]

It might be nostalgia, but the best fighting game for me is still Virtua Fighter 2. :smallbiggrin:

Recently been playing some SF4 and SFxT, but strictly newbie-ish, always trying to pull "cool stuff" instead of trying to understand the "deeper game".

[MLai]

Well, when I said that about "playing an anime", there's 2 factors.

1. Games like Guilty Gear onwards, looks like anime, but doesn't capture old school fighting choreography in old wushu movies and older animes. It's all spastic, like any number of modern anime that looks pretty but is badly animated. And the emphasis is on linking combos, which IMO is about hand muscle memory and less about fighting.

2. That goes into the difference IMO between older anime and newer anime, in terms of fighting choreography. On that note, what are some newer anime with in your opinion good fighting? Does Sword Arts Online have good fighting? When I say good fighting I don't mean big explosions, but actually good choreography and solid hits.

[Partysan]

I like fighting games, although I tend to be notoriously bad at them. Part of that is practice though, since I'm a PC gamer and for the longest time didn't have any console. I do have a PS2 now, since those have become cheap as hell, and I have only fighting games for it - I wanted to try out Persona 3/4 but these are really expensive for some reason.
I dislike the Street Fighter franchise for some reason - the aesthetics just don't sit well with me, and I find Tekken to be somewhat uninteresting to play. What I do like is Virtua Fighter, since it bases its moves and styles more closely on real martial arts. I also enjoyed Soul Calibur, because weaponized fighting games are rare and the character's playstyles are really diverse in that one. Something I immensely dislike though is using a controller. Especially the input for directions is horrendous. When you have a keyboard you have a finger for each directional key (well, 3 for 4, but you know what I mean) while on a controller you need to use the thumb for everything, which makes it slower and far more imprecise. I find it to be a tedious exercise and I'm far better at VF4:E when I play it on my laptop as emulator than when I play on my PS2.

[Airk]

I really only play BlazBlue at this point; To play fighting games at a vaguely competitive level takes a MASSIVE time investment, and frankly, I just don't have enough time to do that for more than one game.

Injustice looks like ass to me. I watched a bunch of the recent character vs character battles they uploaded to show it off, and it looks AWFUL. There's no sense of any sort of impact behind any of the hits, so it's like "Did that hurt? was it supposed to hurt? It looked like it was supposed to be a big attack, but the other guy barely even flinched, so maybe it wasn't? I don't know." And that completely throws me. Plus I still think it's stupid to make games where a character who is basically a human can get punched up into the sky and then back onto the ground and stand up and keep fighting. :P There's "over the top" and then there's "stupid" and Injustice is way closer to the latter, especially since it has the "gritty, realistic, Western" feel to it. Thumbs down from me, will be ignoring.

VF5:FS is apparently a great game, but I haven't had time to play it, and, by all reports, neither has anyone else. :P It's the reigning champion for the "Best Fighting Game Nobody Plays" award, as far as I'm concerned.

I really can't grasp what aesthetic MLai is trying to describe. I've seen some old anime, and the one thing they all had in common was that the animation was...not good. I can't say I've ever seen any that had what I would have called "fight choreography" so I can't judge that. It's true that modern games have what I feel is an excessive emphasis on combos, but it actually DOESN'T have nearly as much influence as you might think on how the game plays. It might feel like you're getting killed in "only a couple of hits" which would detract from the "actual fighting", except that, in old games, you STILL died in just a couple of hits, and had about the same amount of "actual fighting", it's just that individual hits did a lot more damage in a lot of cases, so even a quick "two in one" combo of hell, even jump-kick->Sweep could end up doing 35% of your health. So the emphasis on combos hasn't changed things as much as you might think. Lots of old fighting games were fast and brutal. (Just take a look at Samurai Shodown 2. I LOVE that game (it was SS1 that got me into the hobby) but WOW. The damage is CRAZY.) So what they've really done is added a "secondary" skill to these games - instead of just being rewarded for 20% damage for one hit, now you have to do a couple of hits for 20% damage.


What games would you recommend for someone who might want to ease a little deeper into the genre at some point?

Any of the ones you listed in your post is fine - except MAAAAAYBE Dead or Alive. There's nothing in your list that isn't perfectly playable at a high level. Though it's worth noting that the skills you'll learn in DOA/SC5 are going to be completely different from the ones you learn in BB/P4A which are going to be completely different from the ones you learn in Smash, which will be completely different from the ones you learn in SF4. So the most important thing is to pick a game, or at the VERY MINIMUM a subset of the genre (Be that 3D fighters, airdash fighters, "traditional" fighters ala SF2/4, or...uh...Smash.) and confine your efforts to that, because if you jump around a ton you're not going to get anywhere. The next super secret tip for getting better is pick a character you like AND STICK TO THEM. You will never get any good at these games if you bounce around across the whole roster, or, really, even across 3-4 characters. For learning, PICK ONE. And learn their stuff. Don't say "I feel like I've plateaued with <blah>" or "I'm not any good with <whoever>" and then change after two weeks, because that actually moves you backwards. Is it possible you picked a character who is extremely ill suited for the way you like to play? Yes, it's possible, but it's probably not LIKELY if you knew anything about how you like to play and how the character plays before you picked them. And yes, you AREN'T any good with Character_X yet, because you've been playing the game for two weeks. You'll be even worse with someone different. So stick it out.

[Triaxx]

Until Smash Bros. the one fighting game I most enjoyed was Deadly Arts on the N64. I really enjoyed the ability to craft my own character.

[MLai]

I wanted to try out Persona 3/4 but these are really expensive for some reason.
Wait I thought Persona series are RPGs?

I dislike the Street Fighter franchise for some reason - the aesthetics just don't sit well with me,
Being American I'm fine with the "big muscles" aesthetics. My only problem with its aesthetics is Chun Li. She looks like a T.Rex with the oversized legs and skinny upper body. If Capcom wants to make her buff, buff her whole body! She does punch, after all.

Something I immensely dislike though is using a controller. I find it to be a tedious exercise and I'm far better at VF4:E when I play it on my laptop as emulator than when I play on my PS2.
Mon ami, you need this:
This controller is so revolutionary, it's considered "cheating" in some fighting game tournaments. (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/12/07/the-hit-box-arcade-controller-ditches-the-stick-for-buttons/)


Injustice looks like ass to me.
Yeah I agree. The power levels are just so disparate that the game breaks your suspension of disbelief starting at the character select screen.
A game like this can only have the upper power echelon of heroes/villains, and then play like a Westernized version of DBZ.
Which would actually be pretty cool if done well. I would love to juggle buses with Superman, see all the windows within 2 blocks shatter whenever my fist connects with his face, and then bulldoze him through office buildings - on the 20th floor (my first pick would basically be Doomsday if I had such a game).

VF5:FS is apparently a great game, but I haven't had time to play it, and, by all reports, neither has anyone else. :P
It's not a game you have time for, from the sounds of it.
It's also not that fun if you don't have other ppl willing to play and get better along with you. Because ppl online will smash you.

I really can't grasp what aesthetic MLai is trying to describe.... Lots of old fighting games were fast and brutal. (Just take a look at Samurai Shodown 2. I LOVE that game (it was SS1 that got me into the hobby) but WOW. The damage is CRAZY.) So what they've really done is added a "secondary" skill to these games - instead of just being rewarded for 20% damage for one hit, now you have to do a couple of hits for 20% damage.
I think you just described exactly what I meant, though. :)
See, VF5:FS is exactly that. You get very deep gameplay, and you do get big lethal combos but comparatively they're not insane. You can defeat your opponent without use of long combos, at high skill levels. It's still more combo-friendly compared to older VFs, but sane compared to other fighting games.
I friggin' loved SS1 through 3, despite how unbalanced they were. Starting from 4, it became combo-based like everything else.

[Zevox]

And the emphasis is on linking combos, which IMO is about hand muscle memory and less about fighting.
Well of course combos are simply about muscle memory. They're just the way you capitalize on the hits you get. The meat of the fighting is what occurs in between - how you get those hits in the first place. That's true of any fighting game.


On that note, what are some newer anime with in your opinion good fighting? Does Sword Arts Online have good fighting? When I say good fighting I don't mean big explosions, but actually good choreography and solid hits.
Sorry, can't help you there. I play some video games that can be very anime in style, but I don't actually watch any anime.


I dislike the Street Fighter franchise for some reason
Yeah, I do as well. SFxT is literally the only Street Fighter game that I've enjoyed, and that almost entirely for what sets it apart from normal Street Fighter games - the team mechanics and the Tekken half of the cast, which is where almost all of the characters I play come from. Bit ironic that I like that game actually, given I don't like any other Street Fighter titles and have never even played any Tekken games.


Something I immensely dislike though is using a controller. Especially the input for directions is horrendous. When you have a keyboard you have a finger for each directional key (well, 3 for 4, but you know what I mean) while on a controller you need to use the thumb for everything, which makes it slower and far more imprecise. I find it to be a tedious exercise and I'm far better at VF4:E when I play it on my laptop as emulator than when I play on my PS2.
That's probably a matter of familiarity. It tends to be difficult learning a new control scheme for something when you already know another - heck, I had some difficulty switching to using the analog stick of my 360 controller to play BlazBlue after spending the first few weeks I had with it using the d-pad, and that's not even changing the controller itself. And now playing the Injustice demo on PS3 I notice I'm a bit awkward on that compared to the 360.


There's no sense of any sort of impact behind any of the hits, so it's like "Did that hurt? was it supposed to hurt? It looked like it was supposed to be a big attack, but the other guy barely even flinched, so maybe it wasn't? I don't know." And that completely throws me.
Yeah, I've gotta admit, the sound design and animation of Injustice definitely leaves a lot to be desired.


Plus I still think it's stupid to make games where a character who is basically a human can get punched up into the sky and then back onto the ground and stand up and keep fighting. :P There's "over the top" and then there's "stupid" and Injustice is way closer to the latter, especially since it has the "gritty, realistic, Western" feel to it.
Nah, that I'm fine with. It's a Superhero game, they're going to show off what each character can do. Falls into acceptable levels of over-the-top and gameplay/story separation for me. Hell, I love Doomsday's super just because of how ridiculously over-the-top it is - he literally pummels his opponent so hard they tunnel through the center of the earth and come out the other side, twice. I can't help but like something that ridiculous.


Wait I thought Persona series are RPGs?
They are. He's saying he would have games other than fighting games for his PS2 if he could get those.

[Beacon of Chaos]

Put me down as another one who loves fighting games (or beat-em-ups as they used to be called; why'd they stop doing that?) but is really bad at them. Really bad as in I often have trouble beating the AI on anything other than the easiest difficulty.

Favourite fighting game is still Guilty Gear X2. At university I had a friend who I would play with and we were both about the same level so matches were often pretty close. I didn't like BlazBlue. I don't know why exactly, I just couldn't get into it. I think the awful story mode was at least partially to blame though.

I play UMvC3 too. I really like that one especially the card battle mode, which I like for the customisation. Not paying £4 for a DLC character though! Never played it online. Don't see the point, there's no way I'd win.

I like the King of Fighters series too. Couldn't say for sure which is my favourite though. Garou: Mark of the Wolves was good too.

The Last Blade 2 was another SNK game that stands out, mostly for the style.

I also liked Smash Bros. though, again, I was always awful at it. The game was basically just a nostalia trip for me. I used to play it with a friend and we played with the following rules: Items on high, Bob-Ombs only, Link only, Explosives are the only allowed attack. Great fun! :smallbiggrin:

Oh, and Soul Calibur stands out, not only for being a great game, but the only game I've ever seen my dad play that wasn't Doom/Duke Nukem. :smalltongue:


Hey, does anybody remember Bloody Roar? I wish they would make a new one. Bloody Roar 4 was terribad, but the ones before it were awesome! I think my favorite was Bloody Roar: Primal Fury on the Gamecube because it had the guy that turned into a penguin, LOL.
Haha! Yeah I have that one somewhere. I remember very little about it though. The only character I can remember was the chameleon guy wearing the Hawaian shirt. :smalltongue:

[Morph Bark]

Soul Calibur and Smash Bros. are amongst my favourite series, and I especially loved fiddling around with character creation in Soul Calibur all the time, creating very wacky or kick-ass characters. :smallbiggrin:

[Cespenar]

Put me down as another one who loves fighting games (or beat-em-ups as they used to be called; why'd they stop doing that?)

Because they are different genres. Beat em ups were those games in which you enter an area, beat up a group of enemies, move to the next area, etc. often with power ups and items to pick along the way. Games like Double Dragon and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, to name a couple of the old ones.

[Airk]

Put me down as another one who loves fighting games (or beat-em-ups as they used to be called; why'd they stop doing that?)

Incorrect; Beat-em-ups are something else. Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Castle Crashers and Guardian Heroes are "beat-em-ups". Fighting games has typically been the appellation for one-on-one fighters. (note: terminology may vary by region)


I didn't like BlazBlue. I don't know why exactly, I just couldn't get into it. I think the awful story mode was at least partially to blame though.

Awful? Is an optional mode that tries to explain stuff somehow a step down from "You killed my fish, now you must die?" - which pretty much summarizes the "plot" of most fighting games otherwise.


Nah, that I'm fine with. It's a Superhero game, they're going to show off what each character can do. Falls into acceptable levels of over-the-top and gameplay/story separation for me. Hell, I love Doomsday's super just because of how ridiculously over-the-top it is - he literally pummels his opponent so hard they tunnel through the center of the earth and come out the other side, twice. I can't help but like something that ridiculous.

I disagree; Having characters survive things like that ("Fortunately I was wearing my punch-through-the-earth-proof Bat suit!") when it makes no sense is just as immersion breaking as just randomly adding powers to people. "Now Green Arrow can call in orbitals lasers by shooting his arrows into space!" is no more (or perhaps "just as") stupid as him being punched into orbit, slammed back into the earth and then dusting himself off. I have no objection to things being over-the-top, but they still need to be somewhat consistent. This is one of the good things about BB, P4A and GG is that the completely absurd over the top attacks are always fatal.


This controller is so revolutionary, it's considered "cheating" in some fighting game tournaments.

It was only considered "cheating" because certain games (most notably non-ultimate MvC3) had super shoddy programming that allowed you to block both ways at once if you held down both directions on a hitbox. Technically, this was possible on a standard pad as well by holding left on the D-pad and right on the analog stick, but that was way less convenient than just holding two buttons on the hitbox. To my knowledge, since that bug has been fixed, no one regards the thing as "cheating" or, even, particularly good. (Note: This does not to imply that it's bad, just that it has no meaningful advantages over any other controller, which is how it should be.) I guess it does have the advantage that any rapid string of actions is basically just "typing", which people are accustomed to, but then, it's not always easy to type a completely random string of characters quickly and precisely without some practice either, so meh.


I think you just described exactly what I meant, though. :)
See, VF5:FS is exactly that. You get very deep gameplay, and you do get big lethal combos but comparatively they're not insane. You can defeat your opponent without use of long combos, at high skill levels. It's still more combo-friendly compared to older VFs, but sane compared to other fighting games.
I friggin' loved SS1 through 3, despite how unbalanced they were. Starting from 4, it became combo-based like everything else.

I kinda don't really agree with any of this.

I may have just described what you meant, but it was neither A) an aesthetic, or B) anything to do with anime, old or new, so I'm still perplexed as to what you were talking about, even if I know (sortof) the sort of game you're referring to.
Nextly, I think you're splitting hairs - VF5 has combos, some of which are long and some of which are difficult. You are at a significant disadvantage against another player who can do good combos when you can't. Combos may generally be "shorter" than some games but they're not appreciably shorter than say, Street Fighter, where the average combo comes in between 2 and 6 hits.
Just because SS4 had that dopey 'custom combo' system didn't mean it was "combo based like everything else" - since those combos did garbage damage and were mostly just a way to fill meter. It was way more possible to win without combos in SS4 than it seems to be in VF5.
I felt SS3 was kindof a train wreck overall too. Tiers in that game were so massively spread out it wasn't even funny. Also, the larger character sprites made the game feel cramped (even if they were really pretty) and the backgrounds and attacks looked less good than they did in previous entries in the series. Oh, and the much reduced cast was kindof a bummer. I'd love a gentle rebalancing of SS2 though - that game did a lot of things right, so if they just toned Ukyo down a bit and buffed up Nakoruru to something closer to her SS1 state, that would've been perfect.

[Zevox]

Put me down as another one who loves fighting games (or beat-em-ups as they used to be called; why'd they stop doing that?)
As the others said, those are two different things entirely. And beat-em-ups still exist, albeit they're rare. I'm actually playing one on the 3DS right now, Code of Princess. There's also a recent remake of Double Dragon available on XBLA and PSN, Double Dragon Neon.


I didn't like BlazBlue. I don't know why exactly, I just couldn't get into it. I think the awful story mode was at least partially to blame though.
:smallconfused: "Awful?" I admit the overall plot can be confusing and ill-explained at times, but as far as the genre goes, BlazBlue has one of the best story modes available. You won't find any other original (i.e. not adapted from other source material, like Persona 4 Arena) fighting game that gives such vibrant personalities and backstories to its characters as BlazBlue does, entirely because of the extensive story mode behind them. At least, not to my knowledge. Especially considering how many fighting games don't bother having a story or giving characters more than a few intro and win quotes at all (anything made by Capcom, for example).


I play UMvC3 too. I really like that one especially the card battle mode, which I like for the customisation.
Ah, Heroes and Heralds mode. I wanted to like that, really, but people very quickly found things about it that are ridiculously broken even by that game's standards. I gave up on it after I started regularly running into people that used a combination of cards that let them use one character with inifinite level 3 X-Factor that had to be killed three times. Yeah, that kind of kills the fun, especially if the character in question is someone like Phoenix or Strider, who are already amazing X-Factor comeback characters.


Soul Calibur and Smash Bros. are amongst my favourite series, and I especially loved fiddling around with character creation in Soul Calibur all the time, creating very wacky or kick-ass characters. :smallbiggrin:
Yeah, I haven't really touched Soul Calibur since BlazBlue got me into 2D fighters, but I did really enjoy the character creator in Soul Calibur 4 back when I played that. Used it to make a bunch of characters from other games, like Fire Emblem and Persona. Some of them I could actually make look pretty damn close to the real thing.


I disagree; Having characters survive things like that ("Fortunately I was wearing my punch-through-the-earth-proof Bat suit!") when it makes no sense is just as immersion breaking as just randomly adding powers to people. "Now Green Arrow can call in orbitals lasers by shooting his arrows into space!" is no more (or perhaps "just as") stupid as him being punched into orbit, slammed back into the earth and then dusting himself off. I have no objection to things being over-the-top, but they still need to be somewhat consistent. This is one of the good things about BB, P4A and GG is that the completely absurd over the top attacks are always fatal.
Yeah, honestly, I don't see how "immersion" applies to fighting games at all. They're not trying to draw you into some fleshed out world - even the ones that do have a story mode - they're just games, and not trying to pretend otherwise.

[Beacon of Chaos]

Because they are different genres.

Incorrect; Beat-em-ups are something else.

As the others said, those are two different things entirely.
Maybe this is a UK thing, but when I was a kid, all fighting games were called beat-em-ups.


Awful? Is an optional mode that tries to explain stuff somehow a step down from "You killed my fish, now you must die?" - which pretty much summarizes the "plot" of most fighting games otherwise.
I found the story mode to be tedious and I didn't really like any of the characters. I don't demand that there be a story mode in a fighting game, but if there is one, I'd like to enjoy it.

:smallconfused: "Awful?" I admit the overall plot can be confusing and ill-explained at times, but as far as the genre goes, BlazBlue has one of the best story modes available. You won't find any other original (i.e. not adapted from other source material, like Persona 4 Arena) fighting game that gives such vibrant personalities and backstories to its characters as BlazBlue does, entirely because of the extensive story mode behind them. At least, not to my knowledge. Especially considering how many fighting games don't bother having a story or giving characters more than a few intro and win quotes at all (anything made by Capcom, for example).
*shrug* I just didn't like it, okay?


Ah, Heroes and Heralds mode. I wanted to like that, really, but people very quickly found things about it that are ridiculously broken even by that game's standards. I gave up on it after I started regularly running into people that used a combination of cards that let them use one character with inifinite level 3 X-Factor that had to be killed three times. Yeah, that kind of kills the fun, especially if the character in question is someone like Phoenix or Strider, who are already amazing X-Factor comeback characters.
Another reason I don't play online. It's still fun against the AI.

[Airk]

Yeah, honestly, I don't see how "immersion" applies to fighting games at all. They're not trying to draw you into some fleshed out world - even the ones that do have a story mode - they're just games, and not trying to pretend otherwise.

Immersion was the wrong word; What I really mean is, it no longer feels like it has anything to do with the source material. Batman is no longer Batman if he gets punched into orbit and then dusts himself off. He's some guy who looks like Batman but obviously is not.

Since half the point of a game like Injustice is "Look! It's a fighting game using the source material from <insert franchise here>!" it rapidly becomes a letdown when it doesn't really bear any resemblance to that franchise.

All that said, I don't really care. I'm not going to buy it, I'm not the target audience, and I think it's ugly, so the fact that Green Arrow can somehow even affect Superman or Doomsday is pretty much just the icing on the stupid cake.

[Zevox]

Immersion was the wrong word; What I really mean is, it no longer feels like it has anything to do with the source material. Batman is no longer Batman if he gets punched into orbit and then dusts himself off. He's some guy who looks like Batman but obviously is not.

Since half the point of a game like Injustice is "Look! It's a fighting game using the source material from <insert franchise here>!" it rapidly becomes a letdown when it doesn't really bear any resemblance to that franchise.
I guess I simply don't agree with that assessment. It's a fighting game, any and all attacks are always just going to do health damage, regardless of what they look like. There's no way for that to bother me. As long as the characters act like the people they're supposed to be in battle (meaning the developers got their respective abilities right when making their moves and fighting style), that's all that matters for it to be a faithful representation of the source material within the context of the genre.

[Illieas]

I am a fighting game fan. I usually play soul calibur, melee and tekken. I go to tournies( been going to EVO for three year) but sadly my group scene since having jobs and some family things, we can't train too hard on fighting games.

I am planning on Persona 4 A and melee for evo. Melee I have general scrubiness down. This game i played most of college on. But i never bothered to learn the newest tech people found. So i am working on wave dashing SHFLing and various other techs.

AS for persona. I will admit it would be better doing street fighter x tekken training than this but the people running EVO were clear that if they didn't get the number of participants on this game they will not have another arc system works fighting game for EVO in the forseeable future. I love arc system work games. I love watching them but i suck so bad at them. So i am entering this but i am so far away from decent it is rather sad.

As for injustice. I never been a fan of nether realms. I thought mortal kombat looked clunky to me. I also don't like the enviromental hazards (No items, final destination:smallamused:). I agree slightly with Airk in that the dark shades and closer to life models seem to throw you idea of seriousiness to it. It evokes the batman begins vibe of gritty realism. THe cartoonish physicas flys in the face of it. From the observer view it hurts believability but once you get some play into it you can get over that programmed response.

[Zevox]

I go to tournies( been going to EVO for three year)
Evo? Sheesh, I'd hesitate to go to a regular tournament, much less the big one. Though of course I live half a country away from where Evo is held anyway, so yeah, I wouldn't be attending something like that unless I was much more competitive player - and person, really - than I am.


AS for persona. I will admit it would be better doing street fighter x tekken training than this but the people running EVO were clear that if they didn't get the number of participants on this game they will not have another arc system works fighting game for EVO in the forseeable future.
Really? I hadn't heard that. Hope people really turn out for it then, because yeah, I'd love to see ArcSys games get some more love.


I also don't like the enviromental hazards (No items, final destination:smallamused:).
Yeah, as mentioned above, I'm not liking those so far either, though mostly because they've been made quite powerful, between thrown ones being unblock-able and stage transitions doing almost super-level damage. There is actually a third type I think I could be fine with though - objects in the background that you knock your opponent into, and they bounce off it and come back to the foreground, allowing you to continue with a combo. When I think about it, that's not that different from how you can often extend combos in the corner anyway, these ones just allow an extension like that elsewhere on the field.

[MLai]

It was only considered "cheating" because certain games (most notably non-ultimate MvC3) had super shoddy programming that allowed you to block both ways at once
And... that is exactly "cheating."

To my knowledge, since that bug has been fixed,
I didn't realize the game internally fixed themselves to accomodate the Hitbox. At the time of my reading, tournaments required that the Hitbox be modded so that you can't press the requisite 2 buttons together.

no one regards the thing as "cheating" or, even, particularly good. (Note: This does not to imply that it's bad, just that it has no meaningful advantages over any other controller, which is how it should be.)
Actually, using the buttons together with certain techniques taking advantage of Capcom's input shortcuts, you can input faster and more accurately with the Hitbox than you can humanly possible with a joystick.
Sure you need to re-train your muscles with the Hitbox, but once you're good with it you can achieve more than joystick can. I recommended it to that poster because he's not used to a joystick and admits he likes keyboarding.

I may have just described what you meant, but it was neither A) an aesthetic, or B) anything to do with anime, old or new, so I'm still perplexed as to what you were talking about, even if I know (sortof) the sort of game you're referring to.
I'm not interested in "debating" whatever... whatever this is. I only mentioned anime in order to describe my point. Picture me with hand motions. I'm not trying to convince anyone that something should look like anime. As long as you (sort of) got my point it's fine.

Combos may generally be "shorter" than some games but they're not appreciably shorter than say, Street Fighter, where the average combo comes in between 2 and 6 hits.
But I like Street Fighter. It stayed sane. Unlike for example, SFxT. Which incidentally many SF fans hate because it's so abusive with long juggles.

Just because SS4 had that dopey 'custom combo' system didn't mean it was "combo based like everything else" - since those combos did garbage damage and were mostly just a way to fill meter.
But it *looks* stupid. Half the reason I played SS was for the atmosphere. And yes the atmosphere does involve the gameplay. For example, Bushido Blade.

Also, the larger character sprites made the game feel cramped (even if they were really pretty) and the backgrounds and attacks looked less good than they did in previous entries in the series.
I dont' see how it feels cramped when the game zoomed in/out depending on character spacing.
I disagree that anything looked "less good" compared to SS1/2. IMO the move from traditional gradient sprite shading to anime-like cel shading was the artistic highlight of SS3. I loved it, and I hated the move back to the old style with SS4, IMO due to fans frightened of change.

[Zevox]

I didn't realize the game internally fixed themselves to accomodate the Hitbox.
Given he specifically mentioned vanilla MvC3 as the culprit, it seems he meant to imply that Ultimate had fixed that bug, and since Ultimate coming out means that vanilla is no longer played in tournaments that would remove the problem if that was the only game that had that issue.

[Wolf_Haley]

SSVSP is pretty much agreed to be the best SamSho game, it's pretty doep with something for everyone character wise though I find all the games pretty awesome.

After Final Round I relly wanna get back into MVC2. Watching the stream and seeing the Money matches go down between VDO vs Schmidt and the J360 vs Neo MM with all the ****talk and excitement go down felt like a stroll down memory lane.

[Airk]

And... that is exactly "cheating."

And it didn't require a hitbox, since it could be done on a stock control pad.



I didn't realize the game internally fixed themselves to accomodate the Hitbox. At the time of my reading, tournaments required that the Hitbox be modded so that you can't press the requisite 2 buttons together.

There was only one game that had this problem, and that game is no longer current (played competitively), and was just a bug in that game. S'a pretty far cry from "this controller is cheating".



Actually, using the buttons together with certain techniques taking advantage of Capcom's input shortcuts, you can input faster and more accurately with the Hitbox than you can humanly possible with a joystick.

Such as? I'm curious.


I recommended it to that poster because he's not used to a joystick and admits he likes keyboarding.

Good recommendation from a "hey this is kinda similar" perspective, though it'll probably take him just as long to learn how to use a hitbox as to learn how to use anything else, unless his preferred keyboard arrangement uses ASDC or something as the movement controls. I'm sure there was an ergonomic decision or something behind the hitbox button layout, but boy it's strange at first glance.


I'm not interested in "debating" whatever... whatever this is. I only mentioned anime in order to describe my point. Picture me with hand motions. I'm not trying to convince anyone that something should look like anime. As long as you (sort of) got my point it's fine.

I'm not "debating" anything either, I'm just trying to figure out what on earth you were talking about with your "I like games that are like old anime" statement. It's not that I am arguing with you, I literally just have NO IDEA what that meant.



But I like Street Fighter. It stayed sane. Unlike for example, SFxT. Which incidentally many SF fans hate because it's so abusive with long juggles.

So... you don't care about combos, you only care if they look bad? Or...? I think SFxT is hated for a bunch of other reasons though. Actually, this is the first time I've heard the "abusive long juggles" complaint. Usually it's some combination of "Gems suck", "Damage is too low so matches end in timeouts" (which is kindof the opposite of 'abusive juggles' in some ways), "It's buggy", and/or "Pandora mode is the dumbest thing ever."


