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[YoRHa No.2 Type B]

Do you guys like to play as Dante?

I actually prefer playing as Nero or Vergil because they feel better. Hell even Lady feels better then Dante.

I would even say that playing as Dante is no fun because he just is "too complex" for that kind of hack 'n' slash games.

Not shitting on anything. I mean I can see that people enjoy playing as him.

Maybe I'm just a noob or what but playing as Dante or Trish was a pain in the ass. I just hope that Nero/Vergil will be playable in DMC5 if it happens.

 

[Dahbomb]

Yeah DMC4 Dante is a bit too much for me. Also a lot of his moves don't have the same impact as his DMC3 self or compared to Nero/Vergil.

If I try to play Dante at a high enough level I feel like I am doing more switches than actual actions.

I of course respect the mechanics and I am fine with a character like that in the game. But it needs more polish and streamlining.

 

[badcrumble]

The thing that bugs me about Dante is that too many truly integral moves are too many button presses away. He became more versatile from DMC3 to DMC4, but input complexity got ramped up more than versatility did when it should be the other way around.

Echoing what Dahbomb said about impact, too - definitely from a visual and audio design point of view it's lessened, but it ends up making him feel like he's got less hitstun too.

 

[GuardianE]

Echoing what Dahbomb said about impact, too - definitely from a visual and audio design point of view it's lessened, but it ends up making him feel like he's got less hitstun too.

Yeah, everything is just sort of muted, and this continues into visual hit effects for moves. It's especially apparent in firearms, as I know Seyavesh is quick to point out.

This is why I was so excited by Lady's "crazy combo" gunstinger.

 

[badcrumble]

Yeah, everything is just sort of muted, and this continues into visual hit effects for moves. It's especially apparent in firearms, as I know Seyavesh is quick to point out.

This is why I was so excited by Lady's "crazy combo" gunstinger.

Gilgamesh is probably the most powerful gauntlets/greaves weapon in the series, thanks to DMC4's new mechanics for DT, but something about it also feels extra slow compared to Beowulf. It's hard to articulate why it feels this way.

I so miss the DMC3 shotgun and Rebellion visual effects, too.

 

[J_Macgrady]

Dante is the most fun to play with to me with Lady being 2nd.

The thing about DMC4 Dante is that he just has a lot of moves at his disposal, but you don't have to always try to use him like the advanced players do. DMC is all about mixing up the moves and doing the voodoo you do. I think the combo videos got the developers, and fans to create this picture that you have to know all these complex techniques in order to have fun with DMC when that was never the case. To be honest, you can really get through a huge portion of the game with just distortion real impact.

In DMC3, before anybody knew about the fact that enemy step could be abused, it was just about using everything the style you chose allowed you to do. I still have that mentality and because of that I don't view Dante as being over the top complex. There's a lot he can do on a base level, and shit can get really crazy when you combine that with advanced techniques, but it's not necessary at all.

I just can't view DMC4 Dante in a bad way just because I can't StarRave consistently.

 

[Dahbomb]

Even at the basic level Dante does not feel that refined or polished in terms of move impact and effects. They did it better in 3. The guns especially feel very muted.

 

[J_Macgrady]

Even at the basic level Dante does not feel that refined or polished in terms of move impact and effects. They did it better in 3. The guns especially feel very muted.

Yeah that's true. The moves in 3 felt like they had a lot more power to them. They toned all of the styles down in 4.

 

[YoRHa No.2 Type B]

That's just what I was thinking. I didn't had that much trouble playing DMC3 Dante. Can't remember how Vergil played in DMC3SE but DMC4SE Vergil is definetly the best.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

I'm a Nero player myself. Even after 4SE with Vergil and the girls I still find Nero to be more enjoyable due to Blue Rose's charge shot. It's really satisfying when you manage to time your next attack right after the enemy gets blown up. (I actually like Lady a lot as well because of her charge shot in 4SE)

Not to mention how fun it is to mess around with enemy positioning using the Devil Arm. I also love using Ex-Act & Max-Act in-between my attacks.

In general Nero is simple enough for me to pick up whenever I want and enjoy him but at the same time he has enough depth to make me want to keep playing as him and get better at utilizing his tools. Unfortunately I can't say the same about Dante. He is just too complicated for me in DMC4.

 

[YoRHa No.2 Type B]

Let's just hope if DMC5 will ever come out (assuming they dropped DmC), that they stick with multiple characters from the beginning. I very much enjoyed Nero and now Vergil and Lady too. I can see Nero & Lady up for DMC5, Vergil can be put in as fanservice or kind of a flash back scenario or

Spoiler

just bring him back from the dead.

 

[darkslayer101]

I'm getting real thirsty for some DMC info... isn't PSX a month away?

 

[badcrumble]

Let's just hope if DMC5 will ever come out (assuming they dropped DmC), that they stick with multiple characters from the beginning. I very much enjoyed Nero and now Vergil and Lady too. I can see Nero & Lady up for DMC5, Vergil can be put in as fanservice or kind of a flash back scenario or

Spoiler

just bring him back from the dead.

I suspect Vergil will be central to DMC5's plot and absolutely present as a playable character.

Agreed that the multiple-playable-character roster thing is good and that DMC5 should be designed in part around it. And that it's okay if some characters are much much deeper than others (though I still want to see some depth added to Nero, Lady, and Trish).

