[Xrd] News & (Theoretical) Gameplay Discussion

[TheMonsterKing]

bridget should look super tall and buff and with a manly ass voice but still wear the same general style of clothes and have the same effeminate, clumsy-cute mannerisms, and fight with kiddy yoyo tricks and a teddy bear

this is what makes the most sense to me

he's trying to prove that he's a man but he still has the cutesy stuff ingrained

[Blade]

Aside from all the excited hopefuls (SxB it's not "Franny" it's "Fanny"), here's some things to think about:

OutRage (8 Sacred Treasures) cast will likely be in:

--Sol (obvious for Fireseal)

--Ky (obvious for Thunderseal) unless The Maiden wasn't unsealed.

--Anji (obvious for Zessen)

--Slayer (obvious for Unknown #1) unless he passes it on to someone else.

--Somebody who owns Senga (Flashing Tooth) (Maybe Johnny?)

--Somebody who owns Ekitoku. (Eternal Fervor) (Possibly related to Flament Nagel?)

--Somebody who owns Kojouhaku (White on the Lake)

--Somebody who owns Unknown #2.

---Somehow all these link back to Dizzy so there's THAT too...

So you should expect at least 4 new characters, if not in Xrd, then in Xrth (4rth?).

Then of course there's Tyr (who might actually be a good candidate to inherit Kliff's Dragonslayer War Relic since he's an old pal of Kliff's and Ky too), not to mention his sealed dragon arm Fenrir.

And then there's "That Man's" 3rd Servant who has yet to be named/revealed. I assume he's the current 'final boss' of Xrd for now.

And if Eddie's still alive you just KNOW Venom will be chasing after him again at some point.

On a key point though concerning Bridget, last we heard he was looking for his lost Twin Brother...we may see his Twin as a new character and possibly a rival interest for Bridget.

[Destin]

Ugh, I tried to read to catch up but it was too bad. Look, for the "removing tools is ALWAYS a bad idea" people. Go play marvel, you have 30 times more options because you can cancel you moves on whiff, and call in secondary characters.

By adding an ever increasing number of "tools", you do not inherently make it so there are more valid options for characters. If some options become dramatically more useful than others, you obsolete all the others. There is such thing as "move balance" beyond simple character balance.

For example, in SF4 as vega I can live with just 1/4 of my attacks. The rest are just there and useless. If the ones that were good were toned down, then I might find myself actually using those other moves. Street fighter sticks you with like 20 or so odd normals, so its very hard to balance them. This is a situation where more tools created less variety.

In Guilty Gear reload as dizzy, the ONLY normal I could give up and still play a mostly intact dizzy is standing P. EVERY SINGLE OTHER NORMAL IS USEFUL. This is GREAT move balance. I am forced to make decisions on spacing and normal choice around a bevy of different normals! All are useful in their own ways and create more intricate and interesting Nash equilibriums (the game theory that is the heart of many fighting game decisions). Now let's add a new tool say, the jumping down S she got in AC. A new tool means more variety right? Well in this case, no. Jumping down S had so much use, it obsoleted huge portions of her moves. It hit in almost 360 degrees, it had GREAT priority, it combo'd into H, into P, or into itself with the right setup and another air dash. It gave dizzy a completely unnecessary instant overhead from half screen. It dumbed down the decision making on aerial normals so much I was getting bored. Should I use jump P to cover this area and get the fast recovery, maybe jump k to pull up my hitbox, jump H is risky but has a great reward? Or maybe I will get most of all of those situations covered in one move. Now the rest are much less useful, thank you new move.

Most importantly what this new "tool" did was protect the area right below dizzy in the air. Now as someone who had played dizzy for 12 years I understand that the way the character was designed in XX on she was not supposed to be able to cover this area easily. She has 2 fast long distance air dashes, she has incredible tools for controlling space, and is packed with some of the best air normals in the game for most angles. If a player managed to get in under dizzy when she had no bubble protecting her, their reward was that dizzy had no tool for this and had to eat their mixups/pressure. This made the aerial spacing spacing games depth evaporate. For laymen who didn't understand the in's and out's of the dizzy matchups this might go completely unnoticed. But for those of us who have grinded this game out over numerous different iterations, what it did was make it turn off the game. It was boring. And I didn't even go into why giving one character a super powerful option can ruin the OPPONENTS options, which is even more important.