I disagree that anything looked "less good" compared to SS1/2. IMO the move from traditional gradient sprite shading to anime-like cel shading was the artistic highlight of SS3. I loved it, and I hated the move back to the old style with SS4, IMO due to fans frightened of change.

Uh. I don't think that's the term you're looking for, because the SS3 sprites were in no way "cel shaded" (even just using that to mean "looking more like anime" rather than in the technical sense.). They were larger and more detailed (which again, is rather the reverse of cel-shading, which tends to reduce texture detail), and unfortunately moved towards the "Fist of the North Star, huge shoulders, Small Head" school of character design, which annoyed me. However, sprites aside, if you check what I wrote, I was talking about the backgrounds, which became much more flat and less varied in SS3 - presumably because more processing power was shifted to work on the larger, more detailed sprites. Oh, and another problem with the larger sprites - they basically meant that Earthquake didn't fit in the game anymore. =(

[MLai]

And it didn't require a hitbox, since it could be done on a stock control pad.
How can you press Forward and Back at the same time on a control pad??

There was only one game that had this problem, and that game is no longer current (played competitively), and was just a bug in that game. S'a pretty far cry from "this controller is cheating".
This is already mentioned on the previous page, so why mention it again?
Excuse me for not keeping up with Hitbox development news outside of the tournament where I first saw it used.

Such as? I'm curious.
You'll have to look it up yourself, on the forum debates of whether input performance is more accurate/ faster compared to a conventional joystick. It's clear which side of that debate I'm on.

Good recommendation from a "hey this is kinda similar" perspective, though it'll probably take him just as long to learn how to use a hitbox as to learn how to use anything else, unless his preferred keyboard arrangement uses ASDC or something as the movement controls.
Very likely, since he explicitly states he enjoys KB controls and doesn't like the joystick.

So... you don't care about combos, you only care if they look bad?
I care if they look bad, and if they're overly long, and if they're a big focus or sell of the game.
No game gets away from it these days, unless you're talking about sports fighting games. My opinion is that SF and VF are comparatively better than the other ones.

I think SFxT is hated for a bunch of other reasons though. Actually, this is the first time I've heard the "abusive long juggles" complaint. Usually it's some combination of "Gems suck", "Damage is too low so matches end in timeouts" (which is kindof the opposite of 'abusive juggles' in some ways), "It's buggy", and/or "Pandora mode is the dumbest thing ever."
That, and the "abusive long juggles" which was the clincher for me personally. You know how Tekken is about exploiting your opponent's one mistake in order to get in the only combo you need to win the match (minor exaggeration)? SFxT is seen as the 2D version of that.

Uh. I don't think that's the term you're looking for, because the SS3 sprites were in no way "cel shaded" (even just using that to mean "looking more like anime" rather than in the technical sense.).
They are most certainly cel shaded in aesthetics, in that smooth color gradients (as found in SS2 and 4) are not used. Ofc, the pixel resolution is low but that's just the decade the game's made.

They were larger and more detailed (which again, is rather the reverse of cel-shading, which tends to reduce texture detail),
They were more detailed in line art, but reduced in texture detail.

unfortunately moved towards the "Fist of the North Star, huge shoulders, Small Head" school of character design, which annoyed me.
I disagree that the character design aesthetics changed all that much. IMO it looked better. And no, I don't like FotNS character design.

However, sprites aside, if you check what I wrote, I was talking about the backgrounds, which became much more flat and less varied in SS3
I liked the sparse and desolate bgs of SS3. IMO it reflected Japanese artistic and philosophical aesthetics, and fit well with the music and atmosphere. Ofc there are also bgs in SS1 and 2 that I like, but I liked those for the same reason. Jubei's bamboo forest, for example. I don't require my SS game bg to look like an ADD circus like in Capcom Vs games.

Oh, and another problem with the larger sprites - they basically meant that Earthquake didn't fit in the game anymore.
EQ was 1 fighter I didn't mind losing.
Despite both liking SS series, it seems we have vastly different opinions.

[Wolf_Haley]

That, and the "abusive long juggles" which was the clincher for me personally. You know how Tekken is about exploiting your opponent's one mistake in order to get in the only combo you need to win the match (minor exaggeration)? SFxT is seen as the 2D version of that.

That's not the problem vanillia SFXT had, the problem people had with it was that defense was actualyl way to strong compared to offense, so actualyl the oppisite problem of what you're talking about. You got so much recoverable life, it started coming back the second you tagged out, came back fast, and you could only lose it if you got hit by a Level 3 super led to a bunch of time outs. Combos in SFXT are pretty short comapred to most modern games. Throw in the fact throws were pretty bad in the game and the best characters exceled at runningn away and safe on block chains, it was a pretty slow game.

[Zevox]

Hm, so, I just went and placed a pre-order on Injustice, and was informed that my Gamestop is doing a midnight release tournament for the game. Which is intriguing - I normally go to midnight releases anyway, why not get to play the game as well? Though I can't help but think that it's inevitable that someone will practice the heck out of one of the demo characters (probably Batman) and win by virtue of knowing what he's doing when nobody else does. Yeah, I could do the same, but none of the characters I want to play are in the demo.

I suppose I could go just for the hell of it and assume I'll lose quickly... but I did a similar thing with the release of Brawl, and once you lost in the tournament, you had to wait outside for midnight to hit, and I'm not exactly enthused about showing up a half hour or hour before midnight and them spending most of that time just standing around outside if they do that again.


That's not the problem vanillia SFXT had, the problem people had with it was that defense was actualyl way to strong compared to offense, so actualyl the oppisite problem of what you're talking about. You got so much recoverable life, it started coming back the second you tagged out, came back fast, and you could only lose it if you got hit by a Level 3 super led to a bunch of time outs. Combos in SFXT are pretty short comapred to most modern games. Throw in the fact throws were pretty bad in the game and the best characters exceled at runningn away and safe on block chains, it was a pretty slow game.
And even now, the absolute fastest you'll die in SFxT is two combos, and only if both of them involve using multiple bars of meter (only particularly feasible in round 2 or 3 of a fight, if you start with a couple of bars unused from the previous round). Most combos in SFxT require meter usage to get beyond 1/3 or so of a typical character's health, and getting much above 1/2 can be hard even with meter.

[Wolf_Haley]

Unless someone is playing Kazuya and their execution is on point, that boy ****ing hurts.

[MLai]

@ SFxT:
That is interesting, and actually makes me more interested in playing SFxT now. My opinion came from reviews (not the best source as reviewers are bad at fighting games as a rule) but also from a friend who is a good fighting games player, whose favorite system is Darkstalkers and who played SFxT extensively (but casually). My opinion is what he told me about the game.

Edit: I chatted with him, and here's his response...

Me: What is your opinion of the fighting system? In the past, you told me it was long abusive combos?
justnopoint: Yeah the fighting engine sucks
justnopoint: It's only good for the roster
Me: I mentioned loose long combo abuse as the problem. Ppl had the exact opposite opinion and they're not trolls.
I'll paste the relevant posts: bla bla bla
justnopoint: Dying in 2 combos isn't abusive?
Me: Well that's if you had full bars of super.
Which is the same as in SF4.
justnopoint: Most meter is used for tagging to continue a combo... you get meter pretty quick while you are comboing
Also the gems can help you get more bar
Before the patch matches would always end in time out
Me: So they're right, but only before game patch?
justnopoint: Now the matches simply end way too quickly, Basically if you can land a few combos now the match is over
Me: how is that different from other fighting games?
justnopoint: Because of how easy it is to land said combos.
And there are still infinites
But I'm not really a pro or in depth. I just go by what I read on MFG [he's a long-time moderator on Mugen forum]. They tend to show sources and have videos to back it up

[Wolf_Haley]

No offense but your boy sounds mad scrubby, yeah matches can end in two combos but that's only if

1. Lots of meter is spent from previous rounds
2. Someone gets bopped by hella strong starters back to back like Paul J. FP
3. Someone does a Pandora based combo, and if they're willing to take that risk they deserve it

And the infinite complaint? The only infinites in the game are humanly impracitcal to do, most of the infinites DESK showed off for the game revloved around using programmable pads to do it. Only one that didn't need it was Chun's infinite which is extremely hard to the point where no one goes for it because it's so hard. And infinites were only around before the second patch of the first version of the game.

And on Gems, yeah gems are pretty strong with the right setup and if things go absolutely right. I actually wish Gems were a bit weaker but constantly on so you could go for more intersting builds.

[Zevox]

justnopoint: Dying in 2 combos isn't abusive?
When meter is involved? I wouldn't say so. Of course, I personally have no problem with lengthy or powerful combos. Just the opposite really, it's one reason I like SFxT more than any other Street Fighter game I've tried.


justnopoint: Most meter is used for tagging to continue a combo...
Often the case. Mostly because tag-canceling costs only one meter (compared to 2 for a super), and depending on the characters can be more efficient than using that meter on an Ex move.

Tag-canceling isn't just used for comboing though, you can do it on block as well, which is useful for making otherwise unsafe moves safe, or locking the opponent down with one character for a mixup with another.


you get meter pretty quick while you are comboing
Also the gems can help you get more bar
I admit I haven't paid the closest attention to how much meter any given combo builds, but I'm quite certain you're not going to be getting a full bar from every combo or anything like that. Gems can help with that, of course, and in fact that's probably one of the most potent uses of gems. I believe tournaments ban those, though


justnopoint: Because of how easy it is to land said combos.
Uh, that's going to depend on how good your are at opening your opponent up and how good they are at defending themselves, just like in any other fighting game.

Unless he means that in the sense of execution once the combo has been started, in which case that varies from character to character (one reason I don't use anyone from the Street Fighter half of the cast is that theirs tend to be harder). But personally I'd say that should be easy - more so than SFxT makes it, for that matter.

[Wolf_Haley]

For the most part I'd say the Tekken characters have harder combos than SF people, no on the SF side has stuff like Kaz's Electrics, Bob having to be very slective about who he has as a partner, Paul Links, or the better Hwo combos.

Speaking of man, I love both my Bob teams right now Sagat/Bob and Bob/Yoshi.

[Zevox]

For the most part I'd say the Tekken characters have harder combos than SF people, no on the SF side has stuff like Kaz's Electrics, Bob having to be very slective about who he has as a partner, Paul Links, or the better Hwo combos.

Speaking of man, I love both my Bob teams right now Sagat/Bob and Bob/Yoshi.
Really? Maybe there's some more advanced stuff I'm unfamiliar with, but I tend to find Tekken character combos much easier because they require fewer links, especially outside of juggles, since many of them have chain combos that be special canceled or otherwise easily comboed out of. Whereas the Street Fighter half of the cast pretty much has to rely on link combos, since the game's universal chain combos are pretty badly punishable on block (especially since the 2013 patch reduced pushback on sweeps across the board).

[Wolf_Haley]

Yeah it's mainly the advanced stuff that's gonna be harder. Most of the SF cast links are pretty easy and generous at least in my experience.

[Wolf_Haley]

Oh yeah, if anyone wants to check out soem of my play and the scene I'm a a member of check out http://twitch.tv/Freedemonia

It's mainly UMVC3 but we stream over fighting games, have a pretty extensive set of Project M on there from this past weekend. We get some pretty high level players to come through, Chrisis, Haibing, and Spiral are pretty much always there *Helps it's the place Spiral and Haibing live at* and then you have me *I'm the black dude with the afro and glasses* and the rest of the skilled but not quite there players Scruffy Raccoon, Ikuzo, Ouroborous, EMC, Mustachio, Zakuignited, and Manoel. Other high level and profile players like Windzero, Padtrick, and Heroic show up and GCYoshi is possibly showing up this weekend.

[MLai]

@ Wolf Haley:
Wait, so... you jumped around about SFxT, but exactly what is your opinion of the game? I'm on the fence about buying it. For reference, my favorite Capcom fighting system is Marvel Superheroes, and I'm interested in casual play only.

1. So you're saying current SFxT's combo system is... what?
2. So your overall opinion of current SFxT is... what?

[Zevox]

1. So you're saying current SFxT's combo system is... what?
From what I understand, very similar to SF4's, but thanks to the team mechanics and changes to individual characters' move properties, capable of going for much longer than in SF4. If the opponent is still standing, the combo is limited by the character's distance from the opponent and whether their attacks can mechanically keep linking/chaining with one another. If the opponent is in a juggle state, they can only be hit a certain number times before they drop out of the combo, which varies by the character because every individual move has a different "juggle count" it can go up to.

What sets it apart is that it tends to be easier to get from a standing combo into a juggle in SFxT compared to SF4, and the team mechanics. There are two major team combo mechanics of note: the launcher and tag canceling. The launcher is a universal move that, as the name implies, launches the enemy into the air for a juggle, but it also automatically switches to your second character to do that juggle. It is typically used at the end of one of the game's universal chain combos (every character can do a simple ABC chain, though this is badly unsafe if blocked). Tag canceling allows you to bring in your second character while your first is doing any move, and resets the juggle counter, allowing for much more extended juggle combos, but costs a meter to do.

The game does have damage scaling, which kicks in much faster if the universal chain combo and launcher are used, which can make especially extended tag cancel combos a waste of meter at times. Optimized ones however can manage to be worth the meter for about two tag cancels, depending on the characters in question.

Given your stated dislike for longer combos, yeah, you'd probably at least be off-put by how long they can get in this game. It doesn't get as big as in Marvel or BlazBlue for instance, but it's definitely beyond SF4 - or at least anything I've seen in SF4. The number of moves used in a given combo can pretty readily reach the double-digits, and with good meter usage you can take off up to half a typical character's health in one combo. Although I do feel compelled to add that since it is a team game that means a bit less than it would in other games, since you can switch out to your other character and have your first recover some of that health while in the back. Not as much less as in something like Marvel though, since one character losing all their health does mean defeat even if their teammate is in perfect condition.

[Airk]

@ Wolf Haley:
Wait, so... you jumped around about SFxT, but exactly what is your opinion of the game? I'm on the fence about buying it. For reference, my favorite Capcom fighting system is Marvel Superheroes, and I'm interested in casual play only.

Wait, what? The guy who hates combos and his favorite Capcom game is THIS ONE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGz2fQRgQpo)? I officially give up trying to understand you.

Also, not weighing in on SFxT; I know very little about it except that pre-patch watching it was like watching paint dry.

[MLai]

Yeah that's right I like MSH:
1. Those combos are tool assisted?
2. I said I liked the fighting system, not the entire game. Meaning I wasn't counting the gems. Mainly I feel it's a little smoother than Xmen vs SF, and the inclusion of height and launchers makes it more exciting than Darkstalkers.
3. I'm pretty sure you can air-recover or roll out of some of those combos shown. Not sure if they're true combos, or rather just neutral-dummy combos.

[Airk]

Yeah that's right I like MSH:
1. Those combos are tool assisted?

Some but not all; Regardless, the game has what I personally consider "stupid" levels of combos, and I'm willing to accept games like BlazBlue, so I'm kinda baffled.



2. I said I liked the fighting system, not the entire game. Meaning I wasn't counting the gems. Mainly I feel it's a little smoother than Xmen vs SF, and the inclusion of height and launchers makes it more exciting than Darkstalkers.

So do you like the game or not? Do the gems and very long combos drag it down? What are its strong suits? Height and launchers are both big parts of the combo mechanics you say you don't enjoy.



3. I'm pretty sure you can air-recover or roll out of some of those combos shown. Not sure if they're true combos, or rather just neutral-dummy combos.

I believe that is breaking the definition of "combo"; By definition (and certainly, for the purposes of bothering to make a video), a combo is what you call a "true combo". Also, in general, unless a game is bad or put together poorly, the combo counter won't keep incrementing if it's not a "true combo". Heck, did MSH even have manual recovery? Checking a FAQ it indicates that it has a ground roll recovery system, which seems to indicate that OTG combos are not "true combos" - though it's still not clear whether the combo counter counts them or not - and there's no mention whatsoever of any manual air recovery system, so if you seem a combo on an opponent that hasn't been knocked down (which includes a nontrivial number of the combos in that video) then they are "true combos".

Regardless, I think it's safe to say that MSH is about as far from a fighter that is about "a few well placed hits" as is conveniently possible, so I'm honestly astonished to discover your fondness for the engine, since the "Marvel" series of games are probably the standard bearers for the style of fighting games you say you don't like. :smallconfused:

[Wolf_Haley]

@ Wolf Haley:
Wait, so... you jumped around about SFxT, but exactly what is your opinion of the game? I'm on the fence about buying it. For reference, my favorite Capcom fighting system is Marvel Superheroes, and I'm interested in casual play only.

1. So you're saying current SFxT's combo system is... what?
2. So your overall opinion of current SFxT is... what?

1. The current system is pretty cool, it gives you a bit of freedom but doesn't get to out of wack
2. The game is good, play it.

And yo those MSH combos are possible by hand, I know cuz I've gotten hit by some of that on GGPO. And MSH is hella combos, get hit once by Wolverine, Iron man, Captain america, or Spider-Man and infinites all day baby. Game is still dope

EDIT: Man totally forgot about Psylocke and Shuma. MSH Shuma is hella busted, possibly best character in that game. Wish Blackheart had an infinite that wasn't balls hard and character specific.

[MLai]

Well ppl are multi-faceted y'know. I can hate long combos on principle but still like 1-2 games which might have them. :smallwink:

(1) I still say some of those combos look like they can be escaped out of. I'm going by memory that goes back decades(?), so I really think you have air-recovery in MSH but don't quote me.
(2) I don't enjoy it for the gems. I enjoy it for the level of development of the VS fighting system at that point. That is, better than Darkstalkers and XvsSF which were the first attempts, but not as crazy as MvC series. Mainly I don't like the MvC series because it starts adding more and more things to the screen such as Assists etc which I don't like. MvC is at the level where I feel I can still concentrate on the fighting itself.
(3) I don't mind the basic combo system of Capcom's VS series because I think it's ingenious: LP-LK-MP-MK-HP-HK-cancel into special whenever. It's sensible, easy to understand and learn, and very flexible. It takes just enough thought and skill without being a button-masher, but you're not sitting there learning character-specific combos all day, even at the introductory level, as you do with all 3D fighters.
It also takes what was originally a cumbersome and outdated system (the 6 button layout of SF1), and gave it true purpose.

As for the infinites etc... If I was making a new MSH or something, I'd simply take them out (i.e. make them escapable). That's not the fundamental part of the combo system or why I like the game for its place in the VS series.

[Airk]

Well ppl are multi-faceted y'know. I can hate long combos on principle but still like 1-2 games which might have them. :smallwink:

Yup. But if that's the case, you might want to try some others that are outside your comfort zone. :) Because games like Persona 4 Arena and BlazBlue actually play much closer to MSH than much of anything else.


(1) I still say some of those combos look like they can be escaped out of. I'm going by memory that goes back decades(?), so I really think you have air-recovery in MSH but don't quote me.

Don't look at me, I just looked at a random FAQ, and it listed ground recovery, but not air recovery. I played the game for like a total of an hour like...15 years ago or something. And well, if there's one thing you learn from playing fighting games, it's that "X looked like Y should [be possible|not work]" is almost NEVER an indicator of whether Y actually IS possible or will not work. ;)



(2) I don't enjoy it for the gems. I enjoy it for the level of development of the VS fighting system at that point. That is, better than Darkstalkers and XvsSF which were the first attempts, but not as crazy as MvC series. Mainly I don't like the MvC series because it starts adding more and more things to the screen such as Assists etc which I don't like. MvC is at the level where I feel I can still concentrate on the fighting itself.

I presume you meant MSH, not MvC there at the end? And yes, I dislike the MvC series for the same reason - assist fighters aren't my thing, they are too much to keep track of, especially when they move at absurd speeds.

I'm honestly surprised you don't seem to like Darkstalkers though, because it's basically MSH without all the stuff you say you don't like. (Gems, really huge combos). Particularly as the series went on and sped up.



(3) I don't mind the basic combo system of Capcom's VS series because I think it's ingenious: LP-LK-MP-MK-HP-HK-cancel into special whenever. It's sensible, easy to understand and learn, and very flexible. It takes just enough thought and skill without being a button-masher, but you're not sitting there learning character-specific combos all day, even at the introductory level, as you do with all 3D fighters.

Again, I should point out that this sort of combo system is the same sort of thing that is present in, say, BlazBlue, where for most (but not all) characters, Light -> Medium -> Heavy -> (Drive ->) Special forms a basic combo. Sometimes directions are involved, so you get Light -> Medium -> Crouch Medium -> Heavy -> Towards Heavy -> Special or the like. Very similar to...well, really what you've described above is actually the DARKSTALKERS combo system. MSH is when launchers and air combos started coming more heavily into play.



It also takes what was originally a cumbersome and outdated system (the 6 button layout of SF1), and gave it true purpose.

I've preferred 4 button fighters since forever, so... screw six buttons. :P



As for the infinites etc... If I was making a new MSH or something, I'd simply take them out (i.e. make them escapable). That's not the fundamental part of the combo system or why I like the game for its place in the VS series.

But it IS a part of the system at any sufficiently advanced level of play that combos will be a LARGE part of the damage you are doing. They don't have to be infinite to seriously change the game, and MSH combos can get large in a hurry.

[Wolf_Haley]

There was air tech in MSH but you're not teching out of any of those.

[MLai]

Yup. But if that's the case, you might want to try some others that are outside your comfort zone. :) Because games like Persona 4 Arena and BlazBlue actually play much closer to MSH than much of anything else.
I dismissed BlazBlue because artwise it looked like Guilty Gear. I own 2 games in GG series, and didn't like them.
Never even heard of Persona 4 Arena. Will watch some vids.

I presume you meant MSH, not MvC there at the end? And yes, I dislike the MvC series for the same reason - assist fighters aren't my thing, they are too much to keep track of, especially when they move at absurd speeds.
Yeah sorry, typo.
Yes my problem with MvC's ever-increasing variety of assists is that the gameplay becomes pre-programmed lockdowns, like opening maneuvers in chess. I know it simulates another layer of strategy but it's not the type of metagame I like.
I like no frills deep combat like what Virtua Fighter presents.

I'm honestly surprised you don't seem to like Darkstalkers though, because it's basically MSH without all the stuff you say you don't like. (Gems, really huge combos). Particularly as the series went on and sped up.
I do like Darkstalkers. The roster is amazing. It started the VS combo chain system. But I miss the launchers, air combos, and high-jumps.

I've preferred 4 button fighters since forever, so... screw six buttons. :P
For me it's either 6 buttons or 3 buttons. :)


There was air tech in MSH but you're not teching out of any of those.
Yeah, so my fantasy ideal MSH would be a game where you could air/ground tech out of those. Perhaps your window to tech out, and your invincibility frames during tech-out, gradually increase as the combo counter goes up.

[Airk]

I dismissed BlazBlue because artwise it looked like Guilty Gear. I own 2 games in GG series, and didn't like them.
Never even heard of Persona 4 Arena. Will watch some vids.

I'm not sure I'd really suggest comparing two games because the art style is similar.


I like no frills deep combat like what Virtua Fighter presents.

But I miss the launchers, air combos, and high-jumps.

You confuse me deeply sir.


For me it's either 6 buttons or 3 buttons. :)

Samurai Shodown was a 4 button fighter!



Yeah, so my fantasy ideal MSH would be a game where you could air/ground tech out of those. Perhaps your window to tech out, and your invincibility frames during tech-out, gradually increase as the combo counter goes up.

You know the funny part is that, again, this is pretty much exactly how modern combo based fighters work; The more hits you take, the less hitstun you are in, and eventually you are able to tech out of the combo (though usually your opponent will end it voluntarily before that happens.)

Unless you were suggesting that there should ALWAYS be a tiny amount of time in which you are able to tech out of any combo, and that grows over time, which, er, I think is a terrible idea. :smallfrown:

Also, could someone educate me on how air techs in MSH worked? For my historical knowledge?

[Wolf_Haley]

You pretty much only teched out if someone dropped a combo.

[Airk]

You pretty much only teched out if someone dropped a combo.

Right, and it was done automatically, correct? Not ala BlazBlue where you actually need to push a button to recover?

In that case, it works like pretty much any other game with what I consider to be "no air recovery system"; Technically there's a system, and that system is "You always recover at the first possible moment" but I guess I consider that the 'baseline' and not worth mentioning.

[MLai]

I'm not sure I'd really suggest comparing two games because the art style is similar.
Yes but you can see why I dismissed BlazeBlue, if it looked like a spiritual successor to a visually-distinctive fighting franchise I didn't like.

You confuse me deeply sir.
Launchers, air combos, and high jumps are not frills. Just like the DS chain-combo system isn't frills.
Additional meters and all the fancy tag-team tactics, and especially assists from non-tag-member characters... those are what I consider frills.

Samurai Shodown was a 4 button fighter!
It works better on my 6 button joystick! Who the heck thought pressing 2 buttons for a hard slash was a good idea?
In contrast, Virtua Fighter actually works better with only 3 buttons. If you try to play it on 6 buttons, with programmed button combinations (not combos) for the extra buttons, it will only end up messing you up. Believe me I tried.

You know the funny part is that, again, this is pretty much exactly how modern combo based fighters work; The more hits you take, the less hitstun you are in, and eventually you are able to tech out of the combo
Which games do that??? I only know game attenuate the combo damage but I never heard of games attenuating successive hitstun time.
And ofc I don't think you should be able to tech out of even short combos.

Right, and it was done automatically, correct? Not ala BlazBlue where you actually need to push a button to recover?
No, air recovery specifically means you manually do it. You land on your feet rather than fall onto your ass, and you can air-block if necessary.

[Zevox]

Yes but you can see why I dismissed BlazeBlue, if it looked like a spiritual successor to a visually-distinctive fighting franchise I didn't like.
BlazBlue is intended to be the spiritual successor to Guilty Gear from what I understand (though now that ArcSys has the rights to Guilty Gear again and seems interested in reviving that series they're probably more likely to be considered sister series in the future). That said, it isn't exactly like Guilty Gear from what I saw. While I love BlazBlue, when I tried the XBLA release of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, I found I really couldn't get into it. It felt oddly like something in between BlazBlue and Street Fighter mechanically to me, which just wasn't doing it for me.


Which games do that??? I only know game attenuate the combo damage but I never heard of games attenuating successive hitstun time.
BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, and (Ultimate) Marvel vs Capcom 3 all do that. BB and P4A call it proration, MvC3 calls it histun decay.

Mortal Kombat and Injustice do something sort of similar, causing characters in a juggle to drop faster the more hits you get in the combo (those games are designed to make juggling the only way to get combos beyond a few hits).

[Wolf_Haley]

GG and BB are leagues apart, their really not similiar outside of havinga chain system and roman cancel.

[ShinyCap]

I hang out with a couple of big fighting game fans, but I'm nothing like as good as them so I can usually only play a few rounds before I get sick of losing horribly. Or I play the other less-experienced people who come hang out. I love Skullgirls (I'm getting it on PC when it comes out, and maybe I'll actually learn to be good at it then), and I'm pretty excited about Injustice. Wonder Woman was surprisingly fun to play in the demo.

[Airk]

Yes but you can see why I dismissed BlazeBlue, if it looked like a spiritual successor to a visually-distinctive fighting franchise I didn't like.

I guess. I didn't like GG either, but figured since I hadn't tried it in over a decade a "Spiritual Successor" would be fine. ;)



Launchers, air combos, and high jumps are not frills. Just like the DS chain-combo system isn't frills.
Additional meters and all the fancy tag-team tactics, and especially assists from non-tag-member characters... those are what I consider frills.

Okay, so really, the only games you shouldn't like are the MvC series, by that metric. Though even those don't have "additional meters". o.o



It works better on my 6 button joystick! Who the heck thought pressing 2 buttons for a hard slash was a good idea?

Probably the people who realized that the Neo Geo only had 4 buttons. ;)



Which games do that??? I only know game attenuate the combo damage but I never heard of games attenuating successive hitstun time.
And ofc I don't think you should be able to tech out of even short combos.

Yeah, as Zevox already said, but the answer is basically "Any airdash fighter made in the past decade except for Skullgirls." ;) I guess they realized that reducing the damage on attacks is kinda pointless if the combo can go on forever anyway. The reason SF4 doesn't do it is because it has a much more restrictive combo system (and a fairly aggressive damage scaling system.) - though I don't know where SFxT fits into the scheme.

Combo systems are fascinating to me, actually. I'm quite intrigued by the system in the newest iteration of BlazBlue, which uses a hitstun decay system based on time rather than number of hits, but where specific actions cost "extra time."



No, air recovery specifically means you manually do it. You land on your feet rather than fall onto your ass, and you can air-block if necessary.

Uh, then apparently MSH didn't have this? Or if it did, it didn't have anything to do with escaping combos.

[Cogwheel]

Whenever I hear 'roman cancel', all I can think of is one character suddenly dropping everything they're doing and invading Greece or whatever.