 

[Seyavesh]

i like playing dante secondmost, with trish first

i'd like dante first if i were better with him 100% though. there's a lot of freedom to him moveset that allows for interesting play, even outside of combos. things aren't so braindead that you just do moves and win like vergil/DmC- there's a very clear skill progression that exists and it's extremely easy to see the difference between a mediocre and a skilled player.

if you don't care for improving in skill and replaying the game then he's not going to be your cup of tea but with any sort of investment in those things he's easily the best.

to note, dmc3 dante with style switcher is my actual favorite. he has a higher level of complexity while also being stronger overall in terms of his tools, meaning that you can get away with accessing less of that complexity while still feeling like you're in control rather than dmc4's 'fumbling around' feeling for folks who have trouble w/ style switching.

also trish is extremely simple to get started with. practicing JCs with her is probably the simplest way to do it because she has several auto-positioning moves and a very simple JC chain that works with massive lenience in timing.

edit:
also i really hate nero because of how slow he is. his variety in terms of options during live gameplay is decent but his attacks feel just too slow to interest me.
doing combos with him is fun but that's pretty much about it.

lady would be in the same spot as nero if she wasn't gun-based. she barely edges him out based solely on that. even then, her combo potential is still less interesting than his due to her not having much of a freeform nature for her moves. she lacks the versatility within a small moveset that nero has.

as i've been playing some dmc3 vergil lately trying to imitate schnee's stuff it's interesting to see the parallels in how dmc3 vergil and nero are designed- the whole 'small moveset, big versatility' thing. summon swords are the ultimate move in terms of versatility, with no commitment being needed to use them so you have massive freeform potential with them as long as you can use the right sword patterns and stuff- the main limitation is the firing speed which is why sword formations exist.
nero has something similar with his version of summon swords alongside sightly more versatility in his basic moveset due to his movement options being more interesting.

 

[J_Macgrady]

Honest question to everyone

What about DMC4 Dante makes you uncomfortable?

For me, it's having all of his weapons at once. I wish I could have the DMC3 layout sometimes. I'm cool with style switching though.

 

[Dahbomb]

Honest question to everyone

What about DMC4 Dante makes you uncomfortable?

For me, it's having all of his weapons at once. I wish I could have the DMC3 layout sometimes. I'm cool with style switching though.

Yes this. I can switch between weapon pairs but switching among 3 weapons is teetering on DMC2's level of clunkiness. I don't want to press a button twice to access the weapon I want at the time.

I think the Dark Slayer on double tap messes me up too. It's a cool way to include a 5th style but it's a bit too easy to mess up and be in the wrong style.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Honest question to everyone

What about DMC4 Dante makes you uncomfortable?

For me, it's having all of his weapons at once. I wish I could have the DMC3 layout sometimes. I'm cool with style switching though.

Too many weapons and too many styles with a lot of moves/abilities being locked behind the latter. Just coming from Nero to Dante is quite jarring that you can't even do Arial Rave without using Sword Master style. I think I would've enjoyed playing Dante a lot more if more of the moves where streamlined within the standard controls/buttons and we had the ability to equip like 2 styles and 2 melee weapons at the start of each mission.

Also, styles being on D-Pad doesn't really help. I hate letting go of LS when I'm in the middle of a fight in action games.

 

[J_Macgrady]

Yes this. I can switch between weapon pairs but switching among 3 weapons is teetering on DMC2's level of clunkiness. I don't want to press a button twice to access the weapon I want at the time.

I think the Dark Slayer on double tap messes me up too. It's a cool way to include a 5th style but it's a bit too easy to mess up and be in the wrong style.

Yeah I use the Dark Slayer style a lot because it's easier for me to keep enemies in the air with it, but I don't like having to double tap the d pad to access it. That's why I hope DMC5 let's people go all out with customization.

Too many weapons and too many styles with a lot of moves/abilities being locked behind the latter. Just coming from Nero to Dante is quite jarring that you can't even do Arial Rave without using Sword Master style. I think I would've enjoyed playing Dante a lot more if more of the moves where streamlined within the standard controls/buttons and we had the ability to equip like 2 styles and 2 melee weapons at the start of each mission.

Also, styles being on D-Pad doesn't really help. I hate letting go of LS when I'm in the middle of a fight in action games.

Aerial Rave should be a part of his core moveset. It's like that for everybody else except for him. I don't mind the D-Pad though. Unless I'm trying to mimic some crazy combo people, I don't find it annoying to be honest. Pressing up and then O to dodge isn't a motion that's too weird to me.

No lie, DMC3 Dante with Turbo mode on is more difficult to control consistently than DMC4 Dante to me. I can't even do crazy combos without looking like a maniac pressing triangle lol.

 

[Seyavesh]

air rave on circle is the jam though

it makes jcing air raves feel way more natural instead of having to reach vertically

also i feel they should actually put more styles on doubletap rather than simplifying shit

3SS has doppel and quicksilver on different doubletaps and having access to them is absolutely fantastic

 

[ArjanN]

Too many weapons and too many styles with a lot of moves/abilities being locked behind the latter. Just coming from Nero to Dante is quite jarring that you can't even do Arial Rave without using Sword Master style. I think I would've enjoyed playing Dante a lot more if more of the moves where streamlined within the standard controls/buttons and we had the ability to equip like 2 styles and 2 melee weapons at the start of each mission.

Also, styles being on D-Pad doesn't really help. I hate letting go of LS when I'm in the middle of a fight in action games.

Honestly I hate using the D-pad for anything in games unless it's pure menu stuff that doesn't requires timing.

 

[J_Macgrady]

The main reason why I go crazy about wanting the team to not change too much is because Japanese developers for the most part only know one extreme or the other. There's never a medium. That's why the reboot happened in the first place. I would be more than happy that Itsuno and the team finally found a way to please both crowds without sacrificing too much, but I just can't believe it until I see it.

In fighting games everything is one extreme or the other in their eyes, action games are the same, horror, etc. I want Japanese developers to break away from that mindset and just make a great title, but when you bring in the people in the suits who need to make 100 trillion dollars something's gotta give.

 

[.....]

Testing out a new mic by streaming some 4SE, check it out if you wanna see some scrub nero gameplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuAaDmHYrvA

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Aerial Rave should be a part of his core moveset. It's like that for everybody else except for him. I don't mind the D-Pad though. Unless I'm trying to mimic some crazy combo people, I don't find it annoying to be honest. Pressing up and then O to dodge isn't a motion that's too weird to me.

