Fighting Game Hype Thread

[Squire Grooktook]

The complete and utter lack of movement and defensive options flies in the face of this

Walking and dashing are the only movement options you need for an aggressive or defensive game. Blocking, poking, and dragon punching are the only options you need for an aggressive or defensive game. TBH I think you're just fetishizing the screen size, which only really gives a minor advantage to some zoning characters at best.

[quash]

No, because he'd just be doing what he and everybody else in the game wins by doing: rush down your opponent before they rush down you.

Exactly. How many times have you seen people get poked to death by Talbain? Obviously mobility helps with this but really it is the hitboxes on his pokes that make him so threatening in any situation. People have learned this game on the fly by picking Talbain and playing it like an airdasher (I am not one of them; if you must know, I mained Jedah).

And that's assuming the rest of the cast doesn't have pokes or spacing tools either, or as if their rush down options somehow shut him down due to some lack of option or weakness. You have provided no evidence for how the game "works against him".

Of course everyone else has spacing ability, but how many of them can do it as well and as safely as Talbain? Better way to put it: if everyone had Talbain's pokes and mobility, would VSAV still be the game of mixups?

[Squire Grooktook]

Exactly. How many times have you seen people get poked to death by Talbain? Obviously mobility helps with this but really it is the hitboxes on his pokes that make him so threatening in any situation.

Not really, his short hop and jump ins are just as good for getting in. He's not even that great a poking character. Bishamon has way better reach and priority on his pokes, not to mention waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better frame advantage on all of them.

Of course everyone else has spacing ability, but how many of them can do it as well and as safely as Talbain?

Bishamon, Lei Lei, Victor, Rikuo, Raptor, Sasquatch. Maybe Lilith too if you count frame advantageous fire ball pokes and j.hk zoning.

If anything, Talbain might be one of the worse poking characters. The other scan dash in with their pokes, allowing them to get closer while potentially gaining frame advantage. Talbain doesn't have that, he's just stuck on the ground a after a block, possibly with frame disadvantage.



Again: let me stress this again, you have not cited anything that works against TAlbain. You started out by saying that "by all means the game should be working against him". You have not cited any weaknesses, you have not cited any places where he has a disadvantage. You have not cited any moves he loses to or things he does poor at. You are dodging the question.

[quash]

Walking and dashing are the only movement options you need for an aggressive or defensive game. Blocking, poking, and dragon punching are the only options you need for an aggressive or defensive game.

Wrong, wronger, wrongest. By your logic we would still be playing sub-SF2 games.

TBH I think you're just fetishizing the screen size, which only really gives a minor advantage to some zoning characters at best.

You are really missing the big picture here dude.

[Squire Grooktook]

Walking and dashing are the only movement options you need for an aggressive or defensive game. Blocking, poking, and dragon punching are the only options you need for an aggressive or defensive game.

Wrong, wronger, wrongest. By your logic we would still be playing sub-SF2 games..

These are the core of the basic sf2 footsies game. I'm obviously not saying "lol there should be only 1 character with 3 moves each", but the core of offense, defense, and neutral in SF2 and the games that evolved from are all rooted in the basic block vs poke vs throw triangle and the various footsies/neutral games that arose in sf2 from exploring those basic moves.

[quash]

Again: let me stress this again, you have not cited anything that works against TAlbain. You have not cited any weaknesses, you have not cited any places where he has a disadvantage. You have not cited any moves he loses to or things he does poor at. You are dodging the question.

My point is simply that Talbain's biggest strength is one that in theory shouldn't be enough to make him as strong as he is given the system he's in and the characters he's up against.

His mixup potential is irrelevant because like you said everyone has good mixups. His mobility is good but it's not enough on its own to carry his character design. Without his pokes, he would be just another character. Perhaps he is no longer considered the absolute best, but he was at one point, and that was because people couldn't figure out how to utilize movement to move in on him safely.

[Hagane]

quash:

The lack of extra mobility options is there to emphasize the ground game. If you add stronger air options the direct result is that approaching from the ground becomes less desirable, and the game plays in a completely different way. Even slight changes, such as hop jump speed in KOF XI / XIII compared to KOF '98 / 2002 UM end up hugely affecting the game's playstyle.

Lack of universal defensive options increases individual character variety. This design philosophy tries to give each character a different, individual way to deal with specific things instead of letting an universal mechanic take care of them. As said, this has the benefit of increasing character variety, but has the problem of being harder to balance and easier to break.