Also I pretty much only play Hisoutensoku and Melty Blood nowadays, because being limited to a cranky old PC seems to mean I wind up playing the most anime things in the world. That said, if anyone's the least bit interested in starting either, playing against me, or learning (either the specific title or fighting game basics in general) send a PM my way, I could always use more people to play against. The Leonardo Da Vinci of internet pixelated fisticuffs I am not, but I can at least teach a couple tricks and not immediately self-destruct.

[Zevox]

I hang out with a couple of big fighting game fans, but I'm nothing like as good as them so I can usually only play a few rounds before I get sick of losing horribly. Or I play the other less-experienced people who come hang out. I love Skullgirls (I'm getting it on PC when it comes out, and maybe I'll actually learn to be good at it then), and I'm pretty excited about Injustice. Wonder Woman was surprisingly fun to play in the demo.
Ah, finally, someone else intending to get Injustice :smallsmile: . Wonder Woman was who I played the most in the demo too, but I don't think I'll be playing her in the full game. I'm too much of a Green Lantern fan not to play him or Sinestro unless I really can't stand how they play, and there's a lot of others I find myself interested in trying based on the trailers (Raven, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, Black Adam, Killer Frost).


- though I don't know where SFxT fits into the scheme.
To my understanding, SFxT is basically like SF4, but with longer combos. It's easier to get the opponent into a juggle, but once there you can only get so many hits before they'll drop out. You can reset that by tag canceling, but that costs meter, and the damage scaling will add up if you try to do it more than once or, in rare cases, twice.


Combo systems are fascinating to me, actually. I'm quite intrigued by the system in the newest iteration of BlazBlue, which uses a hitstun decay system based on time rather than number of hits, but where specific actions cost "extra time."
Really? Huh, I had not heard that they had changed that part of the game in CP. That's definitely going to take some getting used to. Guess I won't be able to assume much about how combos from CS:EX will transfer to CP even after accounting for specific move property changes. Gonna be spending a lot of time in training mode - though that's not anything new.

[Airk]

To my understanding, SFxT is basically like SF4, but with longer combos. It's easier to get the opponent into a juggle, but once there you can only get so many hits before they'll drop out. You can reset that by tag canceling, but that costs meter, and the damage scaling will add up if you try to do it more than once or, in rare cases, twice.

Makes sense, since they were going for the SF4 'feel'.



Really? Huh, I had not heard that they had changed that part of the game in CP. That's definitely going to take some getting used to. Guess I won't be able to assume much about how combos from CS:EX will transfer to CP even after accounting for specific move property changes. Gonna be spending a lot of time in training mode - though that's not anything new.

It's really interesting, actually. Basically the schtick is:

Combos are "Hard capped" at 820 frames. (about 13.5 seconds. Don't ask me how they chose that.). If a combo goes on for longer than that, it auto drops.
Every 60 frames (1 second) past 480 frames (8 seconds) reduces the hitstun/untechable time of moves in the combo, so a cancel or whatever that might work early in the combo may not later on.
The move you use to start the combo will "use up" a certain amount of time. "Slow" starters (which basically don't exist as far as I can tell) use no time off the clock.
"Normal" starters cause you to, essentially, start with 180 frames (3 seconds) on the clock, so you only have 5 seconds before the combo starts to decay.
"Fast" starters - like jabs and quick lows - cause you to start with 6 seconds on the clock, so the combo starts to decay after only 2 seconds.
"Very Fast" starters cause you to start with 540 frames (9 seconds!) already "on the clock" so combos done from those moves (Which are mostly counter-assaults, from what I've seen) start off heavily decayed already.
Using moves with "Same move proration" more than once uses up extra time as well, depending on the level of same move proration - three levels, which 'cost' 2, 4 and 6 seconds, respectively.

So if you start a move with a Fast starter, your combo starts to lose hitstun after 2 seconds, and auto-drops after about 7.5. Using a level one "Same move proration" move twice in the combo would automatically cut down the max combo time by another two seconds.

So far it seems to be doing a pretty effective job, and I like how it decouples combo duration from combo damage, as well as essentially putting a hard cap on the length of combos.

On the other hand, a system I am NOT a fan of is the Skullgirls "Infinite Protection System" which is essentially an elaborate algorithm designed to keep you from repeating sequences of moves, but which otherwise makes no attempt to rein in damage or duration.

[MLai]

(1) I think I'm convinced now to go out and buy SFxT on my PS3, probably later this week when I go watch Oblivion. I like the roster, I liked SF4 ok, and the only thing that had kept me from getting it is ppl saying it sucks.
I could get it off Steam, but I do hear ppl say the PC port isn't good. So I don't want the headache of trying to mod it for maximum performance. Besides, I'm a diehard Win XP squatter -- not moving to Win 7 until they tear my shack down.

(2) This hitstun decay time innovation is very interesting. No I haven't heard about it ever, because in terms of 2D fighters I've been living under a rock for the past decade+, only playing Virtua Fighter series and SF4 series. Ha, and I came up with the exact same idea they did. :smallcool:

[Zevox]

It's really interesting, actually. Basically the schtick is:

Combos are "Hard capped" at 820 frames. (about 13.5 seconds. Don't ask me how they chose that.). If a combo goes on for longer than that, it auto drops.
Every 60 frames (1 second) past 480 frames (8 seconds) reduces the hitstun/untechable time of moves in the combo, so a cancel or whatever that might work early in the combo may not later on.
The move you use to start the combo will "use up" a certain amount of time. "Slow" starters (which basically don't exist as far as I can tell) use no time off the clock.
"Normal" starters cause you to, essentially, start with 180 frames (3 seconds) on the clock, so you only have 5 seconds before the combo starts to decay.
"Fast" starters - like jabs and quick lows - cause you to start with 6 seconds on the clock, so the combo starts to decay after only 2 seconds.
"Very Fast" starters cause you to start with 540 frames (9 seconds!) already "on the clock" so combos done from those moves (Which are mostly counter-assaults, from what I've seen) start off heavily decayed already.
Using moves with "Same move proration" more than once uses up extra time as well, depending on the level of same move proration - three levels, which 'cost' 2, 4 and 6 seconds, respectively.

So if you start a move with a Fast starter, your combo starts to lose hitstun after 2 seconds, and auto-drops after about 7.5. Using a level one "Same move proration" move twice in the combo would automatically cut down the max combo time by another two seconds.

So far it seems to be doing a pretty effective job, and I like how it decouples combo duration from combo damage, as well as essentially putting a hard cap on the length of combos.
Huh, wow. Sounds rather complicated honestly. Though in practice I'm guessing it won't feel all that different from the proration system of past games, with starters and same-move reuse being the key in determining how quickly hitstun scaling adds up. It'll definitely change how optimized combos look though, that's for certain.

But hell, if it prevents, say, Arakune from keeping me in a combo for twenty seconds off any starter, I'm all for it. Faced some good Arakune players online last time I was playing BB, and that got pretty depressing. I don't mind long combos in most cases, but there comes a point where even I just want to take the damage and get back to the fight, and Arakune combos were getting me to that point after a fight or two.


On the other hand, a system I am NOT a fan of is the Skullgirls "Infinite Protection System" which is essentially an elaborate algorithm designed to keep you from repeating sequences of moves, but which otherwise makes no attempt to rein in damage or duration.
Yeah, that doesn't seem to have done its job. It didn't even really prevent looping combos, as long as you change what the first hit of the chain you do is each time. Eventually you run out of starters, but by the time you do you've usually killed the enemy unless they were a solo character and you were a team or something.

Though I know they changed it to be more restrictive in the big patch, but so far that's only out on the PS3 version, thanks to Microsoft restricting the size of patches on the 360 and the Skullgirls patch vastly exceeding their cap.

[Airk]

Huh, wow. Sounds rather complicated honestly. Though in practice I'm guessing it won't feel all that different from the proration system of past games, with starters and same-move reuse being the key in determining how quickly hitstun scaling adds up. It'll definitely change how optimized combos look though, that's for certain.

The one big difference is that it actually reduces the difference between starters, because in practice, there are only two kinds - normal and fast - so you end up basically having "Combos I can do off a normal starter" and "combos I have to do when I land a weak starter"; So like, there's not really any difference in what combo you can do off a 5B vs a 5C, but doing the same combo off 5C will do more damage. @_@


But hell, if it prevents, say, Arakune from keeping me in a combo for twenty seconds off any starter, I'm all for it. Faced some good Arakune players online last time I was playing BB, and that got pretty depressing. I don't mind long combos in most cases, but there comes a point where even I just want to take the damage and get back to the fight, and Arakune combos were getting me to that point after a fight or two.

They actually completely revamped Arakune; His curse mode works completely differently now - everytime he summons a bug he loses some curse meter, so he goes through it a LOT faster if he brings in lots of bugs for pressure or a combo.


Though I know they changed it to be more restrictive in the big patch

Yeah, but my understanding is that the 'more restrictive' mode now just does stuff like count standing jabs and crouching jabs as the same move. z.z Plus, it adds even MORE memorization to combos because it's like "which not-quite-loops have I done?"

Sorry Mike Z, but apparently the reason no one has ever done the IPS method before is that it doesn't actually work very well. :P

[Zevox]

The one big difference is that it actually reduces the difference between starters, because in practice, there are only two kinds - normal and fast - so you end up basically having "Combos I can do off a normal starter" and "combos I have to do when I land a weak starter"; So like, there's not really any difference in what combo you can do off a 5B vs a 5C, but doing the same combo off 5C will do more damage. @_@
Well, that actually makes sense I'd say. Getting a combo off a heavy is usually harder than getting one off a medium, so rewarding it more works. Though then you get oddballs like Platinum, whose 5C is actually slightly faster than her 5B (at least in CS:EX, maybe that changes in CP).

Thinking about it though, I will appreciate that. One thing I've found hard about BlazBlue compared to other fighters I play is that a lot of combos have to be altered based on the starter they used, as often enough somewhere along the line something will work off one starter but not another. Making that part more universal will definitely ease things in that area.


They actually completely revamped Arakune; His curse mode works completely differently now - everytime he summons a bug he loses some curse meter, so he goes through it a LOT faster if he brings in lots of bugs for pressure or a combo.
Oh, I greatly approve of that :smallbiggrin: . It's always been pretty apparent that he was ridiculous once he got his curse going, in every version of the game, and that sounds like a good way to try and balance that. Use the curse for insane pressure, or save it for a big combo, you can't do both.


Yeah, but my understanding is that the 'more restrictive' mode now just does stuff like count standing jabs and crouching jabs as the same move.
Yeah. On the one hand, that will cut the maximum size of those combos in half. On the other, it still doesn't really prevent combos in the game from reaching lengths you don't see anywhere else besides Marvel, or from doing plenty of damage. So yeah, the system still isn't doing much in the long run, is it? Certainly nothing that hitstun decay doesn't do at least as well, if not better.

[Airk]

Well, that actually makes sense I'd say. Getting a combo off a heavy is usually harder than getting one off a medium, so rewarding it more works. Though then you get oddballs like Platinum, whose 5C is actually slightly faster than her 5B (at least in CS:EX, maybe that changes in CP).

Well, it was ALWAYS rewarded - actually, in the EX system, it's rewarded more because hitstun decay and damage are tied directly together, so moves that give you better damage proration (slower starters) also give you longer combos, so you could not only get more damage from the same combo, but you could a BIGGER combo. Now you only get more damage off the same combo.



Oh, I greatly approve of that :smallbiggrin: . It's always been pretty apparent that he was ridiculous once he got his curse going, in every version of the game, and that sounds like a good way to try and balance that. Use the curse for insane pressure, or save it for a big combo, you can't do both.

Yeah, and if you block enough of his crap it seriously limits the power of the curse combo he can do, whereas now he can still do retarded amounts of damage with only like half a curse gauge.

On the other hand, they gave him some buffs to his non curse game to make up for it. Still, he seems way less stupid now.

[Zevox]

Well, it was ALWAYS rewarded - actually, in the EX system, it's rewarded more because hitstun decay and damage are tied directly together, so moves that give you better damage proration (slower starters) also give you longer combos, so you could not only get more damage from the same combo, but you could a BIGGER combo. Now you only get more damage off the same combo.
I know. I was just saying that because the little smiley you used (the "@_@" one) made it seem like you thought that didn't make sense or something. And as I said, I'm actually quite happy with the idea of just getting more damage from the combo without needing to memorize a different variation of it for each starter.


Yeah, and if you block enough of his crap it seriously limits the power of the curse combo he can do, whereas now he can still do retarded amounts of damage with only like half a curse gauge.

On the other hand, they gave him some buffs to his non curse game to make up for it. Still, he seems way less stupid now.
Yeah, I will happily take him getting buffs outside of curse to toning down what he can do with curse active. Facing him in curse now is kind of like facing Strider with Oroborous and X-Factor in UMvC3 - constant pressure, free mixups for your opponent, big damage if you take any hit. Very nasty stuff.

[Airk]

I know. I was just saying that because the little smiley you used (the "@_@" one) made it seem like you thought that didn't make sense or something. And as I said, I'm actually quite happy with the idea of just getting more damage from the combo without needing to memorize a different variation of it for each starter.

Well, it does seem a little weird to me, because I'm used to, like, needing to different combos to do more damage. ;)

[Zevox]

And Injustice is out! I grabbed the midnight release last night, and have already gone through the story. Mostly because, well, it's kind of short. Shorter than Mortal Kombat's by a fair amount. It only probably took me somewhere between three and four hours to complete.

It's... okay. It's pretty much like Mortal Kombat's story mode - dumb action movie material. Some greater potential than MK's ever had, likely largely because it's taking many of its ideas from better stories, like the very obvious main inspiration of the Justice Lords episode of the Justice League cartoon. It mostly squanders that potential though, because it's so busy making sure to throw a fight at you every three minutes that it never does much with any of its characters. Hell, some of them, like Ares, are almost not involved at all.

@ Airk - For whatever it's worth, the story mode does provide an explanation for characters surviving things they shouldn't. It's a silly one, but it's there.
Kryptonian pill. Seriously, a pill made with Kryptonian technology that grants people who take it some Kryptonian super strength and endurance. Apparently Superman came up with it to make his forces more effective, but the Insurgency got ahold of it, so now everyone has taken it. It's literally so effective that moments after the Joker takes it in the story mode a SWAT team busts into the building he's in, one of them shoots him with an assault rifle, and the bullets do nothing to him.

This actually opens up some plot holes when you think about it, but I don't think anybody who saw Mortal Kombat's story mode will be surprised by that.
Anyway, story mode done I'll be seeing if the STAR Labs mission mode is any good, and then it's time for what fighting games are really about - training mode and some real fights. :smallsmile:

[Wolf_Haley]

Really feeling Injustice, don't know who I'm gonna main yet but I'm looking at Sinestro, Drathstroke, and Cyborg.

[Zevox]

Really feeling Injustice, don't know who I'm gonna main yet but I'm looking at Sinestro, Drathstroke, and Cyborg.
I've mostly been playing around with Green Lantern myself. I think I can make him work, but he's pretty meter-dependent. His combos don't get beyond a chain into a special without spending meter, and with this game's lack of hitconfirming due to the weird timing on inputs he pretty much needs a meter for safe-on-block starters to longer combos too. Has some zoning potential though, and pretty much all of his chains are safe if you don't cancel them into a special. His ring grab special (Lantern's Might) has a stupidly good hitbox too, although it is pretty negative on block. Perfect anti-air though, and the ex version groundbounces for a combo.

Tried Sinestro more briefly, but was having trouble figuring him out. Even using meter I couldn't get his combos past the mid-20s or so. I'm guessing he's more of a zoner than Hal, but wasn't sure how to work him properly. I'll give him more of a go later I think.

Still need to look at some of the others I wanted to try though. Raven, Killer Frost, Hawkgirl, and Black Adam are all on my list there.

[Wolf_Haley]

Killer Forst is probably going to be on of the best characters in the game. Anytime Lord Knight *Of BB, P4U, and MB fame* plays a character their always busted in some way and at least Top 3*Litchi, Mitsuru, and Kohaku respectivly*.

[Zevox]

Killer Forst is probably going to be on of the best characters in the game. Anytime Lord Knight *Of BB, P4U, and MB fame* plays a character their always busted in some way and at least Top 3*Litchi, Mitsuru, and Kohaku respectivly*.
Hm, I don't know, I didn't see anything particularly great about her when I was playing around with her in training mode yesterday. But then again, I'm not a pro or anything, so maybe I'm just not seeing what makes her good.

At this point, I'm looking at maining Green Lantern, with Black Adam and Raven as the characters I'll probably use after I'm ready to switch things up. Raven actually seems pretty similar to GL overall, so Black Adam is more likely to end up as my second.

Though speaking of BB, we got a release date for Chrono Phantasma yesterday... in Japan (October 24th). Nothing about a NA release, which seems odd given ArcSys' games always seem to have their NA release just a week or two after their Japanese one. I must admit that has me slightly worried. It already appears they've axed doing a 360 version for CP, so I can't help but have a bit of fear that they might do the same with the international release, which would be awful. :smallfrown:

[Airk]

Killer Forst is probably going to be on of the best characters in the game. Anytime Lord Knight *Of BB, P4U, and MB fame* plays a character their always busted in some way and at least Top 3*Litchi, Mitsuru, and Kohaku respectivly*.

Actually, Litchi hasn't been top tier since the days of "vanilla" Continuum Shift. I guess that means she was top tier when he first picked her, but clearly he's not interested in changing.

Anyway, it's WAY too early for ANYONE to have more than a wild arsed guess about who's going to be the best in Injustice.

Also, take it easy about the "There's no NA release date announced for CP" thing - your fundamental premise is flawed. (Not even going to go near the fact that there's no reason for them to release a JAPANESE 360 version. You do realize that there are about 1% as many 360s in Japan as there are PS3s, right?) There was a month long gap between Japan CS and NA CS and a two month gap between Japan Extend and NA Extend. And there's been some fairly significant weirdness in dates surrounding the latest Guilty Gear iteration. There's absolutely no basis for any speculation regarding North American release dates at this point.

[Zevox]

Anyway, it's WAY too early for ANYONE to have more than a wild arsed guess about who's going to be the best in Injustice.
Agreed. I mean, about this time after Marvel 3 released people still thought that Arthur/Storm/Sentinel was going to be a top team. Yeah, that did not last, to say the least.


(Not even going to go near the fact that there's no reason for them to release a JAPANESE 360 version. You do realize that there are about 1% as many 360s in Japan as there are PS3s, right?)
I do. However, I can't say that I've ever heard of a Japanese company releasing a 360 version of their games only internationally, so it had not occurred to me that ArcSys might do such a thing.


There was a month long gap between Japan CS and NA CS and a two month gap between Japan Extend and NA Extend. And there's been some fairly significant weirdness in dates surrounding the latest Guilty Gear iteration. There's absolutely no basis for any speculation regarding North American release dates at this point.
Alright then. I thought that the gap between CS1's releases was smaller, more on the order of two weeks, but looking it up I see it was close to a month. And I see you're also right about Extend, which I hadn't been following closely enough to know that about. So, that makes me feel a bit better.

Still, I hope we hear something soon. It's always at least a little nerve-wracking when a Japanese game I really want to play goes for a long time without announcing an international release these days...

[Wolf_Haley]

Litchi actually ended up being top tier again in CS2 an dCSEX once people realised that Daisharn was still godlike, and I feel hella trolled two new characters got abbouced for CP and one is a character we've never seen and the other is Terumi, come on where JUbei or Kokonoe?

[Zevox]

Litchi actually ended up being top tier again in CS2 an dCSEX once people realised that Daisharn was still godlike, and I feel hella trolled two new characters got abbouced for CP and one is a character we've never seen and the other is Terumi, come on where JUbei or Kokonoe?
I kinda wonder that too. One the Teach Me, Miss Litchi segments in CS seemed to hint towards Jubei being playable in the next game, and they pretty clearly established a way for Kokonoe to become playable in one of the extra chapters of Extend. Maybe they're saving them for DLC, since they know people will be interested in long-time story characters like them.

[Zevox]

So, I played some Injustice matches online the past couple of days. And, well, there's a problem. While I haven't seen much lag per se, there's a very noticeable input delay in every match. Kinda like in Marvel 3, though not as bad.

However, unlike in Marvel 3, the input timing in this game is so precise for some things that I really feel even the smaller input delay that it seems to have. Especially for Ex moves - I almost never completed any of my GL combos involving those because I couldn't get them to activate right. Special cancels are in that boat too, though not as bad as the Ex moves.

It's honestly to the point where I want an online connection simulator in the training mode like Marvel 3 has to practice this. But as far as I can see, there isn't one, so the only way to get used to it is to just play a ton of online matches.

That's rather off-putting for me, since online is my main way of playing, and right now it feels awfully rough because of this. I'll keep trying, but this is making me worry about how much I'll be able to get into this game after all.

[Wolf_Haley]

So happy unless it's GGPo nI don't care about online.

[Perkinz]

Is it just me, or is the strategy of 90% of the online crowd right now to spam environmental hazards and level transitions? :smallfurious:

The last 3 opponents I've fought on XBox Live have done just that, and I think one of them raged when I just stood on the opposite side of the level and waited for them to come away from their coveted unblockable shots.

That said, if anyone's up for some Player Matches, my tag's Armads83. I should be on for much of the evening.

[Zevox]

Is it just me, or is the strategy of 90% of the online crowd right now to spam environmental hazards and level transitions? :smallfurious:

The last 3 opponents I've fought on XBox Live have done just that, and I think one of them raged when I just stood on the opposite side of the level and waited for them to come away from their coveted unblockable shots.

That said, if anyone's up for some Player Matches, my tag's Armads83. I should be on for much of the evening.
I haven't really run into that, actually. Most people I've played have ignored environmental hazards for the most part. Stage transitions just seem to happen as a natural part of combos, too, since you usually want to work the move that causes them into your combos if you can, given it causes a wallbounce. Of course, I'm on PSN, so it could be a difference between the people on each system.

[Perkinz]

I think I'm the lucky one in that case, because I also got a taunt mail after my first losing match online. Guy spammed Deathstroke's assault rifle, and I couldn't find my way around it as Catwoman. I got impatient too, so that was my fault.

As for level transitions, I've only been able to manage them raw, when my opponent reversals. I've barely been able to connect with them in combos in training mode, and with input lag online, they're just abysmally hard to land reliably enough for me to risk them. Maybe I'm gimping myself that way, but I prefer to leave the flashy stuff in the training room. :smalltongue:

What characters are you seeing the most? I've seen several Flash players, quite a few Batmans, even a couple Solomon Grundy players, but no Catwoman players. I also haven't seen Wonder Woman much either. Strange, that.

[Wolf_Haley]

If you wanna know how to deal with Interactables you can backdashe thourgh them to avoid them or do F+3 meter Burn to armor through and punish.

[Zevox]

I think I'm the lucky one in that case, because I also got a taunt mail after my first losing match online. Guy spammed Deathstroke's assault rifle, and I couldn't find my way around it as Catwoman. I got impatient too, so that was my fault.
God, Deathstroke is proving annoying. Gun spam is proving quite strong, because walk speed is so slow, and dashing and jumping is just going to get you hit most of the time. Without an air dash, it's trouble. Green Lantern gets a pseudo-air-dash via his air turbine special, but even that's unsafe if the opponent reacts fast enough with an anti-air. Fortunately, nobody has so far for me. Unfortunately, it sometimes doesn't come out, and I just end up jumping on top of some bullets.

Also annoying about Deathstroke is that sword spin special. His players seem to like to throw it out all the time at mid-range or on wake-up, and it seems to beat everything. It does seem punishable on block, but I haven't gotten the timing down on that yet, and with the online screwing with my combos the punishes that I do get aren't as punishing as they should be :smallfrown: .


As for level transitions, I've only been able to manage them raw, when my opponent reversals. I've barely been able to connect with them in combos in training mode, and with input lag online, they're just abysmally hard to land reliably enough for me to risk them. Maybe I'm gimping myself that way, but I prefer to leave the flashy stuff in the training room. :smalltongue:
Green Lantern has a pretty easy way to set up that move - his Ex Lantern's Might (the ring grab move) groundbounces so high he can easily get it immediately thereafter. When I can actually get the Ex to work, I can get that follow-up pretty consistently.


What characters are you seeing the most? I've seen several Flash players, quite a few Batmans, even a couple Solomon Grundy players, but no Catwoman players. I also haven't seen Wonder Woman much either. Strange, that.
A decent variety actually. The most common has sadly been probably Deathstroke, but I've also seen several Superman players, a couple of Batman players, a couple of Wonder Woman players, a couple of Green Lanterns, a couple of Green Arrows, a couple of Jokers, and at least one each of Ares*, Sinestro, Aquaman, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, Hawkgirl, and Nightwing.

Oddly enough, I've yet to see any Flash players. No Catwoman players on my end either. Pleasantly surprisingly, I've also not run into any grappler players. Those are usually my bane in fighting games. Tager, Kanji, Zangief, Hugo, I always dread seeing characters like those. Guess that would be Grundy and Bane in this one, though I noticed a couple of others with command grabs that I didn't expect while in STAR Labs (Shazam and Killer Frost come to mind - haven't seen anyone using them online either though).

*I actually ran into the same Ares player quite a few times. He was pretty frustrating too. Stuff that didn't look like it hit low or overhead did, he has a Marvel-style crossup teleport, and his jumping attacks beat everything I tried to do against them. I'm going to need to get a lot more experience with that matchup I fear.

Edit: Ooo, I just figured out the answer to my Ex move problems! Was trying things out in training mode and discovered that if you just hold down the meter burn button during the move, it will always come out. No need to time anything. That will help me immensely. :smallbiggrin:

[Perkinz]

A decent variety actually. The most common has sadly been probably Deathstroke, but I've also seen several Superman players, a couple of Batman players, a couple of Wonder Woman players, a couple of Green Lanterns, a couple of Green Arrows, a couple of Jokers, and at least one each of Ares*, Sinestro, Aquaman, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, Hawkgirl, and Nightwing.

Oddly enough, I've yet to see any Flash players. No Catwoman players on my end either. Pleasantly surprisingly, I've also not run into any grappler players. Those are usually my bane in fighting games. Tager, Kanji, Zangief, Hugo, I always dread seeing characters like those. Guess that would be Grundy and Bane in this one, though I noticed a couple of others with command grabs that I didn't expect while in STAR Labs (Shazam and Killer Frost come to mind - haven't seen anyone using them online either though).

*I actually ran into the same Ares player quite a few times. He was pretty frustrating too. Stuff that didn't look like it hit low or overhead did, he has a Marvel-style crossup teleport, and his jumping attacks beat everything I tried to do against them. I'm going to need to get a lot more experience with that matchup I fear.

Well, I suppose I should correct myself: No other Catwoman players. :smalltongue: I find her combo potential to be quite nice, even if I botch it partway through due to either screwing up my inputs or lag.

I forgot Aquaman. Ran into several of them, also encountered an Ares, but he just mainly projectile spammed. Cat Stance goes under most of them, but I end up just planting myself in place in those cases, which makes it a stalemate at best. No Luthors yet, one Hawkgirl that mostly environment killed, a Sinestro, and a couple Harley Quinns.

Catwoman is... challenging. She has no teleport to speak of, no real movement options, but if she gets in your face, man can she take it off faster than The Flash can run. She has a combo starter that can begin off of a low move from a neutral standing position, and her claw slash special causes a crumple stun from which you can launch. Now that I think about it, that might be the way to combo into a stage transition.

*wanders off to the training lab*

[Zevox]

Catwoman is... challenging. She has no teleport to speak of, no real movement options, but if she gets in your face, man can she take it off faster than The Flash can run. She has a combo starter that can begin off of a low move from a neutral standing position, and her claw slash special causes a crumple stun from which you can launch. Now that I think about it, that might be the way to combo into a stage transition.

*wanders off to the training lab*
That combo starter sounds like one Green Lantern has actually - his 4L (or b1, in MK notation, which just seems completely backwards to me since I'm accustomed to numeric notation for directions and letters for buttons), which is one of his faster moves, moves him forward a pretty good distance (can connect from a bit further away than the starting position puts you at), and chains into either an overhead (which he can't combo off of but is neutral on block) or a launcher (which he can combo off - in fact, it's the only move he can get a meterless combo beyond just a simple cancel into special off). Between that and his universal overhead (6H, or f3) being a pretty fast one he actually has a pretty good high-low mixup game.

Just had a satisfying fight with a Deathstroke player for my last match of the night. For the first time I pretty much dominated most of the match, getting around his guns and blocking and punishing his sword special. I was going to win with an Ex Lantern's Might punish into stage transition, too, but he rage-quit. Which is actually almost more satisfying than actually winning, after how frustrating Deathstroke has been for me earlier. :smallbiggrin:

[Komatik]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU8n9tGCmwY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BXFNPKMbEo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uzaxQ5RF4I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa-CVLs_c-s

[Arutema]

So I had a chance to grab the SoulCalibur V collector's edition cheap and did.

Man, I suck at this game, and the manual doesn't do a very good job of explaining the fighting system. Is there a site similar to Dustloop that explains the system in detail?