No lie, DMC3 Dante with Turbo mode on is more difficult to control consistently than DMC4 Dante to me. I can't even do crazy combos without looking like a maniac pressing triangle lol.

To me it's just the repetition of the process and how many times you have to go through with switching styles to get what you want (things that you can do with other characters without the need of having styles) that makes DMC4 Dante overly complex and not as much fun as other characters to use, for me.

Make no mistake I like that he has lots of depth but I think he is just needlessly too complex.

Honestly I hate using the D-pad for anything in games unless it's pure menu stuff that doesn't requires timing.

To be fair I can deal with stuff like healing yourself with D-Pad that AC games do. I just heal myself after the battle. And besides AC games don't have the tight controls and demanding fast paced actions that we see in other action games like DMC. So I don't mind letting go of LS for a few seconds every now and then.

But if I'm playing a pure action game like DMC/Bayonetta I don't want to keep going back and forth between LS and D-Pad in the middle of a fight. And with DMC4's Dante you have to do that a lot.

 

[Dahbomb]

air rave on circle is the jam though

it makes jcing air raves feel way more natural instead of having to reach vertically

also i feel they should actually put more styles on doubletap rather than simplifying shit

3SS has doppel and quicksilver on different doubletaps and having access to them is absolutely fantastic

No one is asking to simplify stuff. It's about more effective use of the controller and the more essential moves be accessed without swapping stuff.

The aerial rave point is irrelevant when you can map buttons around. A lot of good DMC players I know map melee button to Circle anyway especially for Nero.

The auxiliary styles like Doppelganger and QS are fine on D-pad. You don't use them that often because they are restricted to DT usage so if stuff like that is on D-pad then it's acceptable.

 

[J_Macgrady]

To me it's just the repetition of the process and how many times you have to go through with switching styles to get what you want (things that you can do with other characters without the need of having styles) that makes DMC4 Dante overly complex and not as much fun as other characters to use, for me.

Make no mistake I like that he has lots of depth but I think he is just needlessly too complex.


But if I'm playing a pure action game like DMC/Bayonetta I don't want to keep going back and forth between LS and D-Pad in the middle of a fight. And with DMC4's Dante you have to do that a lot.

He's literally just DMC3 Dante with everything equipped at once. Like absolutely nothing else about him is different. They can try something different, but to say he's unnecessarily complex when he's just DMC3 Dante with all the styles is a bit too much.

 

[Kaztinka]

oh god, can you imagine if guard flying was just a simple press of a button away?

 

[Dahbomb]

He's literally just DMC3 Dante with everything equipped at once. Like absolutely nothing else about him is different. They can try something different, but to say he's unnecessarily complex when he's just DMC3 Dante with all the styles is a bit too much.

That's over simplifying it a bit.

There is always a tipping point where if you go beyond you start alienating people. Maybe having two swappable Styles and 4 weapons OTF would've been an acceptable upgrade over DMC3 and people would've swallowed it. Maybe 4 styles and 4 weapons. But 5 styles and 6 weapons is definitely way more than the average person can handle.

The jump from one style and 4 weapons to 5 styles/6 weapon is almost an exponential jump. DMC3 already had a lot of depth and nuances to the system even when using one load out, having all of the load outs at the same time is a massive leap.


I do think that ultimately the two main issues of DMC4 Dante are (that's not related to control scheme, options or complexity):

1) You are introduced to him midway to the game and you are given all the Styles at once. There's no build up, it's like throwing a baby in a hot tub.

2) Styles/weapons in 4 seem to be designed more around working together rather than as individual. That's why they feel weak by themselves. While it's not necessary to be switching styles, you kinda feel like you need to do so anyway to get to the level where you were with Nero (doing SM style air combos, charging guns, dodging quickly, pulling towards enemies etc.).


These are simple design issues that can be fixed and you can just paste DMC4 Dante in the game without there being much of an issue. But I do hope that they change up the systems enough and add some new mechanics to make the upgrade worth it.

oh god, can you imagine if guard flying was just a simple press of a button away?

That would never happen and should never happen. Advance mechanics should stay as advance mechanics.

 

[J_Macgrady]

They probably did things that way because they knew there were people familiar with DMC3. They could have let you decide how much you want equipped at once to make things smoother, but I don't think most people care that much about it until combo videos started coming out and showed off some advanced stuff.

When I first played DMC4 when I was a teenager I never cared about any of the superhuman stuff so I stuck with Swordmaster for the most part until I felt I needed to dodge with Trickster. When I got older that's when I started to play around with it a little more, but I never felt that things were over the top complex or anything. You can go through the game and get S ranks on DMD and beat bloody palace without being the most advanced player, and because of that there's no reason to view him as someone that's impossible to control if you've played DMC3.

What's the end goal of the accessibility thing? So everyone has the chance to be ZeroXeM, or Tizza4Fun? There's some special people out there who can do amazing things in these games, but just because those things are hard to do doesn't necessarily mean the design is flawed.

I just feel if people just pressed buttons and not cared about their gameplay looking like the YouTube videos so much that people would end up enjoying these games a lot more instead of looking at this impossible ceiling to reach for the average person. It's nice to look at those clips for inspiration, I've done it plenty of times, but there's no point getting carried away with that mentality.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

He's literally just DMC3 Dante with everything equipped at once. Like absolutely nothing else about him is different. They can try something different, but to say he's unnecessarily complex when he's just DMC3 Dante with all the styles is a bit too much.

Well, Dahbomb explained it better than I could.

There is another point that I wanna add though. I think the fact that you had to pick a set of one style and 4 weapons at the beginning of each mission in DMC3 (and how the game was actually balanced around that), hid some of the "issues" that the control scheme might have had. I put issues in quotation marks cause I don't really think that they are issues in DMC3 but rather they become restrictions of DMC3's control scheme when they are put in DMC4.

