Support NeoGAF

[The Antitype]

I rarely play fighting games online.

Soul Calibur 4 was the last one that absolutely dominated my gaming schedule. I still hop online with VF5 and SSF4 to test my skills every so often, but nothing else really.

I'm lucky to have a big group of gaming friends, and almost every other weekend we get a gathering of 6 to 10 people over at my place to play games. And usually VF5, SSF4, SC4, MvC3 and now MK come out for some round robins.

That's the best way to play fighters, IMO.

 

[vocab]

Played my first ranked game. Noticeable lag before the match even started. It came down to the final round by a pixel, and I hit a button a little late, and got beat. The constant pause that was hovering around my game kind screwed me. I managed to hit a bnb with the lag too. I wish I could play more, but I'm gonna wait till they patch the finding match bullshit.

I wish all fighting games used Rollback method or dedicated servers. This middleware gamespy peer 2 peer bullshit needs to be abandoned.

 

[DryEyeRelief]

I rarely play fighting games online.

Soul Calibur 4 was the last one that absolutely dominated my gaming schedule. I still hop online with VF5 and SSF4 to test my skills every so often, but nothing else really.

I'm lucky to have a big group of gaming friends, and almost every other weekend we get a gathering of 6 to 10 people over at my place to play games. And usually VF5, SSF4, SC4, MvC3 and now MK come out for some round robins.

That's the best way to play fighters, IMO.

You have it good.

 

[Anticitizen One]

Just played my first online match and it was laggy as hell. Poor guy didn't even get to complete his fatality

 

[Xevren]

I was glad to play MK before PSN went down to see how it was. Kind of made the downtime alright since the online is pure ass. Tried about 10 matches just now and was still terrible. Was the same on the 360 side too, I'm hoping they make it better but I'm assuming nothing good will come.

 

[Anticitizen One]

I don't understand why they can't get the online to be less laggy

 

[Frankfurt]

What are the odds we'll get alternate outfits and characters from the Challenge Tower (like Cyber R, zombie skins, director, stuntman, etc)?

What about an update to Cyber S's ending (that one bothers me to no end)?

 

[Chamber]

Online in this game is turrible. Wow. Guess I wasn't missing anything with PSN down. Didn't help that I played against a Raiden who spammed Torpedo the whole match.

 

[Freshmaker]

Just played my first online match and it was laggy as hell. Poor guy didn't even get to complete his fatality

1 v 1 can be decent. I was actually getting combos etc to land vs a guy from England on Live tonight. That's usually a small miracle from CO.

Way better than last night where I could barely move and had a guy who did nothing but jump kick then uppercut when he landed (it was freakishly hard to shut down) call me trash.

 

[PARANO1A]

Here's some whining about the game... for reference, I was really looking forward to a solid single player game here. There's a lot of content in terms of hours here but not so much in terms of quality.

I hate the AI in this game. I thought I'd love the tower mode but it's so broken and just "unfun". The "read my inputs and act appropriately" AI makes what should be fun and challenging just frustrating.

One of the tower challenges had Kano vs "enraged Scorpion". Cool - a tough 1 vs 1 battle, I can dig it. But he kept kicking my ass - start with a jump and he'd jump and throw me. Start with a projectile and he'd teleport. To test out it wasn't just my reaction time I held down block since before the round started - as soon as it started Scorpion would cast fire on me, which is unblockable... this happened three times in a row, so it's not a coincidence. This bad AI really takes the shine off what should have been a great single player mode.

Most of the challenges need to be beaten by "learning the puzzle" - so it's not about getting better at the game or learning the characters, but about picking a hole in the AI. This is a real shame.

I can't remember the last game with a great single player mode... Tekken 3 was the last that really hooked me in - the combination of survival/arcade/time trial made gave you solid tools for honing your defences and counters. Why can't other games get this sort of stuff right?

Why is there so much content on the disc that I can't play? My brief list is:
- Retro costumes - you can even play as retro Scorpion in the tower... yet I can't actually use them for other play
- Goro is available in tower mode too but not in other modes
- Third costumes for some players - Scorpion's "hell"/flaming skull in tower mode, 'Cyber Reptile', etc

Why are babailities and stage fatalities not unlockable in the krypt? Why do I need to go online to find out how to do everything in the game? I get the "heritage" of the game but if that's the case, scrap the whole kyrpt. Don't let me unlock, say, 25% of the games secrets with your rewards system and make me google how to get the rest of them.

Why can't I practice babalities in the fatality trainer? In order to get each person's finishing moves into the game's "move list", I need to actually perform them. So with browser window open, I'm punching them in after real fights of the tower, then going back to the main menu and changing characters. Enabling this in the fatality trainer is a far better option. Ditto for stage fatalities.

