biosnake20
Member
Good luck brother.
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Fighting Games Weekly | Jan 20-26 | I Can't Believe It's Not A Fighting Game
- Thread starter enzo_gt
- Start date
The whole "top tiers are good because when low tier characters beat them its hype" argument was and still is a pretty bad one. Ono tried that shit and he was panned for it... forcing his hand to release Apology Edition.
If you want to defend the ban on the character then cite the reasoning that its too early to ban.. The other argument doesn't fly anymore.
IMO if you want to implement a ban then it has to be now. Mostly because once players get invested in a character you end up with a Metaknight situation.
This also isn't the case of a brand new game.... this is just an expansion. There are top players who already know how to play the game so they know whats strong and what isn't. This isn't similar to say people wanting a ban on Phoenix because the game was unexplored back then and was brand new.
If you want to defend the ban on the character then cite the reasoning that its too early to ban.. The other argument doesn't fly anymore.
IMO if you want to implement a ban then it has to be now. Mostly because once players get invested in a character you end up with a Metaknight situation.
This also isn't the case of a brand new game.... this is just an expansion. There are top players who already know how to play the game so they know whats strong and what isn't. This isn't similar to say people wanting a ban on Phoenix because the game was unexplored back then and was brand new.
Good news for Capcom.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=755915
Just think Capcom was going to cancel it till Microsoft saved it.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=755915
Just think Capcom was going to cancel it till Microsoft saved it.
toddhunter
Member
At the same time I don't think you can look at SF4 and draw direct conclusions to a much smaller game like BB.
Besides, Yun never won EVO.
I am not sure what size has to do with it.
Yun didn't win EVO because he was not as bad as Kokonoe and he wasn't even #1 according to many top players. Like no one seriously asked for bans on Yun.
Its the principle behind this that makes the designer of the game either look idiotic (for purposely putting in an OP character) or incompetent (not picking up on it internally).
Yun was one of a number of completely ridiculous characters. He was just the easiest to use.
Kokonoe's risk/reward is absurdly untuned to the point where you wonder if they even bothered testing her much before they sent her out into the world. Kagura ended up just fine.
France also banned the Star Wars characters- though I suspect some of that was because the French thought the idea of Space Opera chars in a 16th century fighting game was too stupid to not be banable.
Viola deserved a ban though.
As for Yun- I wonder if Ono intentionally did that to force an apology edition out because he wanted to continue work on the series.
To me it just looks like the character wasn't tested much and released quickly. Its a common occurence among DLC characters. Probably just a mistake versus deliberately doing it to spike sales/interest/hype whatever.
Basically the same thing that happened with OG Scorpion.
Has ArcSys commented on it?
Anyway the whole concept of character banning is interesting to me. Interesting in the fact that at what point does a community feel a character is too strong that it warrants a ban. In this generation alone we have had 6 or so characters who were either banned or were argued over for banning.
Scorpion
Hilde
Viola
Metaknight
TvC Giants
Kokonoe
Algol
Basically the same thing that happened with OG Scorpion.
Has ArcSys commented on it?
Anyway the whole concept of character banning is interesting to me. Interesting in the fact that at what point does a community feel a character is too strong that it warrants a ban. In this generation alone we have had 6 or so characters who were either banned or were argued over for banning.
Scorpion
Hilde
Viola
Metaknight
TvC Giants
Kokonoe
Algol
darkblade77
Member
Kagura and Terumi were playable on preview builds IIRC. Kokonoe only was available to play at some media/PR events prior to her entering the game.
It's just like CS1 valk/makoto, who were busted as hell because they never got tested(mak was top tier in CS2 in large part thanks to nobody realizing how strong she actually was in CS1, which led to her getting kneecapped in CSEX)
TLDR it's Arcsys as usual, if you don't see the character make the rounds on arcade cabinets, assume the worst.
SolarKnight
Member
I don't remember exactly where, but iirc there was some comment about them wanting her to be strong and complex in the hands of experts, yet with some easy decently powerful stuff for beginners.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
toddhunter
Member
This is what I'm thinking:
a) ban:
1 Some people who stopped playing or would stop playing because of Kokonoe, come back or don't quit.
2 Some people who want to play Kokonoe leave.
b) no ban:
1 Some people playing stop because of Kokonoe
2 People who want to play Kokonoe keep playing
So where does size come in? Simply that the BB community isn't large enough to absorb a bad outcome with either choice. Compare this to something like SF4, where AE or not, people would have kept playing and there is enough mass to overcome OP characters like Yun through the community figuring things out (note I'm talking about tournament viability here, but that is the only thing this issue concerns).
