[AC+R] News & Gameplay Discussion

[Pichy]

I'm just going to remind you how PAL territories are treated by pretty much all fighting game devs.

[TheRealBobMan]

Don't be a dick Mynus. Some people don't have the money to buy it twice or spend extra on the markup for JP PSN points, and preferred to wait to put sales on the US version rather than the JP version. The last thing we need is for everyone to buy the JP version to get it early and have Arcsys say, "Looks like the US doesn't care since no one bought it, let's stop releasing GG there".

You can rub it in when talking about all sorts of things. Just don't do it with GG. That's not cool.

[Vulcan422]

Agreed. The last thing we need is for ASW to cease relations with the West. We're already on thin ice as it is thanks to CSE.

[Digital Watches]

If you want to support ASW in the west, buy a copy of the US version. If you want the game now, buy the JP version. Doing one doesn't stop you from doing the other.

[BlackJustin13]

I'm not particularly surprised about AC+R being delayed yet again. This year they've been working on three big titles(BBCP, P4U2, and Xrd) so I did imagine they'd have a bit of priority...though I would like to know why 360 got NA release before we PS3 owners did,especially considering that CP and probably the other projects will be PS3 only.

[Narroo]

Agreed. The last thing we need is for ASW to cease relations with the West. We're already on thin ice as it is thanks to CSE.

Oh geez, I wonder why? They couldn't even localize it properly.

[TAI-X]

As long as I can go on importing ASW's games like I did with BBCP, I will not give a shit if they decide to dissolve Arc USA and give up on Western markets entirely. So far they've done nothing to prove that they're worth the office space and salary, after being allowed many second chances and false promises. Why should they deserve our support?

[Magaki]

As long as I can go on importing ASW's games like I did with BBCP, I will not give a shit if they decide to dissolve Arc USA and give up on Western markets entirely. So far they've done nothing to prove that they're worth the office space and salary, after being allowed many second chances and false promises. Why should they deserve our support?

If ASW consider that investing in the rest of the world isn't worth it anymore, it would result in the non-japanese community fading away. People importing directly from Japan are a minority. In Chrono Phantasma's case, the majority of people are simply waiting for the US release.

For example, if the US release was canceled, you can be certain that tournaments will soon become quite rare and players will drop the game for a more popular one. It doesn't matter if a fighting game is the best one ever made if no one play it.

If playing in a narrow room with 2-3 irl friends once in a while is enough to satisfy you, then no, you're not concerned.

However, if you're a player who likes being competitive and have fun playing against stronger players in order to test your skills then "not giving a shit" is one of the most counterproductive behaviour you can take (with the worst one being piracy or game sharing).

Right now, buying the US version and sticking with it is the best way to show ASW that there are still people in the west that care about the game. Heck, I'm french and I know that Europe is in a worse situation than NA but I STILL bought it anyway.

********************************************************

Also, seriously guys ? You're bitching about the delay of a FREE update ? I could understand if you had to pay for it but no, It's free. It's a free update coming from a small company. Like BlackJustin explained above, the same company is busy taking care in 2013 of BBCP, Xrd and P4U2.

-They released BBCP and made a few updates in order to improve the game.

-They are still working on Xrd and doing numerous locktests while adding EVERYTIME new content in it in order to improve its quality.

-They released the arcade version of P4U2 and already did an update to improve the game further.

And you expect such a small company to then have enough developpers left to take care of NA +R ? Like some people pointed it, if the game is already available on the xbox live and the JP PSN, it's not that hard to release it on the NA PSN.

(Conjecture Alert) UNLESS they were planning to add more content. Said content would certainly be some tweaks like improving the netcode which was something ASW promised but left unchanged.

It would make sense IMO if they planned to release those tweaks with the NA update and then release those tweaks as a patch for JP +R. The problem is that like I said above, they probably don't have enough manpower left to take care of that and their only choices would have been to either hire more developpers or delay it further.

Hiring developpers for a free update ? Even if it's a conjecture, anyone would decide in that case to choose the latter option.

Anyway, my point is that it was extremely easy to anticipate that result and that deciding not to support them anymore because they aren't big enough to back up their promises is one of the most retarded behaviour you can ever take.

It's not when it will be released that matters but rather whether or not the quality will be worth the wait.

[TAI-X]

If ASW consider that investing in the rest of the world isn't worth it anymore, it would result in the non-japanese community fading away.

