Digital Watches

Yup. Marketing and community building are two different things, and it's our job to do the latter. DL or your local scene or whatever may not have the advertising power to raise awareness about a new game, but they certainly have the power to let people know where people are playing, make them want to come play, and probably most importantly, make them want to come back.

I wonder if part of the "new era for ArcSys" is going to be more implicit and intuitive conveyance methods than HUD-like elements where possible, as have become prevalent in other genres of game. They already play a lot with conveyance techniques in terms of hitconfirming (Red lines) and other highly recognizable visual effects, and now that they have actual rendering to leverage instead of having to animate everything by hand, we might see some interesting choices, HUD-wise.

So the real question I'm sure is on everyone's minds is: Were those spots where they listed the voice actors rendered in-engine? Do we expect to see stuff like that in-game?

Entertaining is one thing, but I think we're beyond the point of saying anything productive.

Eh, arguments on the internet do tend to get stupid and I apologize for my part in that. As awesome as the trailer was, it doesn't really convey a lot of information, though, so it's not surprising we've gone off on tangents here.

Actually, I'm completely illiterate, and can neither read nor write. I'm just mashing my face on the keys and hoping something legible comes out. The fact that my arguments seem to directly respond to things that you've said is a testament to the human brain's ability to interpret patterns in random noise.

Correct.

The likelihood of inputs getting crossed up is another great example of a side effect of changing a motion to be easier. As I have been saying all along, I'm not in favor of making changes that have other implications for gameplay in the name of making things easier for beginners, nor am I advocating any specific changes in particular. I'm making the point that there is no inherent value added to the game because something requires practice to do, and that any time we can eliminate mere brute-force memorization without having other effects, we should do that. As for infinites you can get from programmable pads, those are a great example of why infinites in and of themselves aren't that bad for GG. We have guardbar-based damage scaling and bursts that refill over time, making it irrelevant that there are infinites. Eventually you're doing one damage per hit and they can burst at any time, so even if someone figured out how to do it consistently, it wouldn't have a serious effect on the gameplay unless they could make them burst-safe and re-confirm them afterward. You'll notice that in games without those things, infinites that are discovered tend to ruin the game, even if they're hard to do. In the first MBAC, I remember that one year, the winner of SBO got a little ahead in life and then did an infinite that RAN OUT THE GODDAMN CLOCK, leaving no recourse for their opponent. Over and over again. I don't care how hard that is to do, if it exists, the game is broken and needs fixing. None of that has anything to do with how hard the combos are to execute. For stuff that legitimately would ruin the game, but can't be executed (Like that fly-into-the-sky trick with I-No's j.D FDC), I would say that the fact that no one can execute that consistently doesn't make it a good thing that it's in the game. You can't expect developers to figure out every edge case before release though, so until we have a patchable GG, it's understandable that that kind of thing will sometimes happen, but it's still a bad thing. I agree that high level play will always look different from low level play, and that's definitely a good thing. I agree that certain changes made in the name of making the game easier for new players (like a 1-button DP) would be bad. If you don't disagree with what I'm actually saying, why are we arguing?

Sure, but that's an example that has side effects. 632146 as a motion requires 7 frames from neutral at minimum to execute. That has implications other than difficulty of input, and the move is pretty strong anyway, because buffer tricks exist to make the motion not matter in most cases. If difficulty of input were the only issue, there would be no functional difference to how the tool is balanced if it were easier. Ninja edit: And you see it reflected in high level play. Potemkin is a very strong character in some iterations of GG. Having that command grab is a big factor in why that is, but FAB's likelihood of screwing up a 632146 input is not a factor at all.

Except that it doesn't balance the game in any way. The options available to players are still there, and if they're overpowered, they're still overpowered. Making them harder for beginners to do doesn't make them less overpowered, it just makes low-level play look less like high-level play in that you will see that specific overpowered thing get used less. To cite an extreme case for the sake of making a point, let's say someone discovered that Sol has a touch of death combo that's burst-safe, resets into itself, and can be confirmed from almost anything on any character. The catch is, it involves a ton of one frame links and tough buffer tricks that require precise timing and complicated motions. Almost no one can do it right off the bat, there's just this one japanese player (at first) who can do it consistently. If he lands a hit, he pretty much wins the round. Is that reasonable? Should that stay in the game? After all, it's super hard to do. Almost no one can do it. That makes it legit, right?

That's a completely ridiculous assertion. If you think that the amount of practice required to do a thing is entering into the risk-reward decisions of anyone playing at a high competitive level, you are simply mistaken. Yeah, stuff like slashbacks that are interactive and require you to predict what's going to happen are never going to be reliable, and that's probably a good thing. But if we're talking about things that don't have side effects, like not dropping your combo, or getting your FRC, then for high-level players it is simply a non-issue. They've already practiced. They have it down. If they need to do it, they can do it. Period. Full stop. Give ASW some credit here: If they balanced their game based on stuff like that, people would not take the game seriously, because that is in no sense a valid constraint for balance.

If anything graphical is going over the wire for actual play, they're doing netcode wrong

They finally decided ky wasn't manly enough to have all that range.

TOON SHADING IS HELLA COOL LOOKING. ALSO I LIKE THE DUST ANIMATIONS.

(I was referring to execution barriers, not mixup. I'll quote the post I was responding to in order to clarify.)

Some people like the taste of methanol, but that doesn't mean we should put it in everyone's drinks.

I don't think it'll bring in new players. I think it'll make new players better competition without making the game worse. I don't see the downside.