Force breaks could be done right, the idea of using 25% meter to do a move isn't inherent flawed even within guilty gear's mechanics. The problem is, it wasn't. The game wasn't designed for them, and all these moves ruined the move balance in many cases. People keep harping on as if they are filling some sort of hole a character had in their gameplan? MvC3 has a ton of holes in characters gameplans, they need to just refigure entire characters, add moves, take away moves! Reload was not like this. It didn't NEED any other moves to be an incredibly deep game. They just sorta popped up and got thrown in there in order to make more people buy the game so it felt more new. Not some balance decision but a sales decision, and many people bought into it. Accent Core was even more obvious than slash about it. Mori said in an interview "I love guilty gear!! I'm going to put completely new mechanics in the game to make it fresh!" And then, cue tons of new completely unnecessary bullshit changes. Instead of rounding out gameplans they spiked sillyness and scrubbyness. (which does to be fair, have the effect of making the game more accessible).

The game is going back to it's reload roots because that is where all of the characters tools actually complimented each other. That is where most things had a purpose, and were designed from the beginning to interact with each other and other characters moves. What Mori did was add 3 new pieces to chess to invigorate sales. Thank god we are going back to what I would consider to be the best developed fighting game in the history of the genre.

(Note, I am not saying that character balance was the greatest in Reload, though it was no worse than AC if you were playing in tournaments at that time. I am saying that the foundation was way better.)

Edited August 5, 2013 by Destin

[LeonD]

bridget should look super tall and buff and with a manly ass voice but still wear the same general style of clothes and have the same effeminate, clumsy-cute mannerisms, and fight with kiddy yoyo tricks and a teddy bear

this is what makes the most sense to me

he's trying to prove that he's a man but he still has the cutesy stuff ingrained

Dude that's way too gay! XD

Anyhow, I would love to see ALL OF THE GODDAMN OUTRAGE in Xrd.... not in Xrth LOL - that will never happen dude... XD

Perhaps Valentine could be the Final boss in Story Mode, and that Ino with the Megalomania thing - IN 3D MAN! @.@

And finally, Slayer looks way too identical to Izuna! *insert Slowpoke.jpg here*

I would also want to point out that somehow... Leopaldon will be in.... XD

Edited August 5, 2013 by LeonD

[dioxideUniversa]

ew gross ew

[LeonD]

stuffs, LOTS OF 'EM

Have to agree with you man, removing stuff is, or perhaps, the worst way to - somehow - make the gameplay "better"!

#Reload is very well balance, too!

[Kyle]

It's the 6th in Japan right now. no update yet...

[Circuitous]

It's like 1am, give 'em a bit. At least let 'em eat some breakfast.

[Kyle]

Thought that stuff was automated. =/

[White Man]

I like to imagine Daisuke keeping rock star hours and groggily rolling out of bed at like 2 pm, gently pushing aside the hands of the beautiful women whose names he doesn't know all trying to pull him back under the covers. Then he walks out to the kitchen of his mansion, makes a screwdriver with almost no OJ in it, downs it, then calls the boys at the ASW home offices while pouring himself a bowl of Froot Loops and is all, "Yo fellahs. Let's rock." Five minutes later, the update goes live.

[Narroo]

I like to imagine Daisuke keeping rock star hours and groggily rolling out of bed at like 2 pm, gently pushing aside the hands of the beautiful women whose names he doesn't know all trying to pull him back under the covers. Then he walks out to the kitchen of his mansion, makes a screwdriver with almost no OJ in it, downs it, then calls the boys at the ASW home offices while pouring himself a bowl of Froot Loops and is all, "Yo fellahs. Let's rock." Five minutes later, the update goes live.