It's going to fade away no matter what they do. The JPN fighting game renaissance that SFIV started is rapidly burning out due to consumer fatigue, Capcom's diminished presence in the genre, and hyped-up major flops like SFxT and SCV. (Note that this doesn't include Western fighters like Injustice and Killer Instinct, which are mostly serving a different market.) The mid-2000s US anime and manga boom ended years ago, and most of the kiddies who were drawn in by Naruto/Bleach/Death Note have since lost interest and moved on.

Both of these factors mean that "anime fighters" are an incredibly tough sell here nowadays - just ask Atlus USA about how well Aquapazza has done for them. Anime isn't cool anymore and there's a huge stigma of weeabooism attached to it, especially among the CoD brodude types that buy hardcore games in the largest numbers. The steep learning curves and obtuse mechanics of these games easily turn most people off. If the US releases of BBCP and GGXrd both fail to make back their investment (and this seems likely), I'm gonna say that it would be better for ASW to cut their losses and pull out of the West. If they continue to include international online lobbies like they did in BBCP to make it easy for people to find each other, they've adequately served their overseas playerbase. You know that the fans would translate story mode scripts if it came down to it.

If playing in a narrow room with 2-3 irl friends once in a while is enough to satisfy you, then no, you're not concerned.

You mean that isn't what it's already like for ASW fighters in the US?

Also, I haven't yet had a single problem finding US online opponents for BBCP. The US lobbies are far more populated than Aquapazza's, and that game actually has a US release. By their very nature as 1 vs. 1 games, fighters don't need a huge community to thrive, unlike first-person shooters that need large numbers of players for a single match.

Edited January 2, 2014 by TAI-X

[Hecatom]

Aquappaza was never meant t sell large numbers, is a niche game even in its home country, also, since when do the cod dudebro buys hardcore games? On the contrary they only buy casual turds that pose as hardcore, it is because that, that we have DmC that still flopped i may add because at the end of the day they only care about CoD.

Also lets drop this notion that they have step learning curve or obtuse mechanics, they are not harder or more arcane than learning any other game, the worst that we can do is spread misinformation like that, that only helps to make them more difficult that they really are.

[TAI-X]

Should have put quotes around "hardcore."

These days it really means anything that isn't smartphone garbage like social Facebook games and candy clicking/bird poop flinging simulators, sadly enough.

Sure, Aquapazza is a niche game, but it wasn't meant to be such a complete and utter failure here either. That's why Atlus USA released it at budget price. In the PS2 era, that would have pulled a decent audience of curious people. Not anymore.

Also lets drop this notion that they have step learning curve or obtuse mechanics, they are not harder or more arcane than learning any other game, the worst that we can do is spread misinformation like that, that only helps to make them more difficult that they really are.

It's true, and denying it doesn't do us any good. All you can do is help people that have already decided they want to get into ASW fighters.

Anyone can jump into SFIV or MvC3 and start feeling powerful almost right away after they get the commands down. Knowing your character's frame links and how to FADC isn't as important to one's success as being able to FRC or jump install. The games feature powerful comeback mechanics that take little effort to use effectively, can be used in every match with no risk, and give scrubby players a lot more room to cheese out occasional lucky victories that keep them gratified (ESPECIALLY true for X-Factor). The gap between skilled and unskilled players certainly still exists, but it's not nearly so wide as in AC or CP. Arc's characters also tend to have much more intricate movesets, with more difficult commands and elaborate subsystems that easily confuse and frustrate people, which is why so many end up sticking with Ky and Ragna.

Edited January 2, 2014 by TAI-X

[TheRealBobMan]

I wanted to point out that the "free" update to +R was promised when the port of AC+ launched, as in it was a selling point for the port. I don't know why they would make the business decision to hold off on promised content that people are complaining to them about, if the situation is that they're adding extra on top of what they released for the JP market. They could easily say, "Hey, we're not 100% done with making the netcode not suck, but here's the game so you can at least play with your friends and host tournaments while we finish." The JP version has already been patched once past the +R update, fixing the "no random music select" bug as well as several others. Seems really odd that they would hold back the US version to put more work into it, when it really should have been done at the same time as the JP version. The patch getting held back by SCEA QA after getting past SCEJ would have made more sense to me, but whatever.

I still care enough about ASW and GG that I bought the game twice even though money is really tight for me, but sweet merciful crap they could be a little more open about what's going on with this update. If Xrd drops before +R, a lot of people will have probably moved on. I would assume that anyone that wanted +R would have bought the AC port by now anyway, so it's not like they're losing out on those sales. Still, they're obligated to release the update since they said they would when the port first came out, so releasing it after no one cares is a stupid move. They can't simply forget about it or some asshole would try to sue them, and even if ASW won, they would have to waste a bunch of time and money on the case.