I think DMC3's controls were good, even great for how the game handled the style systems since both the styles and Dante's control scheme were designed with certain limitations in mind. The game was balanced around these limitations and it worked very well. But when they took out the limitations in how many styles you can use at the same time (and balanced the enemy design and difficulty of the game around that) without doing the same with controls, they kinda showed how strict Dante's control scheme (in regards to utilizing styles and their moves) was in DMC3.

I think that's part of the reason why Dante in DMC4 feels needlessly complex. There are restrictions in DMC4 Dante's controls that aren't meant for him. This becomes way more apparent by the fact that you come to Dante from Nero who is a character with a control scheme that is a lot less strict in regards to utilizing his tools.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about this. But in my mind this is the biggest reason why Dante feels too complex in DMC4 even though as you said, he is basically DMC3's Dante with everything equipped.

What's the end goal of the accessibility thing? So everyone has the chance to be ZeroXeM, or Tizza4Fun? There's some special people out there who can do amazing things in these games, but just because those things are hard to do doesn't necessarily mean the design is flawed.

Jason, I think you are mistaking "complexity" with "depth". Accessibility and depth aren't mutually exclusive. A character can be both accessible and have a ton of depth at the same time. Look at Vergil in 4SE. Look at Bayonetta. Even look at Dante and Vregil in DmC.

Surly the amount of depth varies between the examples that I provided above, but in each case the characters are both friendly to newcomers and have nice amount of depth for more advanced players. I don't think anyone is asking for characters to lose their depth and become the "press A to Awesome" kinda deal. People just want the game and its characters be easy to pick up and enjoy without having simple stuff like dodge or basic air combos, etc being more complex than they have to be. Again, just look at Vergil in 4SE. He is a good example of what I'm talking about.

 

[GuardianE]

I think that's part of the reason why Dante in DMC4 feels needlessly complex. There are restrictions in DMC4 Dante's controls that aren't meant for him. This becomes way more apparent by the fact that you come to Dante from Nero who is a character with a control scheme that is a lot less strict in regards to utilizing his tools.
* * *
Surly the amount of depth varies between the examples that I provided above, but in each case the characters are both friendly to newcomers and have nice amount of depth for more advanced players. I don't think anyone is asking for characters to lose their depth and become the "press A to Awesome" kinda deal. People just want the game and its characters be easy to pick up and enjoy without having simple stuff like dodge or basic air combos, etc being more complex than they have to be. Again, just look at Vergil in 4SE. He is a good example of what I'm talking about.

I personally think that a part of the reason why DMC4 Dante feels needlessly complex is because the game itself is so ill tuned to his moveset. DMC4 is very much Nero's game. We've discussed this in the past. Dante's mobility seems more restricted until you essentially have to break your own personal limiter to feel powerful, and it's largely because of how the enemies are balanced around him.

* * *

To be fair, Vergil is a very bad example of a balanced character. He is not what DMC5 should strive to do, by any stretch of the imagination.

And while accessibility and depth are not mutually exclusive, achieving a certain level of depth also requires a degree of complexity, and complexity will inherently have a learning curve associated with it. I don't have a problem with a character like Vergil existing necessarily, but they shouldn't be the default, and there should be a wide spectrum of variety if you're going to have multiple characters, just like in a fighting game. And why? Because different styles will appeal to different kinds of players, just like how some people will gravitate towards grapplers versus a more complex and difficult character like C.Viper. This is why having complexity really isn't a dirty word that should be dismissed all of a sudden. There is value to it.

 

[Kaztinka]

That would never happen and should never happen. Advance mechanics should stay as advance mechanics.

but my hands hurt when I do it a lot

 

[J_Macgrady]

Well, Dahbomb explained it better than I could.

There is another point that I wanna add though. I think the fact that you had to pick a set of one style and 4 weapons at the beginning of each mission in DMC3 (and how the game was actually balanced around that), hid some of the "issues" that the control scheme might have had. I put issues in quotation marks cause I don't really think that they are issues in DMC3 but rather they become restrictions of DMC3's control scheme when they are put in DMC4.

I think DMC3's controls were good, even great for how the game handled the style systems since both the styles and Dante's control scheme were designed with certain limitations in mind. The game was balanced around these limitations and it worked very well. But when they took out the limitations in how many styles you can use at the same time (and balanced the enemy design and difficulty of the game around that) without doing the same with controls, they kinda showed how strict Dante's control scheme (in regards to utilizing styles and their moves) was in DMC3.

I think that's part of the reason why Dante in DMC4 feels needlessly complex. There are restrictions in DMC4 Dante's controls that aren't meant for him. This becomes way more apparent by the fact that you come to Dante from Nero who is a character with a control scheme that is a lot less strict in regards to utilizing his tools.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about this. But in my mind this is the biggest reason why Dante feels too complex in DMC4 even though as you said, he is basically DMC3's Dante with everything equipped.



Jason, I think you are mistaking "complexity" with "depth". Accessibility and depth aren't mutually exclusive. A character can be both accessible and have a ton of depth at the same time. Look at Vergil in 4SE. Look at Bayonetta. Even look at Dante and Vregil in DmC.

Surly the amount of depth varies between the examples that I provided above, but in each case the characters are both friendly to newcomers and have nice amount of depth for more advanced players. I don't think anyone is asking for characters to lose their depth and become the "press A to Awesome" kinda deal. People just want the game and its characters be easy to pick up and enjoy without having simple stuff like dodge or basic air combos, etc being more complex than they have to be. Again, just look at Vergil in 4SE. He is a good example of what I'm talking about.

I don't want the most complex character that requires HCB QCF 360 motion super lol. It's just that when things are already as simple as pressing the circle button for the cool stuff it's hard for me to view it in a horrible way. I would love for them to put as many of the basic moves into his core moveset so they can come up with more crazy stuff to map to the circle button. It's just that DMC4 Dante as is isn't the most poorly designed character of all time. Sure you have to use the D Pad a lot and that may turn people off, but other than that he's ok if you've played DMC3 before. More tutorials would help newcomers get accustomed to the game no matter what they decide to do with the combat for 5.