So what is more likely? Well I contend that there will be change (obviously, otherwise why bother?) and a1) and b1) people are going to stop playing anyway, because this is what has happened with every single other version of BB. It might be Kokonoe, it might be Valk or some other excuse, but the game will get too hard and they'll move onto playing something else, or more likely just talking about how good Guilty Gear is on forums.
So the only difference to me is losing some portion of actual Kokonoe players. Now if the argument is that there are not enough people playing her to make up the difference, then it is hard to argue that there is actually an issue right?
Perhaps a bit of a stretch of logic here and I'm of course uncertain about the outcome. However I don't think the argument of "you need to ban now before people get used to playing Kokonoe" is valid. That works for a big game with a long future. If people are actually still playing BBCP in a year and everybody is playing Kokonoe? That is a better outcome to the game than it being deader than divekick.
As such, I vote to wait and see what happens.
That sounds like a straight up top tier.
"Strong for beginners, strong for experts"
Todd I see what you are saying but you have to realize that other fighting games have been dropped by a community due to balancing reasoning. Soul Calibur comes to mind here. Like you said, balance hurts smaller games more than larger games and in this case most people feel that one character could in fact put a big damper on the BB scene. And not just the existing scene but other players wanting to play it.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
I wonder if the person who did her balance testing was in charge of P4A
Stabby McSter
Member
is it good news for fighting games yet
Not really, and I don't think they care too much. If it was on cabinets, the problem would be addressed since some people might be turned off from going to the arcades until it was fixed. Console, however, doesn't really have that problem. And I don't think balance patching it is going to help DLC sales either.
It's going to be like CS1 DLC Valk and we just have to wait until the next iteration.
Depends do you think they will use this money to fund mobile again like they are doing with the MH4 money.
Buy a Gamecube -> Classic Controller adapter so you can plug a GC controller into your Wii Remote. It's made by Mayflash.
In the meantime, change your controls up (Project M disabled the dumb restriction normal Brawl had so you can have anything anywhere if you prefer). I put jump on almost all d-pad buttons, Nunchuk C = Grab, Nunchuk Z = Shield, Wiimote A = A, Wiimote B = B.
I wavedash with jumping with the D-Pad, have the analog stick down left/down right on the Nunchuk and airdodging with Z.
Stabby McSter
Member
i read that whole op and everything went over my head :'(
I feel that Sakurai's post was vague. And people are jumping to conclusions on what some of it means.
Mainly interpreting the first point.
Edit: The way I'm interpreting it, this is good stuff. Although I don't know how damage to invincibility is handled since it's vague if more damage means more time or the other way around.
theprodigy
Member
basically, it depends on which way Sakurai goes with it
although the fact that this was brought up at all is probably a good thing
although the fact that this was brought up at all is probably a good thing
He needs to figure out a way to get final smashes tourney legal, so i can see them joints in tournaments .
I'm going to assume more damage means more invincibility, making it a slight aid for those with high percent.
Makes sense to help players come back. It reminds me of how higher damage meant longer ledge rolls and ledge attack startup on previous games, except this time it's meant to help you with extra invincibility.
The air time affecting invincibility sounds great since that should avoid ledge stalling.
All and all this was a pretty good update. If only he gave these types of updates biweekly or something.
Makes sense to help players come back. It reminds me of how higher damage meant longer ledge rolls and ledge attack startup on previous games, except this time it's meant to help you with extra invincibility.
The air time affecting invincibility sounds great since that should avoid ledge stalling.
All and all this was a pretty good update. If only he gave these types of updates biweekly or something.
theprodigy
Member
that's not actually possible, unless final smashes become the equivalent of Marvel's level 3 X-Factor, and is given to you at the beginning of your last stock or something
.....which actually sounds pretty hype, not gonna lie
This sorta thing is why I'm very skeptical on Xrd.
Of all the BB games, only BBCS2 seemed to be non-broken. Persona games have big issues, and Hokuto is Hokuto.