As I see it, it is clear that they intended the game to play as a mix of an oldschool ground based fighting with some modern airdashing elements. They just failed at balancing the tops by not giving them real weaknesses.

[quash]

These are the core of the basic sf2 footsies game. I'm obviously not saying "lol there should be only 1 character with 3 moves each", but the core of offense, defense, and neutral in SF2 and the games that evolved from are all rooted in the basic block vs poke vs throw triangle and the various footsies/neutral games that arose in sf2 from exploring those basic moves.

Okay. But we're not talking about SF2, we were talking about UNIEL until you decided to question my credibility as a VSAV player.

[Squire Grooktook]

These are the core of the basic sf2 footsies game. I'm obviously not saying "lol there should be only 1 character with 3 moves each", but the core of offense, defense, and neutral in SF2 and the games that evolved from are all rooted in the basic block vs poke vs throw triangle and the various footsies/neutral games that arose in sf2 from exploring those basic moves.

Okay. But we're not talking about SF2, we were talking about UNIEL until you decided to question my credibility as a VSAV player.

We're talking about SF2, because you were attempting to argue that the lack of those mechanics discourages close range play. The lack of them didn't didn't discourage them in SF2, or VS, or any of the games that grew up from SF2 and don't have those (relatively recent) mechanics.

I questioned you about VSAV because you made a statement about it (that I think is wrong) in order to back up one of your points.

[quash]

The lack of extra mobility options is there to emphasize the ground game. If you add stronger air options the direct result is that approaching from the ground becomes less desirable, and the game plays in a completely different way.

Sure.

Lack of universal defensive options increases individual character variety.

Universal defensive options actually increase individual character variety if utilized in a smart way. See: Guilty Gear, Arcana Heart.

This design philosophy tries to give each character a different, individual way to deal with specific things instead of letting an universal mechanic take care of them. As said, this has the benefit of increasing character variety, but has the problem of being harder to balance and easier to break.

You have basically described the KOF conundrum right here. But the solution to that is to add more universal options, not take them away.

As I see it, it is clear that they intended the game to play as a mix of an oldschool ground based fighting with some modern airdashing elements. They just failed at balancing the tops by not giving them real weaknesses.

While this is true, it's not really digging in to why the game was made the way it was. If they wanted to make a SF style game, why not stick with the tried and true 4:3 format and call it a day?

[Squire Grooktook]

While this is true, it's not really digging in to why the game was made the way it was. If they wanted to make a SF style game, why not stick with the tried and true 4:3 format and call it a day?

Because I think they wanted to make a game that mixes oldschool ground play with some newschool tricks, and the 4:3 format is IMO a fairly minor thing that doesn't effect the game as siginicantly as you think it does.

Hell, it may very well be an aesthetic choice as much as anything.

[quash]

We're talking about SF2, because you were attempting to argue that the lack of those mechanics discourages close range play.

Where did I say that? I said that they discouraged rushing in at neutral. You know, jumping over pokes and stuff like that. Kind of hard to do that when the game forces you to block them at the other side of the screen!

[Squire Grooktook]

We're talking about SF2, because you were attempting to argue that the lack of those mechanics discourages close range play.

Where did I say that? I said that they discouraged rushing in at neutral. You know, jumping over pokes and stuff like that. Kind of hard to do that when the game forces you to block them at the other side of the screen!

Ah yes, rushing in at neutral, my mistake. You argued that the lack of those mechanics significantly discourages moving in. But the lack of them doesn't discourages moving forward in SF2, nor any of the games evolved from SF2. Dhalism could reach across the screen in Sf2, and the lack of air dash's or FD or whatever didn't make the game revolve around him. At this point, the screen format is the only thing you have to argue, and I doubt it woud've made Dhalism much better in sf2.

[quash]

Because I think they wanted to make a game that mixes oldschool ground play with some newschool tricks, and the 4:3 format is IMO a fairly minor thing that doesn't effect the game as siginicantly as you think it does.

I was about to go into a lot of detail as to why this is naive at best, but I have other things I have to do today. For now I will leave you with this: you are speaking to someone who has transitioned from 4:3 to widescreen for a game that was basically ported from the former to the latter. To say that it dramatically affects the game is an understatement. Everything Xrd changed about Guilty Gear, from the hitboxes on normals to even mechanics like Blitz Shield stem from this change. I can go on about this at a later date but for now it's just something to keep in the back of your head as you observe the game.