Hey, did Sony announce any region based restrictions with PS4? Just thinking of what could happen with later iterations of Xrd if ASW decided not to release it to us, and then decided to make the updated versions PS4 exclusive.

[Kurushii]

Hey, did Sony announce any region based restrictions with PS4? Just thinking of what could happen with later iterations of Xrd if ASW decided not to release it to us, and then decided to make the updated versions PS4 exclusive.

They said there is no region locks on PS4. We don't know about dlc content as Japan still doesn't have the PS4 yet.

[Hecatom]

Should have put quotes around "hardcore."

These days it really means anything that isn't smartphone garbage like social Facebook games and candy clicking/bird poop flinging simulators, sadly enough.

Sure, Aquapazza is a niche game, but it wasn't meant to be such a complete and utter failure here either. That's why Atlus USA released it at budget price. In the PS2 era, that would have pulled a decent audience of curious people. Not anymore.

It's true, and denying it doesn't do us any good. All you can do is help people that have already decided they want to get into ASW fighters.

Anyone can jump into SFIV or MvC3 and start feeling powerful almost right away after they get the commands down. Knowing your character's frame links and how to FADC isn't as important to one's success as being able to FRC or jump install. The games feature powerful comeback mechanics that take little effort to use effectively, can be used in every match with no risk, and give scrubby players a lot more room to cheese out occasional lucky victories that keep them gratified (ESPECIALLY true for X-Factor). The gap between skilled and unskilled players certainly still exists, but it's not nearly so wide as in AC or CP. Arc's characters also tend to have much more intricate movesets, with more difficult commands and elaborate subsystems that easily confuse and frustrate people, which is why so many end up sticking with Ky and Ragna.

I like how you diminish the importance of stuff like plinking, 1 frame links and important FDAC compared to FRC or JI.

Of course that when you try to play at competitive level GG for example would look more daunting but if you take your time to learn it you see that the complexity is not that arcane as many people claim.

GG is a game that at low level offers a lot of options to the newcomers that allows them to feel like they are acomplishing something like chains that allow easy combos into specials for example, also all the mechanics are very intuitive from the major part of the time.

I wouldn't deny that asw games have a good share of complex characters but at the same time have a lot of characters that are easy to play, the same as any capcom game that you regard as simple for some weird reason.

Compared to mvc3 GG has a lot of similar mechanics in some way or another, and the complexity of both games can be considered on par due how team synergy works on the game not to mention that what is required to play mvc3 at high level is very complex as well like wave dashing, tri jumps etc etc, to me the game being easy to play for beginners is more an illusion and nothing more.

If you compare both games objectively you see that both are equally complex in their own ways.

Even a game like SF4 is quite complex for beginners, even with the minimalistic approach the game has a lot of stuff to learn that is needed to be moderately good at mid level.

The execution barriers are more step because the reliance on links and the weird ass input for the FDAC.

[mynus]

"Don't be a dick Mynus" - and other valid points...

It's not being a dick, it's simply pointing out the truth of what people who adopted the game (+R) when it released in August said. Especially when some of those who have been waiting for the NA release have blamed Arcsys for the perceived "fall off" or lack of anticipation for +R because of the delay.

Calling that the scene is dying off when you made a conscious decision to not support a product (which is only a third of the price of a regular game btw), is very vexing to those who did support it, and are making an effort to have the game featured at every major tournament, as well as teach newcomers.

All you have to do is look on this site, Eventhubs and SRK to see that weekly, monthly and major tournaments for +R are doing great; myself an others are tired of seeing ppl cry Epsom salt tears over something that they can have at a moments notice, and that people on this site even went to the length of creating tutorials with step by step instructions of how to do so.

I'm not stating that people not voice their frustrations and gripes about the lack of transparency and forthcoming-ness of ARCSYS regarding the update; that is within everyone's right, - I own the JP ver. and am still upset of how ppl blew up Arcsys' social media accounts but to no response - but when there are viable options and alternatives right in front of you...it becomes to look like a sense of entitlement.

Support the game by either:

1) "import" (not even) the jp download for PSN (w/ instructions on this site AND SRK)

2) wait patiently and voice your frustrations on the situation without blaming Arcsys for your perceived dwindling of excitement over the scene and game; when such a situation is obviously not the case.