Isn't the latest version of GG also considered a downgrade by some folks?
Extend was the most balanced one, imo. But it had the dumb decision of making CAs remove guard primers :/
I don't think people consider +R a downgrade. When people take sides on GG, it's either Reload vs AC since they take different approaches on character balancing and that AC is heavily FRC dependent with meter usage.
As for Xrd, I'm expecting it to be really unbalanced since it's their first try with a new game.
IIRC though, BB and P4U is by the same team while GG is by a different team. So the balancing ideas done might be different.
I think Daisuke has stated that complete balance isn't their goal for his games (not BB), but just wants to make sure that there's nothing really OP/broken that gets through.
theprodigy
Member
Alex Valle ‏@AlexValleSF4 7h
@HakethKOTB BBCP is in lead with 37 over INJ 33 pre-reg as of yesterday.
who's up for watching Kokonoe mirrors?
@HakethKOTB BBCP is in lead with 37 over INJ 33 pre-reg as of yesterday.
who's up for watching Kokonoe mirrors?
We won't until we have an example of a company that gets gameplay/characters/setting/story right! Marketing will matter, but we haven't even gotten to the point where marketing can be targeted as a problem- they're still fucking other important stuff before marketing is even on the table as an issue of contention. I can't name a new fighting game IP that came out in the last 10 years that got gameplay/characters/setting/story remotely close to right.
Maybe rules can be changed regarding final smashes. Its possible to give it to a person after death, its a feature in brawl if you end up sucking to hard.
Sakurai needs to figure out something, because i find final smashes to be hype when they happen. Also , I have never seen an explanation , but why isn't their any 4 on 4 smash tournaments? Is it because the potential for cheating is quite high?
Professor Beef
Banned
It is possible. I played a demo build of a mod that a friend was working on that essentially made Final Smashes a "normal" part of the game. Once you dealt 200% or more damage to someone, you automatically got the FS "Aura" around you, which let you activate it by pressing A+B. If you died, then you lost it. Some Final Smashes were balanced in accordance (Mario's got buffed; the flames in general had much better pushback, and almost guaranteed a kill if you were already off the edge).
Obviously this mod never saw the light of day in competitive tournaments, but it definitely made me think more positively about FS's.
Master Milk
Member
Because your definition of "right" is too limited.
If we look to established franchises for an example of getting everything right, NRS games are the first ones that come to my mind. They have good gameplay, good characters, good settings, and a good story.
I personally haven't touched an NRS game since UMK3, so I can't speak on how their games play. I like most of the characters well enough, which is to say I don't outright hate any of them. The terrible NRS artstyle is a bigger detractor to me than the actual characters' designs. The settings are usually grimdark and juvenile, and I'm sure the stories wouldn't win any literary awards if they were put under any type of scrutiny. But none of that really matters.
Instead of saying NRS games have good gameplay, characters, settings, and stories, I should say they're good enough. Nothing NRS does is so bad that it's offensive*, especially not to the point where if marketed to a large number of people, they'll all say the games are shit and won't touch them.
The thing about fighting games now is that none of them really get anything amazingly right (except for gameplay, and sadly, only the hardcore care about amazing gameplay). The other thing, however, is that fighting games don't really need to get everything (or anything) amazingly right in order to be successful**. If they just did the bare minimum to present something decent, or something at all, they'd have a much easier time. You said earlier that the companies making fighters are often needlessly handicapping themselves, and I agree with that, though not with your idea that it's the visual aesthetics that are the problem.
As far as recent new games go, I think Skullgirls was pretty close to doing everything right. The gameplay is fine, the characters are fine, the setting is fine, the story is fine. Even though people were giving the game shit because of the all female roster, and even though LZ could have easily chosen a few of the many males in the universe to have in the initial roster, that issue still isn't enough to write the game's potential successes off. If the game had had a marketing budget, it would have been a bigger success than it was, and understand that it was already a success.
You can't tell me Skullgirls is in any way objectively worse than an NRS game. If anything, we could probably prove there are areas where it's better, and yet NRS games move way more units than SG did. That's marketing.
*I find the NRS artstyle and animation offensively bad.
**I'm defining success as selling lots of games. As in 500K+. I think SG was at 100K+ sometime after launch. With all the time that's passed, the Japanese and PC releases, and the Steam sales, it could easily be at 150K-250K+. With no marketing.