Vergil, Bayonetta, and Dante in DmC all play differently from DMC4 Dante as they should. We already have 5 characters in 4SE and everyone gravitates towards their favorite character. So why can't Dante just be the batshit insane jack of all trades guy on the cast? Like I said, I want more of the style moves in his core moveset, but because he has so many moves and styles compared to the rest of the cast it's not that simple to design a control scheme in which you have all the style moves without the style system.

 

[Seyavesh]

No one is asking to simplify stuff. It's about more effective use of the controller and the more essential moves be accessed without swapping stuff.

The aerial rave point is irrelevant when you can map buttons around. A lot of good DMC players I know map melee button to Circle anyway especially for Nero.

The auxiliary styles like Doppelganger and QS are fine on D-pad. You don't use them that often because they are restricted to DT usage so if stuff like that is on D-pad then it's acceptable.

the aerial rave point is 100% relevant because the difference between having it on a style and having it on melee button changes things radically in terms of player comfort. small input changes like that are huge when you start thinking about the implications of them at a greater level beyond basic play.

easy example: as dante if you wanted to do forward jumping air rave JCs, the complexity of that drastically increased because surprise, helm breaker is now forward+attack. repositioning yourself using a simple tool magically became 10x harder for the sake of convenience when there's already scheme in place that actively considers this.

nero does not deal with this specifically because his shit is so slow alongside having snatch- it's purposefully designed that way so there's not a large gap of frustration for something so basic because that simple input consolidation.

vergil does not deal with this because he does not have air rave on force edge- it's limited to moves that knock enemies back and includes helm breaker, which is normally not JC'd out of. have you ever tried doing (helm breaker->JC->jump forward to re-position for another JC) x N really quickly? it's really hard specifically for that reason! normally you'd let go of lock-on but the fine repositioning that you need lockon for is a huge boon in being consistent in doing something that simple- just try comparing the ease of doing it with dante vs. vergil when you lack the ability to hold forward while locked on.

i can think of an easy what-if example that's only held back because of a nonsensical design- trish very specifically would not be able to do JC air rave backwards while maintaining backwards inertia because of her dedicated swordmaster button having aerial back and forth inputs. unfortunately, her air rave specifically cancels out all inertia alongside having none of it's own so it's just another limitation for that character.

as for 'nobody is asking for simplification', SoS literally said that he wanted 2 styles available instead of 4.

that is exactly what i don't want. it's on some dmcdmc shit, stepping backwards for the sake of reducing complexity as to appease people who don't have any interest in putting in the time to improve.

it's why i think simply having every style actually be strong individually rather than having the composite package be the designed baseline for play would be the best option. those types of players only have interest in feeling in control of their character and having styles be as complete as they are in 3 would go just as far, if not further for the goal of satisfying them while retaining the depth and complexity that is expected from a dmc. especially after dmcdmc.

that's why vergil is so appealing to people, too. it's very hard not to feel in complete control of the character and situation at hand when considering how his moveset is designed. it's specifically built to be appealing in that manner, which in turn is also why it ultimately feels so hollow when attempting to play at a high level with him- there's nothing that really feels like a gamechanger when playing well with him. all his advanced techniques add nothing to his core gameplay experience and instead just add small gimmicks that slow down his gameplay for the sake of just creating some meaningful variety in a sequence instead of the noise that you get when mashing around with him.

think for a moment: what techniques does he have that change how you can approach fights? the answer is none, because all his advanced techniques are combo-only material.

gunbo had the right idea when talking about how to approach the character- ultimately the thing that can be improved on in an interesting way is raw speed of actions due to how fast and freeform vergil is. the 6-7 month old footage of tengazangetsx just doing moves as quickly as possible is significantly more interesting than any other 'stylish combat' video that's been produced for vergil specifically for that reason.

guardiane already put my general point across more eloquently but that desire for simplification disguised as streamlining is absolutely unacceptable to me and i'm not gonna sit here and let people all pretend like it's a step forward.

i get the same vibe as those people who believe bayonetta is the 'next step' in action game design because of their shallow understandings of how radically different the core concepts of the movesets and flow of combat are. they can only see at a macro level without understanding the actual structure that goes forth to create the games.

anyhow, if you've managed to get this far without your eyes rolling back into your head thanks for reading my near-frontier gibberish rambling.

 

[Wolf Akela]

He's literally just DMC3 Dante with everything equipped at once. Like absolutely nothing else about him is different. They can try something different, but to say he's unnecessarily complex when he's just DMC3 Dante with all the styles is a bit too much.

Nah, more like DMC4 Dante is composed of downgraded parts of DMC3 Dante glued together and jammed into a game not designed around him. Styles in DMC4 are individually weak. I get a great amount of pleasure playing Royalguard in DMC3. I might as well not have any style selected when I press D-Pad Down in DMC4 as it's essentially been relegated to flying in high level play.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

I personally think that a part of the reason why DMC4 Dante feels needlessly complex is because the game itself is so ill tuned to his moveset. DMC4 is very much Nero's game. We've discussed this in the past. Dante's mobility seems more restricted until you essentially have to break your own personal limiter to feel powerful, and it's largely because of how the enemies are balanced around him.

* * *

To be fair, Vergil is a very bad example of a balanced character. He is not what DMC5 should strive to do, by any stretch of the imagination.

And while accessibility and depth are not mutually exclusive, achieving a certain level of depth also requires a degree of complexity, and complexity will inherently have a learning curve associated with it. I don't have a problem with a character like Vergil existing necessarily, but they shouldn't be the default, and there should be a wide spectrum of variety if you're going to have multiple characters, just like in a fighting game. And why? Because different styles will appeal to different kinds of players, just like how some people will gravitate towards grapplers versus a more complex and difficult character like C.Viper. This is why having complexity really isn't a dirty word that should be dismissed all of a sudden. There is value to it.