Also, must remember that backstepping does not defend, and that G is not an attack button.

[Komatik]

8wayrun.com is the biggest Calibur site on the net.

[MLai]

I bought SFxT. Ohboy I'm so excited. Thanks guys!
How many DLC characters are there? I want to buy them before I even play the game.
Do they have endings? Would I encounter them while playing through story mode, if I buy them?

[Zevox]

I bought SFxT. Ohboy I'm so excited. Thanks guys!
How many DLC characters are there? I want to buy them before I even play the game.
Do they have endings? Would I encounter them while playing through story mode, if I buy them?
There are 12 DLC characters, all sold as a package deal for $20. In case you missed the controversy over it though, you should know they're actually all on-disk, so they're "DLC" in name only.

The game doesn't have a story mode, just an arcade mode, and it only really has small, weak attempts at story scenes if you play specific teams (the characters next to each other horizontally on the select screen - Ryu/Ken, Kazuya/Nina, etc). I haven't bothered beyond one time through with Juri/Bison, myself, but I'd assume the DLC characters have that too.

[Perkinz]

The DLC characters do have arcade mode "endings", such as they are. As far as I know the pairings are:

Bryan & Jack X
Lars & Alisa
Dudley & Elena
Guy & Cody

I haven't touched the game for a while though. Wonder if there have been any more balance patches since I last loaded it up.

[Wolf_Haley]

Outside of the one HUGE patch to 1.08 their hasn't been any other changes.

[Zevox]

The DLC characters do have arcade mode "endings", such as they are. As far as I know the pairings are:

Bryan & Jack X
Lars & Alisa
Dudley & Elena
Guy & Cody

I haven't touched the game for a while though. Wonder if there have been any more balance patches since I last loaded it up.
Also, Lei & Christie and Blanka & Sakura.

The big 2013 patch that dropped late January this year was the last major change to the game (it's the version 1.08 Wolf_Haley mentioned). If you've played since then, you're up to speed. If not, there are some substantial changes, though exactly how much you'd feel them depends on who you played.

[MLai]

The big 2013 patch that dropped late January this year was the last major change to the game (it's the version 1.08 Wolf_Haley mentioned). If you've played since then, you're up to speed. If not, there are some substantial changes, though exactly how much you'd feel them depends on who you played.
Um, does this big patch change anything that I've read in the game instruction manual? Or is it all balance changes that I wouldn't notice since I haven't ever played the game yet?

[Zevox]

Um, does this big patch change anything that I've read in the game instruction manual? Or is it all balance changes that I wouldn't notice since I haven't ever played the game yet?
Mostly the latter. Some universal mechanics were affected, but mostly in ways too detailed to be mentioned in the instruction manual.

The one really important universal change to note is that after the 2013 update throws now remove red health (health that you lost but could get back by tagging out and waiting for it to heal). That makes them much more useful than they were originally.

[Perkinz]

Played some matches tonight on Injustice, and I feel Catwoman is just a gimped character compared to the others on the cast. :smallmad:

Her meter burn options are, well, mostly pointless. She has no super armor moves beyond the universal few, no range to speak of except her whip, which has a specific contact point, can be ducked under (unlike most other ranged options), and her cat stance is only mostly useful for ducking under projectiles and the whip option that lifts opponents, but that knocks them too far away for anything to follow up. I suppose the grab is OK, but I don't think it hits crouched characters.

Her special moves aren't all that. Her Cat Claw is an overhead, but can be interrupted by almost any quick attack that the opponent throws out. Her Cat Slash can simply be down backed. You have to combo into it in order for it to do well, or simply read the opponent really, really well. Whips? Too slow to come out, and if you guess wrong, well, you'd better check that life insurance policy.

You can't really combo into anything from her jumping attacks either. Her light has too little hitstun, medium takes too long to come out to be reliable, and her heavy is a knockdown. I feel like I'm climbing a mountain every time I fight with her right now.

The kicker? Solomon. Freaking. Grundy. He has super freaking armor on every special move he does. Those swamp hands? Yeah, super armor. His headbutt grab? Super armor. Every other move he does? Super armor. There has to be some kind of armor breaking move that can counter this crap because it's aggravating to try and range him to find out that he can just say "Oh hai there." *stomp* *combo into grabs* "Grappler weakness? BAH! We has none!"

/end rant :smallfurious:

[MLai]

While in the games store buying SFxT, I also saw several Naruto games. The latest one seems to be Naruto Shipuuden Ninja Storm 3. I know nothing about the quality of these games, but they look interesting with the fancy ninja moves, story mode, and TBS aspects.

Anyone here has any opinions on the Naruto fighting games?

[Zevox]

While I haven't played Catwoman beyond a couple of STAR Labs missions and thus can't really say where I feel she falls on the whole, I do feel like I should answer a couple of those...


Her meter burn options are, well, mostly pointless. She has no super armor moves beyond the universal few,
Neither does Green Lantern, but his meter burn is very important for extending his combos.

Checking Catwoman in training mode real quick, her Cat Claws special's meter burn version grounbounces very similarly to GL's Lantern's Might, high enough to readily get 4H (the universal wallbounce move) after it. Although I see she can get that off of her Cat Dash anyway. I'd need to play around with it more than I have time to if I wanted to figure out whether it could be used to extend combos after getting that, unfortunately. Meter burning Cat Dash does seem like it would only be worth it for simple damage increase at a glance though.

Edit: Ah, found a use for Ex Cat Dash - it's the only way to get the crumple state off a juggle. Normal Cat Dash only works on a grounded opponent, Ex will if they're in the air too. Very handy for combo extension - though I've got admit, Catwoman's combos seem rather difficult. Took me a while to even land an Ex Cat Dash in a juggle.


no range to speak of except her whip, which has a specific contact point, can be ducked under (unlike most other ranged options),
Actually, most basic fireballs seem to be able to be ducked. I know for certain that Green Lantern, Sinestro, Aquaman, and Superman's all can be - although Supes has his sweeping heat vision that can't be. Her whip actually goes a little further than I expected, too, and I'm not sure what you mean about a contact point, as it seems to have a hitbox along its entire length.


I suppose the grab is OK, but I don't think it hits crouched characters.
Cat Stance heavy hits mid according to training mode, which means it would hit crouching characters.


Her special moves aren't all that. Her Cat Claw is an overhead, but can be interrupted by almost any quick attack that the opponent throws out. Her Cat Slash can simply be down backed. You have to combo into it in order for it to do well,
Well, yes, combo extension seems to be the point of those moves, especially Cat Dash. Throwing out such moves raw tends to be inadvisable. Cat Claw isn't an overhead by the way, it hits mid.


You can't really combo into anything from her jumping attacks either. Her light has too little hitstun, medium takes too long to come out to be reliable, and her heavy is a knockdown. I feel like I'm climbing a mountain every time I fight with her right now.
Ah, that's a mistake I was making for a while too. In order to combo off jump-ins in this game, you need to buffer the follow-up while still in the air, doing the jump-in. For some weird reason it doesn't work if you wait until you hit the ground, the way you'd normally do in any other fighting game. Trying in training mode, Catwoman can indeed combo off her jumping light just fine. Medium comes out at an odd angle though, and heavy was a bit harder to time than I'm accustomed to with Green Lantern, although still doable.


The kicker? Solomon. Freaking. Grundy. He has super freaking armor on every special move he does. Those swamp hands? Yeah, super armor. His headbutt grab? Super armor. Every other move he does? Super armor. There has to be some kind of armor breaking move that can counter this crap because it's aggravating to try and range him to find out that he can just say "Oh hai there." *stomp* *combo into grabs* "Grappler weakness? BAH! We has none!"

/end rant :smallfurious:
Hm, you sure he's not meter burning to get that armor? I don't have time to pull him up and look at his move properties, but I saw a couple of Grundy players in a KOTH lobby last night, and while I didn't play them, they seemed to get that meter burn animation almost every time I saw them use an armored move.

As for breaking armor, traditionally the way to do that is multi-hitting moves. Most of the time armor only works for one hit, so if he takes more than that before his move connects, he will be interrupted. Though again, not having time to check Grundy, I can't be sure that's true for him.

[Zevox]

While in the games store buying SFxT, I also saw several Naruto games. The latest one seems to be Naruto Shipuuden Ninja Storm 3. I know nothing about the quality of these games, but they look interesting with the fancy ninja moves, story mode, and TBS aspects.

Anyone here has any opinions on the Naruto fighting games?
I'm afraid I can't help you there. I've never played them, as I'm not into Naruto. They do seem fairly popular, but whether that's because they're good or just because Naruto is popular, I couldn't say.

Anyway, I had some firsts in my Injustice matches tonight. First fights with people playing Killer Frost, Shazam, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and the Flash. The Killer Frost, Shazam, and Flash players were all novices that weren't hard to beat, but the Harley and Catwoman players were good. Both beat me, though I won a second match with the Catwoman player (albeit barely - another first tonight was when I used a clash to save my life and then managed to win that one, which had been close all throughout). Harley seems to have some good lows that lead into painful combos and was able to keep pressure on me pretty well, and Catwoman's Cat Dash was just nasty as a wakeup attack. Surprisingly good in neutral too - I did not realize it travels as far as it does, and she was able to catch me with it a few times that way. I was mostly able to fight back by abusing the Catwoman player's tendency to jump too much - Lantern's Might makes people regret that, especially now that I get consistent combos for at least 1/3 of a health bar off it if I have any meter. The Harley player though I never figured out well enough to do much more than take out her first life bar, and I'm a bit surprised I did even that much.

Also faced a pretty damn good Nightwing player. Made that one close, but I lost. His pressure seems pretty tough to escape, in both of his stances (in retrospect, I wish I had remembered this game has pushblock, even if it does cost a meter). He may be a difficult one as time goes on.

Very surprised that I'm not seeing more Batman players, honestly. I saw a few the first day I played online, but since then I've only seen one. I figured he'd be all over the place like Ryu and Ken in early SFxT online - he doesn't seem hard to use, and he's such a popular character overall. I honestly wonder why it isn't the case.

[MLai]

Hmm... watched Angry Joe review on Injustice, and I get the feeling that's the fighting game I should have bought. :smallannoyed:

1. 5 hrs long story mode.
2. Slower combat.
3. Good backgrounds instead of psychedelic flashing colors whose sole purpose is to give you epilepsy, nevermind distracting you from the fighters.
4. No huge hit sparks which blind you and hide the fighters from you. I bought the game to look at the fighters, not to look at hit sparks.

Capcom no longer makes fighters whose style I enjoy. SFxT is a good game mind you. I'll have some fun messing around with it. But I already know it's not as much value as I would have gotten with Injustice or maybe the Naruto game. I gotta stop buying Capcom fighters based solely on nostalgia.

[Komatik]

Yeah, SFxT looks horrible. So garish and just too damn busy visually. Plus the music is pretty bad.
Injustice, dunno. I don't like the grimdork design, or the character animation (though at least the attacks have some weight to them now which is a massive upgrade from Mortal "Swinging at empty air" Kombat 9). The stages look nice, but that's it, really.

IMHO, the best-looking fighter of the generation is still SF4. It does have some ugly character models, but overall it's just amazing. Semi-flashy, but still clean. Has very distinct hit/block/etc. sparks which are lacking in things like VF5. Plus the overall aesthetic just somehow feels whole. It's just cartoony/gamist enough to communicate everything abundantly clearly without those communication methods feeling out of place or too exaggerated. Just not many tone issues in it, as opposed to Tekken or Soul Calibur, or, to a far lesser extent, VF5.

[Zevox]

1. 5 hrs long story mode.
More around 3.5 hours, actually. I was really surprised by how short it was, actually - I think Mortal Kombat's was almost twice as long.


2. Slower combat.
You mean Injustice, or SFxT? I'd say Injustice is the faster of the two games.


3. Good backgrounds instead of psychedelic flashing colors whose sole purpose is to give you epilepsy, nevermind distracting you from the fighters.
:smallconfused: I have absolutely no idea how you get that impression of SFxT. I personally prefer its backgrounds to Injustice's, mostly because they are brighter and have more color to them, as opposed to Injustice's various shades of gray, brown, and black on most stages (with a tiny handful of exceptions like Atlantis, which tend to be the stages I pick the most). But "psychedelic" and "flashing" colors? Maybe on the pandora stage, though even there I'd say that's an exaggeration, but nowhere else.


4. No huge hit sparks which blind you and hide the fighters from you. I bought the game to look at the fighters, not to look at hit sparks.
Can't say I've noticed such a thing in either game, honestly. :smallconfused:


IMHO, the best-looking fighter of the generation is still SF4.
I much prefer BlazBlue there. Beautiful true 2D sprites, colorful characters, backgrounds, and attacks. Marvel 3 is up there too, at least outside of the numerous rather dark stages. It has some good colorful ones too though, like Asgard.

[Komatik]

You never see any Marvel stages though because lag > pretty. I was surprised how many great-looking stages it has. Apart from that... urk. Not a fan of epileptic lightshows.

[MLai]

SFxT: Currently watching replays to get a feel of the possible juggles in the game, and using Ryu/Ken in "story mode" to get used to the general gameplay.
Is it just my inexperience, or do Ryu/Ken seem to have less juggle opportunities as the others? I see ppl being juggled endlessly by the same character (without tagging), especially at corners. But do Ryu/Ken have the same? Are they able to "abuse," like hit a floater with MP, HP, special, another special? What are some of their easy/common tag juggles and alone juggles?

More around 3.5 hours, actually. I was really surprised by how short it was, actually - I think Mortal Kombat's was almost twice as long.
LOL that's still longer than the 15 minutes of total cutscenes that SFxT has. I know I didn't buy it for story mode, but I'm just remembering how much fun I had with story/campaign modes of other fighting games.

You mean Injustice, or SFxT? I'd say Injustice is the faster of the two games.
In that case, I think I'll look into Naruto Generations.

:smallconfused: I have absolutely no idea how you get that impression of SFxT. I personally prefer its backgrounds to Injustice's, mostly because they are brighter and have more color to them, as opposed to Injustice's various shades of gray, brown, and black on most stages
We have very opposite opinions of what constitutes good bgs in fighting games. Fighting games are the one place where I want drab or quiet backgrounds of brown and brown. Capcom has been trending towards more and more psychedelic and animated bgs ever since they moved to rendered bgs, just because they can.
SF4 bgs are their only rendered-bgs game which stayed sane, with the exception of the final stage but I'll give that a pass because it's the boss stage.
Decent SF4 stage example is the Jpnese shrine stage. That's the kind of stage I want to see. Atmospheric and detailed, but nothing to distract me from the fighting.
Worst SFxT stage example so far is the neon-lights trucks bg. WTF was Capcom smoking? I ****ing can't see **** because of all the blinking bouncing rainbow-colored lights across the entire stage.
I can only play this game by dialing my TV's color saturation way down.

Can't say I've noticed such a thing in either game, honestly. :smallconfused:
Maybe you didn't grow up on old school fighters?
You know the giant shield-shaped blue hit spark when you guard against an attack? In old games such as early Marvel VS games, that only happens if you push-block or is blocking some screen-filling attack. Now it happens with every normal block. I can tell when I'm blocking; I don't need a giant visual aid that prevents me from seeing my spacing and what the other guy is doing. It's overkill.

[Zevox]

SFxT: Currently watching replays to get a feel of the possible juggles in the game, and using Ryu/Ken in "story mode" to get used to the general gameplay.
Is it just my inexperience, or do Ryu/Ken seem to have less juggle opportunities as the others? I see ppl being juggled endlessly by the same character (without tagging), especially at corners. But do Ryu/Ken have the same? Are they able to "abuse," like hit a floater with MP, HP, special, another special? What are some of their easy/common tag juggles and alone juggles?
Ryu and Ken do have less ability to do solo juggle combos than many other characters, yes. Ryu can use his Ex donkey kick (I've never learned the proper name for it) to wallbounce and start a juggle that way, but off that I think his optimal combo is more a jumping heavy attack into some crouching attack into a shoryuken. Ken doesn't even have that - his combos beyond a few hits all revolve around tagging to his partner, either with a chain into launcher or a tag cancel. Both his heavy tatsu and heavy shoryuken are very good for tag cancels, however.

Once tagged in from an ally, both can juggle off their crouching medium punches. Just a couple of times midscreen (I usually see people just do crouch MP, crouch MK, special midscreen), several more times in the corner (ending in crouch HP into special, typically shoryuken for the most damage).


We have very opposite opinions of what constitutes good bgs in fighting games. Fighting games are the one place where I want drab or quiet backgrounds of brown and brown.
*shrug* Fair enough. Personally, I don't find that stage backgrounds are capable of distracting me from the fighting, as that really absorbs my full attention most of the time regardless, so I prefer something pretty to look at when I do look at it. While I tend to just use random stage select for actual fights, that's mostly because I just want to get into the game, and the stage doesn't actually affect the fight itself (except in Injustice and Smash Brothers). I do pick out colorful stages specifically when in training mode, though.


Worst SFxT stage example so far is the neon-lights trucks bg. WTF was Capcom smoking? I ****ing can't see **** because of all the blinking bouncing rainbow-colored lights across the entire stage.
Weird, I have exactly the opposite reaction to that stage. I don't like it because it changes its lighting, starting as an okay daylight stage, but then becoming a pretty dreary looking stage as the sun goes down and having only those lights for much color at night.

My favorite stages in SFxT would be the Jurassic Era Research Facility, Mishima Estate, and the one with a mammoth being chased by a hovercraft in the background (the name escapes me right now).


Maybe you didn't grow up on old school fighters?
I didn't, that's true. I really got into the genre back in 2010, when I picked up the BlazBlue games. Before that I played some, but mostly just button mashed. And really the only old ones I recall playing are early Mortal Kombat games, which I played on an arcade machine a local Pizza Hut had or as rentals. I hadn't even played any Street Fighter game until I rented SSF4 when I decided to try other fighters after playing BlazBlue for a while.


You know the giant shield-shaped blue hit spark when you guard against an attack?
No, actually, I can't say I've ever noticed that. I know that there's a blocking animation, which can be more noticeable in some games than others and with some characters than others (Vergil twirling his sword in UMvC3, Platinum turning her staff into a stop sign of sorts in BlazBlue), but I've never noticed sparks during it. Booting up SFxT quickly, I can see them now, but I can't say they seem to obscure anything to me. They're very small and very quick - it's easy for me to see why I've never noticed them before.

[MLai]

Ok, your "I didn't even notice" hit spark is my "This should only happen with push-blocks" hit spark.
Just for your ref, my ideal hit FX is found in VF series, where it's just a light source glow on the impact area of the character's skin if he gets hit hard, with no particle FX whatsoever such as sparks. I consider any particle FX outside of a spray of blood/sweat to be unnecessary relics of the 2D sprite era when comic-book-styled hit sparks made sense; no need for it now that we've moved to pre-rendered models even in 2D fighters.
For sprite based fighters like BlazBlue, sprite hit FX is still fine with me.

[Komatik]

VF is a tad too understated in the hitspark department, IMHO. The game already has very exaggerated light sources and strong colours in the background, which swings around too, so the hit/block effects really get lost overall. Counterhits less so, obviously, but even then.

AE sparks, though? <3 Flashy, distinct and big enough to make themselves known, but no more.
Same with the yellow blinking used for EX moves. Only what needs to be there, but what is there is abundantly clear.

SFxT? Dear god. "LOOK AT ME THINGS ARE HAPPENING PLEASE LOOK AT ME OOH THERE IS LIGHTNING FLASHY FLASHY FLASHY"
...geez, thanks for the epilepsy attack.

[MLai]

VF is a tad too understated in the hitspark department, IMHO. The game already has very exaggerated light sources and strong colours in the background, which swings around too, so the hit/block effects really get lost overall.
Which VF are you thinking of? VF backgrounds are universally understated AFAIK. Except for the WWE-like stage, but even that stage is muted compared to SFxT.
Basically what I'm saying is I don't need particle FX, because the fighters' body language is abundantly clear.

AE sparks, though? <3 Flashy, distinct and big enough to make themselves known, but no more.
What game is AE?

[Komatik]

Street Fighter 4 (or Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition Version 2012)
People usually call the different versions Vanilla, Super and AE (or vanilla AE / AE2012 if they want to distinguish patches)

[MLai]

I don't recall having any issues with extravagant particle FX while playing SSF4AE, and I did put plenty of hours into that game because I liked the feel of it. So I guess I agree with you even though I don't remember it exactly now. :smallsmile:

Kinda ****ed off that Lili's poison costume doesn't come standard. I refuse to buy it on principle.

[Wolf_Haley]

hitsparks in SFXT don't bug me much, but if you wanna see some ridiculous sparks look up Akatsuki Blitzkamph, the game is dope as hell but in the latest version they decide to spice the game up a bit to much in the visual department.

hitting up NCR this weekend, might only be entering UMVC3 official tournament wise but side tourneys are gonna be to sick, 98UM, NGBC, and Art of Fighting 3 Matches of Death here I come.

[Zevox]

Kinda ****ed off that Lili's poison costume doesn't come standard. I refuse to buy it on principle.
I think that's the only costume I did buy. Mostly because I don't much like Lili's default one. That big dress just looks a bit silly in a fight, and I never could manage to make recolors of it that I liked.

Anyway, wow, week long forum downtime there. I've still spent most of that playing Injustice. Been trying out a number of characters online now instead of just sticking to Green Lantern, trying to see who I'll like the most. I've gone through Black Adam, Killer Frost, Aquaman, and Raven now. Aquaman and Killer Frost I greatly enjoy. Aquaman's normals are pretty damn good, his combos easy and effective, and the shenanigans he can pull with that water shield are a lot of fun. Killer Frost, well, I can see why she might be one of the game's best characters now. 40%+ combos ending in a standing reset that's completely safe and leads into more 40%+ combos off either a low or overhead, costing only 1 meter per combo and not even being that hard to pull off. Damn, that's rough. Oh, and that slide being safe on block is nuts, makes the move so abuseable.

Black Adam I do enjoy playing, but don't think I'll play too often. A lot of his stuff is difficult to pull off, especially online. Raven, I'm not that big of a fan of. I think I'd like her more if she had that Dormmamu-style pillar move from her demon mode standard, but with demon mode having a fairly long startup, not lasting that long, and a moderate length cooldown between uses, I just can't use it as often as I'd like. And and without it she can't zone all that well other than to abuse the heck out of her 2/3 screen TK grab, which just gets dull, nor is she particularly good in close. So yeah, she's not for me.

I'm looking at Ares next, and then a few more, though past this point I'm getting into characters that are more long-shots for me. Shazam, Hawkgirl, and Sinestro, maybe a couple more that I'm even less sure I'll like. Still, the best way to be sure of who I'll like playing is to try them out. I did a similar thing with P4A before settling on Labrys as my main, who I never would have expected to play before the game came out, so you never know.

[MLai]

I think that's the only costume I did buy. Mostly because I don't much like Lili's default one. That big dress just looks a bit silly in a fight, and I never could manage to make recolors of it that I liked.
You're really tempting me to buy that costume (and only that one) now. I looked through the rest of the "DLC costumes" that are locked on my disc (lol saying that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth)... and yeah pretty much all of them are junk, or not as good as the SSF4 DLC costumes, except for this Lily Poison costume.

Watched the Sega Cup Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown tournie. Wow, so exciting. I absolutely love VF5FS heheh. Gentleman Thief is an American VF hero, but Fuudo the reigning Jpnese player is just a freakin' machine.

[Wolf_Haley]

I actully like a ton of the SFXT costumes, not gonna buy em though.

NCR was this weekend and while I was stuck spectatating and lost all my money matches it was still hella fun. P4 GFs were great and it was good to see an absolute slaughter int eh UMVC3 GFs. Also all the ****talk was too good, especially during my boy Vineeth *Aplogyman* match against Chrs G, Honzo Gonzo is now one of my favorite white people for keeping that "PS3!" chant going for five whole minutes.

[Zevox]

Well, played a lot of Ares today. And sheesh, he's rough. His mobility is terrible, his anti-air options poor, and most of his moves slow. Once he gets going he's a lot of fun - and pretty brutal between 40%+ meterless corner combos (and that's the easy stuff I came up with without putting too much effort into optimization!) and unblockable resets - but he feels like just getting him to work takes more effort than everyone else I've tried. Especially since he just can't do anything against jump-happy opponents with good air moves - I faced a Nightwing in particular that seemed able to jump against me all match and never suffer for it with how good his j.3 and jumping projectile are compared to Ares' anti-airs and air-to-airs. I might use him sometimes just for fun, but I don't think it'll be often.


You're really tempting me to buy that costume (and only that one) now. I looked through the rest of the "DLC costumes" that are locked on my disc (lol saying that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth)... and yeah pretty much all of them are junk, or not as good as the SSF4 DLC costumes, except for this Lily Poison costume.
Oh there are some others that I like. Asuka's third costume and Juri's second come to mind. I haven't bought them though, because I don't generally consider something like a costume to be worth paying extra for, even if it weren't on-disc. That Lili costume is the only time I've ever bought something like that.


NCR was this weekend and while I was stuck spectatating and lost all my money matches it was still hella fun. P4 GFs were great and it was good to see an absolute slaughter int eh UMVC3 GFs. Also all the ****talk was too good, especially during my boy Vineeth *Aplogyman* match against Chrs G, Honzo Gonzo is now one of my favorite white people for keeping that "PS3!" chant going for five whole minutes.
Sounds like you had a good time. Truth be told, the whole trash talk part would really put me off. That's one element of the FGC I just don't get, and it always makes me a bit uncomfortable when I hear it while watching footage from tournaments.

[Perkinz]

While I haven't played Catwoman beyond a couple of STAR Labs missions and thus can't really say where I feel she falls on the whole, I do feel like I should answer a couple of those...


Neither does Green Lantern, but his meter burn is very important for extending his combos.

Checking Catwoman in training mode real quick, her Cat Claws special's meter burn version grounbounces very similarly to GL's Lantern's Might, high enough to readily get 4H (the universal wallbounce move) after it. Although I see she can get that off of her Cat Dash anyway. I'd need to play around with it more than I have time to if I wanted to figure out whether it could be used to extend combos after getting that, unfortunately. Meter burning Cat Dash does seem like it would only be worth it for simple damage increase at a glance though.

Edit: Ah, found a use for Ex Cat Dash - it's the only way to get the crumple state off a juggle. Normal Cat Dash only works on a grounded opponent, Ex will if they're in the air too. Very handy for combo extension - though I've got admit, Catwoman's combos seem rather difficult. Took me a while to even land an Ex Cat Dash in a juggle.


Actually, most basic fireballs seem to be able to be ducked. I know for certain that Green Lantern, Sinestro, Aquaman, and Superman's all can be - although Supes has his sweeping heat vision that can't be. Her whip actually goes a little further than I expected, too, and I'm not sure what you mean about a contact point, as it seems to have a hitbox along its entire length.


Cat Stance heavy hits mid according to training mode, which means it would hit crouching characters.


Well, yes, combo extension seems to be the point of those moves, especially Cat Dash. Throwing out such moves raw tends to be inadvisable. Cat Claw isn't an overhead by the way, it hits mid.


Ah, that's a mistake I was making for a while too. In order to combo off jump-ins in this game, you need to buffer the follow-up while still in the air, doing the jump-in. For some weird reason it doesn't work if you wait until you hit the ground, the way you'd normally do in any other fighting game. Trying in training mode, Catwoman can indeed combo off her jumping light just fine. Medium comes out at an odd angle though, and heavy was a bit harder to time than I'm accustomed to with Green Lantern, although still doable.


Hm, you sure he's not meter burning to get that armor? I don't have time to pull him up and look at his move properties, but I saw a couple of Grundy players in a KOTH lobby last night, and while I didn't play them, they seemed to get that meter burn animation almost every time I saw them use an armored move.

As for breaking armor, traditionally the way to do that is multi-hitting moves. Most of the time armor only works for one hit, so if he takes more than that before his move connects, he will be interrupted. Though again, not having time to check Grundy, I can't be sure that's true for him.

Yeah, you're right. I have to admit that I was extremely frustrated when I posted that, and wasn't really thinking about her options that she might have available.

As far as EX Cat Dash goes, you can combo extend off of it, but only very, very minimally. Also, the game apparently auto-blocks you from doing more than one in a combo. If you try, the second dash doesn't come out until after the opponent lands.

From what I found, the EX Cat Dash only adds about 2% onto a standard combo, though I haven't tested it fully to see if it adds more on top of the easier version. The best I could come up with in training mode was this (It seems that notation has become kind of standardized with 1, 2, 3, and 4 being light, medium, heavy, and trait respectively, and that's what I'm using below):

j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - forward dash - f.2, d.3, 1 - 2,d.2xxEX Cat Dash - dash forward - d.2xxCat Stance - Cat Stance 3

Execution heavy, and timing difficult for 41% damage. Wheras this:

j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - b.3 (wallbounce) - j.3 - 1,1,2xxCat Stance - Cat Stance 3

was comparatively easy and netted 39% damage. For the record, you have to cancel the first hit of the 2 in that string for the cat stance 3 to connect. I suppose you could stick an EX Cat Dash after the 1,1,2 instead of cancelling into Cat Stance, but I'm unsure of the damage increase that you'd get from it. I'd estimate in the 43% range though.