This actually reminded me of one of the dumb/undercooked ideas I had a few years back regarding blending a different take on "super meter" into Smash's gameplay. Remember how when you're over 100% damage in game and get a decent combo going the crowd rouses to a full cheer section for you? I was wondering if you could do something a la "Paper Mario: TTYD" with that where the crowd's cheering activates the ability to use the final smash as sort of an EX option.
Personally, I don't think NRS games are some kind of paragon of the genre (in terms of success).They don't really fit my definition of global success when it comes to competitive fighters either way since nobody outside of the U.S. plays them (even Marvel has SOME international presence, though obviously not on the level of SF4 or Tekken or whatever). We were explicitly discussing new IP anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter much either way.
I would argue that gameplay at some base level matters, but aesthetics matter to hardcore people as well (why the hell else would Justin Wong play Storm or Mike Ross play Honda?). I don't think the wider FGC will give a game the time of day, regardless of how mechanically interesting it is, if the aesthetics are too off-putting. Being mechanically sound doesn't sell more copies to the mainstream or even affect people in the FGC picking it up and playing at weeklies for a bit- mechanics matter more for whether people that picked it up stick with it or toss it aside. If the aesthetics are bad, nobody will get it in the first place to even try it (FGC people or otherwise).
When it comes to Skullgirls, I disagree that the characters are "fine," at least in terms of having widespread aesthetic appeal. I think most people saw the launch cast of Skullgirls and thought "wtf" not "OH MY GOD I CAN'T DECIDE WHO TO MAIN." I don't think a universe exists where Skullgirls would've launched with those characters and sold a million copies and became a tournament staple. I mean- look at people's initial reactions to the look of the game on GAF:
Reactions like the above do not bode well for the success of a game! That the game managed to do reasonable well is a real testament to the dedication of the dev team and the fans of the game.
Xian is showing off some tips and tricks on twitch now
http://www.twitch.tv/toughcookietv
http://www.twitch.tv/toughcookietv
Always felt it should have been this way, I tried recommending something like that back when Brawl modding was in its early days.
Final Smashes being a floating item as it is is a terrible idea due to it being random and being favorable to faster characters.Master Milk
Member
I defined success as selling 500K+. A quick wiki look has Ed Boon quoting the game at 2M+ during its release month. If you look at those numbers and say the game isn't successful, at the very least, you need to actually state what you would consider success.
We were discussing why new IPs can't seem to be bigger than they are, so yes, it does matter. In the initial post I responded to, you were blaming it on visual aesthetic, and I don't think that has much to do with it at all.
Did you read the post you quoted?
Reactions on a message board have no real bearing on the success of a video game.
A fighting game doesn't need characters with widespread aesthetic appeal. SF is the only game that does that. It's not the only successful fighting game.
If Skullgirls had a larger budget to be able to launch with 15, or even 12, characters instead of 8, had a proper online system, and had some marketing, the game would have sold more. And of course if they would have been able to continue developing content from the start, that would have helped as well.
.la1n
Member
Skullgirls absolutely could have benefited from a slightly larger roster. I am still confused as to why anyone thought launching KI with six characters was a good idea, ignoring that other key parts of a fighting game were missing as well. I suppose the benefit vs SG is that Double Helix has the resources available to continue updating the game at a (some what) steady pace.
Master Milk
Member
Aside from having the resources to continue to update, there's also the fact that it's F2P and one of the few games available on a new system. The conditions could have been better, but, between releasing a game with six characters or releasing no game at all . . . it's not that hard of a choice, especially with all things considered.
SolarPowered
Member
Mostly right
Things might have been different if they had enough capital for double the roster size and a day one steam release. When SG came out on consoles the PC fighter scene was basically nonexistent except for GFWL supported SFIV. It would have cleaned up without any competition from Mortal Kombat or KOF on Steam. The whole bit about the roster depends on who would have made the cut if more characters were added. If the cast choices were anything like the first eight your argument would be on the dot, but if it were a little different (stanley, panzerfaust, big band and beowulf) it could have been a real treat to watch. Somehow I feel it would have been full of ladies if Alex had his way lol.
The PC version gets patched like four times a week. Can't say the same for the console versions.
