[Xrd] News & Gameplay Discussion 2 - Console is Out!

[Pomparomp]

Not all of us notice the screen froze, as some of us are actually busy pile-bunkering in to an IK.

 

 

This is the most Slayer thing I've ever read.

 

And I thought if I could see them online on my ps3 then they were on a ps3 too? I know this crossplay system is all sorts of fucked, but that was the one consistent thing I found.

 

 

You play Venom, so you're going to be bad at Chipp vs Venom. Don't worry about it too much.

 

I wanna to at least have a neutral plan against him, Zato and Bedman in my head so I'm not throwing things at the wall to see what works in the middle of a tourney set

[LockedAndClush]

PS3 and PS4 can easily play each other in player matches. I've heard that the password system is broken, but that's not the only way to make a "private" player match. Just use the id system (select "specific" after creating a room) without a password and it works, I play with PS4 owners regularly, no issue at all. 

 

And I thought if I could see them online on my ps3 then they were on a ps3 too?

 
Yes, that's how it is. 

[Blade]

No wonder, I keep setting a password and nobody can join no matter how many times I invite.

[Jakestation]

Yea PS3 players cant see ps4 players online and invite them while ps4 players sees the ps3 players. Master race there.

[Dosu]

I'm surprised they never corrected that problem, doesn't seem like it's something hard to do.

[KenDeep]

I guess its a limitation from Sonys side. Maybe not on purpose, but I can imagine PSN Plus making data and information sharing more difficult.

[nyyyyy]

EVO 2015 entrants numbers.

 

 

For comparison: BB 2014 had 508 entrants. That makes Xrds numbers even more impressive. Almost a thousand entrants for an anime fighter. Doubt that ever happened before.

[LockedAndClush]

I'm more surprised with P4AU outweighing Killer Instinct. 

Still, the numbers look good. I hope both Smash finals are on Sunday, I have to work on Monday and a good nap will help me with that. 

[Coffeeling]

That nap comment brought something to mind that I've been meaning to ask:

 

It's odd to me how people look down on Melee - and by people, I mean anime and KOF players here - when it's so similar to the kinds of games they enjoy a lot. Fast, high freedom of movement, really aggressive pace and attitude, strong pressure game, all hallmarks of most anime and KOF games. Why is a game that plays out a lot like the ones you like nap worthy? (question aimed at everyone here)

[LockedAndClush]

That nap comment brought something to mind that I've been meaning to ask:

 

It's odd to me how people look down on Melee - and by people, I mean anime and KOF players here - when it's so similar to the kinds of games they enjoy a lot. Fast, high freedom of movement, really aggressive pace and attitude, strong pressure game, all hallmarks of most anime and KOF games. Why is a game that plays out a lot like the ones you like nap worthy? (question aimed at everyone here)

 

For me it's just down to not understanding a thing about the game. I can play and enjoy Smash on a totally casual level, but as soon as it goes over that, it just flies over my head. I I don't find it appealing to learn and understand, I would rather spend time getting better at games I know. I don't enjoy watching it either - hence my nap comment, perhaps it did sound derogatory, but I quite literally just hope to get some sleep between games. 

[Poultrygeist]

That nap comment brought something to mind that I've been meaning to ask:

 

It's odd to me how people look down on Melee - and by people, I mean anime and KOF players here - when it's so similar to the kinds of games they enjoy a lot. Fast, high freedom of movement, really aggressive pace and attitude, strong pressure game, all hallmarks of most anime and KOF games. Why is a game that plays out a lot like the ones you like nap worthy? (question aimed at everyone here)

 

This is only my answer, but Melee (and all Smash games really, but you mentioned Melee specifically) is too different from a traditional fighting game to be enjoyable for me, a fighting game fan, to watch.  It has an audience and they deserve to be entertained, I'm just not part of it.

[KentoHardRok]

I watch these back and forth arguments all over. I think the fact of the matter is its not a traditional fighter. Its closer to power stone, ironically everyone would agree is a fighter. There aren't combos in the traditional sense, zoning is on a whole other level when compared to a traditional fighter which almost makes it feel like a party game vs a fighter. Lets also face the fact that you are either a smash player or a fighting game player. Although its not included in the fgc, There aren't many fgc players who also play smash heavily. I think its more common for people to either be a smash player of any of the other fighters (i.e. gg, sf, mvc etc.) As long as there is that division of either being a smash player or anything else, smash will always be a party game with fighting elements (j/k) and lets not get into how in depth you can get because we can also look at frame data on pacman...

[KenDeep]

Since I'm originally a KoF player, I would simply say that the enjoyment for KoF is that skill means the understanding of the simple mechanics and utilizing them in a smart manner. Smash involves a lot of unconventional techs that are not visible in normal play.

[GKHiryu]

Too many hidden inputs. Sure there's a lot of fun and enjoyment in being able to see "everything" that a skilled player does, but in smash there's just too much going on outside of the screen.

 

That, and the fact that the matches just go on forever.

[Rele]

I do play Melee in a competitive setting (although it's by far the game I'm worst at) and picked it up 2014.

It's actually my favorite game to watch, I can't name you a specific reason though. It's just a lot of fun watching skilled players utilize game mechanics in a way that allows for the biggest freedom of movement I've ever seen - even if I probably most of the time don't know the inputs behind it.

The zoning/spacing game is fast-paced and still very simple at its core, the mechanic for winning (knocking off of the stage instead of doing a fixed amount of damage) is interesting and unique and edgeguarding feels very rewarding.

