Yup.
I, personally, don't give a shit about team building. I don't want to have a character that makes my team worse because the assists don't work. I just want my characters to be able to do things. Be self-sufficient, as you said.
It just feels like Capcom lost their way at some point with MVC3, tried to make up for it with Ultimate, and ended up just... making a mess that favored less of the cast.
I LIKE the concept of team building, I just think UMVC's way was crap. I love teambuilding in KoFXIV with different points, batteries, meter burners, etc, partially because it feels like every character is built with considerations to fit each roll. Point Sylvie and Anchor Sylvie are almost 2 entirely different characters, but they're 2 complete characters.
It felt SO bad in UMVC3 when a meterless single character left kept missing out on damage opportunities because there didn't even have to tool to do real damage off an enemy state. Like someone forgot to add certain properties and commands to your move list entirely.
The "sidekicks" feel is an indirect result of creating "assist only" characters. It absolutely doesn't have to be that way, though. See Skullgirls for a way to create an entire roster of characters that are good at everything.
Team building will still be important. Different characters will need different kinds of moves to cover them.
Yeah, "assist only" in Marvel should have been the largest warning to give a character a 2nd pass at refinement. While we complain about this roster in Infinite... if no one in this game ends up feeling that way, we'll still be coming out ahead in at least one fashion.
A Marvel where every character has a chance to come back when left alone with a Gem, should feel pretty good overall.
it really is bizarre seeing people go "finally, a marvel game for me! no assists, no team building, i can just play the characters i want how i want!" b/c history in every single fighting game ever says otherwise, especially in the vs. series.
I think it's just that UMVC3 leaned too heavily on certain mechanics, and it did it poorly. It overloaded some characters, under-prepared others, and even the "bandaid" solutions like XFactor and no air blocks after certain actions just made the strong stronger, and the weak useless.
it kinda feels like tiers are super real when you go buck wild with givin' characters tools. it's basically a given that some chars are just gonna be infinitely better than others- the big question is ultimately how much of that is going to stabilize within a short timeframe and how much that's gonna be affected by annual (?) patching.
there's no doubt in my mind whatsoever there's gonna be a vanilla sentinel/ultimate wesker situation where some idiot char that's good at a basic level is gonna get kicked in the nuts while some shithead-tier char like morrigan/zero is gonna get buffed bc they haven't been truly explored yet. especially under the context of SF5's competitive touring. it's something i haven't seen a lot of folks bring up when it comes to that competitive aspect 'cuz it's such a departure from the game's competitive developments being built up by the community for however 6 years straight
This is just bad patching from Capcpom, to be honest. I hate it when they make changes, and the first thing I feel is "Do they even play their own games? Do they HAVE a clear vision they're trying to achieve?!"
Patching to kneejerk reactions is not "listening to the consumers". If anything, it's overacting to a small section, and proving that the company itself doesn't even know it's own expected goals.
It's one thing I love with KoFXIV (And XIII's console changes), in how not only do they seem to clearly understand "this is what a character is for", but when they do make radical changes, it's generally for the better, and is almost as worthy as adding a whole new, good character to the game.
It's like each character they make, has a dedicated designer that privately wants their particular character to be able to do something awesome and effective. Not in a broken way, but in a way that makes it feel as if the character is fully developed, and deserves their slot in the roster. They never take away a "broken" aspect, without giving back something that feels strong, in return.
Not only is this great for the existing fans of the character, but it even means an old slot can become a new fav, to someone who had no interest in them before. Small changes like adding OTGs, changing juggle states, and making air normals special-move cancellable can turn a weakest-of roster into the new team mainstay of a top-tier tourney winner.
As a consumer, this also rocks for me, because I feel like my 1 game purchase, pre season-pass sales and expensive DLC, has evolved in such a way that I got an expansion-level of refinement for no additional cost. It makes it feel like the company has my best interest in mind, before their own. Even if it's not ultimately true, the fact I've been made to feel that way is great.
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I think the real secret to "Games as a service" is to figure out ways to make it feel as if the base product is a labor of love to the players. People are willing to buy costumes and additional content, when they feel they're already well taken care of, just for owning the product.
ASW is getting better at this (Those pre-order / PS+ demos / inexpensive expansions are great, plus free DLC upon releases), SNK is doing this better than ever (constant twitter and fan interaction, DLC characters actually feeling like fan request, and doing a LOT for the game before asking for any additional money), now Capcom needs to stop appearing greedy, and find their unique way.
Could you imagine how much a first year of Character passes for free, would sooth many current complaints? Or if owning SFV gave free costumes / future character downloads?