Hell, it may very well be an aesthetic choice as much as anything.

I'm sure this had something to do with it, but notice how there are still new 4:3 fighters being made. Yatagarasu and Chaos Code come to mind. Surely there has to be a reason behind it.

[Squire Grooktook]

The modern fighter I've played the most, Skullgirls, is 4:3, and I'd beg to differ based on that (as the "true" sequel to Marvel 2, I similarly transitioned to it from Marvel).

But whatever, I'll drop it, after one more thing:

Common sense seems to dictate that If the game really was intentionally designed for Merkava's play style to be the "main" playstyle that the game was known for, then the main character would have that playstyle too. And more then 3-4 characters would have it as well...

[Hagane]

quash:

The cases where universal systems increase variety are rare. One would be FRCs, because every character uses it differently.

Generally speaking though, more universal options obviously decrease variety, as every character has the same option instead of a personalized one. This is particularly visible with Capcom games, as they usually tend to make universal mechanics a central part of the game instead of being just safeguards as in most KOFs. For example, if everyone can parry and parry is the best way to deal with projectiles, why use character specific options when the universal mechanic is there?

But it still applies to other companies. If instead of giving everyone airdashes you give some short hops instead, some superjumps, some no air mechanic at all, the game will naturally have more varied characters that play in more specific ways. Guilty Gear tries to circumvent the issue of homogenization by making each character as unique as possible, even giving specific subsystems to some.

Still, it is a fact that Guilty Gear favors offensive play more than a game like ST due to the universal availability of things like airdashes, or even outright punishments for pure runaway tactics.

KOF actually does strategic variety better than airdashes in general, at least in games like 2k2/2k2UM and '98. For example OG 2k2's high/top tier has superb variety: you can play as runaway / zoning (Athena), mid-range poking / pressure (Billy), short range poking / pressure (Choi), pure rushdown (O.Chris), mixups (Angel), mid-range zoning (Kula), etc.

Same goes for a game with almost no universal subsystems at all, ST: you have pure long range projectile zoning (O.Sagat), mid-range poking / turtling (Vega), pure rushdown (Balrog), long range limb zoning with some pressure (Sim), and a turtle / rushdown hybrid like Chun.

Games that are heavier on universal mechanics (or make some of those mechanics too good) tend to lack this kind of strategic variety. Vampire Savior is exclusively a rushdown game, for example. GGXXAC is also heavily rushdown oriented, and even the more defensive characters like Baiken are not 100% dedicated archetypes. The closest would be Bridget I guess, and he blows compared to the rest of the cast. Due to parry Third Strike plays mostly at short/mid range and has a much reduced aount of viable archetypes when compared with older SFs.

[quash]

The modern fighter I've played the most, Skullgirls, is 4:3, and I'd beg to differ based on that (as the "true" sequel to Marvel 2, I similarly transitioned to it from Marvel).

This is complete and utter nonsense. You transitioned from a 4:3 game to another 4:3 game. You are just begging to be ignored dude and I can't remember the last time I went out of my way to do that for anyone.

[Squire Grooktook]

XvSF, MSH, MVC1, are not 4:3, IIRC (I checked before posting that, as well). And I've played those just as much.

*Edit* Or maybe they are, hmmm. Didn't look like it in my old videos, but maybe the resolution was off.

I'll definitely have to do more research of them, because comparing videos of Under Night and Marvel side by side, it doesn't look like they have the same screen size.

*double edit* nah, the older games are definitely not 4:3. Confirmed now.

[quash]

Generally speaking though, more universal options obviously decrease variety, as every character has the same option instead of a personalized one.

This used to hold some truth, but these days most games worth a damn use universal options as a way to increase strategic variety. Your example with 3S isn't a bad one necessarily, but there's more to it than just that. You can't make that same argument with Guilty Gear for example because the character specific ways of dealing with fireballs are often times superior, or at the very least are more useful in some situations. A scenario I am intimately familiar with is dealing with Ky's fireballs in AC/+R; as Johnny, I can either slashback for the tension gain, 6P to avoid the fireball entirely, Jackhound through it as a hard callout or jump to bait him into doing something else. Slashbacking is a means to an end, not really an optimal solution, and jumping exposes me to a potentially worse scenario than if I had taken any of the other available options.