Shao Khan (and the sub-bosses for that matter) having uniterruptable and unblockable attacks is just lazy design. The bosses in this game are so cheap, and it's only because the actual mechanics of the game aren't designed for beating them... so you need to work out how to beat them being restricted to the natural rules of the game. Oh, and if the AI decides you should die, you will die. I had Shao Khan repeatedly throw hammers at me, killing me from a full bar of health. Because each hammer stuns, you are basically fucked after being hit by one. He's done the same to me by shoulder-charging me into oblivion.

Teleporting characters are basically on a different tier than non-teleporting characters. There are core balancing issues that need to be dealt with which separate characters that need to navigate by jumping/moving.

Why can't I choose my character on nearly all the challenge tower modes? It would make most of the stupid challenges much more bearable.

Oh - and there's a crazy bug where if I look at the "rules" in the tower challenge, my controls are reset to default. To remedy this I need to go back to the main menu. Basically this means after beating each tower battle I try to read the rules in the second it takes to load - if I can do that I try and discern the rules of battle. If that fails - I read the rules, then go back to the main menu, and then go back to the tower.

There's the framework of a great game here... it's just that the game doesn't seem to offer the tools to let me learn it offline. If they could put in some decent AI (patch it in?) I could deal with just the arcade mode... but as is there's not enough to make me need to learn hows to play well, nor is there enough content to reward me for playing well.

 

[Erudite]

I come back to MK with PSN finally back up, and I get an online component that is unplayable? *sigh* Glad I've got my PC and The Witcher 2 to look forward to.

 

[TheHakku]

I come back to MK with PSN finally back up, and I get an online component that is unplayable?

It was pretty bad to start. Supposedly the upcoming DLC support patch will patch up the online play a bit as well.

 

[lazybones18]

Down to the final 50 challenges. Not looking forward to Challenge 251, but I did beat 250 on the first try, so who knows how it will turn out.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

Is it just me or does Shao Kahn stop his mind-reading SNK AI bullshit in Ladder once you lose 3 times? He can die with fireball spam, but he doesn't fall for it until you die 3 times. I can't even get a decent combo on him because he fucking reads everything.

No wonder SNK went bankrupt and Street Fighter 2 is still better than 90% of fighters out there.

 

[djkimothy]

Is it just me or does Shao Kahn stop his mind-reading SNK AI bullshit in Ladder once you lose 3 times? He can die with fireball spam, but he doesn't fall for it until you die 3 times. I can't even get a decent combo on him because he fucking reads everything.

No wonder SNK went bankrupt and Street Fighter 2 is still better than 90% of fighters out there.

Yah, apparently the difficulty scales after a few loses.

 

[Radogol]

Is it just me or does Shao Kahn stop his mind-reading SNK AI bullshit in Ladder once you lose 3 times?

That was my impression as well. The game took pity on me

 

[Struct09]

Owning both versions, I've had much more luck playing online with the 360 version. Granted I haven't had much time with the PS3 version online, but I've only had a couple matches on PSN that were bearable.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

Owning both versions, I've had much more luck playing online with the 360 version. Granted I haven't had much time with the PS3 version online, but I've only had a couple matches on PSN that were bearable.

This just reads extremely funny when you think of it as if you didn't know PSN was down for nearly a month. Haha.

 

[Fantasmo]

My god. Not only is no one playing, but it's slow as molasses. This game needs a patch BADLY

 

[Ninja Scooter]

CyberSub's ending has no sound for me. Glitch?

 

[tim1138]

CyberSub's ending has no sound for me. Glitch?

Nope, it's supposed to be like that.

 

[Frankfurt]

Nope, it's supposed to be like that.

"Supposed" or "they just didn't bother"?

Because if they had actually planned it like that beforehand, the music would've been completely different, to fill the dead air and create the right mood.

 

[Diablohead]

WELCOME TO THE LAGGY ONLINE PARTY, MK PS3 PLAYERS!

Would have said that this morning but out internet was down until now, figures

 

[scoobs]

how can it be this bad? What the hell is goin on lol

 

[Radogol]

"Supposed" or "they just didn't bother"?

Because if they had actually planned it like that beforehand, the music would've been completely different, to fill the dead air and create the right mood.

Tim's being sarcastic.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

What I totally can't understand is that they want you to pay for subpar online. I believe it was a Warner Bros idea, not Boon's and MK team. I mean, I hope.