While I agree with what you are saying, I still think that Dante's controls in DMC4 needed a little bit of redesign even if he was in a game that was designed and balanced around him. I mean stuff like sufficient dodging or having air combos shouldn't be locked behind a style system anymore, regardless of how the game is designed.

* * *
Well balance really wasn't the subject of the discussion here. Vergil is both accessible and have a lot of depth so I was using him as an example for saying that you can have both at the same time. Otherwise, yeah Vergil is pretty broken when it comes to balance so they definitely need to work on that.

While complexity isn't necessarily a bad thing, over complexity certainly is and to be fair that's what we were talking about. As I've said before, there are many things in DMC4 Dante that are complex due to his style system being too strict. I think loosening him up a little by adding stuff like air combos, different pause combos, back to forward motion etc to his normal controls could make him more accessible. At the same time, adding those stuff to his normal controls should make room for more/newer stuff to be incorporated into styles and as a result add more depth to his character.

I don't want the most complex character that requires HCB QCF 360 motion super lol. It's just that when things are already as simple as pressing the circle button for the cool stuff it's hard for me to view it in a horrible way. I would love for them to put as many of the basic moves into his core moveset so they can come up with more crazy stuff to map to the circle button. It's just that DMC4 Dante as is isn't the most poorly designed character of all time. Sure you have to use the D Pad a lot and that may turn people off, but other than that he's ok if you've played DMC3 before. More tutorials would help newcomers get accustomed to the game no matter what they decide to do with the combat for 5.

Vergil, Bayonetta, and Dante in DmC all play differently from DMC4 Dante as they should. We already have 5 characters in 4SE and everyone gravitates towards their favorite character. So why can't Dante just be the batshit insane jack of all trades guy on the cast? Like I said, I want more of the style moves in his core moveset, but because he has so many moves and styles compared to the rest of the cast it's not that simple to design a control scheme in which you have all the style moves without the style system.

No, of course not. When it comes to depth and gameplay DMC4 Dante is one of the best characters in the genre.

I think I explained above that I don't want them to make him a simpler character when it comes to depth and the sheer amount of stuff that he can do. It's just that the execution of these moves (especially the basic ones that I listed above in my reply to GE) shouldn't be as complex as they are right now. Otherwise, yes Dante can be jack of all trades and he can have complex and difficult to master techs like Guard Flying for instance.


Also, this is my opinion on DMC4's Dante. He could have been a lot more accessible and he & the game would've benefited from it.

Now when it comes to DMC5, these things are absolute bare minimums of what I expect to see. DMC has been gone for a very very long time and in its absence a lot has happened. Stuff like dedicated dodge button or having more options available in normal controls are imo no-brainers.

I've never been shy about where I stand in regards to styles and how I want them to begone in the next title. But regardless of whether they decide to do away with styles, they need to change a lot of things about controls just to bring the title to today's standards. And I'm confident that Itsuno & co will manage to deliver a modern DMC without compromising the depth and charm of its gameplay.

 

[direct_quote]

I long for the day when we have actual news on DMC5 so we can stop all this wild speculation and wish lists, and actually speculate about some tangible news...

 

[Dahbomb]

Seyavesh you do not want to get into a long ended DMC mechanics conversation with me!

Tldr:

Ultimately I just want two things from Dante in 5: Dodging and doing a basic air combo should not require some sort of swap. Itsuno can do whatever he wants with the rest, give us 8 styles, transforming weapons, additional modifiers etc.

But the games have started to become more aerial combat focused and it makes 0 sense to have to swap to be able to attack in the air. In addition as long as there are clunky evasion mechanics then the developers can't make aggressive enough enemies so for that reason a basic dodge needs to be fast and easily accessible.


The rest of the game can trump DMC4 in complexity and depth, I wouldn't care. Also no more tri swaps, that shit is wack.


5 is probably going to be a different game than previous DMC games so all this minute/micro level mechanics stuff probably would not apply to it. Maybe they mess with the enemy step hit boxes/timing windows or cancel windows of moves. That would change up the combat dramatically and it would be near impossible to make 1 to 1 comparisons. Players will have to adjust and judge the mechanics within the context of the game not in relation to past DMC games (which is impossible to do, there will always be that person who just compares everything even if there's no real comparison).

 

[Golnei]

Seyavesh you do not want to get into a long ended DMC mechanics conversation with me!

Please continue, the discussions are always worthwhile to read.

I really shouldn't have left that tab open for so long...

 

[Dahbomb]

It's really more of a philosophical issue rather than "this is good and that is bad".

As long as you can approach something with "does this make the game better/good?" and "if so why and how? And for who?"

Probably the hardest thing Capcom has to do is finding the balance between the new player experience and appeasing the hardcore. The "who" in that question. You can't go too much in either direction for 5 is what I feel

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Just got around to reading Seyavesh's post. (It was an intimidating wall of texts)

as for 'nobody is asking for simplification', SoS literally said that he wanted 2 styles available instead of 4.

Whoa, waaaaay out of context buddy. I said that due to number of reasons.

A) Basic abilities of Dante being locked behind different styles
B) I said that after saying that I want more moves from Dante being incorporated into his normal controls (as in more option/abilities within each styles)
C) As I've stated before, I don't like using D-pad in action games. So the less I have to use them (2 styles over 5) the better for me.

You are more than welcome to disagree with any of that. Just don't take them out of context please.

 

[butman]

Like this is the most fresh DMC thread i will put my question here:

I pretend to play all the serie starting with the PS3 HD collection.
I known that DMC 2 is garbage. But do i still must play it for story purpose? Or is enought if i see the movie on YT?

 

[Dahbomb]

Like this is the most fresh DMC thread i will put my question here:

I pretend to play all the serie starting with the PS3 HD collection.
I known that DMC 2 is garbage. But do i still must play it for story purpose? Or is enought if i see the movie on YT?