There's way more situations like this in GG, AH and other games, but I think that illustrates the point well enough. I think the problem is that you're thinking of system mechanics as being unrelated to character design when they can and do work together to create strategic variety.

Still, it is a fact that Guilty Gear favors offensive play more than a game like ST due to the universal availability of things like airdashes, or even outright punishments for pure runaway tactics.

Airdashing = jumping forward, quite literally. Does this statement still make sense to you?

If anything, Guilty Gear favors offensive play for many of the same reasons ST does: the abundance of hard knockdowns and the strength of anti-airs and throws.

stuff about character archetypes

No offense, but you're coming off as someone who's only played Guilty Gear in passing. Bridget does not by any stretch of the imagination "blow", lol. Some of the best players in the world use Bridget with incredible effectiveness. There are also characters about as or more defensive than Baiken, as well; Potemkin, Venom, and Justice come to mind. There's a ton of different types of characters in +R and virtually all of them are good.

I do agree that KOF does a good job of creating its variety in its character designs, but you also have to realize that it's a much simpler game than any airdasher and doesn't require the level of finesse in its character designs to achieve that variety while still being balanced and interesting to play. You don't have to worry much about a character being too good at any one thing when you can create another character that is basically their antithesis. KOF takes this approach pretty often, actually.

[quash]

I'll definitely have to do more research of them, because comparing videos of Under Night and Marvel side by side, it doesn't look like they have the same screen size.

That you ever even had to wonder about this speaks volumes. I'm done with you.

[Squire Grooktook]

Was looking for a written confirmation lest I was misinterpreting what I saw/or the video was of a different version/port. The Saturn and PS1 versions of MSH and XVSF are notoriously innacurate and terrible in a number of ways.

Also wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt for a second, since I had a video of MVC2 that looked the same as the XVSF one up there, but that one turned out to be a result of bad resolution on the upload. So I had to be sure. (Not to mention it has been nearly 3-4 years since I played MVC2, though I did so for like 4 years straight).

[Hagane]

quash:

I don't think both of us are talking about the same thing when referring to "strategic variety".

First, universal mechanics only increase variety if they aren't actually that universal like FRCs, meaning that every character uses it differently. When you give everyone the same mechanic and it's used the same way by everyone, you are definitely reducing variety. In Guilty Gear most universal mechanics are only safeguards so they aren't as homogenizing, but airdashes for nearly everyone does make a large part of the cast have a similar strategy (rushdown).

Bridget does suck compared to the rest of the cast; AFAIK Ruu is the only to ever achieve truly good results with him, and yet of course most other characters place much better. The "some godly Japanese player got some good results with the character, so it doesn't suck" argument has never been a good one, by the way: Komoda Blanka is legendary in ST and he does mind-bending stuff with his character, but that doesn't make it any less crap when compared to almost the entire rest of the cast.

As for airdashing, they are much safer than forward jumps in a ground based game, which is why it's such a prevalent way to start offense. When almost every character has such a strong universal mechanic, it ends up reducing strategic variety, and indeed that happens in Guilty Gear.

When I talk about strategic variety I'm not talking about having many ways to deal with a certain situation, that's just having a variety of options. I'm talking about character archetypes and strategies. The most popular KOFs and older Street Fighters have rather varied top/high tiers, as I mentioned before. Yet most airdashers tend to just have different variants of rushdown and different options to mix things up, basically because their system mechanics actively try to enforce a certain playstyle.

In AC there's no pure defensive archetype, for example. No character wins exclusively by defending, be it by using limbs or projectiles or whatever. Bridget comes close with his runaway stuff, but Baiken (my main) needs mixups and IAD tatami oki to win, Axl bases a lot of his game on setting up bomber loops or throws into combos, Ky uses projectiles mostly for pressure rather than purely zoning, etc. And I would never think of Venom as defensive; to me he's almost purely rushdown oriented with his constant pressure. He either gets offense going or dies.

Not quite sure what your bit about KOF means. Arcsys always tries to cram lots of stuff to attempt to make things varied, but just piling things up doesn't necessarily make a game deeper, finer or actually varied; in fact most of their output is quite unplayable and stupidly broken, and their good games revolve mostly around different kinds of rushdown. They definitely don't offer the wider gamut of viable strategies a game like KOF 2k2 or ST can offer.

tl;dr: unless the universal mechanics actually behave differently from character to character, variety is always reduced in some way or other depending on how central to the game that mechanic is.