I hope no one quotes this long ass post :-(

Edited January 3, 2014 by mynus

[werewolfgold]

Support the game by either:

1) "import" (not even) the jp download for PSN (w/ instructions on this site AND SRK)

2) wait patiently and voice your frustrations on the situation without blaming Arcsys for your perceived dwindling of excitement over the scene and game; when such a situation is obviously not the case.

I hope no one quotes this long ass post :-(

There. I cut it down. Happy? Turn that frown upside down, mister.

Your second option was given before as "Stay free" and I could see how people would consider that to be acting like a dick. Just saying.

And while it is relatively easy to get the Japanese version, a. it's not completely without hassle, b. people who already bought the game should not have to buy it a second time when, c. they had every reason to expect the update before now and perhaps Arcsys should not be "rewarded" with more of their money by buying it another time. Not to mention, d. for those that still don't have it, "importing" as opposed to buying it in their region does have unfortunate implications for Western sales numbers. No official western support would have an impact. It just would. You can claim that you can still find people online and that people still show up for tournaments. I say there'd likely be even more if we weren't going through this nonsense. "Entitlement"? I think this is rather justifiable given the current situation of who has the update and who doesn't. How many hoops should people really have to jump through in order to "support" the game?

And while Arcsys JP can say that "Oh, we don't have developers on hand to work on it/get it out more quickly", that still says that they didn't see fit to follow through and give people what they were owed before moving their people on to the next/a different project.

Edited January 4, 2014 by werewolfgold

[mynus]

Im not especially trying to be 'not a dick'; just initially didnt feel like typing a long ass story lol. This is the fgc and im an OG MVC2 from NYC - "stay free" is my nice way of putting it.

Everyone need not follow suit. I bought PSN AC+ twice. PS2 AC 3 times (at $50 + a pop) and every XX iteration on PS and Xbox including the Korean ver.

Either buy it again, or just wait till it is released in NA and watch us play at your trusty IPW/Team Sp00ky streamed tournament. We've waited 7 years for a new GG, i'd buy it again just to be able to play on Slash HOS/ABA stages. Pretty sure sure id also pay $60 for Korean soundtrack as well.

I will apologize however for perhaps being too real, and blunt I suppose for a public forum. Also for side tracking the thread.

Edited January 3, 2014 by mynus

[TheRealBobMan]

The only thing I consider to be a dick move is the "Told you so". Rubbing it in when these guys are deprived of Guilty Gear isn't cool.

Seriously though, you're right, people saying that the game is dead because it's not out on US PS3 are annoying. Find friends that imported it and play with them, or play with 360 people, or play AC with your friends till the patch comes. Not everyone has the money to buy it again, but you're right again, it still costs less to buy AC twice (including the Japanese markup) than CoD or Assassin's Creed or GTA5 or whatever other game you might want to buy. Most people probably could stand to skip their weekly MvC3/SF4/BB:CP tourney entry fee and buy +R if they really wanted to. I want to say that now it's worth it, since we can't trust ArcSys to keep their shit together and do rational things. I would say to hold off just until March because it'd be stupid if Xrd came out before +R, but fuck it. If you're serious about +R and you have a PS3, just buy it a second time. If you can't justify it, save the money and spend it on Xrd so we'll have someone to play with then. Just don't lose it / spend it / convert it to pennies and shove them up your ass before Xrd comes out.

[Sym_]

No one wants a free copy of the game apparently

[TheRealBobMan]

I'd be all over the tournament to win the code for my friend who held off on getting the game a second time, but I'm at work right now on my lunch break. : (

[OneSanitarium]

Oh, this is what you meant. Well, im buying the game in a few days! I'm getting a PSN car for a different game, and I'll have funds left over.

[phantomBlade]

new matchup chart from Jonio's stream.

[TheRealBobMan]

Wow, thanks for the post!

I'm a little confused though. I'm seeing some 3s in the bottom half of the chart, but I can't find any 7s that would be the compliment to those matchups. Like, Chipp's first matchup, which I'd assume is vs Justice since her first matchup is a - (I assume it's the ditto), shows him having a 3. If I look at what I'd assume is Justice vs Chipp (top row, 3rd from the right), I see a 6, not a 7.

[Goldenrody]

That matchup chart is actually a national one, taken from the win/loss statistics of everybody who has a player card registered. You can also see the data on the GG Player's Guild website here

http://sp.ggacpr.net/diagram_view.php

[Delrian]

That site gives decimals for its matchups, so perhaps the 3-6 is a matter of truncation instead of rounding.