It's unrelated story wise because it takes place in a distant future.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Like this is the most fresh DMC thread i will put my question here:

I pretend to play all the serie starting with the PS3 HD collection.
I known that DMC 2 is garbage. But do i still must play it for story purpose? Or is enought if i see the movie on YT?

Play it a little bit then go for DMC3. Just so you know how big of turn around and masterpiece DMC3 was.

Story is practically non-canon at this point. No one talks about it and everyone (Capcom and fans alike) just avoid it like plague.

 

[Dahbomb]

It's still canon but it's far in the distant future. That pretty much just means that any game taking place between 4 and 2 will not kill off Dante. Anything else is fair game.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

I think it's more "canon" at this point.

 

[Seyavesh]

Just got around to reading Seyavesh's post. (It was an intimidating wall of texts)

my point is that it's the same thing- those seemingly small changes have larger repercussions that ultimately simplify the game in favor of streamlining. it's the exact same design theory that dmcdmc worked off of and is the ultimate result of. even down to the 'two styles' thing in the form of angel/demon triggers.

Seyavesh you do not want to get into a long ended DMC mechanics conversation with me!

i'm all about discussing the mechanics considering how much time i've put into improving, haha. i really enjoy 'em.

when i bring up that small thing, i'm simply stating that any kind of percieved 'slight' change to movesets ultimately has a drastic effect at any level of play beyond very basic stuff. very arguably for the worse too when considering how tight the current control scheme is. there's very clearly a lot of thought put into the inputs for every single move, especially considering the very nature of DMC combat being based on near-immediately accessible moves.

the air rave thing is something that i'm pretty particular about because i really hate doing the aforementioned helm breaker x n thing as vergil alongside not being able to JC backwards and air rave as trish. there's lots of minute things like that which aren't obvious in footage alone.

also, you can always judge the mechanics in relation to past games if they're built purposefully to be similar enough- that's why there is an easy comparison between 4 and dmcdmc.

i am utterly against the philosophy of simplification for the sake of appealing to people who ultimately don't care about getting into the system like that when you can appease them just as easily in other ways that don't compromise the design in the first place.
fighting games have been suffering because of that philosophy of shitty design decisions for the sake of appealing to 'new players' so i'd really rather not have it happen to another series i enjoy.

honestly if they wanted to experiment with simplification i'd prefer they just used trish because her moveset is already pretty empty as is. her design concept is already built upon being a simple dante, with swordmaster and gunslinger effectively being on dedicated buttons.

the stupid imaginary layout i imagined out was to use the 2 open triggers to have a trickster button and a 'whatever unique style thing' button. then just making her forward/back holding gun moves be like an electrical version of multi-lock or whatever instead of pandora. also adding stinger/MS and helm breaker while making round trip a hold again for convenience's sake, i guess. it maintains the principles of dante's design while also being 'simpler' in terms of control scheme so dante can have a more complete and large moveset without sacrificing anything about his design for the sake of streamlining.

edit:

I long for the day when we have actual news on DMC5 so we can stop all this wild speculation and wish lists, and actually speculate about some tangible news...

i'm just talking about mechanics. before LDK posted his stream i've been the only person in this thread even posting footage or talking about actual gameplay for this game for the past like 30 pages.
i 100% prefer mechanics talk over wishlists and speculation because it's at least got some base instead of none at all.

 

[J_Macgrady]

i am utterly against the philosophy of simplification for the sake of appealing to people who ultimately don't care about getting into the system like that when you can appease them just as easily in other ways that don't compromise the design in the first place.

That's it right there.

All of you guys are more intelligent than me when it comes to describing the action in DMC. It's just that why go out of your way to cater to people who don't like this type of stuff anyway? It just makes no sense.

SFV's battle system is probably the most accessible in the series and none of that stuff mattered because arcade, and other single player modes weren't in the game. It's the same with this genre. You can bring in people without sacrificing a lot.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

SFV shouldn't be used as an example for "casuals don't care" or "won't invest time" imo. That game had some serious issues that had nothing to do with its gameplay and casuals not caring for it. On the contrary the game didn't care and had not been catered towards casuals.

I'm a casual fighter, I admit that. And I abandoned SFV cause as a SP player it had nothing to offer me even though I actually liked its gameplay. I liked the gameplay so much that I practiced combos, anti-airs, footsies etc to become better (and I was improving a lot, judging by my matches with friends online).

But ultimately the game had nothing to offer to me as a mostly SP dude, since MP never manages to capture my interest in the long run. Now on the other hand if my SP games are enjoyable and have lots of contents then I stick with them for a long while. (been regularly playing Drive Club for over a year now).

Also Seyavesh, there is one thing that I don't understand man. Let's assume for a second that what you are saying is true and there is no way you can have a more streamlined control scheme for Dante without sacrificing his depth. Now then, what do you propose they do with him in DMC5? Just give a him a new set of weapons and call it a day? I'm specifically talking about Dante here.

 

[Seyavesh]

Also Seyavesh, there is one thing that I don't understand man. Let's assume for a second that what you are saying is true and there is no way you can have a more streamlined control scheme for Dante without sacrificing his depth. Now then, what do you propose they do with him in DMC5? Just give a him a new set of weapons and call it a day? I'm specifically talking about Dante here.

think about how everything is built to be strong while only using one style in 3- i want that for each individual style WHILE also being able to style switch as a design philosophy.to start off with.

so bring back crazy combos, wild ride (with multiple weapons instead of just e&i), wild stomp, etc. things that add options to your moveset outside of having a certain style equipped.

also make everything strong again- there's a real big issue in dmc4's weapons all having really short hitboxes and active frames over dmc3's and that shit goes a long way in making the character feel strong, which in turn makes casual players feel like they're in control of the character rather than stymied by their lack of skill.