Well that explains a lot. He's drunk off his rear.

[Destin]

Have to agree with you man, removing stuff is, or perhaps, the worst way to - somehow - make the gameplay "better"!

#Reload is very well balance, too!

Ooph, it's an early morning after a looong night. But I cleaned it up a bit for you.

[Chipp12]

http://www.arcsystemworks.jp/vote_guiltygear/

Maybe I'm a slowpoke but they've actually put TOP33 on this page (A.B.A. on 14th!). And on BlazBlue page too (TOP48 though).

Overture tiers:

17 Valentine;

26 Raven (he was there before but wasn't playable);

27 Sin;

29 Izuna;

31 Dr. Paradigm;

32 That Man (same as Raven but still not playable).

Edited August 5, 2013 by Chipp12

[Agni]

I like to imagine Daisuke keeping rock star hours and groggily rolling out of bed at like 2 pm, gently pushing aside the hands of the beautiful women whose names he doesn't know all trying to pull him back under the covers. Then he walks out to the kitchen of his mansion, makes a screwdriver with almost no OJ in it, downs it, then calls the boys at the ASW home offices while pouring himself a bowl of Froot Loops and is all, "Yo fellahs. Let's rock." Five minutes later, the update goes live.

For whatever reason, the funniest part of this to me is the idea of Daisuke pouring a bowl of Froot Loops.

I might want to sig this by the way

[HoudiniJr100]

For whatever reason, the funniest part of this to me is the idea of Daisuke pouring a bowl of Froot Loops.

I might want to sig this by the way

and maybe he's drinking caffeinated tea...I think :/

[Kitsoru]

I like to imagine Daisuke keeping rock star hours and groggily rolling out of bed at like 2 pm, gently pushing aside the hands of the beautiful women whose names he doesn't know all trying to pull him back under the covers. Then he walks out to the kitchen of his mansion, makes a screwdriver with almost no OJ in it, downs it, then calls the boys at the ASW home offices while pouring himself a bowl of Froot Loops and is all, "Yo fellahs. Let's rock." Five minutes later, the update goes live.

I'm pretty sure when he's working on developing new characters/music/games, whenever he comes up with something he jumps up on his desk-- I AM A GENIUS! WHERE IS MY GUITAR? --at which point a hot axe drops into his hands and he plays a sweet riff a la Wayne's World.

[shinr]

Since going 3D means that they have to build models from scratch, what if they took advantage of it and changed Eddie a little? For example, we control Eddie in his shadowform full time, and the only time we see Zato himself is when Eddie spits him out of his body to help him as a puppet.

EDIT: Also, what are the chances that those 4 characters are going be all new/not new but making their fighting game debut (Overture guys, mainly)?

Edited August 5, 2013 by shinr

[Vulcan422]

Since going 3D means that they have to build models from scratch, what if they took advantage of it and changed Eddie a little? For example, we control Eddie in his shadowform full time, and the only time we see Zato himself is when Eddie spits him out of his body to help him as a puppet.

Not gonna lie, seeing Eddie fighting in his true shadow form would be pretty interesting, but ir's not going to happen, at least with this game, for the sake of playstyle legacy. He is the progenitor of the "puppet" character concept, after all, and it would be a real kick in the nuts to Eddie players everywhere to throw away everything that makes him...well, Eddie.

[Suzaku]

http://www.arcsystemworks.jp/vote_guiltygear/

Maybe I'm a slowpoke but they've actually put TOP33 on this page (A.B.A. on 14th!). And on BlazBlue page too (TOP48 though).

Overture tiers:

17 Valentine;

26 Raven (he was there before but wasn't playable);

27 Sin;

29 Izuna;

31 Dr. Paradigm;

32 That Man (same as Raven but still not playable).

Yeah, they unveiled the results back in May, during the 25th Anniversary event.

And, actually, Raven was a DLC character in GG2.

[Chipp12]

I meant that he was in previous games but only as NPC.