Probably the biggest reason that's making we want to get better at Melee though is the community. We have more Melee players than players of all other games combined, and some of them are real killers even on an international level (compared to our best players in other games).

[-Kef-]

One quick question:

 

I have the HK version of Xrd, but it doesn't seem to be updating to the 1.05 patch. It tells me it has the latest version of the game installed, but none of the 1.05 changes have been applied. What's going on?

 

EDIT: Fixed.

[Destin]

I'm not specifically jumping in on the melee debate, but it does not have the greatest freedom of movement, check out mvc2 magneto and storm.  Hell, even plink dashing has slightly more control in mvc3.

[Hollysmoke]

That nap comment brought something to mind that I've been meaning to ask:

 

It's odd to me how people look down on Melee - and by people, I mean anime and KOF players here - when it's so similar to the kinds of games they enjoy a lot. Fast, high freedom of movement, really aggressive pace and attitude, strong pressure game, all hallmarks of most anime and KOF games. Why is a game that plays out a lot like the ones you like nap worthy? (question aimed at everyone here)

 

You serious?

[Jocelot]

Those Xrd numbers are hot. 

[Slaudial]

I'm not specifically jumping in on the melee debate, but it does not have the greatest freedom of movement, check out mvc2 magneto and storm.  Hell, even plink dashing has slightly more control in mvc3.

 

Nope. Melee has more freedom of movement.

[Coffeeling]

You serious?

 

What about Melee being a game you play with an aggressive attitude is so hard to believe?

[Orrax]

Melee can be pretty aggressive.

 

But this doesn't have anything to do with Guilty Gear. I'm happy with the numbers -- 1000 players is going to be, by far, the biggest tournament I've ever entered.

[00000000]

First off: Very happy that Xrd numbers are up. I'm also selfishly happy that TvC2 AKA MvC3 numbers are down. Really hope we see some good play.

 

Melee discussion: My biggest beef with Melee is the same beef I have with Tekken: Movement. When you have to press a thousand (hyperbole) inputs just to move at tournament pace you've officially lost my vote. 

 

Coincidentally, I find Smash and Tekken both very boring to watch. I've grown to accept Smash as a "real" game though. 

 

The smash community is as cringe as the Anime community. Why can't ya'll keep your power levels in check?

[Coffeeling]

I wonder how much momentary green flashing we will see at EVO :P

[Kaizen]

On topic: Hella hyped for Xrd@Evo, despite the stupidity that is the proximity OS. Wish I could have gone, but tried registering too late, and I have somehow been ill for the last four weeks.

 

 

As somebody who came to Guilty out of a Smash background, I could give you pages of reasons why Melee is full of issues from a design and player perspective. But rather, I think I'll just give you a relatively short list of pros and cons.

 

Pros:

-Speed. Incredibly fast paced at higher levels of play. Adds to hype.

-Freedom of movement. Analog movement control along with airdodging, fast falling, aerial movement, etc. gives the game more freedom than you'd really expect. I don't give a shit if you can triangle jump, Wavedashing is literally triangle jumping before you leave the ground, resulting in the momentum transferring into a slide.

-Combo game. The entire combo theory revolves around being able to read the opponent mid-combo. Where will he DI? Will he tech? Combos in Melee are few and far inescapable. Most Melee combos involve a lot of reads and usually some resets. Similar in concept to KI: try to escape the combo at the wrong time, get fucked.

 

Cons:

-Discrepancy between standard and high level play. DI (Directional Influence), SDI, L-Cancelling, Short Hopping, Out of Shielding, Wavedashing, etc. is a list of movements and techniques that range from useful to suicide if you're unaware of them. This is the hidden information which you have to dig to understand, because you won't find them in the manual or how-to-play, and the chance that you'll discover them on your own are next to nothing.

-Combo game: At the same time, some combos in the game are downright stupid easy. Chainthrows (Repeatedly throwing, as Smash allows grabbing opponents both airborne and in hitstun) range from impossible to braindead. Some characters can do huge combos blindfolded, others don't have a combo game. At all.

-Terrible move design. Moves are unsafe on hit at certain percentages (Luigi rocket, some Smash attacks, Shiek's chain, etc). Some hitboxes make no sense (Jigglypuff's Bair (Back aerial normal) has three times the range of its animation, Kirby's air sideB is a spinning hammer attack, yet only hits laterally, above, and below).

-Horrible Balance. Nearly a third of the game's matchups are borderline 9-1 or unwinnable. Characters on the bottom rung have multitudes of weaknesses and will almost never be considered viable.

-Stage design: Just under 80% of the game's stages are banned from tournament play due to making certain types of play insurmountable/introducing stupid levels of chance/noticeably lagging the game's performance. You wanna play Temple? Cool. Somebody will pick Fox, laser you once, and then run away for 8 minutes. Have fun.

 

Others:

-Mixup scenario is vastly different from normal fightans. No crossup/high-low game is offset by shield decay (your shield shrinks the longer you hold guard, doesn't recover as soon as you let go, letting go of shield has recovery, has guard crush). No auto-turn goes in hand with moves working in either direction.

-Community. Despite the best of them being great (Cancer Research Funding!), some of the worst are some of the worst. Constant controller throwing, destruction of property, and crying over nothing. A lifetime supply of salt.

-Hype? Sometimes Hype. Sometimes not hype.