I was kind of disappointed to see that the combo I'd managed to create was only very marginally better than a simple BnB for the cost of burning one meter. Though getting pummeled like that has some morale consequences for the other player, it doesn't strike me as being good meter management, especially with clashes figuring in so prominently in the late game.

One other possible use of EX Cat Dash - closing gaps. It covers huge amounts of the screen in a very short time. The downside is that it is extremely unsafe on block. If you manage to smack someone airborne with it though, you've got a full combo coming. Used properly, I think she'd have a real answer to people that get even a slight bit careless in their zoning.

EDIT - just tested this in training room. j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - b.3 (wallbounce) - j.3 - 1,1,2xxEX Cat Dash - dash forward - d.2xxCat Stance - Cat Stance 3 is 42% damage.

j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - b.3 (wallbounce) - j.3 - 1,1,2xxEX Cat Dash - dash forward - d.2xx4 is 44% damage with a maxed out trait. Seems I guessed right in the middle.

[MLai]

Oh there are some others that I like. Asuka's third costume and Juri's second come to mind.
Oh? I'll check again. I specifically checked Juri because I liked her SSF4 dlc costume (didn't buy it, but like it), and I don't remember seeing anything memorable with the SFxT alternates.

I haven't bought them though, because I don't generally consider something like a costume to be worth paying extra for, even if it weren't on-disc. That Lili costume is the only time I've ever bought something like that.
I got the SF4 pack of dlc costumes (all characters in the pre-SSF4 roster) but its price seemed somewhat reasonable after SSF4 came out.

Truth be told, the whole trash talk part would really put me off. That's one element of the FGC I just don't get, and it always makes me a bit uncomfortable when I hear it while watching footage from tournaments.
VF community never seems to trash-talk in the broadcasted tournies. That's a close-knit community where everyone begins and ends matches with a big smile. Since that's the only community I dabble in, I never realized the broader community's behavior is poor. Is it bad like X-box Live trolls?

[Zevox]

Yeah, you're right. I have to admit that I was extremely frustrated when I posted that, and wasn't really thinking about her options that she might have available.

As far as EX Cat Dash goes, you can combo extend off of it, but only very, very minimally. Also, the game apparently auto-blocks you from doing more than one in a combo. If you try, the second dash doesn't come out until after the opponent lands.

From what I found, the EX Cat Dash only adds about 2% onto a standard combo, though I haven't tested it fully to see if it adds more on top of the easier version. The best I could come up with in training mode was this (It seems that notation has become kind of standardized with 1, 2, 3, and 4 being light, medium, heavy, and trait respectively, and that's what I'm using below):

j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - forward dash - f.2, d.3, 1 - 2,d.2xxEX Cat Dash - dash forward - d.2xxCat Stance - Cat Stance 3

Execution heavy, and timing difficult for 41% damage. Wheras this:

j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - b.3 (wallbounce) - j.3 - 1,1,2xxCat Stance - Cat Stance 3

was comparatively easy and netted 39% damage. For the record, you have to cancel the first hit of the 2 in that string for the cat stance 3 to connect. I suppose you could stick an EX Cat Dash after the 1,1,2 instead of cancelling into Cat Stance, but I'm unsure of the damage increase that you'd get from it. I'd estimate in the 43% range though.

I was kind of disappointed to see that the combo I'd managed to create was only very marginally better than a simple BnB for the cost of burning one meter. Though getting pummeled like that has some morale consequences for the other player, it doesn't strike me as being good meter management, especially with clashes figuring in so prominently in the late game.

One other possible use of EX Cat Dash - closing gaps. It covers huge amounts of the screen in a very short time. The downside is that it is extremely unsafe on block. If you manage to smack someone airborne with it though, you've got a full combo coming. Used properly, I think she'd have a real answer to people that get even a slight bit careless in their zoning.

EDIT - just tested this in training room. j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - b.3 (wallbounce) - j.3 - 1,1,2xxEX Cat Dash - dash forward - d.2xxCat Stance - Cat Stance 3 is 42% damage.

j.2 - 3,3xxCat Dash - b.3 (wallbounce) - j.3 - 1,1,2xxEX Cat Dash - dash forward - d.2xx4 is 44% damage with a maxed out trait. Seems I guessed right in the middle.
Yeah, I've looked a bit more into Catwoman since then, due to going through Battle mode with everyone to unlock stuff for hero cards. You're right, getting that b.3 earlier in the combo is better in most cases, since it means more damage. It gets you fairly low damage scaling on its high damage and a follow-up j.3 with similarly low scaling.

As you said though, it's unsafe on block. But she has another option that isn't - Cat Claws. Apparently, despite what the frame data says, it is not punishable. I saw people on TestYourMight saying so, and tested it myself - a computer set to reversal sword spin (8 frame startup) with Deathstroke could not punish it on block. That's pretty definitive. And that's highly useful in a game where hitconfirming is as hard as it is in this one, especially online (I actually struggle with that with all my characters except Killer Frost...). With EX Cat Claws giving you a high enough groundbounce for b.3, that might be worth your meter after all.

For example: 33, Ex Cat Claws, b.3, j.3, 12, Cat Stance 3. 40%, easy, one meter. Add a jump-in 2 start for 43%. Gets the same damage off b12d3 (your low starter chain), too. 44% with a full trait ender.

And there's probably at least some use for Ex Cat Dash in combos. You could use it to set up a late-combo stage transition, after having already used your wallbounce even. For example, the above combo ended with Ex Cat Dash into stage transition on Themyscira is 47%, 50% with the jump-in 2. Not bad at all for 2 meters - especially since it carries into range of the transition from about mid-stage.

Or perhaps you might even end the combo early with Ex Cat Dash into a sweep or something, in order to keep enemy near you for a wakeup mixup (I've noticed that Catwoman's more damaging combo enders seem to put about a third to half-screen distance between her and her opponent, which seems bad for her to me). Or there's comboing off her overheads, which already put people into a juggle state right from the start, which messes with Cat Claws just as much as non-Ex Cat Dash.

Oh, but speaking of Ex Cat Dash to get in on people: it's a great wakeup move. I've only played a couple of Catwoman players online, but one was very good, and he kept catching me off-guard with that. The move seems to get invincibility if used as a wakeup, so it's damn good for that.


Oh? I'll check again. I specifically checked Juri because I liked her SSF4 dlc costume (didn't buy it, but like it), and I don't remember seeing anything memorable with the SFxT alternates.
*shrug* Just because I like them doesn't necessarily mean you will. Different tastes and all.


VF community never seems to trash-talk in the broadcasted tournies. That's a close-knit community where everyone begins and ends matches with a big smile. Since that's the only community I dabble in, I never realized the broader community's behavior is poor. Is it bad like X-box Live trolls?
I don't think that I would say that, no. But I get uncomfortable with anything that seems rude easily, unless it's very obviously sarcastic, so maybe it's just me.

[Wolf_Haley]

VF community never seems to trash-talk in the broadcasted tournies. That's a close-knit community where everyone begins and ends matches with a big smile. Since that's the only community I dabble in, I never realized the broader community's behavior is poor. Is it bad like X-box Live trolls?
Dude the VF community pops off pretty hard at times, not MVC2 level but pretty hard. Eh trash talk just feels like a part fo the scene, and the ability to put someone on blast if you feel like they're being a fraud is nice to have. Can it get out of hand sometimes? Yeah but it's understandbale why it happens seeing how back in the day for the most part the scene was well honestly a bunch of blacks, Dominicnas, and Mexicans from poor areas and pretty ghetto. It's chilled out a ton but it's still there. GOtta say though, me and OMGITZ Andre went in on each other and the crowd loved it, and when the crowd was chanting PS3 and SUPER DRAGON on top of all the popping off between East Coast and West Coast players the place gets mad hype.

Check Iplaywinner, Team Khaos, and Team Spooky for NCR uploads.

[MLai]

Dude the VF community pops off pretty hard at times, not MVC2 level but pretty hard. Eh trash talk just feels like a part fo the scene, and the ability to put someone on blast if you feel like they're being a fraud is nice to have. Can it get out of hand sometimes? Yeah but it's understandbale why it happens seeing how back in the day for the most part the scene was well honestly a bunch of blacks, Dominicnas, and Mexicans from poor areas and pretty ghetto. It's chilled out a ton but it's still there. GOtta say though, me and OMGITZ Andre went in on each other and the crowd loved it, and when the crowd was chanting PS3 and SUPER DRAGON on top of all the popping off between East Coast and West Coast players the place gets mad hype.
I've never seen it on vids of tourneys. And I've never felt it either, so I don't think it's ppl just putting on their best behavior due to the camera. Maybe it's due to the constant presence of guest players from Japan (during any significant tourney) that the atmosphere is so polite.
If you mean "pop off" simply as getting excited such as cheering, then yeah ofc that happens.
As for the scene, VF players aren't that ghetto. I don't know which scene you're talking about but these players need to be at least rich enough to regularly book plane tickets.

[Zevox]

Wow, finding a good fight in Injustice ranked today was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I've never seen so many awful players - including one that may just be the worst I've ever seen, a guy who just jumped and did crouching attacks when he landed next to you (two of the three of which on any given character are pretty much always unsafe, so...). He wasn't even doing jumping attacks mind you, just jumping forward until he got in close.

I only saw two decent players in about three hours of play time, an Aquaman player and a Catwoman player. Lost to both, though in the Aquaman player's case it was more because of a poor connection screwing me up. The Catwoman loss was legit though, and a good, close fight. (A tip Perkinz: if you're ever fighting a Green Lantern and block Lantern's Might, you can punish with Cat Dash. Got caught by that near the end of that match, which surprised me as I'm used to Lantern's Might being safe from the range I did it at. Not many have attacks that move them forward that much and can be comboed out of.)

Kinda drives home my choice of a main though. With all these bad players who jump constantly online, Green Lantern's Lantern's Might special is a godsend. Even on other characters with good anti-airs (Aquaman's d2, for instance), they take fairly good timing, and are tough to do online (I actually have more success doing air-to-air light or medium attacks instead). Lantern's Might though? Pretty quick startup, and if you're anywhere in the airspace about 1/3 of the screen in front of me when it comes out, you're caught, pure and simple. Deals with that crap very nicely, even when I don't have meter to combo off it.

[Perkinz]

I hear you on that one Zevox. Played several games of Injustice tonight. The notable ones were a Doomsday player and a Flash player.

Doomsday was rather annoying because of environment spam, but also his unblockable tackle move where he jumps into the air and shoulder charges the ground. It's punishable by a long shot if you manage to make it miss, but making it miss is challenging, especially when it's done point-blank. Maybe a dash forward? I haven't tried anything, and it's a bit late to really test anything in training. I'll look into it tomorrow or Thurs. Also - how does one deal with his trait? It seems any attempt you make to hit him ends in horrible, skull-crushing failure, and running seems risky at best.

The Flash player was interesting because he'd try to lure me into attacking and then punish me. I don't think he found me very funny when I started mixing in throws with my wakeup pressure. One moment I found entertaining is when he burned the 2 meter wallbounce to start a stage transition when I was pretty much done with my first health bar. He should've just finished his combo normally. Would've left me in worse position, he'd still have his meter, and the transition would've still been a threat. As it was, he reset it to neutral, spent 2 bars of meter for maybe 1% more HP, and took away his own momentum.

That said, they both were decent players, if a bit predictable, and I don't think they really could figure out how to deal with the low/overhead/throw mixup on wakeup.

I'm noticing that I'm starting to get more stage awareness, or maybe I'm recognizing when I'm in danger of getting pegged with a stage hazard sooner than I was before. I haven't had nearly as much problem with them recently. I'm also seeing a bit more consistency with my combos as well. I don't drop them nearly as often anymore.

One thing I still need to work on is my neutral game. I'm still a bit too reliant on catching my opponent sleeping to get that first big combo, and I don't like that. After that first hard knockdown, I usually have no issues keeping them guessing, but I need to figure out how to open up opponents rather than having them give me the opportunity. You can't rely on them making a mistake without you pressuring them into it.

[Zevox]

I hear you on that one Zevox. Played several games of Injustice tonight. The notable ones were a Doomsday player and a Flash player.

Doomsday was rather annoying because of environment spam, but also his unblockable tackle move where he jumps into the air and shoulder charges the ground. It's punishable by a long shot if you manage to make it miss, but making it miss is challenging, especially when it's done point-blank. Maybe a dash forward? I haven't tried anything, and it's a bit late to really test anything in training. I'll look into it tomorrow or Thurs. Also - how does one deal with his trait? It seems any attempt you make to hit him ends in horrible, skull-crushing failure, and running seems risky at best.
At this point, Doomsday is the character I find by far the most annoying. And yeah, it's exactly the two abilities you named there that do it. That Gamma Crush knock-off that tracks if he meter burns it (and in my experience most Doomsdays spend their meter on little else) and is unblockable is just rage-inducing. You can backdash - or yes, forward dash, or in some cases avoid it with a move that moves you forward (I did this when trying out Sinestro the other day, his b1 worked for it) - but the timing required is pretty precise on the tracking version, since if you try to do it too early the tracking will adjust for it, but of course there's also the worry about doing it too late. Online naturally exacerbates this due to the input delay, making that one of the most abuseable moves online. The best counter to it I've used it honestly the armor a b3 and punish, but you still eat the damage if you do that, which sucks.

And his trait... ugh. Attacks on him while that's active are honestly punishable on hit due to how much it reduces his hitstun, and unlike typical armor it actually reduces the damage he takes to a negligable amount too. So you basically have to try and run away from him or block him if he gets close - but he has that unblockable move and can just throw you instead as well. It basically gives him completely control of the match for a little while, because for a time, you can't fight back without getting wrecked.


The Flash player was interesting because he'd try to lure me into attacking and then punish me. I don't think he found me very funny when I started mixing in throws with my wakeup pressure. One moment I found entertaining is when he burned the 2 meter wallbounce to start a stage transition when I was pretty much done with my first health bar. He should've just finished his combo normally. Would've left me in worse position, he'd still have his meter, and the transition would've still been a threat. As it was, he reset it to neutral, spent 2 bars of meter for maybe 1% more HP, and took away his own momentum.
Yeah, there's a nice bit of tactics to stage transition use that way - particularly since if you don't want to use on, you have to forgo the highly damaging option of using b3 wallbounce in your combos when many characters normally do. That's pretty much why I'm not bothered by those the way I am by most interactables.


I'm noticing that I'm starting to get more stage awareness, or maybe I'm recognizing when I'm in danger of getting pegged with a stage hazard sooner than I was before. I haven't had nearly as much problem with them recently. I'm also seeing a bit more consistency with my combos as well. I don't drop them nearly as often anymore.
I pretty much got the interactables memorized rather quickly myself, and at this point assume that if my opponent is near one, he's probably going to use it. I still get hit by them a lot though, because just like Doomsday's unblockable move, the only way to avoid most of them is a precisely-timed backdash, which is hard at best online. I try to get people to turn them off by setting my own to be off on the stage select, but most either don't notice or don't want to turn them off, and they always stay on unless both players switch them off :smallfrown: . Really wish they'd at least turn them off if the player who voted to do so has his stage chosen.

And I need to get going to work. Will probably have a reply to that last paragraph later though.

[Wolf_Haley]

Another way to avoid them is to MB a B/F+3 to armor though and punish, and don't forget you can stuff the interactable or force them to brun meter to armor it.

Also about the VF Scene it is pretty ghetto and cost of tickets has nothing to do with it seeing how most of the top players are sponsored. And popping off menas more than getting hype, alot of the time it means going off on someone and putting time on blast.

Jedopossum *Long time meber of SRK* has been doing a ton of work creating training modes and hacking into old arcade games, his latest project is hacking into the old MVC2 board and he's found some interesting things, such as how easy it is to tweak frame data for the game. Could lead to an interesting experiment.

Also if you wanna see a really hype tournament, lok up UNIB Over the World 3V3, a really great team torunament put together by French BRead *The makers of Melty* for Under Night in Birth.

[Zevox]

One thing I still need to work on is my neutral game. I'm still a bit too reliant on catching my opponent sleeping to get that first big combo, and I don't like that. After that first hard knockdown, I usually have no issues keeping them guessing, but I need to figure out how to open up opponents rather than having them give me the opportunity. You can't rely on them making a mistake without you pressuring them into it.
Yeah, that's why you need to get some matches with good opponents in. Gotta learn what works as far as getting in and putting on the pressure.

By the way, have you been using Catwoman's low whip? I don't think I've seen even the couple of good Catwoman players I ran into using it, and it seems like it'd be a great tool to harass people from a distance. Pretty unsafe on block, sure, but from that range you're usually getting a projectile punish at most, and it is actually longer range than her regular whip special and is an untechable knockdown.


Another way to avoid them is to MB a B/F+3 to armor though and punish, and don't forget you can stuff the interactable or force them to brun meter to armor it.
Yeah, but unlike Doomsday's gamma crush move, you can't guarantee that you'll be in range of your opponent when he throws an interactable to hit with an armored move. Especially if you play characters like Black Adam, whose b3 doesn't move him forward at all and f3 doesn't move more than a character length or so. And they tend to come out faster than Doomsday's move as well, so you have less time to react - which becomes even less online thanks to the input delay.

The big frustration I have with them honestly is that they seem like easy damage for whoever uses them. Unless you're playing a character without super strength most of them are full-screen, tracking, unblockable projectiles that deal 16-20% damage (usually 20%). Some of them are even bigger, huge attacks that cover most of the screen when used (the turbine on the left side of Ferris Air Hangar, for example, which is even reusable). And even if you armor a move to punish, you still eat that damage (which makes armoring a move through it not viable at all if you're within 20% of losing your current health bar), and actually avoiding them is pretty difficult unless you're extremely good at timing backdashes to get those few invincible frames at the right moment. It's a big reward for little to no risk most of the time, and that makes it feel seriously unbalanced.


Jedopossum *Long time meber of SRK* has been doing a ton of work creating training modes and hacking into old arcade games, his latest project is hacking into the old MVC2 board and he's found some interesting things, such as how easy it is to tweak frame data for the game. Could lead to an interesting experiment.
Huh, neat. Could he actually do anything with it that would end up available to the public, or is it just likely to be confined to whichever arcade cabinet he's hacking?

[Wolf_Haley]

YOu dash cancel the MB B/F+3, with most chracters this should get you in range to punish with something or get pressure started. Interactables are strong but nowhere close to overpowered. Konqurr uplaodeda tutorial on how to deal with them, check it out

http://testyourmight.com/threads/punishing-interactables-in-injustice-gods-among-us-by-konqrr.31240/

And about Doomsday's Falling Charge move Pig of the Hut uploaded a vid showing ways to punish that move pretty hard

http://testyourmight.com/threads/video-showing-ways-to-deal-with-doomsday-by-pig-of-the-hut.31520/

It's discussed int he comments but Pig forgot about Green Arrows Up Arrow special punishes that move free and gives him a huge combo oppurtunity.

Usually anything Jedopossum does he shares the tech and how to get it to work on any board/emulator. Check the MVC2 section of Shoryuken.

[Zevox]

YOu dash cancel the MB B/F+3, with most chracters this should get you in range to punish with something or get pressure started. Interactables are strong but nowhere close to overpowered. Konqurr uplaodeda tutorial on how to deal with them, check it out

http://testyourmight.com/threads/punishing-interactables-in-injustice-gods-among-us-by-konqrr.31240/

And about Doomsday's Falling Charge move Pig of the Hut uploaded a vid showing ways to punish that move pretty hard

http://testyourmight.com/threads/video-showing-ways-to-deal-with-doomsday-by-pig-of-the-hut.31520/

It's discussed int he comments but Pig forgot about Green Arrows Up Arrow special punishes that move free and gives him a huge combo oppurtunity.
Yeah, I've seen both of those videos. Forgot about dash-canceling armored bounce moves, and that is a nice additional option I suppose, but it's still hardly a universal one. And at the end of the day, it still means you eat the damage against interactables unless you get a well-timed backdash.

Interesting that forward dash actually seems to work better against Doomsday's gamma crush than backdash though. I still expect that to be hard online, but maybe it'll make that one easier on me at least. Guess I'll have to see.

And yep, tonight's games, same story as the last. Tons of bad players, only a couple of decent ones. One of the decent ones surprisingly being a Bane player, which is about the second or third rarest character to see online (after only Cyborg and maybe Luthor). Unfortunately I lost to him, and can't help but blame it on interactables. Early in the match he took off 40% from me by chucking two of those in a row from full screen, covering him while he was in venom withdrawl to boot. I did not know that Striker Island had a whole stack of interactable barrels to chuck right next to each other like that. Given how close it was in the end, I can't help but feel that with that extra 40% health and the chance to attack him during that withdrawl period, I'd have most likely won.

He was otherwise pretty legit though, actually mixing me up with lows and overheads, doing real combos, and being careful about his venom use. So, mixed bag of a fight. Really wish I could get guys like him to turn off interactables so we could have a real, normal match, but so far no one has done that even when I wait a moment on the stage select screen to try and get them to notice I'm doing so...

Edit: Played a little more tonight, and after getting the hero card unlock for 100 online wins as GL, I decided to switch to Killer Frost for a while. I really need an answer to jumping opponents with her. Her d2 seems to be her best bet for an anti-air from what I can see, but it gets stuffed almost every time I try it. Might need to resort to something silly like an armored b3 if this keeps up. Or just jump a lot myself and go for air-to-airs, but I feel stupid doing that knowing there's no jump-blocking in this game...

[Perkinz]

Yeah, that's why you need to get some matches with good opponents in. Gotta learn what works as far as getting in and putting on the pressure.

By the way, have you been using Catwoman's low whip? I don't think I've seen even the couple of good Catwoman players I ran into using it, and it seems like it'd be a great tool to harass people from a distance. Pretty unsafe on block, sure, but from that range you're usually getting a projectile punish at most, and it is actually longer range than her regular whip special and is an untechable knockdown.

I haven't really tested it at length, but the range I remember it having seems like it would be right in jump range, which makes it a risky move by definition. It'd be a great move to use sparingly to catch them sleeping, but not one that you could use as a poking tool overall. Then again, with your description, it sounds like it has a pretty good range. I'm going to test it in a second. I'll let you know what I find.

EDIT - just tested the range on the whip. It has a really, really far range. We're talking anywhere from 66-75% of the screen distance. I wouldn't say it's a poke, but I would say that it's a valid move to throw out at a relatively long distance if properly spaced. I'll need to test and see how much ground you can gain afterward tomorrow after work, but a quick forward dash might get you in pressure range, and it might be a way to open up stubbornly defensive opponents. It might be able to punish certain ill-timed projectiles as well.

[Zevox]

I haven't really tested it at length, but the range I remember it having seems like it would be right in jump range, which makes it a risky move by definition. It'd be a great move to use sparingly to catch them sleeping, but not one that you could use as a poking tool overall. Then again, with your description, it sounds like it has a pretty good range. I'm going to test it in a second. I'll let you know what I find.
I was testing it earlier, and it reaches more or less completely across the distance between the pillars in the center of Themyscira. I'm fairly certain that's further than jump distance. Granted though, with how much people online right now jump, you definitely don't want to do it against someone unless you're sure they're not jump-happy, just in case they are close enough for that.

[Perkinz]

I was testing it earlier, and it reaches more or less completely across the distance between the pillars in the center of Themyscira. I'm fairly certain that's further than jump distance. Granted though, with how much people online right now jump, you definitely don't want to do it against someone unless you're sure they're not jump-happy, just in case they are close enough for that.

Even if they are jump happy, that puts them right in Catwoman's wheelhouse. The more in your face she is, the happier she gets. If you close the distance yourself, you've made her job that much easier.

[Zevox]

Ugh, I think I might be souring on Injustice. My matches tonight did nothing but expose tons of things I do not like, and emphasize those I already knew I didn't. Interactables. NRS's input timing. So many moves that whiff on crouching characters. The sheer amount of space Superman's heat vision covers. Shazam's spinning charge move being an overhead. Solomon Grundy's armored grab that soaks multiple hits and moves him across half the screen in relatively short order. Projectiles that hit overhead and low, but never interact with each other. The way in-close fights just tend to devolve into mashing b1 because doing anything slower will probably get you hit by your opponent's b1 and your standing 1 will whiff on crouching. Most crossups becoming exponentially less likely to work if the opponent just crouches, which should really make them more vulnerable to it, not less. The way the end-of-round bounce and clashes favor keepaway characters by putting them at the distance they want. Doomsday's move that hits high and then low in rapid succession, without even any visual indication that it does so or when. Doomsday's splash. Doomsday in general, really.

Hell, even with my own main, Green Lantern, I'm beginning to hate how potent his Lantern's Might move is. I'm really beginning to think it should have just been an anti-air and combo tool, because people needing to block at a moment's notice any time they're within that much of a distance of him or eat a full combo is just ridiculous.

Yeah, maybe it's just me feeling salty tonight, but I'm really getting the urge to just go back to other fighting games. Even Marvel 3 never feels as cheap as some of the things in Injustice do to me right now, and that game is nuts.

[Wolf_Haley]

I hate to be blunt, but alot fo that sounds like early bitching that will go away the more familiar witht he game you get.

Walking Corpse is only 3 Hits of armor for Grundy, has a unique running animation, and is pretty unsafe if not Walking Corpse Cancelled

Shazam is pretty butt so he kind of needs that overhead Psycho Crusher

If start of the round after one life bar was lost the keepaway characters would be screwed

Doomsday is kind of dumb I can't lie

If GLs GL's Might wasn't so strong that charaacter would get his **** pushed in hard. His mobility is butt and alot of his attacks and strings are bad for dealing with people within certain ranges ho aren't dumb enough to run staraight into Might.

[Zevox]

I hate to be blunt, but alot fo that sounds like early bitching that will go away the more familiar witht he game you get.
Maybe, assuming all these things don't make me decide I no longer want to get more familiar with the game. I've been seriously tempted to rage-quit a couple of times now - and not even because I care about my record (I don't), but because I feel a need for an outlet for those frustrations. That has never happened to me before, not even in Marvel 3's online (and I can get pretty salty playing Marvel 3 online at times).

And honestly, part of it is the online. It seemed playable enough at first (well, once I learned about the hold R2 to meter burn consistently thing), but the more I play, the less playable it seems. Now that I'm trying to do things that require a bit more precision, like anti-airing with anything other than Lantern's Might, that input delay is just becoming a killer. Or punishing anything that isn't stupidly negative on block - by the time my mind registers that I have the opportunity and what move I could use to do it, my window has passed, mostly because of that input delay effectively shortening that window.

...and honestly, I think I'm done with Injustice. I had further replies to the rest of your post written up, but I was playing some more today before posting them, and I've come to the realization that at this point, I'm not having fun. Not playing the awful players that I beat with ease, certainly not playing the people that (whether they're good or not and whether they beat me or not) abuse things that I can't stand, and not even playing the rare people that definitely understand what they're doing and I find myself respecting whether I win or lose. Between the problems with the online and the way things that I really don't like about the game just keep piling up, I don't think Injustice is worth my time anymore.

Oh well, I suppose two and a half weeks of entertainment isn't a bad value for a video game, even if I soured on it in the end. Think tomorrow I'll switch back to BlazBlue or Persona 4 Arena for my nightly online games - haven't played either of them in a while, and they're my real favorites of the genre. I just hope their online isn't completely dead at this point - though I do have both the 360 and PS3 versions of P4A now, so that should help there.

[Wolf_Haley]

Alot of it sounds like problems with online, can't help you with that seeing how I never play online unless it's GGPO or MVC2.

[Zevox]

Alot of it sounds like problems with online, can't help you with that seeing how I never play online unless it's GGPO or MVC2.
Yeah, it's a definite issue. The way it prevents punishing so many things especially is very frustrating.

Of course, I can put up with problematic online for a game I really enjoy - Marvel 3 being the defining example of this, although its online would truly be unplayable if it weren't for the lag simulator function in its training mode - but I'm just not enjoying Injustice that much. Not with things like the interactables and Doomsday around, or any number of other little things that bug or annoy me.

Still, maybe I'll give it another go later on, once the rush of early online players dies down. Most of the people who don't get really into the genre seem to leave a fighting game's online after the first month or two at most, and that might help the online overall by lessening server load or something. If not though... eh.

[Wolf_Haley]

www.twitch.tv/FinestKO

Norcal Install stream, come watch me get extremely salty after my losses in Aquapazza, I'm going by Lord Raptor. And let me know how my commentarry was for Injsutice.