Yeah, I agree that FRCs aren't that hard, and I, too, like most people who have played this game for a long time, can do the ones I care about pretty much every time. I just don't see what the problem would be if they were suddenly trivial to do for new players who hadn't put the time in. It would open up that choice to them in matches, which is a good thing for everyone.

Slashback is a great example of something that would be worse if they removed the execution barrier. It's also a great example of an interactive execution barrier. I can tell you that if you go into training mode and set up a dummy to do a move at a predictable interval, it doesn't take a lot of time to figure out how to slashback it consistently. The thing that makes it hard is that you don't have a predictable interval, and I agree that if it were easier, the game would be worse. Side effects like crazy Like I've been saying all along: I'm not arguing that execution barriers are inherently bad, or that all of them are bad. But an execution barrier that all the pros can just straight up get past and play as though it were not a thing most of the time? Probably shouldn't be a barrier if there's any way to make it easier. Then again, if some robotronic player who could slashback everything consistently came along, it would probably make the game way worse, and that might mean it's actually a bad mechanic. Then again, that might just be a human limits thing. Point is, if we can identify a way to make something easier without changing how it works, we should. Identifying things that would work differently if we changed them is not really disagreeing with me on that.

Right, so we're now talking about whether the change would have side effects. That's a completely valid argument for a given particular change, and I actually don't think DP motions are within the realm of things that really represent a necessary change to any particular game. The argument that something should take 3+ frames from neutral to execute versus 1 or 0 is one I've heard before and a pretty good one, so we don't have a specific disagreement on that particular thing, and I've actually mentioned before that making FRC windows bigger would change the gameplay of GG in serious and problematic ways. My point isn't that there are any mechanics in particular that drastically need reworking. My point is that if there's a way to eliminate an execution barrier without side effects, it's always good to do so.

Why not? If you have reversal timing down, and a DP will win, you should do the DP. If it's not possible, that's another story, but when there's time to buffer it, I simply don't see the argument as to why how hard it is to pull off should make a difference to someone who's mastered doing it. I don't see how that's relevant to the present conversation. That's an actual change to the gameplay, not just a change in execution difficulty.

I'm sure the top-level players of any game screw up their inputs sometimes. But I wouldn't argue that it's a common occurrence, or that something interesting is happening. What's interesting about competitive games is definitely the human element. Specifically, the appeal of a true competitive game is that perfection is a bullshit concept. It's not just unattainable, it's not a valid goal. I often use the example of bowling to illustrate this. Bowling is not a competitive game. You can play against other people, and compare scores, but ultimately if you bowl a perfect game, you bowl a perfect game. There's nothing your opponent can do to stop you from doing that. If you both bowl a perfect game, what happens? I'm sure there's some resolution if there are bowling competitions, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about that, but it doesn't change the fact that there was no interplay between two opponents. Don't get me wrong, execution barriers do not make a game bad, and in fact some of the interesting aspects of fighting games could be described as execution barriers. But the act of overcoming an execution barrier during a combo, or to execute a special move, is not a competitive thing. There's no scenario in which not being able to do something would be a better choice than being able to do it, so it's not an inherently interesting choice in a competitive sense. It's simply something you have to grind out. Every time you've won because someone dropped their combo, or because someone couldn't do the thing they wanted to do, you lost a chance to learn how to beat it. You've lost the chance to figure out what would happen if they didn't screw up. What would you do if the player you were fighting could do the move they were trying to do at any given time? Does that mean they should always win? Obviously not.

Be honest: Do you think Daigo is worried about botching the input at any moment when he needs a DP? Sure. It's exactly the right kind of execution barrier: The kind that derives its difficulty from an interaction between the two players actually playing the game. There's nothing I need to go to training mode to grind out to be able to block an attack, but it's still something that's hard to do sometimes, because it involves watching what's actually going on in the game and making a hard choice at lightning speed. Reflexes make it interesting. Mental game makes it interesting. It's not a game you could play with cards, because the speed aspect of it is genuinely interesting. I can't think of a change to blocking that would make it easier but not stupid. But we agree that there's no particular difficult execution barrier per se here. Hitting back or down-back is pretty much entirely simple, and yet because of what blocking does, and how opponents can try to mess with your ability to block their attacks, it is an interesting gameplay mechanic that involves all of these aspects. Blocking being hard plays to my point perfectly.

Once again I agree with Klaige. Besides, this argument is too interesting to split up into two threads. We should focus on community building and having some damn social skills here, and arguing about stupid minutia in the general discussion thread.

@Mac: I'm not even sure what you mean. First off, yes, you can definitely buffer an input that requires holding forward before you are out of blockstun, obviating the need to ever actually stop blocking (Because while you're in blockstun, you're still considered to be blocking). But even if that were not the case, inputs are accepted during the pause caused by the attack connecting. This is the basis of a whole ton of buffer tricks, and it means that what you are saying is strictly not true of players who know this and have the execution to do it. There's literally no reason why having to hit forward as part of the DP motion will make a player who has practiced enough to do it fast stop blocking. What I'm saying is that between two players who know this and have practiced enough, the situation you describe is simply not true. Does this make higher-level play less interesting than play between beginners? I would argue it doesn't. @Blade: Why should the inputs being made easier necessitate nerfing the move at all? If they're straight up too hard for anyone to do, there's no reason for them to be in the game. If you can get good at them with practice and do them consistently, the difficulty of the input is making no difference to the gameplay. I don't see your point.