[Obscura]

In AC there's no pure defensive archetype, for example. No character wins exclusively by defending, be it by using limbs or projectiles or whatever. Bridget comes close with his runaway stuff, but Baiken (my main) needs mixups and IAD tatami oki to win, Axl bases a lot of his game on setting up bomber loops or throws into combos, Ky uses projectiles mostly for pressure rather than purely zoning, etc. And I would never think of Venom as defensive; to me he's almost purely rushdown oriented with his constant pressure. He either gets offense going or dies.

Well, of course no character wins exclusively by defending; you have to hit buttons to do damage.

But just because almost every character is going to try to press the advantage doesn't mean that they're not going to just rush in when they're in neutral. Ky sits at midrange and zones until he can force a block with that zoning, at which point he begins pressure; Axl works similarly. Their actual neutral game is midranged; it's just that the reward for winning neutral in GG is frequently "start katame" instead of "do damage now".

(Also, you should try playing Faust if you're looking for more of a "pure zoner").

[Hagane]

ST Dhalsim hits buttons to win. He does it from far away preventing you to get to your optimal positioning.
2k2 Athena also hits buttons. To shoot Psycho Balls from the other side of the screen and get away when you are too close.

Defense =/= sitting on downback.

I'm familiar with all the characters you mention. None of them are a dedicated defensive character. At most defense is only a means to mount an offense. Faust controls space quite well, but he's also pressuring constantly and going for drill / command grab mixups and such.

[Obscura]

Admittedly the only KOF game I've played is XIII, but in that game, zoning works a lot like it does in GGXX -- the best thing to do with your fireball at a distance if you're playing King or Athena is to follow it in and use it to start an offense.

Ky's corner pressure, when done correctly, is all about controlling spacing, much like Dhalsim's; a lot of the stuff he ends his strings with leaves him at even frames or sometimes even disadvantage, but the idea is to use strings that leave you positioned in a range where Ky's pokes are very strong and the opponent's aren't; since an opponent can't walk backwards when they're in the corner, they either have to sit and keep blocking, or take a risky guess on an escape attempt that, if wrong, will probably lead to them getting floated from a 2H for a full air combo.

[Hagane]

Well, KOF XIII is critisized by many oldschool fans due to its lack of strategic variety; hops are stronger and very hard to stop or punish, making the game much more offense oriented. Add customs to that and you have a much less varied top than in older games.

What you mention about Ky is not a defensive strategy, it is just corner pressure. His main goal is to keep offense going and score damage.

[Obscura]

How is "keep offense going and score damage" any different than Dhalsim keeping you locked in the corner with limbs or O.Sagat keeping you locked down with fireball traps?

[Hagane]

Entirely. First and most evident is that Sim or O.Sagat's stategy has a much bigger emphasis on reactive play and control. They are not actively seeking a combo or damage, they want to deny you of your optimal ranges and prevent you from attacking them at all. If you run into a projectile or limb that's great, but the goal is not hitting you, it's denying you a way to get where you want.
Ky wants initiative, responding to his opponent's actions is not his goal.

Sim / Sagat give the initiative to the other player, who will attempt to get close for the whole match. If they do things right you never get the chance to mount an effective offense. If they fail they lose their main strenght (long range play and space control) and are at a huge disadvantage.

Ky doesn't want to give initiative to the other player. He doesn't base his strategy on controlling the screen with his projectiles and then reacting with the proper antiair or punish when the oponent messes up. He uses projectiles mostly in an active way, to enable him to mount an offense. Some players (such as Muteki) use ST Guile in a way that's superficially similar at times, but even then there's a huge component of "wait and react" in his playstyle, something a character like Ky doesn't really do.

[Despatche]

*double edit* nah, the older games are definitely not 4:3. Confirmed now.

They are definitely 4:3. You're looking at the CPS series's strange internal resolution if it were rendered in square pixels (12:7). Normally it would be stretched to a standard 4:3 monitor instead. Any emulator will have an option to do correct stretching, and some will do it by default.

The only widescreen game I know of on the CPS series is 2nd Impact, and it's optional there.

[Squire Grooktook]

Guess Quash has to take me seriously again, then, since it wasn't so obvious after all :3