[Zevox]

www.twitch.tv/FinestKO

Norcal Install stream, come watch me get extremely salty after my losses in Aquapazza, I'm going by Lord Raptor. And let me know how my commentarry was for Injsutice.
Sheesh, that's a lot of hours of footage. I don't know the first thing about Aquapazza either, so I don't know if I'll watch that part. I'll see about watching the Injustice and Persona parts over the next couple of days though. Thanks for posting it :smallsmile: .

Speaking of Injustice though, despite what I said before, I have played it these past two days. For some reason I got the urge to play Ares yesterday, so I did. It helped, somewhat. Ares is very satisfying to play, because while he can be difficult to make work, when he does get his stuff going, he's absolutely brutal. High damage combos into unblockable resets all around. And his combos are just tough enough that it's satisfying just to land them, but just easy enough to be doable online, too.

Still, I do run across matches that remind me why I wanted to just give the game up a few days ago. Doomsday, Superman, and Grundy have the ability to tick me off like no other characters in any other fighting games I've played. As do interactables, especially when someone picks a stage with a respawning one (Watchtower is the worst there, but there are a fair few others) and abuses them as much as possible. Worst of all is if they're playing one of those three while they're doing it. I had a few games with a Superman player who actually wasn't bad today, but I came away from them (even the one I won) just hating the game, because of both the character's abilities and the way the player always picked Watchtower and used interactables whenever he got the chance.

I'd say I have a love/hate relationship with the game, but it's really more of a "this is fairly fun"/hate thing honestly. Which still makes me question whether I should keep playing it. We'll see how it goes.

I did bring out BlazBlue and put in some time in training mode with it anyway though. Didn't go online yet, as I'm badly out of practice, and I really need to figure some stuff out with Platinum anyway. I decided to switch to maining her last time I played the game, but didn't learn much more than a few combos at the time, since I was just playing it for a few days before the big SFxT patch hit.

[Wolf_Haley]

Check out Aquapazza, it's a really fun game. Also check the FinestKO youtube page for other NCI related things.

EDIT: Worse part of NCR for me? Running into Spooky and telling him we're playing Melty Blood in our room, he gets all excited and comes with me to the room but Melty isn't setup and Mizuki *The guy who owns the laptop and runner of Tournament of Legends for ST* is conked out, Spooky says he'll be back later after playing some Blazgreen, we get Melty setup but Spooky never comes back. Eternal Sadnness.

[Airk]

BlazBlue (Extend) online is still pretty active on both Xbox and PS3; Well, ranked, not so much, but plenty of player match rooms, generally. P4A seemed a bit slow last time I was there, but that might've just been the time.

How do you play Aquapazza? Is it a Japan PS3 release? Or...? (Literally, I know OF the game, but since it never got/probably will never get a domestic release, I have no clue even what platform it's on.)

[Wolf_Haley]

It's Japan only, you ahve to import it and seeing how PS3 is region free it doesn't matter.

[Cogwheel]

Wolf_Haley: If you play Melty Blood (assuming it's AACC on the PC), we should get some matches going. I'm awful at it, but having another person to play against would be good.

[Wolf_Haley]

I don't have a computer nor internet access right now, currently in Job Corp for the next couple of months. If you want more people to play against though hit up Meltybread.com and the #MBAA IRC on irc.mizuumi.net.

[Cogwheel]

I don't have a computer nor internet access right now, currently in Job Corp for the next couple of months. If you want more people to play against though hit up Meltybread.com and the #MBAA IRC on irc.mizuumi.net.

Ah, alright. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

[BRC]

for those playing Injustice, me and my friends (okay, just me, but my friends approve) have come up with a highly specific lingo concerning Superman.

Superman=Soup.
A Superman who spams the Heat Vision= Soup that is too hot.
A Superman who does not use Heat Vision= Gazpatcho.
If you get angry after losing to a Superman= Salty Crackers (like the type that one might eat with Soup).
If somebody loses AS Superman and gets mad= Salty Soup.
Regime Superman= Soup Nazi.
Overly Cautious Superman OR Beating Superman as Hawkgirl= Chicken Soup.
Beating Superman as Batman= Fly in the Soup.
Beating Superman as Nightwing= Heir in the Soup.
Beating Superman as the Joker= This Soup Tastes Funny.
Beating Superman as Cyborg= Canned Soup.
Beating Superman as Doomsday= Stone Soup.
Beating Superman as Flash= Soup on the Go.
Beating Aquaman as Superman= Seafood Gumbo.
Beating Superman as Aquaman=Watery Soup.
Beating Superman as Bane= Beef Stew.

If they ever put Poison Ivy or Swamp Thing in the game, then we can add "Soup or Salad".

[Zevox]

Check out Aquapazza, it's a really fun game.
It may very well be, but with no international release, there's not much I can do with it. I'd need to look things up online just to do something as simple as navigate the menus, and I doubt I'd get much online competition even if it is possible to play Japanese games online here in the states.

Same situation for Melty Blood, and probably a number of other fighting games I've never even heard of. Which is why I was worrying earlier about the lack of a NA BlazBlue CP announcement - I really don't want BlazBlue to end up in that boat as well. :smallfrown:


BlazBlue (Extend) online is still pretty active on both Xbox and PS3; Well, ranked, not so much, but plenty of player match rooms, generally. P4A seemed a bit slow last time I was there, but that might've just been the time.
That's similar to my experience when I last played Extend back in January - ranked was barren as all hell, but there were usually a half dozen to a dozen lobbies (though how many had a decent connection to me could be another matter, sadly). I do wish there were people playing ranked though, I'm not a big fan of waiting through three or four matches of spectating every time I lose (which was almost always, since the only people still playing Extend online seem to be extremely good at it).

P4A I haven't played since a few months after it came out, but it seemed to be going that direction as well even then. Which really saddens me, as I love that game. Wish it could have the kind of popularity Marvel 3 and SFxT have for their online (I've never had any trouble finding matches in those, even more than a year after each came out).


for those playing Injustice, me and my friends (okay, just me, but my friends approve) have come up with a highly specific lingo concerning Superman.
*snickers*

[Cogwheel]

PC Melty Blood, at least, is borderline impossible to get over in Japan as well. AACC, anyway.

They bundled it in as a pre-order bonus for some DVD and nothing else, I think? Classic Japanese indie issues, or "help how do I distribution".

[Airk]

That's similar to my experience when I last played Extend back in January - ranked was barren as all hell, but there were usually a half dozen to a dozen lobbies (though how many had a decent connection to me could be another matter, sadly). I do wish there were people playing ranked though, I'm not a big fan of waiting through three or four matches of spectating every time I lose (which was almost always, since the only people still playing Extend online seem to be extremely good at it).

Make your own 3 man lobby, problem solved.

[Starsign]

So among fighting games, who here plays Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution for the PS2? It's the first game I ever got for my PS2 and it's one of my favorite fighting games I've ever played.

For those who HAVE played any game in the series, has anyone ever made the attempt to use Akira? (aka the guy you usually see on the covers whose fighting style is amazingly difficult, even in the Virtua Fighter series)

[Wolf_Haley]

MBAACC has a translantion *Fan one that is* and Aquapzza is really easy to navigate, most of the menus are in english. Plus both have really good wikis on mizuumi.

EDIT: Been playing VF since VF4, Akira's difficulty is overstated outside of the Just Frame on Knee and Shoulder, you can get by without those two moves for awhile. Kage ont he other hand, is pretty difficult once people realise DF+P is easy to blow up.

[Airk]

I think at this point, most Virtua Fighter fans have moved on to VF5: Final Showdown.

Which I own, but have yet to play, because fighting games take too much time. -_-

[BRC]

A friend of mine had an excellent addition to the previous list.

Beating Superman as Killer Frost= Chile.

[Zevox]

Make your own 3 man lobby, problem solved.
I suppose so. I'm impatient though, so I never think about that, always just going to find what's already available.


Aquapzza is really easy to navigate, most of the menus are in english.
Really? Must admit, that really surprises me. Still, my only real way to play fighting games is online, and I can't imagine a game that's never been released outside Japan has much of an online community I could play against, if that's even possible at all.

So, Injustice. The first DLC character, Lobo, is now officially out. Haven't bothered picking him up myself - I've no attachment to him as a character, and the trailer for him didn't leave me thinking I'd like playing him. I've already played one person using him online, but he clearly had little more idea what to do with him than I did, so I didn't learn much from it.

Supposedly there was going to be a balance patch today as well, and there was an update I had to install to play today, but I don't know if it actually did anything. The one thing I'd heard they definitely wanted to patch out, Ares' unblockable reset off his b23, was not changed. Nor were the frame data errors on multi-hit moves addressed. So yeah, don't know if that update actually did anything beyond distribute Lobo's data so you can play against him online even if you don't buy him.

Speaking of DLC characters though, the cat's out of the bag on those. Lobo, Batgirl, Zod, and Scorpion (MK). Been rumors around for a while, and Batgirl being officially confirmed (http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/injustice-gods-among-us/thumb/7/70/Batgirlherowmkjpg-5e9f70.jpg/468px-Batgirlherowmkjpg-5e9f70.jpg) as the second pretty much means those rumors were true. Yeah, don't think I'll be getting any of them. I suppose there's always the possibility that their gameplay will surprise me and look so fun that I have to try them, but I wouldn't bet on it, and I can be pretty sure it won't happen with Scorpion since I've never used him in MK. A pity - I can think of plenty of DC characters I'd like to see and might just buy just out of initial interest in the character, assuming I stick with Injustice. Oh well, saves me money I suppose.

[Airk]

I suppose so. I'm impatient though, so I never think about that, always just going to find what's already available.

/shrug. Just do it when you would be "training" since you train while waiting for opponents.

Of course, you could also consider getting friends who play. ;)



Really? Must admit, that really surprises me.

It's actually super normal. Menus in many, many Japanese games are in english. I don't really know why.



Supposedly there was going to be a balance patch today as well,

For serious? Holy crap. If that's true, whatever minor interest I had in this game, it is now gone. You CAN'T do a meaningful "balance patch" on a game that hasn't even been out for a whole month. People don't know ---- about how the game works yet.



A pity - I can think of plenty of DC characters I'd like to see and might just buy just out of initial interest in the character, assuming I stick with Injustice.

Like who? I feel like they've already used up all 5 characters that anyone outside of a small niche cares about in the DC universe... (Okay, maybe there are 8, if I'm generous, but seriously.)

[Zevox]

Of course, you could also consider getting friends who play. ;)
I've tried, but my one friend who likes the genre gets very little free time these days. He did pick up Extend last year, but hasn't done much with it to my knowledge. We keep trying to get schedule a night to play Extend and 3rd Strike (which I picked up entirely to play with him) online, but for various reasons it keeps not happening.


For serious? Holy crap. If that's true, whatever minor interest I had in this game, it is now gone. You CAN'T do a meaningful "balance patch" on a game that hasn't even been out for a whole month. People don't know ---- about how the game works yet.
I don't think it was supposed to be a big one like most fighting games do when they rebalance things, just tweaks to a few things, like the Ares unblockable reset that I mentioned. But as I said, it doesn't look like even that has changed, so it may well be that there wasn't one after all. Might be it was just a rumor, but if so it's one that was widely believed over on TestYourMight, the competitive forum for NetherRealm titles.

Edit: Okay, apparently there will be patch notes (http://www.testyourmight.com/threads/official-patch-notes-for-injustice-gods-among-us-coming-soon.32009/) released soon, but there's "not too much balance-wise." So the update did something, but apparently not what people expected it to do. So, no clue at this point.


Like who? I feel like they've already used up all 5 characters that anyone outside of a small niche cares about in the DC universe... (Okay, maybe there are 8, if I'm generous, but seriously.)
Martian Manhunter, Atrocitus, Larfleeze, Zatanna, Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Starfire, and Firestorm, just to name the ones that come to mind quickly.

Quite a few of those are from watching various DC cartoons (Justice League, Teen Titans, Young Justice); Atrocitus, Larfleeze, and Firestorm are because I actually read some comics, mostly Green Lantern ones.

In the category of "never had a chance of happening anyway," I could also add Mera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mera_%28comics%29), another I like from actual comic-reading.

[MLai]

So among fighting games, who here plays Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution for the PS2? It's the first game I ever got for my PS2 and it's one of my favorite fighting games I've ever played.
For those who HAVE played any game in the series, has anyone ever made the attempt to use Akira? (aka the guy you usually see on the covers whose fighting style is amazingly difficult, even in the Virtua Fighter series)
Do you have a PS3? A broadband connection?
If you do, then you really owe it to yourself to get VF5FS. It's available as an affordable Full Game Download from PS Network. There is also a not-ripoff DLC where you can buy customizable costumes for all the characters. That freakin' mode is a game in itself.
The mode I like best on VF5FS? The replay mode, where you can watch everyone's uploaded online matches.
Sadly the game doesn't have a quest mode like VF4EVO.
Akira is not that hard to use, for anyone willing to sit in training mode for a while.
Also, if you like VF game, go to VFDC and get to know the community a bit. And go watch the major tourneys that have been uploaded online. I feel if you know the game it's really exciting to watch.

[Airk]

I've tried, but my one friend who likes the genre gets very little free time these days. He did pick up Extend last year, but hasn't done much with it to my knowledge. We keep trying to get schedule a night to play Extend and 3rd Strike (which I picked up entirely to play with him) online, but for various reasons it keeps not happening.

I actually mean like...online friends. That go in the friends list. Having a bunch of them who play the games you play means it's easier to find games.



I don't think it was supposed to be a big one like most fighting games do when they rebalance things, just tweaks to a few things, like the Ares unblockable reset that I mentioned. But as I said, it doesn't look like even that has changed, so it may well be that there wasn't one after all. Might be it was just a rumor, but if so it's one that was widely believed over on TestYourMight, the competitive forum for NetherRealm titles.

So really a "bug fix that affects balance because some **** is broken" patch. And today's update was PROBABLY to add the ability to play AGAINST the DLC characters.



Martian Manhunter, Atrocitus, Larfleeze, Zatanna, Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Starfire, and Firestorm, just to name the ones that come to mind quickly.

Quite a few of those are from watching various DC cartoons (Justice League, Teen Titans, Young Justice); Atrocitus, Larfleeze, and Firestorm are because I actually read some comics, mostly Green Lantern ones.

Right. I think the only person I've even heard of in that list is Starfire. (And Atrocitus, because I read a forum thread where someone was like "Who the heck is the ugly guy who looks like Red Skull but isn't because this is DC?") Okay, I guess I'm aware of Martian Manhunter too, but he always seemed kinda...dumb. So mostly that confirms my earlier feelings I guess. I just don't think DC's "B List" is very compelling.

[BRC]

Right. I think the only person I've even heard of in that list is Starfire. (And Atrocitus, because I read a forum thread where someone was like "Who the heck is the ugly guy who looks like Red Skull but isn't because this is DC?") Okay, I guess I'm aware of Martian Manhunter too, but he always seemed kinda...dumb.
Martian Manhunter is not Dumb, he just speaks in a monotone (At least in the cartoons I've seen). He's a superstrong, flying, telepathic, telekinetic shapeshifter who can also phase through matter and turn invisible. Me and my friends joke that he's not in the game because they couldn't find a way to make him not too powerful. He was a founding member of the Justice League in the DCAU, so that's a big deal.

He's certainly more famous than Lobo.

[Zevox]

So really a "bug fix that affects balance because some **** is broken" patch. And today's update was PROBABLY to add the ability to play AGAINST the DLC characters.
It definitely did the latter, as I said before. What else it may have done remains to be seen to my knowledge.

Ares' unblockable reset isn't a bug fix though. He simply has a chain that causes an untechable knockdown which gives him enough time to do his unblockable move, Godsmack, which can get a combo from if he uses the Ex version. It can be beaten by some wakeup moves (though those have weird timing in Injustice - I still can't do them at all reliably even offline, much less online), and if he mistimes it it can be backdashed out of, but it is overall pretty hard to avoid and leads to big damage. In fact, he can easily just keep looping it for as long as he has the required meter, getting around 30% or so each time by ending the combo early with the chain that sets it up.


Right. I think the only person I've even heard of in that list is Starfire. (And Atrocitus, because I read a forum thread where someone was like "Who the heck is the ugly guy who looks like Red Skull but isn't because this is DC?") Okay, I guess I'm aware of Martian Manhunter too, but he always seemed kinda...dumb. So mostly that confirms my earlier feelings I guess. I just don't think DC's "B List" is very compelling.
You may not - but didn't you yourself acknowledge earlier that you're not the target audience for Injustice anyway?

Personally, even as someone whose knowledge of comics outside of Green Lantern is limited primarily to what I've seen in TV shows, I think they had plenty of more interesting options to choose from than a female counterpart to Batman, an evil counterpart to Superman, and a Mortal Kombat character. Even just from a pure gameplay perspective, magic users like Zatanna or Doctor Fate and power ring wielders like Atrocitus or Larfleeze are characters you could do literally anything with because their abilities are so flexible.

And yeah, Martian Manhunter in particular is an odd omission given he was one of the main characters of the Justice League cartoon, and every one of the others is playable. Even Hawkgirl, who is not really noteworthy for anything other than being in that cartoon herself.

[Airk]

Martian Manhunter is not Dumb, he just speaks in a monotone (At least in the cartoons I've seen). He's a superstrong, flying, telepathic, telekinetic shapeshifter who can also phase through matter and turn invisible. Me and my friends joke that he's not in the game because they couldn't find a way to make him not too powerful. He was a founding member of the Justice League in the DCAU, so that's a big deal.

He's certainly more famous than Lobo.

Not "dumb" in the sense of "stupid" (or even the sense of "mute") just dumb in the sense of "Kindof a lame idea." :P


but didn't you yourself acknowledge earlier that you're not the target audience for Injustice anyway?

I'm not, but unless they want their ONLY audience to be "total comic book nerds" (Not intended to be derogatory, just a relatively small demographic) then they're not gaining much by adding characters the average man on the street doesn't care about.

Meh. Whatever. They'll do what they want, I don't really care, I just don't think there are all that many strong choices that they've left out. ;)

[BRC]

Not "dumb" in the sense of "stupid" (or even the sense of "mute") just dumb in the sense of "Kindof a lame idea." :P

I'd say he compares favorably to a "Man who is Super" and "Rich Guy Dressed as a Bat".

As for audience appeal. Compare Injustice to franchises like Soul Caliber or Street Fighter, that is to say franchises that have no primary appeal outside of the fighting game itself yet still manage to sell DLC. If they can make a character look cool and interesting, then they can probably get people to buy the DLC, even if they don't know who they are.

[Wolf_Haley]

Don't know how to feel about Injsutice getting added to the EVO lineup, I really like the game but I feel it's too early and quite ****ed up after the donation drive that a game just gets added in.

[Zevox]

I'm not, but unless they want their ONLY audience to be "total comic book nerds" (Not intended to be derogatory, just a relatively small demographic) then they're not gaining much by adding characters the average man on the street doesn't care about.

Meh. Whatever. They'll do what they want, I don't really care, I just don't think there are all that many strong choices that they've left out. ;)
I think BRC hit this one on the nose - compared to fighting games whose characters are all original, drawing from the DCU and having even that much of an established fan base for the characters is pure advantage. And releasing more obscure characters that way can raise the characters' profile among more casual fans - it did wonders for Fire Emblem when Marth and Roy were included in Smash Brothers Melee, to use the obvious example. That's also half the rational behind many of the Marvel characters in UMvC3: marketing.


Don't know how to feel about Injsutice getting added to the EVO lineup, I really like the game but I feel it's too early and quite ****ed up after the donation drive that a game just gets added in.
Yeah, I was rather surprised when I saw that bit last night too. I'd figured they had passed it up earlier because it was coming out so close to EVO anyway, and it'd be kind of silly to hold what amounts to a world championship tournament for it so soon after it came out. Apparently not though.

And yeah, with the donation drive and all, it is especially odd. Injustice was even part of the donation drive if I recall, and didn't raise much at all. You'd think if they were going to add anything it would be the game that got second in that, Skullgirls.

What most surprised me is that interactables will not be banned for it. I'd always been assuming that tournaments would ditch those fast however they worked, as I didn't think tournament-going players would be particularly keen on adding an element besides pure character vs character fighting to the combat. Maybe that's just my experience hanging around the competitive Smash forums showing though, combined with how much I've found I personally dislike most of the interactables.

[Airk]

I'd say he compares favorably to a "Man who is Super" and "Rich Guy Dressed as a Bat".

Touche, sir!



As for audience appeal. Compare Injustice to franchises like Soul Caliber or Street Fighter, that is to say franchises that have no primary appeal outside of the fighting game itself yet still manage to sell DLC. If they can make a character look cool and interesting, then they can probably get people to buy the DLC, even if they don't know who they are.

I'm not sure I agree here; People who play fighting games because they like fighting games are presumably interested in characters who look like they would be fun in a fighting game.

People who play fighting games to see comic book characters punching each other in the face are only likely to be interested in characters they've heard of punching each other in the face.

And I'm not really convinced that Injustice's audience is group #1. I'm DEFINITELY not sure I agree with Evo just kinda slapping it into the lineup.

[Zevox]

Well, had some really good games in Injustice tonight. Took a long while to find someone good, but I finally did. We went something like 15 matches, I think I took around 5 of them. Initially he was changing up between Catwoman, Aquaman, and Green Lantern, eventually he just started using Green Lantern every time (I get the feeling that's his main, and I made him resort to that because I was beating his Aquaman, and won the one fight where he used Catwoman). I was playing Ares, who I've been sticking with since that random urge to play him brought me back to the game.

Close fights for the most part, but eventually he got good enough at mixing up his attacks in close, zoning me out from a distance, and punishing me (or at least avoiding my punish attempts) when I teleported that he was winning consistently, sometimes by quite a bit of health. I get the feeling that the GL/Ares matchup is very much in Lantern's favor. It seems to tend to become a ranged game of chicken - Lantern basically beats Ares at projectile wars solidly, and Ares basically needs to teleport to get in. But his teleports are punishable, so he has to try to time them to when Lantern fires a projectile in the hopes of punishing him instead. Which is pretty rough online. So it all becomes a question of how long Ares risks going for stray fireball hits (or, more often, trades fireballs), when he risks the teleport, and whether GL is ready for him when he does try it.

And honestly, GL seems to have the advantage in close too, with that b1 beating all of Ares' normals either by range or by speed (or often enough, both). Which leaves Ares with only one real way to win - maximum damage output off every time he lands something besides a fireball. His unblockable reset gives him a great way to do that, but getting into a combo to use it is very rough.

If I'm being honest though, the whole affair did get more frustrating than fun by the end. I'm fine with zoning in most games - hell, I play several zoners in Marvel 3 and Persona, and have dabbled with Lambda in BlazBlue - but in Injustice in particular it's just not fun to play, either as or against. And much as it was good to finally have a strong opponent, the way that matchup wound up working was just sapping the enjoyment from it by the end there. Which again, is really making me question how far what fun I have with Injustice will actually go. :smallfrown:

[Airk]

I think it's sortof unreasonable to judge the game based on one (bad) matchup, don't you?

[Zevox]

I think it's sortof unreasonable to judge the game based on one (bad) matchup, don't you?
Yes. But in general, long-range combat is proving to be a common and relatively powerful thing in Injustice. Most of the cast has a couple of projectiles or pseudo-projectiles (i.e. attacks that pop up under the opponent wherever they may currently be), and with the way the game's mechanics work - you can't cancel dashes into blocking (or anything else), walk speeds are mostly quite slow, many projectiles hit low or overhead, more than a few can be meter-burned to get combos if you're closer than full screen and at least a little extra damage even from full screen - getting close to an opponent determined to play ranged can be very hard. Hell, even some characters that seem more designed around rushdown at first glance sometimes have great keepaway potential, like Batman and Nightwing.

So yeah, a lot of matches can devolve into keepaway games, with whichever character is superior at long range trying to use that to his advantage, or both characters just trading shots. This is far from the first time I've seen it happen. Ares' teleports do give him a way around that, but once every decent player knows they're punishable, they'll be a lot less useful for that. Hell, Green Lantern isn't even a dedicated keepaway character, so if he beats Ares like that, characters like Deathstroke, Cyborg, and Sinestro are likely to be even worse for him in the hands of good players. And like I said, in general, I just don't like playing ranged in this game, as or against.

So yeah, basically last night's games continue to make me hesitate because they reinforce that even when I actually get good opponents that I should enjoy playing against, that aspect of the game can quickly drain the fun right out of it. :smallfrown:

[Wolf_Haley]

Sorry this is gonna sound mean but zoning seems really strong in this game because you're bad right now. Zoning is already starting to have holes poked in it due to just how negative projectiles are on block and HIT, outside of playing Bane getting in isn't that hard.

[Zevox]

Sorry this is gonna sound mean but zoning seems really strong in this game because you're bad right now. Zoning is already starting to have holes poked in it due to just how negative projectiles are on block and HIT, outside of playing Bane getting in isn't that hard.
Maybe. But the way it drains the fun of the fight for me makes me think this game may not be for me after all. If I really need to get all that much better just to deal with decent players using a tactic that is making me not enjoy the game, it may well simply not be worth it.

[Zevox]

So, we were talking about Injustice DLC characters earlier? Apparently Ed Boon, the game's director, set up an unofficial poll for what further characters people would like to see (here (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BZCM3BS)). It may mean absolutely nothing - I keep seeing people on other forums mention a poll taken before the game came out asking which of Batgirl, Power Girl, and Supergirl people would most like to see in the game, and Batgirl came in last in that yet still got chosen to be DLC - but I figure it can hardly hurt, so why not vote?

Martian Manhunter isn't on it, because Boon knew he'd win if he was, according to his twitter. Of those that are there, I was a bit torn between Blue Beetle and Zatanna, but went with Zatanna. A magician character sounds like the most fun of the available options to me.

[MLai]

Martian Manhunter isn't on it, because Boon knew he'd win if he was, according to his twitter.
What kind of moronic logic does his brain have?
"I know people want to buy this DLC character, therefore I don't want to make him."

[Zevox]

What kind of moronic logic does his brain have?
"I know people want to buy this DLC character, therefore I don't want to make him."
His exact response to questions about the character's absence from the poll on twitter: "Yes, I understand he would be #1. Was more curious about remaining characters."

[Wolf_Haley]

Heading out to Bay ARea Fight Night, I'll post the stream link later.

[Zevox]

So, we actually got those patch notes (http://www.testyourmight.com/threads/injustice-gods-among-us-patch-1-release-notes-includes-codes-fixes-and-balance-tweaks.32207/) they mentioned a few days ago. And really, there isn't much at all. The main actual balance change was apparently a nerf to the hitbox of Doomsday's splash - not sure if that one's even noticeable honestly, though I haven't played many Doomsdays the past couple of days. Still, that's something I'm actually happy they at least tried to nerf, as that move seemed too good at everything a jumping move could ever want to do. Supposedly they also made interactables used in combos scale more, though that happens pretty rarely anyway in my experience, so I can't get too happy about that.

They also claim to have strengthened the netcode somehow, though I haven't noticed any such thing.

[Airk]

One of the voice actors for the English version of BlazBlue CP has outed the existance of...the English version of Blazblue CP, so all you crazy people who were concerned that somehow it wouldn't get a US release can get on with your lives.

http://www.dcdouglas.com/dc-douglas-con/

[Zevox]

One of the voice actors for the English version of BlazBlue CP has outed the existance of...the English version of Blazblue CP, so all you crazy people who were concerned that somehow it wouldn't get a US release can get on with your lives.

http://www.dcdouglas.com/dc-douglas-con/
Thank you, that is actually very nice to see. :smallsmile:

Anyway, I've picked up another character in Injustice. Was getting a bit tired of Ares, and watching some tournament footage I actually found myself intrigued by Chris G's Green Arrow. I'd not been able to figure out how he was supposed to work before, especially since he couldn't seem to get much damage off his combos, but watching Chris win matches handily even though he was never doing more than 28% off anything short of a super caught my interest.

And yeah, he's actually quite fun. It's very odd that an archer character is actually more rushdown than keepaway, but I'll take it. It's honestly amazing how most of his strings are plus on block, sometimes very much so. I don't have the timing down on doing his jump arrow overhead quickly online yet, but so far I haven't needed it (and actually I'm pretty sure his b2 is a better overhead starter in close anyway - that's probably the fastest overhead I've seen in the game, actually), and it's kind of nice to play a character whose super is actually worth using for a change too. Think I'll stick with him for a bit.

[Wolf_Haley]

Jesus TYM has become a major scrub haven, still has godlike information but man soem of the site is painful to read.

Looks like I'm gonna stick with GL, Sinestro, Bane, and Ares for mains in Injustice, got pretty much all matchups covered and I love these four. bane and Sinestro being the mains.

[Zevox]

Looks like I'm gonna stick with GL, Sinestro, Bane, and Ares for mains in Injustice, got pretty much all matchups covered and I love these four. bane and Sinestro being the mains.
Heh, interesting, we overlap. GL and Ares are my main two. Not so much Bane or Sinestro though - I never played grapplers, and as I've said I don't much like keepaway in Injustice.