And also I wasn't able to find the whole results of votings for the long time after that event in the internet (only top10 for GG and nothing for BB) until I've decided to look again at it's pages today.

[Henaki]

Too add to Destin's thing succintly: The wealth of viable decision trees is more important than amount of tools offered (Think ST vs like, Sengoku Basara X or something).

#R had clear strengths and weaknesses and a less homogenized system.

AC has more homogenized power (all characters have great oki/damage). Most of the balance comes from two heavy swings or one extreme swing of momentum usually meaning the round.

I like #Rs intent more, but I think AC is a better competitive game. Taking what #R had and balancing it would make for a better game than AC IMO.

Anyway, I wanna see some characters revealed haha.

[Destin]

Too add to Destin's thing succintly: The wealth of viable decision trees is more important than amount of tools offered (Think ST vs like, Sengoku Basara X or something).

#R had clear strengths and weaknesses and a less homogenized system.

AC has more homogenized power (all characters have great oki/damage). Most of the balance comes from two heavy swings or one extreme swing of momentum usually meaning the round.

I like #Rs intent more, but I think AC is a better competitive game. Taking what #R had and balancing it would make for a better game than AC IMO.

Anyway, I wanna see some characters revealed haha.

I am nothing if not verbose.

And you just like AC more competitively because you are a Pote player =).

Seriously though, it is exactly that. I am fantastically optimistic about a #R balance. Enough so that I trust them with the new slowdown RC. And I don't think people should worry about impossible dusts being gone, they weren't really THAT hard or technical.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Destin

[Blade]

That poll result just shows me how little the general populace knows about Guilty Gear (or cares). v_v

Stupid 4chan making Bridget popular for all the wrong reasons...

[Rhiya]

snip

You got the letter of the argument, but not the spirit. I can kill it with a simple statement: options you don't use shouldn't even be considered options from a balance perspective. They don't involve significant choices, and they're exactly what you said they are: deadweight. However, even ignoring the removal of FBs

which became a lot less of a deadweight for some characters in +R, even if they were deadweight for them in AC

, there's no way to pretend that the removal of FRC isn't bad for the core gameplay of GG. I can't think of a single character that doesn't love the shit out of at least one of their FRCs, and would hurt from the loss of the mechanic as a whole.

While you understand a lot, you're applying it in the wrong places.

Also, note, GG is so matchup-centric that lots of options are useless in one matchup and great in another. 99% of the time, as Millia, there's no reason do use H disc FRC as Millia when you can use FB disc instead. However, that option, useless as it might seem, is useful the 1% of the time you're up against Baiken. For this reason, it's really hard to say what is and isn't useful, since everything needs to be viewed through the lens of matchups.

[Destin]

You got the letter of the argument, but not the spirit. I can kill it with a simple statement: options you don't use shouldn't even be considered options from a balance perspective. They don't involve significant choices, and they're exactly what you said they are: deadweight. However, even ignoring the removal of FBs

which became a lot less of a deadweight for some characters in +R, even if they were deadweight for them in AC

, there's no way to pretend that the removal of FRC isn't bad for the core gameplay of GG. I can't think of a single character that doesn't love the shit out of at least one of their FRCs, and would hurt from the loss of the mechanic as a whole.

While you understand a lot, you're applying it in the wrong places.

Also, note, GG is so matchup-centric that lots of options are useless in one matchup and great in another. 99% of the time, as Millia, there's no reason do use H disc FRC as Millia when you can use FB disc instead. However, that option, useless as it might seem, is useful the 1% of the time you're up against Baiken. For this reason, it's really hard to say what is and isn't useful, since everything needs to be viewed through the lens of matchups.

I don't remember being anti-FRC anywhere? I am quite a fan of that mechanic, and did another dissertation arguing in favor of them pages back.

Edit: I would also simplify my argument to fixing what isn't broken, but I wasn't sure people would understand exactly why these additions could be so damaging without a proper explanation behind it.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Destin