 

[bumpkin]

Played a bunch of matches online for the first time last night, and it really pissed me off... 3 out of every 5 matches was against an Ermac; and 3 of 3 kept spamming the same stupid combo that knocked off 20-30% of my life bar. It got really old really fast. A later match I played (tag), some fucker was using Smoke & Noob. After one round I was done even trying; it was fuckung exhausting trying to deal with all their hokey teleport- heavy I-hit-you-without-touching-you bullshit.

 

[Shadowlink]

Woah! Was there always a free 2 day trial for online? I thought the poster who mentioned it in the PSN thread was joking around.

 

[djkimothy]

Played a bunch of matches online for the first time last night, and it really pissed me off... 3 out of every 5 matches was against an Ermac; and 3 of 3 kept spamming the same stupid combo that knocked off 20-30% of my life bar. It got really old really fast. A later match I played (tag), some fucker was using Smoke & Noob. After one round I was done even trying; it was fuckung exhausting trying to deal with all their hokey teleport- heavy I-hit-you-without-touching-you bullshit.

Hah. I play Ermac. I switch it up though if I see that the player is beginner. Ermac owns the zones.

Also. My online tags don't seem to update. And I'm sure I've gotten some of the online trophies but they don't register.

 

[Lyte Edge]

When I got back on the PS3 version last night, I found that I was getting smoother matches, but still experiencing the same issue I had at release-- every time I rematch, no matter what mode of play (including king of the hill), the online session is "disrupted." I don't get a disconnect for this, and neither does the other player. It's annoying as hell.

If this still-unreleased online patch doesn't fix things, the PS3 version is gone. I'll keep the 360 version, but in its current state, it doesn't compare to any of the other fighters out right now.

 

[sleepykyo]

What I totally can't understand is that they want you to pay for subpar online. I believe it was a Warner Bros idea, not Boon's and MK team. I mean, I hope.

I think it was WB. EA seems to have pass on all of them except Crysis 2, so I it is the publishers do it.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

I finally did some online matches last night on PS3. Besides from the fact that 90% of the people pick Scorpion and just teleport over and over again, it was pretty fun. Not too much lag, but it was there a little.

The King of the Hill concept is really cool, and recaptures the old arcade feeling nicely!

 

[NeonZ]

"Supposed" or "they just didn't bother"?

Because if they had actually planned it like that beforehand, the music would've been completely different, to fill the dead air and create the right mood.

I really get the impression that Cyber Sub was a last minute addition. Recycled animations, ending without sound, narrator doesn't recognize his name, copy&paste bio, no 2nd costume...

I guess they originally planned it to be just a costume, like human Sektor and Cyrax, but in reverse, but then decided to make him a standalone character. That could explain why he appears quite a bit in story mode, but has a rushed implementation elsewhere. Going from a costume to an actual character wouldn't change his story mode participation, but he'd need a few additions to work in the other modes.

 

[mbmonk]

I love how everyone in the lobby you join has the supposed best connection possible ( max green dots ) so it makes it impossible to pick based on connection. I noticed KOTH actually shows the connection correctly ( it will show people with 2 or 3 dots ). Fixing that alone would help. At least I could make a educated decision on who to fight.

 

[Diablohead]

I really get the impression that Cyber Sub was a last minute addition. Recycled animations, ending without sound, narrator doesn't recognize his name, copy&paste bio, no 2nd costume...

I guess they originally planned it to be just a costume, like human Sektor and Cyrax, but in reverse, but then decided to make him a standalone character. That could explain why he appears quite a bit in story mode, but has a rushed implementation elsewhere. Going from a costume to an actual character wouldn't change his story mode participation, but he'd need a few additions elsewhere.

I'm happy that the human sub gets two outfits, I like his alt using the deeper blue palette the best.

I love how everyone in the lobby you join has the supposed best connection possible ( max green dots ) so it makes it impossible to pick based on connection. I noticed KOTH actually shows the connection correctly ( it will show people with 2 or 3 dots ). Fixing that alone would help. At least I could make a educated decision on who to fight.

4 green bars seems to be anything between perfect and 100ms, which is way too laggy for a fast fighter like MK9, KotH rooms show less as for me at least I always feel lag due to what must be streaming the player data to more then one person, even 1 v 1 in KotH lags for me, rather terrible online setup.

 

[mbmonk]

KotH rooms show less as for me at least I always feel lag due to what must be streaming the player data to more then one person, even 1 v 1 in KotH lags for me, rather terrible online setup.

Good point. What could have been I guess. Pretty crazy they packed in all this online functionality but the core netcode is terrible and negates all the other work they put in.

 

[Freshmaker]

I can't remember the last game with a great single player mode... Tekken 3 was the last that really hooked me in - the combination of survival/arcade/time trial made gave you solid tools for honing your defences and counters. Why can't other games get this sort of stuff right?