this includes 3x trickster dash, stupidly strong royal guard, a full darkslayer style with rapid slash and launch, gunslinger moves being good again, guns being good again, whatever.

there's also small mechanical changes that help a lot like changing the jump restriction height on attacks and moves back to dmc3's height rather than the near-full jump of dmc4's and having weapon switch canceling and royal guard canceling being back for guns.
edit: keeping inertia is another 'small' thing that goes a long way. it only popped into my head that it's technically a small mechanical detail since it has no real impact on basic play.

like, consider how much of a difference crazy combos make in terms of making dante's moveset more in-depth and enjoyable while additionally being easy to understand. because casual players do not care about accessing the actual depth of the game, it's clever designs like that which i seek.

also, i wasn't just talking about sf5 in that scenario though it's on the list. things are actively made worse for the purpose of attracting a base that does not care- it's been proven time and time again that those types of players have no interest in what the actual game is.

that you admit yourself that you did not continue playing MP is an explicit admission that you did ultimately did not care about the mechanics or the game. and yet, those design decisions were explicitly built with you in mind for the express idea of getting you into that actual game at the expense of almost everything appealing at a mechanical level. the 'game wasn't catered for casuals' is an exact example of what i'm talking about here- no matter what the mechanics were the ultimate thing that you were seeking has nothing to do with the mechanical aspects of the game.

the joke that many SP-focused players don't seem to understand is that capcom burned both sides of the bridge by attempting to attract those players into the actual game by simplifying things as much as possible as to create an ongoing market/e-sports model.
those players keep going 'heh, you ~competitive elitists~ got what you deserved because capcom focused on you' without even considering that the game is also burning on that end because of them.

this is the kind of garbage i want to avoid with dmc and you see it pop up all the time in dmcdmc threads very specifically because that game shares the exact same design philosophy that i am so vehemently against.

 

[Dahbomb]

That's a long ass post that basically says:

*I want DMC3 combat balance but with DMC4's inertia and style switch. Oh and expand Dark Slayer style too.

If they do that then that would be a really lazy DMC5. You are essentially setting the game up to fail if the rest of the game isn't top notch.

How are they even going to advertise the game if they don't have changes/additions they can even market?

Every single DMC game has been widely different from the previous one. New mechanics, new balancing, new gravity, new animations, new engine, new weapons, new moves etc. It was possible to market it as such and you got people excited for the new mechanics and game play additions.


On the issue of DmC, the game has far bigger issues than just trying to make it accessible. They removed lock on and then clogged up the controller with TWO dedicated dodge buttons. They split up weapon moveset into two buttons when with lock on you could've had it on one button. The whole game was built around this and even with DmC DE this wasn't really changed. Then they messed with gravity, animations, float time, enemy step, inertia, cancel windows a ton making it very different from DMC at a base level.

Technically that game had a Swordmaster button, a Trickster button and Gunslinger moves were kinda incorporated in plus they added the Devil Bringer. DmC Dante actually has a lot of options when you boil down to it and if they had lock on plus another button actually doing something, it would've almost rivaled DMC4 Dante's options if it actually followed the DMC formula of having lock on moves.

A game between DmC and DMC4 would actually work really well. You replace the Stance Triggers with Weapon swap triggers like in classic DMC. You make a Style modifier button instead of the Dodge and you are done. You leave the D-pad open to incorporate actual new mechanics and options while keeping the standard options of DMC in tact. Sure... this change will make a lot of things different but it has the benefit of adding new moves and mechanics into the game, which you can actually market to everyone so they can get hype over it.


You guys realize why Dante doesn't have aerial directional input moves but Vergil and Nero do? That's because it's physically impossible for someone to do some kind of combos using aerial multiple air direction moves WHILE also style switching. It's impossible because you can't have the thumb on the stick to move it back or forward while also swapping Style. This is just one example of how the D-pad restricts design space for DMC. This is COMMON SENSE.

Nero's Red Queen has almost the same amount of moves as Rebellion WITH Swordmaster. What Dante's Rebellion accomplishes with THREE buttons (Swordmaster style switch button, Triangle and Circle), Red Queen accomplishes with ONE button, . This is what it means to STREAMLINE. What DmC did was the opposite... it split Rebellion's moveset up into two button... it was the OPPOSITE of streamlining.

We can talk about the easy of doing Helm Breaker enemy step and aerial rave enemy step with Triangle + Circle versus them being all on one button and how directional Helm Breaker makes it harder to do position based aerial combat. Sure it's harder... but it's still not nearly as hard or as clunky as having to move your thumb over to the D-pad to switch into D-pad then utilize two different buttons for attacks. You are gaining more than you are losing here if you list up the pros and cons of each. Game designing is all about weighing risks vs reward and balancing, you should always strive to perfect and not be satisfied with the status quo.


At the end of the day, even if they made the game more "accessible" the casuals won't actually care about the top end depth of the game. They didn't care for GoW, they didn't care for Bayonetta and they CERTAINLY didn't care for DmC. DmC's combat depth is FAR ABOVE the scope of the casual player, that should tell you right there that what we are suggesting here has little to do with aiming at the casuals (because DMC isn't a casual game). DMC overall is actually a very accessible game, most moves aren't that hard. You can mash and dodge your way through the game with easy without really learning anything along the way. I don't really care for Joe Nobody to be able to do fancy air combos at the drop of the hat. What matters is the INTERMEDIATE or ENTHUSIAST player be able to progress naturally from being an average play to an expert player. That's where DMC kinda struggles at because past a certain point you hit a steep wall and it's mostly related to execution and arcane mechanics. That curve needs to be smoothed out so people can start to slowly advance to that high level without just smacking into the wall and giving up. You don't want to be in a position where you see a combo video and be like "I can never do that ever'... the combat system should be such that you watch a video and say "I can't do that now but with solid practice I can get close enough". For that to happen, stuff has to make sense on a design, mechanics and visual level. You can't afford to have your game be dictated by unintended mechanics because you decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the game.