I've was trying to find a third, more rushdown-centric character to play with them, but I keep running into problems with it. Killer Frost and Green Arrow have crap range on their normals that frustrates me to no end, Black Adam's combos are a pain to do online (and other than his b2 his normals have poor range as well), and I haven't even dared try the Flash outside of training mode because of how hard I find it to handle him. Doomsday seems to be the only one I can think of without a problem like those, but after how much I've come to hate fighting him, I don't want to turn around and play him. Best I can seem to do is just play Aquaman as rushdown as possible.

Though honestly, a couple days ago I got fed up with Injustice again, and this time no sudden urge to play someone different brought me back. I won't say I'm done with the game, as plainly I enjoy it to some extent given how much I've played it this past month, but for now I've actually gone back to BlazBlue.

Played a little of that online tonight. Actually ran into someone in ranked, a Ragna player, about my skill level if I weren't so rusty, save perhaps being better at converting various hits than me. Played four or five games before he disappeared, of which I won only one, but eh, it was my first matches in the game in months, and I made a few of the others close. Then I dropped into a lobby, where the players were clearly better than me, and I never took more than a round. I was noticeably improving over the course of the matches though, so I'm happy with that, given how little I've played over the past year and the skill level of my opponents. And it felt very good to play a game with good netcode again - even playing someone I had a connection ranking of 1 with felt better than any Injustice match I've ever played.

So yeah, thoroughly enjoyed that despite mostly losing. :smallsmile:

[Zevox]

Well, it looks like we are getting a true new Guilty Gear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NKGPhKu3jNg) game, titled Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- (sheesh, ArcSys sure like weird subtitles, don't they?).

Can't say I'm too surprised, honestly. I figured they'd want to do more than update the last game now that they have the rights to the series back. And I will be willing to give it a try - I may not have liked how XX Accent Core+ felt when I tried it, but the new one may well have some differences that make me enjoy it more. And ArcSys certainly has a good track record by me, between BlazBlue and P4A. I will say that I'm not as much of a fan of the art style they're going with as I am of the one they've used for BlazBlue and their other games so far though. Great music though.

[Airk]

I have to admit, I was visually impressed by the trailer for the new GG.

Though honestly, I am TOTALLY expecting this to be Arc System Works' "Street Fighter 4" - the game that becomes popular and updates everything into shiny 3D that the oldschool players say sucks because <blahblahreasons>.

Also, Guilty Gear is fundamentally a game for eras that are no longer here; Its tight input windows and generally unforgiving execution are going to be functionally incompatible with netplay regardless of how good the netcode is. Unless something changes (which will trigger "They changed it, now it sucks" in GGs notorious...enthusiastic fanbase) this game is going to have a super hard time.

This is all speculation by me, but they've got some very real obstacles to overcome here, and I don't think they can both please the old guard fans AND make a popular game.

Oh, and it's an "anime fighter" so it's basically doomed over here anyway. Stupid Marvel.

[Wolf_Haley]

GG has the most overrated execution levels I've ever seen in a game. Yeah it's not SFIVs dumb level of easy **** but it's truly not that hard. One thing I find intersting are what look like changes to the clash system, looks like NOrmals of higher levels give you more advatage during a clash.

[Zevox]

Though honestly, I am TOTALLY expecting this to be Arc System Works' "Street Fighter 4" - the game that becomes popular and updates everything into shiny 3D that the oldschool players say sucks because <blahblahreasons>.

Also, Guilty Gear is fundamentally a game for eras that are no longer here; Its tight input windows and generally unforgiving execution are going to be functionally incompatible with netplay regardless of how good the netcode is. Unless something changes (which will trigger "They changed it, now it sucks" in GGs notorious...enthusiastic fanbase) this game is going to have a super hard time.
That's one of the things that I'm hoping changes, honestly. Probably the biggest thing put me off GGXXAC+ when I tried it is how stiff the controls felt - how even things that should be simple, like chain combos, seemed to have relatively specific timings to them. Heck, most of the time I couldn't get specials that use the 632146 motion to work at all (the one used for most of BlazBlue's distortion drives, which I can do just fine every time in those games). I even recall movement feeling stiff too, though I can't quite explain that as well as the moves.

I am hopeful that the new game will change that though, given all of ArcSys' recent games have had what I would say are very smooth, easy to use controls. And if that upsets some old-school fans, well, so be it. I can't say that I see any reason that easing the execution barrier of basic mechanics would cause a game to lose anything of value myself.

Kinda hope they add some interesting new characters, too. Another of my problems when I tried GGXXAC+ was simply that I was having a hard time finding a character I wanted to play. Which is strange considering the large and diverse cast of the game, but it was the case. Though maybe I just didn't give it enough time or something.

Edit: Well, patch notes (https://www.injustice.com/en/news/updated-520-injustice-patch-v103-release-notes) for the new Injustice patch. That's, ah, a lot more changes than I expected. Some are just bug fixes (yay, Doomsday's 112 chain no longer does 7% on block!), but a lot aren't. And some are odd. I mean, they nerfed Harley of all characters. And made Sinestro's trait charge faster. And gave Catwoman another overhead.

At least they made a couple of smart changes to Aquaman, Cyborg, and Joker I guess. I do wonder what "normalized damage scaling" on Superman means, though - will that result in him doing less damage, or more?

[Wolf_Haley]

Probably means more scaling on his combos, overall not a fan of the changes. Still feel it's a bit too early.

Apparently Skullgirls is getting released in Japan on the NEcsia Arcade system, pretty hype.

[Perkinz]

Just downloaded and tried Batgirl on Injustice. She seems pretty strong with her combo and mixup potential, plus her teleports. Unsure about her matchups, but the character at least seems pretty solid.

[Zevox]

Probably means more scaling on his combos, overall not a fan of the changes. Still feel it's a bit too early.
I'd agree. I could get behind it if they were only changing the obviously problematic stuff from characters that are blatantly top 5 like Superman, or buffing obvious bottom 5s like Bane and Joker, but they're obviously doing much more, and some of it is very questionable.


Just downloaded and tried Batgirl on Injustice. She seems pretty strong with her combo and mixup potential, plus her teleports. Unsure about her matchups, but the character at least seems pretty solid.
So I've been hearing. Almost makes me want to get her to see if she can fill that rushdown spot I was hoping to find a character for, I must admit. But I really don't want to spend money on a Batman-related character, and I'm still too put off by the things I was hating about Injustice.

Been playing BlazBlue online more though. Slowly getting better with Platinum, but still mostly losing. It's really astounding how bad my neutral game is in BB right now. I never realized before now, but I haven't really played a lot of the game in years, just off and on for a week or two when the updates to CS came out. So unlike most of the other fighting games I've played, my skills with BB haven't advanced that much since I first got into the genre. I definitely need to change that, so I think I'll be playing it for a while.

[Wolf_Haley]

I don't know who I'm going to play when CP comes out, sticking with lambda but I'm conflicted wiht also picking up Rachel, Amane, Kagura, or Plat.

[Airk]

Just downloaded and tried Batgirl on Injustice. She seems pretty strong with her combo and mixup potential, plus her teleports. Unsure about her matchups, but the character at least seems pretty solid.

She's already got an infinite, so yippee for testing. :P


It's really astounding how bad my neutral game is in BB right now.

Neutral in BB is actually really HARD compared to most games (Blah blah Guilty Gear, shut up. MOST games.) just because of the number of options available and the differences between all the characters.

Do you play on XBL, or PSN?

[Zevox]

I don't know who I'm going to play when CP comes out, sticking with lambda but I'm conflicted wiht also picking up Rachel, Amane, Kagura, or Plat.
I'll be sticking with Platinum unless one of the new characters really catches my interest. Which they may - I'm actually pretty interested in trying most of them. Not Azrael since I don't tend to go for big guys, nor Kagura since I can't play charge characters to save my life, but the rest all seem like they could be fun from the videos I've seen. Though obviously I haven't seen much of Terumi at this point, just that reveal trailer from a few days ago.


She's already got an infinite, so yippee for testing. :P
*looks this up on Youtube* So there's a bug that not only resets her ability to use her capture special, but allows her to meter burn it without actually needing the meter? Oh god, NRS is really bad at this sometimes :smallsigh: .


Neutral in BB is actually really HARD compared to most games (Blah blah Guilty Gear, shut up. MOST games.) just because of the number of options available and the differences between all the characters.
Yeah, I can see that. Plus the sheer speed of the game rivals Marvel on top of that. Makes it really hard for me to anti-air anything in particular, as I pretty much need to predict the air dash, not react to it. That might just be my reaction time though I suppose.

I also keep forgetting to barrier block in the air, which gets me hit by air unblockable attacks. I actually used to barrier block pretty much any time I blocked, but I've lost that habit playing other games.


Do you play on XBL, or PSN?
X-Box. I'm on that for any fighting game except Injustice (and Persona, but I have that on both).

[MLai]

I'm unsure about the aesthetics decisions of GGXrd.
It's CGI-rendered fighters fighting in 2D, just like SSF4 and UMvC4. However, it's specifically animated in that choppy way that 2D sprite fighters are.
...
I like rendered models that mimic the cel shaded sprite look, but...
2D sprites animate choppily because of limitations, NOT because it looks good!
If you're using rendered models now, why would you animate an attack in 3 frames when the technology allows you to animate it in 30?!? :smallconfused:

[Airk]

I'm unsure about the aesthetics decisions of GGXrd.
It's CGI-rendered fighters fighting in 2D, just like SSF4 and UMvC4. However, it's specifically animated in that choppy way that 2D sprite fighters are.
...
I like rendered models that mimic the cel shaded sprite look, but...
2D sprites animate choppily because of limitations, NOT because it looks good!
If you're using rendered models now, why would you animate an attack in 3 frames when the technology allows you to animate it in 30?!? :smallconfused:

Basically, you're completely wrong about the reasons for what you're seeing, that's why.

The "problem" you perceive has nothing to do with the animation, or how many frames it is running at, or indeed, any sort of technical or even stylistic decisions relating to the animation. Nor does it have anything to do with 2D or 3D.

The "issue" you are seeing is that all the animations are being cancelled, because that's how Guilty Gear WORKS - when a character is doing combos or even blockstrings, they are cancelling the recovery of their moves into their next moves. So what you see on screen during these segments is basically:

Startup animation->Active Animation->Startup Animation of Move 2->Active Animation of Move 2->Startup Animation of Move 3->Active Animation of move 3 etc.

You see this exact issue in Marvel where everything looks kinda jumpy because everything is a cancel, except you can't SEE half the animations because of the big "splat" effects that appear whenever you hit someone.

Contrast this to a game like SF4 where most combos are links and you therefore see the full animation of all the attacks.

This issue is super obvious if you look at the non-attack string portions of the GG trailer - be that the special moves that take a while to animation, or the win poses, or whatever. The animation is as fluid as you could ask, because it's being allowed to complete and not cancelled into something else.

You can mitigate this issue by drawing attacks that actually look like they link into one another, but GG kindof can't do that, because all their characters already HAVE attacks and fans will throw a hissy fit if they are changed.

[KillianHawkeye]

Well I just picked up Dead Or Alive 5 from Best Buy for ten bucks.

Having never played any DOA before (and assuming that it was basically just there for the fan service), I was surprised by how much precision is required. The combat system is pretty similar to Soul Calibur, only there are a lot more combos and it's not as friendly for button mashing. The interesting gameplay feature which differs it from SC are Holds, which are basically pre-emptive counter attacks, but each one only counters certain attacks so you need to have exceptional reflexes and be able to read your enemy.

I'm debating right now if I want to spend the time it would take to get any good at this game. It actually seems like something that only super hardcore fighting fans would get into.

So, anybody else playing or played this?

[Komatik]

Vaaallleeeee <3<3<3

[MLai]

Basically, you're completely wrong about the reasons for what you're seeing, that's why.
The "issue" you are seeing is that all the animations are being cancelled, because that's how Guilty Gear WORKS
Nope.
You keep assuming I have little experience with 2D fighting games. :smallannoyed:
I may no longer be any good because I'm years out of loop, but I've played 2D fighters since Street Fighter 1 (or Karate Champ if you want to count that). I had 2 Saturns with memory cart, a Neo Geo, and a Dreamcast just to play imported fighting games. That's all I imported.
I know the phenomenon you're talking about; you described it well so there's no mistake. That's not it. The animation is still choppy; the game is simulating the animation of 2D sprites, i.e. hand-drawn anime animation.

A 2D fighting game friend of mine sees it too; he proposes it's an aesthetic decision. #1, to make it look like old school sprite fighters. #2, he feels some cinematic aesthetics can only be achieved with hand-drawn style animation.

[Airk]

Nope.
You keep assuming I have little experience with 2D fighting games. :smallannoyed:
I may no longer be any good because I'm years out of loop, but I've played 2D fighters since Street Fighter 1 (or Karate Champ if you want to count that). I had 2 Saturns with memory cart, a Neo Geo, and a Dreamcast just to play imported fighting games. That's all I imported.
I know the phenomenon you're talking about; you described it well so there's no mistake. That's not it. The animation is still choppy; the game is simulating the animation of 2D sprites, i.e. hand-drawn anime animation.

A 2D fighting game friend of mine sees it too; he proposes it's an aesthetic decision. #1, to make it look like old school sprite fighters. #2, he feels some cinematic aesthetics can only be achieved with hand-drawn style animation.

Well, I don't think it looks choppy at all except during the attack strings, so, opinions. I think you're imagining it. Where does that leave us? :P

i.e. you're going to have to do a better job of being specific.

[Zevox]

Yeah, I'm with Airk there. I don't see how the animation in that Guilty Gear trailer looks "choppy" at all if you're not referring to the canceled recovery animations. Heck, while I still prefer the actual sprite-based visuals of ArcSys' other games, I will say that I'd take the art and animation displayed in that Guilty Gear trailer over what we get from games like Street Fighter 4 or Injustice any day.

[KillianHawkeye]

What's wrong with Street Fighter 4's graphics? :smallconfused:

[Zevox]

What's wrong with Street Fighter 4's graphics? :smallconfused:
It's more the character designs than the graphics in particular on that one for me. So many of the characters just look stupidly over-muscled. There's obvious ones like Zangief and Hakan, but even the smaller ones like Ryu just don't look right.

More generally though, I don't think that the whole 3D-visuals-on-2D-gameplay thing looks as good as just 2D visuals do, so the new Guilty Gear going out of its way to look like 2D visuals even if it's not is an improvement in my mind.

[Airk]

What's wrong with Street Fighter 4's graphics? :smallconfused:

The graphics? Nothing.
The aesthetics? Pretty much the entire cast except for like, Gen, Guy and Cammy. They all have massive hobbit feet, deltoids bigger than their heads, and generally screwy screwy proportions that make them, frankly, ugly. Though ironically I have the opposite opinion of Zevox - I think the ridiculous big guys like Zangief and Hakan are fine. They're ridiculous big guys, and no more ridiculously muscled than like, Wan-Fu (http://sector2x.com/src/sprites/wanfu2.gif), or Goro from KOF. (http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/5688-1959817261.jpg) Big, overmuscled grappler guys are supposed to be big and over muscled. I mean, THIS is SFAlpha Zangief (http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/c/c3/SFA3_Zangief.gif). Zangief is SUPPOSED to look like a bear on steroids. It's the Ryu/Ken/Chun-Li/Yun/Yang characters that offend me - characters that aren't supposed to be big or ridiculously muscled, but are anyway.

[Zevox]

The graphics? Nothing.
The aesthetics? Pretty much the entire cast except for like, Gen, Guy and Cammy. They all have massive hobbit feet, deltoids bigger than their heads, and generally screwy screwy proportions that make them, frankly, ugly. Though ironically I have the opposite opinion of Zevox - I think the ridiculous big guys like Zangief and Hakan are fine. They're ridiculous big guys, and no more ridiculously muscled than like, Wan-Fu (http://sector2x.com/src/sprites/wanfu2.gif), or Goro from KOF. (http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/5688-1959817261.jpg) Big, overmuscled grappler guys are supposed to be big and over muscled. I mean, THIS is SFAlpha Zangief (http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/c/c3/SFA3_Zangief.gif). Zangief is SUPPOSED to look like a bear on steroids. It's the Ryu/Ken/Chun-Li/Yun/Yang characters that offend me - characters that aren't supposed to be big or ridiculously muscled, but are anyway.
To a certain extent I agree - with the big guys the over-muscled look is obviously at least intentional. I still don't like it personally, but it definitely isn't as bad as noticing that some of Ryu's muscles are the size of his head when he's supposed to be the more average guy in the roster.

[KillianHawkeye]

Yeah, but Street Fighter characters have more or less always been proportioned that way, so I didn't understand why you would call out SF4 in particular in that regards.

As for 3D graphics in a 2D plane, all I have to say is that it works great and I think it's bloody brilliant!

[Zevox]

Yeah, but Street Fighter characters have more or less always been proportioned that way, so I didn't understand why you would call out SF4 in particular in that regards.
Because it's the current one, really. I'm not a long time fighting gamer, so SF4 is what comes to mind first when I think "Street Fighter."

Besides, I was really more listing off examples of 3D-on-2D fighters, and it's again one of the first that comes to mind there.

[MLai]

Well, I don't think it looks choppy at all except during the attack strings, so, opinions. I think you're imagining it. Where does that leave us? :P
Well, as I said, I have more experience with 2D fighting games. Probably animation as well. Look at this pic:
http://www.ps3gameroom.com/ps3/imgcache/2/5201alsh3er.jpg
You see how Justice's sword is basically a big boomerang shape? This is 2D animation's attempt at capturing a fast motion IRL. This sort of freeze frame wouldn't be found in SSF4 animation, because that is CGI animation.
Soul Calibur tries to incorporate this feel by having all weapons glow like lightsabers when swung. But that's not what 2D animation is originally trying to achieve.

As for SF art design... Yeah it does look stupid. But it's been that way since the animated movie and SF Alpha series. It just stands out more now that it's 3D rendered models. With hand-drawn things, your mind can accept a lot more stylism.

As for 3D-on-2D in general... My biggest complaint is that it's so easy for the fighters to get lost in the busy and equally-detailed bg. Capcom games are the worst in this regard.

[Zevox]

Well, as I said, I have more experience with 2D fighting games. Probably animation as well. Look at this pic:
http://www.ps3gameroom.com/ps3/imgcache/2/5201alsh3er.jpg
You see how Justice's sword is basically a big boomerang shape? This is 2D animation's attempt at capturing a fast motion IRL. This sort of freeze frame wouldn't be found in SSF4 animation, because that is CGI animation.
I'd say that's a stylistic choice myself, the type of style you see in cartoons and anime (the latter of which is obviously the basis of the art style for ArcSys' games). That's one of the things that I like about 2D animation, personally.

[Wolf_Haley]

Yeah SFIV apes the old style of the older games but it fails at actually designing and proportioning things right, 3S Ryu is a beefy duede but everything is proportioned right so he doesn't look like the damn Bioman from Defiance. The newer character models look pretty good like Juri, Yun, Yang, Makoto *That voice though, ugh same with her lack of damage*, Ibuki, Dudley all look pretty good.

[KillianHawkeye]

Meh, SF4 characters are basically just cartoons made from 3D models. I'd never expect them to look realistic.

[Wolf_Haley]

No one complains aboutthem not looking realistic, they're just very badly done. Kuma in SFXT is hella cartoony, the design is good though, same with Heihachi. ONly new character who doesn't look that great in SFXT is Marduk, and that's because they reused Hakan's assets and it doesnj't translate well to Marduk.

[Airk]

Yeah, but Street Fighter characters have more or less always been proportioned that way, so I didn't understand why you would call out SF4 in particular in that regards.

Because it looks particularly ugly in 3D? Basically, there's a lot you can forgive in a tiny sprite that looks like crap when you blow it up into high res 3D, and the art design decisions involved in SF4 make an ugly game.

NO ONE here, KillianHawkeye, is expecting these characters to look "realistic" nor, I think, do we want them to. What we want is for them to not look UGLY.

@MLai - yes, using deformation is a well known 2D art effect, but it has nothing to do with the animation being "choppy" or not. Actually, it tends to have a smoothing effect because it's essentially adding "motion blur" to the animation. Back when SF3 first came out, it got a lot of complaints about the animation because they drew a JILLION FRAMES and it just came out looking weird because there was no blurring. I feel that Mortal Kombat (the new one) and Injustice actually SUFFER from their lack of deformation because it makes everything look really 'jumpy' - there's no blurring, and there SHOULD be if this were "real". But since it's just pixels on a screen, that has to be added manually. You should be aware that SF4 actually uses deformation in its animation - characters' limbs subtly change shape and size when they do their moves.

So to conclude, yes, they are trying to make their 3D animation look like 2D, but it's not choppy. Sorry.

[KillianHawkeye]

Because it looks particularly ugly in 3D? Basically, there's a lot you can forgive in a tiny sprite that looks like crap when you blow it up into high res 3D, and the art design decisions involved in SF4 make an ugly game.

NO ONE here, KillianHawkeye, is expecting these characters to look "realistic" nor, I think, do we want them to. What we want is for them to not look UGLY.

Well I can respect that that's your opinion, but I disagree. I don't think SF4 characters are ugly by any stretch of the imagination. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that.

[MLai]

yes, using deformation is a well known 2D art effect, but it has nothing to do with the animation being "choppy" or not.
I never said deformation is what causes the animation to look choppy. Fewer frames of animation for each movement is what causes the animation to look choppy.

Example, a character swinging a sword in Soul Calibur does so with (let's say) 20 frames. Justice would perform the same sword swing with only 3-4 frames of drawn animation. The illusion that he actually swung his sword is provided by that boomerang shape that simulates the "blur" of his slash.

What I'm complaining about is that GGXrd makes this really blatant, by strictly adhering to the traditionally choppy animation of GG series. When it was 2D, GG was always known for beautiful screenshots but choppy animation in actual gameplay, due to lack of frames overall compared to games like Mark Of The Wolves and yes SF3.

Back when SF3 first came out, it got a lot of complaints about the animation because they drew a JILLION FRAMES and it just came out looking weird because there was no blurring.
Animation art direction has something to do with that, because MOTW has even more frames of animation yet never suffered the "jiggly" effect.

You should be aware that SF4 actually uses deformation in its animation - characters' limbs subtly change shape and size when they do their moves.
Don't know what you're talking about. I actually enjoy watching SFxT replays in slow-mo. I've seen no "limb deformation" outside of Dhalsim.
Even if you're correct, it's irrelevant to what I'm saying. Feels like you've never played 2D GG games.

[Wolf_Haley]

Man, the PA Report really needs to stop doing articles ont he FGC.

[Airk]

I never said deformation is what causes the animation to look choppy. Fewer frames of animation for each movement is what causes the animation to look choppy.

So....why were you on about the whole "When he swings his sword it just makes a big boomerang shape" thing?


Don't know what you're talking about. I actually enjoy watching SFxT replays in slow-mo. I've seen no "limb deformation" outside of Dhalsim.

Pssst. I said "SF4".



Even if you're correct, it's irrelevant to what I'm saying. Feels like you've never played 2D GG games.

Well, you got that right. I played GGX on the Dreamcast, briefly, back in the day, decided I didn't like the series, and haven't gone anywhere near it since.

Still doesn't mean I thought the animation looked choppy.

[Airk]

Well I can respect that that's your opinion, but I disagree. I don't think SF4 characters are ugly by any stretch of the imagination. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that.

Yeah, Ryu is a reaaaaal looker:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/DarKaoZ/StreetFighter4_13_360-2.png

I guess his weird, shrub-like hair doesn't help but wow. Yuk.

[Wolf_Haley]

GGX is very very very very different from what GG is now. Check it out.

[Zevox]

So, I'm assuming everyone saw the fighting game news that's come out of E3 so far? Killer Instinct and Smash Brothers. Though I'm half-expecting Capcom to have something when they get around to showing off, given how little they have on their plate at the moment.

Killer Instinct, well, I never played the original games when they were around, and it's an X-Box One exclusive, so there was never any chance I'd play it. But what scant little interest I could have had was killed when they revealed that it'll be a free-to-play game where you buy all of the characters except the first (Jago) individually. Yeah, that is an awful idea that would make me actively avoid buying the game even if I were otherwise quite interested.

On Smash Brothers though, Mega Man is ridiculously hype and I cannot wait to play him. Animal Crossing Villager and Wii Fit Trainer are odd choices, but I strangely find the latter looks like she might be fun to play. Too bad it's not releasing until next year though. Gameplay glimpses didn't give us enough to know if they're changing the things that bothered many people about Brawl's gameplay, too.

Also, there was a BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay5xGrGtxqc). Nothing new really, but it does have AkSys' logo at the start and end, which pretty much proves there will be a NA localization, even though they technically don't say so. If we needed something more official than that voice actor accidentally leaking it to confirm that, anyway.

Edit: Ah, according to SRK and Dustloop, AkSys has indeed confirmed Chrono Phantasma will get a NA release, though with the vague release date of "next year." Hopefully early next year, given Japan's getting it in October this year. Interestingly, they also say the game brings the roster size to 26, which is 1 more than we've heard before - maybe there's hope for Jubei being in it yet? :smallsmile:

It does confirm that it will be PS3-exclusive, though. So I'm going to need to re-learn the controls when that happens, since I'm accustomed to a 360 controller. Oh well, them's the breaks. I can practice by playing P4A on the PS3 until then, I suppose.


Man, the PA Report really needs to stop doing articles ont he FGC.
:smallconfused: What's the PA Report?

[Wolf_Haley]

Penny ARcade Report, it's their gaming news thingie.

[KillianHawkeye]

Yeah, Ryu is a reaaaaal looker:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/DarKaoZ/StreetFighter4_13_360-2.png

I guess his weird, shrub-like hair doesn't help but wow. Yuk.

So... you're disagreeing with me when what I said was that it was a matter of opinion? Ookay, sure, good luck with that! :smallconfused::smallsigh:

For the record, he looks utterly normal to me. The hair obviously is not realistic, but neither is it aesthetically displeasing. As I said before, the SF4 characters are all basically 3D cgi versions of cartoon characters, so things like goofy hair and bushy eyebrows and obnoxious muscles are to be expected.

[Airk]

For the record, he looks utterly normal to me. The hair obviously is not realistic, but neither is it aesthetically displeasing. As I said before, the SF4 characters are all basically 3D cgi versions of cartoon characters, so things like goofy hair and bushy eyebrows and obnoxious muscles are to be expected.

Because all cartoon characters have obnoxious muscles, right? Did you miss the part where I said "what works on a tiny 2D sprite doesn't work on a big 3D model"?

Well, enjoy.

[KillianHawkeye]

Because all cartoon characters have obnoxious muscles, right? Did you miss the part where I said "what works on a tiny 2D sprite doesn't work on a big 3D model"?

Well, enjoy.

I didn't "miss it" so much as "ignore it for being utterly irrelevant." It works fine. Play any Dragon Ball Z game and you'll see the same thing.

And for your information, I didn't say those were traits of EVERY cartoon character, but it is common enough in certain genres (which this type of game primarily draws from) as to not be unexpected.

[Wolf_Haley]

Going by my last couple tournament performers I am the worse choke artist

[Airk]

Going by my last couple tournament performers I am the worse choke artist

More likely, you just have tournament nerves since you haven't been to that many? Or have you actually attended more than a few?

[Wolf_Haley]

I've been attending tournaments since 04, been in the scene playing seriously sicne the MVC2 days. I've just always been a massive choke artist. Check out the Freedemonia Archives for footage of me probably doing hella good and choking hardcore. I go by the handle Lord Raptor, I'm the black dude witht eh glasses.

[Bucky]

Killer Instinct, well, I never played the original games when they were around, and it's an X-Box One exclusive, so there was never any chance I'd play it. But what scant little interest I could have had was killed when they revealed that it'll be a free-to-play game where you buy all of the characters except the first (Jago) individually. Yeah, that is an awful idea that would make me actively avoid buying the game even if I were otherwise quite interested.

Free Demo = No Payments, Jago Only, Final Destination
Buy the game = Buy all the characters

I assume you'd be fine with a game that had those two options, since that's how the market normally worked before the F2P boom. So you're upset that they also let you buy part of the game? Or are you just saying you think it will be too expensive to buy the game because of the other options?

[Zevox]

Free Demo = No Payments, Jago Only, Final Destination
Buy the game = Buy all the characters

I assume you'd be fine with a game that had those two options, since that's how the market normally worked before the F2P boom. So you're upset that they also let you buy part of the game? Or are you just saying you think it will be too expensive to buy the game because of the other options?
At the time I posted that I was under the impression that the game was strictly using the free-to-play model, because they miscommunicated at E3 and gave that impression. I've since learned that it is like you say - the demo follows the free-to-play model, but it can be bought as a full game anyway. And that I have no problems with.

Still, I can't say I'm particularly interested in the game. What I've seen of it so far hasn't appealed to me, and I'm still planning on getting a PS4 over an XB1 anyway, so I won't even have the system it's on for years at least.