Soul Calibur 4 Broken Destiny did this right. Quick match with AI's modeled on actual players, a mode that rewarded you for offensive play, a mode that rewarded you for defensive play...

 

[fernoca]

What I totally can't understand is that they want you to pay for subpar online. I believe it was a Warner Bros idea, not Boon's and MK team. I mean, I hope.

Well technically, they're not charging for the online. As the game wouldn't cost $10 less without the online pass (same applies to every game with one ..of sorts ). They only "charge for it" for people that buy it used, in order to obtain some profit out of that used copy that someone else got.

But yeah, it's a publisher-kinda deal; when they have absolute control of said franchise. When they don't, you see cases like EA with Crytek/Crysis 2-Valve/Portal 2 were there's no online pass; since in those cases they're just the publishers.

 

[infinityBCRT]

If you're not following the tourney thread... final 8 is starting now:

http://www.justin.tv/teamsp00ky

 

[DjangoReinhardt]

Here's some whining about the game... for reference, I was really looking forward to a solid single player game here. There's a lot of content in terms of hours here but not so much in terms of quality.

That is my conclusion as well. I think reviewers did readers a disservice here by not being at all critical of the single-player elements. The Challenge Tower is a bunch of tedious gimmicky crap, Practice is a mess, Ladder is just as bad as every other fighting game, and Story mode has a lame story told poorly. Are the non-Practice mode elements better than MvC3 or SFIV? Sure. Are they good? Hell no.

Single-player was designed to be a grind. To that end, they succeeded admirably. Still, NR deserves credit for trying at least. I just think the praise should saved for a game that actually makes single-player a real addition to the package. As usual, the fun to be had is in multiplayer.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Well technically, they're not charging for the online. As the game wouldn't cost $10 less without the online pass (same applies to every game with one ..of sorts ). They only "charge for it" for people that buy it used, in order to obtain some profit out of that used copy that someone else got.

But yeah, it's a publisher-kinda deal; when they have absolute control of said franchise. When they don't, you see cases like EA with Crytek/Crysis 2-Valve/Portal 2 were there's no online pass; since in those cases they're just the publishers.

Wait, the online code supposed to be in the box?
I got sealed copy from amazon with the costume codes inside, but I don't remember any other.

 

[Diablohead]

Wait, the online code supposed to be in the box?
I got sealed copy from amazon with the costume codes inside, but I don't remember any other.

Should have a code for online play in the box called a Kombat Pass and a 1 page manual too lol.

 

[fernoca]

Wait, the online code supposed to be in the box?
I got sealed copy from amazon with the costume codes inside, but I don't remember any other.

Yep. Is a card-code similar to the costume codes. Well, in the US at least.

The Kombat Pass is the code to unlock online multiplayer..

 

[Shadowlink]

Shit! My Kollector's Edition box has 2 "Avatar and Themes" codes, and no Ermac classic costume code. I contact Amazon, but they told me to contact Warner Bros. about this. Who in Warner Bros. would I have to contact? I think the customer service rep didn't know what he/she was talking about since he/she referred to Warner bros. as a he.

Edit: Contact Neatherealm! Hope I can get this resolved soon.

 

[Shakala]

Yeah I refuse to play online anymore until they fix this shitty lag. Tired of losing to bad players who spam

EDIT: Sorry, the rage overcame me D:

 

[Mr. E. Yis]

WTF is wrong with this game??? Ok, the online lag is horrible. Everyone knows this.

But I've still built up some great stats and respect points. Then suddenly for no reason, all my stats reset back to zero!! This has happened twice already for me, both times with some 30 to 40 wins and a few hundred respect points, and multple ranked wins in a row.

What the fuck?

 

[Xevren]

The stats are all fucked up. Says I have only played 10 games online when I've done way more than that.

I was finally able to find some decent matches that still had some lag, but it was at least more playable than usual. Just have to stick to 1v1's.

 

[cpp_is_king]

Why does it take so fucking long to queue an online match? I know that I'm not the only person in the entire world searching for a match right now, shouldn't it be basically instantaneous?

 

[Mr. E. Yis]

Is it the PS network trying to come back to life? Or the game servers? I've had freezes, 'desyncrinization issue's, 2 stat resets (one changed to all 0's, the other to N/A then to 0's), horrible horrible lag.

What a buggy POS.

I don't see a point in playing online anymore until this is fixed.

 

[fernoca]

By the way, now that the PSN is back...well, to some..and not fully (people that haven't redeemed the online pass still need to wait for the Store); remember to pop by the Kommunity Thread.

It's quite empty and there's no food..plus it's mostly guys; but still fun.

Also better to post problems, bugs, glitches, etc. there..easier to keep track and to update the thread and everyone.