Karsticles
Member
I hated it too, but it grows on you. I eventually played it at UFGT9 and loved it, and while I am still not big on the art style, the animation quality is extraordinary.
sixteen-bit
Member
Yeah the animation is really something. Peacock is my favorite.
I don't think we disagree on too much, and where we do disagree it's because we're either not being clear about whether we're talking about new IPs breaking through or the importance of aesthetics in fighters in general, and we're also using different metrics for what defines something as a success. I apologize if I wasn't reading your posts closely enough! The conversation has gotten messy and hard to keep track of (at least for me personally, but I'm a moron). I've been trying to address a bunch of things simultaneously (anime fighters failing to find success outside of Japan, Skullgirls failing to make a big impact, difficulties creating new fighting game IP, the importance in aesthetics when it comes to a fighter being successful or not, etc. etc.), and I think I crossed the figurative streams.
I think we can agree on the following, at least:
1) A game cannot be aesthetically repulsive to a huge swath of the potential fighting game audience and succeed. NRS games, while not your cup of tea or mine, and least meet some bare aesthetic minimum to do well financially speaking in the North American market.
2) Fighting games can fail (despite being mechanically sound) if they fuck something up badly enough (like if they are visually offputting enough, for instance.) Being 'not bad' at something is often good enough.
---
I guess what I've trying to get across are the following points, and you can tell me whether you agree or disagree with them:
-Often, new fighting game IPs fail to reach mainstream success (let's go by your 500k copies sold metric) and/or develop dedicated followings in the FGC (let's define by being played at a fair number of majors for a year or two after release with a decent number of entrants). I think that a huge portion of the time, this is because of their poor aesthetic appeal.
-New fighting game IPs have failed to have success as defined by the above metric, and some people chalk this up to it being difficult/impossible to find success in the market if you're not an established IP. I believe that this is false (or at least very uncertain) because new IPs that have come out were predestined to fail for a variety of reasons (aesthetically and otherwise) and I believe success is very possible if you do it right (having the first page of a GAF thread about the game's announcement being 90% of the people bashing how the game looks is NOT the way to start)
-Characters like the ones in the initial Skullgirls roster could be in the game and the game could see much bigger success IF the game had more character variety to appeal to different tastes (I'm sure people would've been much more open to the game if it launched with a larger roster that included Panzerfaust, Isaac, Stanley, etc. like SolarPowered mentioned, in addition to the female cast already present). Someone pointed out earlier in the thread that Juri wasn't very street fighter-ish, yet street fighter fans had no problem with her design and called them hypocritical. I say that the street fighter fans don't care because they have so many characters in the roster to choose from that they can already find some that suit their tastes, so if Juri isn't their cup of tea, it doesn't matter. If SF4 had launched with a dozen Juri-esque characters and no one else, there would've been an uproar. Wierdo unconventional characters are fine, but people need choices and some people like characters that aren't so 'out there.'
-Global success is difficult if you're overly focused on pleasing a single market. Anime fighters can't do shit outside Japan and NRS fighters can't do shit outside of NA.
-95% of the time (I throw around random percentages a lot, haha), you can see a new fighter failing to make major inroads a mile away and it's really puzzling how the devs don't seem to realize why until after the fact (if they ever acknowledge it's failings period!)
-People in the FGC care just as much about aesthetics and Joe Blow gamer.
I'm rambling now, so I'm going to stop. I'm not trying to hate on anybody's favorite game. I like marvel despite the many shitty things I put up with when I play it. I'm just trying to make sense of things.
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
I think they said they had an idea for a second project, but they are not exactly in a position to be working on two things at once.
Master Milk
Member
I'm coming for you Zissou, don't worry.
I think they're "always" pitching things, but I can't say there's been any recent news.
There's no way in hell they'll be working on the game for 2+ years as things stand now, as they don't have the money for it. I imagine that after they deliver the promised DLC characters funded through the IGG campaign, and if they haven't lined anything else up, they might try to see if MAQ wants to keep funding additional content for SG.
I think they're "always" pitching things, but I can't say there's been any recent news.
There's no way in hell they'll be working on the game for 2+ years as things stand now, as they don't have the money for it. I imagine that after they deliver the promised DLC characters funded through the IGG campaign, and if they haven't lined anything else up, they might try to see if MAQ wants to keep funding additional content for SG.
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