On another topic though, I am looking forward to Evo :smallsmile: . I think this year I'll actually try and catch some of it on live stream, depending on how my work schedule works out. Definitely want to catch the Persona and Marvel tournaments if I can; and Smash, SFxT, and maybe Injustice secondarily.

[Wolf_Haley]

A ton of my friends are going t be at EVO, seems like we're having a party at Freedemonia for those of us that aren't going and we're going to watch the stream.

[Illieas]

A ton of my friends are going t be at EVO, seems like we're having a party at Freedemonia for those of us that aren't going and we're going to watch the stream.

going to evo as well with some friends. saw the stream set ups. tekken persona or street fighter x tekken all get a raw deal, only finals being shown. THat is just wrong. at least get semi for each game.

[Airk]

going to evo as well with some friends. saw the stream set ups. tekken persona or street fighter x tekken all get a raw deal, only finals being shown. THat is just wrong. at least get semi for each game.

Yeah, the "Friday Games" are definitely getting a bit of short shrift; I understand why they are (There's only so much time in the weekend, and those games have the smallest numbers of entrants) but I feel that adding another Stream so people who want to see more of those games instead of like, SF4 pools, could do so.

Also, WTF, why is Mortal Kombat, the game with the SMALLEST number of entrants, basically getting Stream 2 all to itself (showing POOLS even) on Friday, while Persona and TTT2 which have like, twice the number of entrants, are only getting finals snuck in between the SF4 poolfest?

/frown

[Zevox]

going to evo as well with some friends. saw the stream set ups. tekken persona or street fighter x tekken all get a raw deal, only finals being shown. THat is just wrong. at least get semi for each game.

Yeah, the "Friday Games" are definitely getting a bit of short shrift; I understand why they are (There's only so much time in the weekend, and those games have the smallest numbers of entrants) but I feel that adding another Stream so people who want to see more of those games instead of like, SF4 pools, could do so.

Also, WTF, why is Mortal Kombat, the game with the SMALLEST number of entrants, basically getting Stream 2 all to itself (showing POOLS even) on Friday, while Persona and TTT2 which have like, twice the number of entrants, are only getting finals snuck in between the SF4 poolfest?

/frown
:smallfrown: That does suck. Only the finals for those games? They ought to at least get the top 8 or something. I mean, I know with so many games at the event you can only stream so much, but there ought to be a more reasonable minimum. And while it makes sense to give the least coverage to the games with the fewest entrants, if Mortal Kombat is actually the game with the fewest but is getting coverage that properly belongs to the games with the most, then the whole situation makes absolutely no damn sense.

Wow. At least I'll still be able to catch more than one game for Marvel and Smash, but hearing that two of the others I was looking forward to will only get the finals streamed really sucks, especially for Persona.

[Wolf_Haley]

MK and IGAU are getting a dedicated stream partially because of community memebers bringing equipment and running it and also probably because of WB funding. I love MK but it's is getting soem BS treatment

In more unfortunate EVO news, absolutely no Smash can be streamed or the Cannons *The guys who run EVO* will get sued. Man Nintendo ****ing up. Because of this Tekken and P4 are getting more stream time.

[Zevox]

In more unfortunate EVO news, absolutely no Smash can be streamed or the Cannons *The guys who run EVO* will get sued. Man Nintendo ****ing up. Because of this Tekken and P4 are getting more stream time.
:smallfrown: Damn. I must admit, I'm torn between being happy there will be more Persona and being bummed that I won't get to see any Smash. Probably a bit more happy about Persona, but still, sucks that Smash gets the short end of the stick for no good reason like that. Especially after raising all that money to be at Evo in the first place.

[Illieas]

Decision has been reversed.
Smash will get its stream time. So that was quick and good. rumor mill is that there was a miscommunication. I think it is some guy from legal say nope which caused fire storm which cause a higher up in nintendo to say fix it.

From what I am hearing is that the unstreamed games will have secondary streams for them so be on the look out at their forums to check on when and where.

[Zevox]

Decision has been reversed.
Smash will get its stream time. So that was quick and good. rumor mill is that there was a miscommunication. I think it is some guy from legal say nope which caused fire storm which cause a higher up in nintendo to say fix it.

From what I am hearing is that the unstreamed games will have secondary streams for them so be on the look out at their forums to check on when and where.
Sheesh, that was fast. And now I'm back to being sad about Persona being back to showing finals only :smallfrown: . Dustloop's front page doesn't say anything about having their own stream for it, either.

Just kinda a no-win scenario for me there it seems. Either a game I like gets screwed for no good reason, or another game I like even more gets screwed because there's some weird priorities going on...

[Airk]

MK and IGAU are getting a dedicated stream partially because of community memebers bringing equipment and running it and also probably because of WB funding. I love MK but it's is getting soem BS treatment


Actually, this apparently has nothing to do with it. It's a physical locations thing. MK and Injustice and "stream 2" are just happening in a different room, and you can't have people running back and forth between ballrooms to play matches. Fine.

Anyway, the whole issue is mostly being solved by a monstrous proliferation of "unofficial" streams - including a P4A stream by FinestKO (http://www.twitch.tv/finestko), and others for TTT2, SFxT, and uh...Super Street Fighter 2. More info on the Evo Viewer's Guide Here. (http://shoryuken.com/2013/07/09/how-to-watch-evo-2013-a-viewers-guide/)

So...sadness mostly averted, though it remains to be seen how the bandwidth for the unofficial streams holds up.

[Zevox]

Actually, this apparently has nothing to do with it. It's a physical locations thing. MK and Injustice and "stream 2" are just happening in a different room, and you can't have people running back and forth between ballrooms to play matches. Fine.

Anyway, the whole issue is mostly being solved by a monstrous proliferation of "unofficial" streams - including a P4A stream by FinestKO (http://www.twitch.tv/finestko), and others for TTT2, SFxT, and uh...Super Street Fighter 2. More info on the Evo Viewer's Guide Here. (http://shoryuken.com/2013/07/09/how-to-watch-evo-2013-a-viewers-guide/)

So...sadness mostly averted, though it remains to be seen how the bandwidth for the unofficial streams holds up.
Thank you so much for the P4A link :smallsmile: . Didn't notice mention of it on SRK or Dustloop, so I'd have missed it entirely otherwise.

And checking the schedule, looks like I'll be watching Persona for most of Friday. Maybe switch to Smash every so often. I'll be able to catch a little of Marvel or SFxT on Saturday morning, but otherwise those I'll have to watch recordings of after-the-fact, since I work most of that day. Hopefully I can catch the finals on Sunday, but I won't know whether I work that day until Saturday.

[Wolf_Haley]

Super Turbo having it's own side stream is great, the tournament is pretty stacked.

[Zevox]

Wow, that Persona top 8 was great. Though ironically, the grand finals was probably the least interesting part. Just a repeat of winners finals, and it quickly became clear who would win. I was actually really hoping that BananaKen would take it in loser's finals just to avoid that (and to avoid making the finals Aigis vs Mitsuru).

But otherwise, yeah, amazing matches. So many close rounds and matches where things came down to the wire. Impressive character variety, too. Only one Aigis and two Mitsurus, and we even had a Shadow Labrys and Yukiko in there. So great seeing some of those characters at that level of play :smallbiggrin: . And a lot of the earlier matches were great too.

Really wish I didn't have to work most of tomorrow so I could see all the Marvel matches, but them's the breaks. I should be able to catch the quarter-finals and onward at least, thanks to the time zone difference.

[Airk]

Wow, that Persona top 8 was great. Though ironically, the grand finals was probably the least interesting part. Just a repeat of winners finals, and it quickly became clear who would win. I was actually really hoping that BananaKen would take it in loser's finals just to avoid that (and to avoid making the finals Aigis vs Mitsuru).

I think everyone was hoping that. LK is a strong player, but he's a little conventional, and well, after winners' finals, I don't think anyone thought he could beat Yume. Which means that even if BananaKen had lost in grand finals, at least we'd have seen a different/more interesting match. Oh well. BK played really well, he just choked a little at the end.


But otherwise, yeah, amazing matches. So many close rounds and matches where things came down to the wire. Impressive character variety, too. Only one Aigis and two Mitsurus, and we even had a Shadow Labrys and Yukiko in there. So great seeing some of those characters at that level of play :smallbiggrin: . And a lot of the earlier matches were great too.

Honestly, this is still one of the issues I have with P4A - the roster is small, and while I won't go so far as to say that several characters aren't viable (hi, Yukiko in top 8), I -will- go so far as to say that about half the cast is extremely poorly represented at tournaments (In part because a lot of them have very bad matchups against Mitsuru). While I don't think a game's value is defined by the size of the roster, and in fact, I feel that once a game exceeds about 25-30 characters, it's starting to get stupid and pretty much present a needless barrier to entry as everyone needs to learn so many matchups, I do still think that watching P4A gets sortof repetitive. Seriously, SSF4 represented like 10 characters in their top 8. There was ONE dupe, with both Infiltration and Tokido playing Akuma, but Infilitration actually pulled out Hakan to win against PR Balrog. Whereas P4A only repped 6. It was pretty hype, but I still wish the game had more variety.

[Zevox]

I think everyone was hoping that. LK is a strong player, but he's a little conventional, and well, after winners' finals, I don't think anyone thought he could beat Yume. Which means that even if BananaKen had lost in grand finals, at least we'd have seen a different/more interesting match. Oh well. BK played really well, he just choked a little at the end.
Yeah, that about sums it up. Nothing against LK, but well, even the commentators were saying Yume made him look free in the winners finals. I'd definitely have bet that BK would've put up a better fight at least, even if he couldn't beat Yume.


Honestly, this is still one of the issues I have with P4A - the roster is small, and while I won't go so far as to say that several characters aren't viable (hi, Yukiko in top 8), I -will- go so far as to say that about half the cast is extremely poorly represented at tournaments (In part because a lot of them have very bad matchups against Mitsuru). While I don't think a game's value is defined by the size of the roster, and in fact, I feel that once a game exceeds about 25-30 characters, it's starting to get stupid and pretty much present a needless barrier to entry as everyone needs to learn so many matchups, I do still think that watching P4A gets sortof repetitive. Seriously, SSF4 represented like 10 characters in their top 8. There was ONE dupe, with both Infiltration and Tokido playing Akuma, but Infilitration actually pulled out Hakan to win against PR Balrog. Whereas P4A only repped 6. It was pretty hype, but I still wish the game had more variety.
Eh, that's just a consequence of how P4A's balance has shaken out. Most of the cast is pretty reasonably balanced, but then you've got Mitsuru and Aigis, who are just dominant enough to influence the meta-game that way.

Still, it was a pretty good variety all things considered. I didn't watch all the top 8s, but of those I did, it was behind SFxT (surprisingly good variety there, hardly any dupes even though it's a 2-on-2 game) and maybe Melee (they had a couple of Fox players there, but otherwise decent variety, and some attempts at counter-picking). On the flip side Injustice had three Superman players and Chris G switching to the top 8s second Black Adam in some matchups (and the players who had more varied characters were knocked out early, with the sole exception of the Green Lantern player who ultimately took second), and Marvel of course was a lot of Zero, Vergil, and Dormammu, plus at least a couple each of Wolverine, Doom, and Magneto.

Speaking of though, I really enjoyed the Melee finals, and the Marvel finals might well have been the most amazing part. I still cannot believe that Justin Wong vs Chris G set. Holy crap I did not expect that. The only way those finals could've been better is if Justin had managed to pull out the same comeback victory over Flocker in grand finals that he did over Chris G, but even without that the whole set was pretty amazing.

Oh, and the announcement of Martian Manhunter as Injustice DLC was great to see - and the surprise with him of Green Lantern getting a John Stewart skin, and both having their Justice League voice actors, was great as well. I think I'll actually have to pick those up and give Injustice a second chance when they release.

[Airk]

I consider the fact that it had better character variety than Injustice to be (yet another) black mark on Injustice (and Marvel, which I also hate), rather than any sort of positive reflection on P4A.

More character variety than bad games <> good. ;)

[Illieas]

BAck from EVO. I entered smash. I did well went 2-2. Basically I got to the poi nt where i am king of the scrubs. Once i hit people that wave dash, l cancel, and other advanced stuff. I lost but against everyone else I win.

Final were good. Favorites were KOF, Melee, Marvel, SSF4. the okay ones were Tekken and persona. Injustice wins least favorite.

Tekken. Bronson saved the finals. Because he actually goes in most other players were poke games.

persona. it was good till you saw yume just wreck people. It wasn't even close. He was going like 2X speed compared to everyone else.

KOF was fun reginald making all the way and some clutch play. I have no idea on mechnics but it was enoyable.

Melee is back. It was good see people still into it. Crowd got some good hype. I wanted armand to win but the pressure of trying to dodge the grab and kill nana made for a tense finals

Injustice. wow I don't know why but it was not fun to watch at all. Superman is just a hype killer. punch punch breath repeat (reminds be of the first MK with perfect legend's 12 low hat repeat). down laser, regular laser, and jump laser that zone incrediably well. He has stupid amount of tools. Hazards should be turned off. I really really hate unblockable hazards that do 20-30% life.

Marvel. oh man had justin pulled that comeback. Probably the best finals this year.

SSF4. XIAN!!!!! I love xians play I always hoped he would win. Best gen.

Annoucement from EVO
new characters for street fighter most seem to be coming from the Street fighter X tekken make seem to be an easy transition. I don't find most of them that intriuing to play. Hopefully the 5th character will be something interesting. Killer instinct is also boring. The healths bars are way too high and the screen is just way too much flashing lights and combos are not intricate( they look stale and repetative)

Dive kick. what was once a easy to learn easy to follow game. THe creators decided to add too much to it. watching the top 8 of that especially with seth killian and teleportation. I could not follow what the hell was going on. it was better when it was just simple dive and kicks.

[Wolf_Haley]

EVO was pretty hype, though I wanted Chris to win marvel and I'm happy my boy TZA got 5th, wish he did better *We play together a good bit*. Hella hype to see Wizard get the Daki and Yoko fig, I was one of the ones to help get the Daki.

Also once again this tournament reminds me of why I rock the tag SUJC at tournaments now, because for real Shut Up James Chen.

[Zevox]

I consider the fact that it had better character variety than Injustice to be (yet another) black mark on Injustice (and Marvel, which I also hate), rather than any sort of positive reflection on P4A.

More character variety than bad games <> good. ;)
I really like Marvel myself, so for me Marvel would more be proof that you don't need a huge variety of characters at top-level play to be fun to play and watch. :smallsmile:

In any event, I can't say that six different characters in a top 8 sounds bad regardless. It's only two duplicates. That's something you could get from random happenstance, especially in a game with a small roster - and one of them being Teddie, who is not one of the two dominant characters of the game, pretty much was random happenstance.

As for Injustice, yeah, it has more than its fair share of problems, I can't disagree with you there. More on that below.


BAck from EVO. I entered smash. I did well went 2-2. Basically I got to the poi nt where i am king of the scrubs. Once i hit people that wave dash, l cancel, and other advanced stuff. I lost but against everyone else I win.
Nice :smallsmile: .


persona. it was good till you saw yume just wreck people. It wasn't even close. He was going like 2X speed compared to everyone else.
Eh, I wouldn't go that far, but yeah, he did kind of dominate. All the rest was great though.


Injustice. wow I don't know why but it was not fun to watch at all. Superman is just a hype killer. punch punch breath repeat (reminds be of the first MK with perfect legend's 12 low hat repeat). down laser, regular laser, and jump laser that zone incrediably well. He has stupid amount of tools. Hazards should be turned off. I really really hate unblockable hazards that do 20-30% life.
Yeah, I agree about Superman completely. He was a big reason I soured on Injustice. He's blatantly overpowered, and really not fun to watch, play against, or (for me at least) play as. His ranged game in particular is aggravating. Hell, I know at least one of the Superman players in those finals got booed when he started blasting away with heat vision, and I can't say I blame them. "Hype killer" is a pretty damn good description of him. And Doomsday is another of those - when that GL player switched to him for the last match, all my interest in the fight just evaporated.

And I agree about the interactables, too. I actually don't mind stage transitions - there's some legitimate strategy involved in deciding whether or not to use them, and they can force you to change up your combos to use them or avoid them - but good god interactables are just absurd, especially in the hands of super-strength characters that can chuck everything.


Marvel. oh man had justin pulled that comeback. Probably the best finals this year.
Definitely. Had Justin won, it would have been legendary - knocking out Chris G in such a close match and then taking the crown in an equally close one. And actually, I can't help but wonder if Flocker's win isn't soured a bit by the fact that he never fought Chris. Hard to call yourself the world champion of the game if you never even played the guy who was practically undisputed as the best Marvel player in the world before the tournament, even if you did beat the person who defeated him.


Annoucement from EVO
new characters for street fighter most seem to be coming from the Street fighter X tekken make seem to be an easy transition. I don't find most of them that intriuing to play. Hopefully the 5th character will be something interesting.
Yeah, all four are SFxT characters. Me, I'm not really interested. I don't play SF4, and even if I did I don't like any of the four in SFxT, so I have no reason to believe I would in SF4.

As for the fifth, since Capcom said it's someone who has never been in Street Fighter before, and explicitly said it's not Asura or Bad Box Art Mega Man (the only other Capcom character in SFxT they could have ported), smart money now seems to be on Mike Haggar. Again though, I won't care unless it turns out to be someone really off-the-wall that I like from something else, which is pretty unlikely. Haggar sure doesn't qualify, if it does turn out to be him.


Killer instinct is also boring. The healths bars are way too high and the screen is just way too much flashing lights and combos are not intricate( they look stale and repetative)
Yeah. I'm not 100% sure what it is about that game, but I just haven't been happy with what I've seen of it. I do think you're definitely right about too many flashing lights - we had a brief discussion about hitsparks here a while ago, and now I can say where I draw the line at least: Killer Instinct's are too much. Especially off fireballs, which explode into a veritable fireworks display. There's something about the animation and art style that I really don't like either, though I can't fully pin down what.

[Airk]

I really like Marvel myself, so for me Marvel would more be proof that you don't need a huge variety of characters at top-level play to be fun to play and watch. :smallsmile:

No accounting for taste. I get bored of watching the same characters fight repeatedly, especially in games like Persona (and Marvel) where the moveset is very small and there's not much room for playstyle differentiation.



In any event, I can't say that six different characters in a top 8 sounds bad regardless. It's only two duplicates. That's something you could get from random happenstance, especially in a game with a small roster - and one of them being Teddie, who is not one of the two dominant characters of the game, pretty much was random happenstance.

This is sortof my point - when your roster is too small, you get dupes in top 8 even if there's no "reason" for it. Seeing Gen win SSF4 was super exciting. Seeing Yume blow up Mitsuru with Aigis AGAIN was not so much. It's also sortof an additive thing - while both SF4 and P4A had Winners Finals be the same match as Grand Finals, we hadn't exactly seen a lot of Gen vs Akuma in the tournament to date, whereas if you watched pools for P4A, you saw waaaay too much Aigis vs Mitsuru.



As for the fifth, since Capcom said it's someone who has never been in Street Fighter before, and explicitly said it's not Asura or Bad Box Art Mega Man (the only other Capcom character in SFxT they could have ported), smart money now seems to be on Mike Haggar. Again though, I won't care unless it turns out to be someone really off-the-wall that I like from something else, which is pretty unlikely. Haggar sure doesn't qualify, if it does turn out to be him.

While it's probably Haggar, there're a couple of reasons why it might not be (and why I hope it's not).

A) Haggar is basically Zangief. They both have piledrivers and lariats. There's just not much exciting going on here.
B) They already announced one grappler character for this update already (Hugo), so them deciding to double down on the archetype would seem weird.

I'm hoping they dig up someone from like, Rival Schools. ;)


Yeah. I'm not 100% sure what it is about that game, but I just haven't been happy with what I've seen of it. I do think you're definitely right about too many flashing lights - we had a brief discussion about hitsparks here a while ago, and now I can say where I draw the line at least: Killer Instinct's are too much. Especially off fireballs, which explode into a veritable fireworks display. There's something about the animation and art style that I really don't like either, though I can't fully pin down what.

I honestly can't believe that anyone who purports to like Marvel is bothered by hitsparks, considering that the aforementioned game routinely covers practically the entire screen with ugly hit effects. Yeah, the fireball leaves sparkles on the screen for a second or two, but after the initial hit, it's just a couple of tiny lights, so I don't see why it would bother anyone. While I do find some of the effects in KI jarring, it's NOTHING compared to how annoying I find Marvel, so it's probably not the hit effects. OTOH, there are a couple of things about KI:

#1) The screen "jumps" a lot - not in the sense of being jittery, but when they want to show something hit hard, the screen actually bounces/vibrates, and that's kindof annoying.
#2) The game it is based on was already a s****y game, so the odds of this one being good are questionable :P

[Zevox]

This is sortof my point - when your roster is too small, you get dupes in top 8 even if there's no "reason" for it. Seeing Gen win SSF4 was super exciting. Seeing Yume blow up Mitsuru with Aigis AGAIN was not so much.
Sure, I understand the enjoyment of seeing people win with less-used characters as well as anyone. But matches can be extremely exciting even if you've seen the particular matchup before. LK vs Yume wasn't, but that's because there wasn't really much of a competition between them - Yume just plain won handily.

In contrast, for example, the Marvel finals were extremely hype even though Justin Wong had fought a very similar team only two matches ago and beaten it pretty handily (Cloud805 had run Zero/Vergil/Dante, Flocker ran Zero/Vergil/Hawkeye), because the two were extremely close competitors and Justin proved himself very good at making comebacks even when he was on his last character against a full team on his opponent's end.


While it's probably Haggar, there're a couple of reasons why it might not be (and why I hope it's not).

A) Haggar is basically Zangief. They both have piledrivers and lariats. There's just not much exciting going on here.
B) They already announced one grappler character for this update already (Hugo), so them deciding to double down on the archetype would seem weird.

I'm hoping they dig up someone from like, Rival Schools. ;)
Apparently, it will be none of the above. Another hint (http://shoryuken.com/2013/07/17/ultra-street-fighter-ivs-mysterious-fifth-character-will-be-making-their-fighting-game-debut/) has been given about the character, and it's that he (or she) has never been in a fighting game before.

So, yeah, that leaves me with no clue who it could be. Even if I were picking someone truly off-the-wall, it would have been another major Capcom character, and those have all been in crossover games like MvC. It could be an original character I suppose, but in that case it's odd that they're dragging out and teasing the announcement this way.


I honestly can't believe that anyone who purports to like Marvel is bothered by hitsparks, considering that the aforementioned game routinely covers practically the entire screen with ugly hit effects.
:smallconfused: Hit effects in Marvel? Honestly, the only ones that come to mind are the fire/electrical aura left on a character after a hit from a move of the appropriate type, and those aren't unusual for the genre. Well, and the pressure wave effect from pushblocking I suppose, but that's quick and serves its purpose well I feel.

Marvel is a very flashy game to be sure, but it's more for all the attacks, assists, and how fast those can be coming.


#1) The screen "jumps" a lot - not in the sense of being jittery, but when they want to show something hit hard, the screen actually bounces/vibrates, and that's kindof annoying.
Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember that. Definitely not a fan of it.


#2) The game it is based on was already a s****y game, so the odds of this one being good are questionable :P
*shrug* I never played the original KIs, so I couldn't say whether I agree with that. I can only judge this one from what they show in the trailers and gameplay vids.

[Airk]

Sure, I understand the enjoyment of seeing people win with less-used characters as well as anyone. But matches can be extremely exciting even if you've seen the particular matchup before. LK vs Yume wasn't, but that's because there wasn't really much of a competition between them - Yume just plain won handily.

While I agree that LK vs Yume wasn't interestign because it was a blowout, I still think that just because under certain EXTREME circumstances (like ridiculous comebacks) matches can be hype even if the characters are totally boring as crap, that the AVERAGE level of entertainment in a match goes up when there are more characters in the rotation. Not every match can be a massive seesaw of comebacks, but just about every match CAN feature characters that you've seen less 33% of the time previously.



So, yeah, that leaves me with no clue who it could be. Even if I were picking someone truly off-the-wall, it would have been another major Capcom character, and those have all been in crossover games like MvC. It could be an original character I suppose, but in that case it's odd that they're dragging out and teasing the announcement this way.

Yeah, I have no idea who it could be either; This even strikes down Frank West. What other Capcom properties are there that would port well to Street Fighter without seeming out of theme? (Let's face it, it's not like they could add someone from Megaman or something.)



:smallconfused: Hit effects in Marvel? Honestly, the only ones that come to mind are the fire/electrical aura left on a character after a hit from a move of the appropriate type, and those aren't unusual for the genre. Well, and the pressure wave effect from pushblocking I suppose, but that's quick and serves its purpose well I feel.

No, no, not the "persistant" stuff; The huge 'slash' and 'splat' effects that every hitting attack carries with it. Here. Look. I randomly grabbed some screencaps.

http://s16.postimg.org/6n7ujynld/Mv_C3.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/6n7ujynld/)
http://s16.postimg.org/f6r8hpvxt/Mv_C3_2.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/f6r8hpvxt/)
http://s16.postimg.org/ievpuri7l/Mv_C3_3.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/ievpuri7l/)
http://s16.postimg.org/5ow2vezn5/Mv_C3_4.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/5ow2vezn5/)

In most of those, you can't even SEE the person being hit because there's a HUGE OPAQUE BLOB over them. It's awful.



Marvel is a very flashy game to be sure, but it's more for all the attacks, assists, and how fast those can be coming.

While the speed makes it worse, the root of the problem for me is all the gunk all over the screen

[Wolf_Haley]

Yume in P4 was amzing because he did tons of work with Aegis even when she ran out of Origa mode, that **** was aamzing.

And the more you learn about fighting games, what skills you need to be good, and how to notice things like footsies you start to care less and less about what characters show up in a tournament and more about skill.

The hitsparks in Marvel don't persist for long adn don't really obscure much on the screen for more than a second. Compare that to the **** in KI with all the sparks lasting fa too long and getting way to long.

[Zevox]

Not every match can be a massive seesaw of comebacks, but just about every match CAN feature characters that you've seen less 33% of the time previously.
...except for the part where if every match included those characters, you wouldn't be seeing them that little, anyway.


Yeah, I have no idea who it could be either; This even strikes down Frank West. What other Capcom properties are there that would port well to Street Fighter without seeming out of theme? (Let's face it, it's not like they could add someone from Megaman or something.)
I don't know. After they put Bad Box Art Mega Man in SFxT, I'm not sure I put much of anything past Capcom in that area.


No, no, not the "persistant" stuff; The huge 'slash' and 'splat' effects that every hitting attack carries with it. Here. Look. I randomly grabbed some screencaps.

http://s16.postimg.org/6n7ujynld/Mv_C3.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/6n7ujynld/)
http://s16.postimg.org/f6r8hpvxt/Mv_C3_2.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/f6r8hpvxt/)
http://s16.postimg.org/ievpuri7l/Mv_C3_3.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/ievpuri7l/)
http://s16.postimg.org/5ow2vezn5/Mv_C3_4.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/5ow2vezn5/)

In most of those, you can't even SEE the person being hit because there's a HUGE OPAQUE BLOB over them. It's awful.
Huh, they must be extremely quick, because honestly, I don't think I've much noticed them before, either playing or watching the game. Well, okay, the explosions from the Sentinel drones yeah, but they're explosions.

[Airk]

...except for the part where if every match included those characters, you wouldn't be seeing them that little, anyway.

Which is why I feel P4A's small roster is a problem. Because it causes too many matches to contain the same characters. What point did you think I was making? :smallconfused:



I don't know. After they put Bad Box Art Mega Man in SFxT, I'm not sure I put much of anything past Capcom in that area.

SFxT also contains giant martial-arts trained bears, robots, and a bunch of other random crap. It wasn't expect a paragon of consistency to start with. Anyway, Pac Man is way more out there than BBA Mega Man.



Huh, they must be extremely quick, because honestly, I don't think I've much noticed them before, either playing or watching the game. Well, okay, the explosions from the Sentinel drones yeah, but they're explosions.

Er, they're not that fast. No, they're not on screen for an entire second or something, but they're pretty darn obvious to me, especially when you get a lot of hits in a row (which, you know, NEVER happens in MvC3 :smalltongue: ) and it's just "splatsplatsplatsplatsplatSPLAT!!" They're super unsubtle. You know what IS subtle? BlazBlue hit effects. Even though some of the heavy attack effects are really LARGE, they're so fast that you REALLY don't notice them happening, and they don't obscure the action. (Bet you'd never guess that THIS (http://postimg.org/image/3nzp9ro1j/) is onscreen for a tiny fraction of a second) The Marvel ones are gruesome though - they're way too opaque for way too much of their duration and just last way too long. I realize that it's probably because they wanted to make it look "comic-booky" with the visual equivalent of "BOOM!" and "POW!" but it's fugly. Like pretty much everything about the game, IMHO. And It perplexes me when people don't notice them, since it's basically the first thing I see when I look at the game in motion.