Airk

Basically this yes; If you look at a bunch of characters that are nominally NOT "rushdown" (or, more accurately, who have powerful stuff in ADDITION to rushdown) you will find that they have a bunch of ways to either reset pressure with a plus move, or move themselves forward so that barrier doesn't push them out so badly. Makoto has been moving in this direction with cosmic ray and lander blow.. but it kinda all revolves around Asteroid Vision. And you'll note it's taken several games to get there. It doesn't seem like they had a clear idea for what her gameplan was originally supposed to be. This is a common problem for new characters that don't have drives that clearly demand/result in an obvious gameplay strategy. And some characters it feels like they still aren't sure what their gameplan is supposed to be.

Fair enough. Emoticon reading fail. (WTF is :V ?)

You weren't exactly discussing the specifics either, sir. Options, as you say, are important, and curiously, characters who are bad tend to have fewer valid options. Because at the end of the day, how many options you have isn't really the relevant thing; It's how many USEFUL options you have. Additionally, as usual, there are lots of things you can do to a character to make them less 'good' while retaining their options. Anyway, Qu_ane; You are taking an incredibly simplistic view of things. There are all kinds of "moves", "counters" and things to know about your opponent's options that have nothing to do with footsies. Is it possible that you could still beat someone in spite of not using the options allowed by meter? Sure. Is it possible you could beat someone by not using the options allowed by "special moves"? Sure. Does that mean you should ignore them? I think you see the answer to that question. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, if you want to take your game to the highest level, you will need to use all your options. If you are rushing me down, and I counter assault you and use that opportunity to stomp all over you, I'm going to win. Especially if it happens more than one a match. Which it easily can. Assuming two opponents of equal skill, one of who uses and understands counter assault and one who does not, the advantage is clear for the person who does. Same goes for rapid cancels. While your character may be... simplistic (I'm being nice here - I loathe Kokonoe's design) in gameplan, that doesn't mean you can't benefit from, again, Counter assaults. Your superball isn't THAT good a reversal that someone can't bait it and then throw you to avoid getting hit by it.

I REALLY want to see the frame data for this version, because it seems like a lot of stuff has changed that's not obvious. I'm on the fence about Tsubaki being good, but if the number of Izayoi matches I see in videos is any indication, at least a VERSION of Tsubaki is good in CP2. :P Also, sorry, but "balance" discussions flow logically from "design" discussions for me, so if you start talking about how "characters in the game are designed"... ;P

Yeah, and nothing is as much fun as a character who sucks, right?

This seems to be the problem Arc has. They don't design characters starting from what they need to do their jobs, they design characters based on what they think their drive/schtick should be and then just kinda throw some stuff on there. It's not that these character's drives automatically make them good, but rather that they don't invest the time in making characters who aren't propped up by the drive, good.

I'm not sure it's THAT much more of a commitment than a lot of Tager's other reads though? It really depends more on whether your opponent feels like he's "got this" or not.

ah, okay, slightly confusing terminology, but I gotcha.

It may not have. It's entirely possible that the barrier gauge is just smaller now. (Which would require a change in regen rate, probably but...) Also, that formula obviously isn't entirely complete, since it doesn't account for stuff like Amane Drives and crush triggers.

I don't think this is strictly true; Blocking 5D, for example, means you are magnetized, which makes things much tricker. What special followups? Other than Sledge->Hammer?

Uh, you mean something like: "Actually blocking an attack instantly depletes the gauge by 50% of base attack damage for each attack. (Ex: blocking an attack that does 1000 damage drains 500 units)"?

Dude. Not...really...appropriate. o.o

Pretty much what everyone else said. The people you see playing these games at high levels have invested literally thousands of hours into them. I'm a mediocre player, and I have around 2000 matches played, online only, in BBCP alone. If we assume the average length of a match to be maybe 3 minutes (Two long rounds, or three shorter ones), then that's 6000 minutes = 100 hours of JUST PLAYING ONLINE MATCHES. That doesn't count time spent in training mode (Current estimate: A LOT) or time spent playing offline (Current estimate: Not nearly as much as I'd like) and completely ignores all the time sunk into CS/CS2 and CSExtend (I had more than twice as many matches logged in Extend before coming over to CP. The various features in Extend made it easier for me to find matches). Or any time spent playing other fighting game series. And what's more... THIS IS NOT A LOT. These games are epic time sinks if you want to be good at them. So if you do... just play and play and play. And train and train and train.

Which is probably not a good assumption, because while most of them probably haven't, the ones that have could be extremely relevant. But, we have no choice.

I remember "summer" as well.

I refer to that as the "Gauntlet Hades Effect"

Well, considering how so many people play Jin on netplay, and how fed up people, including me, are with losing to BS ice crossup highlow gimmick resets, one can see how people might get this impression. Also, I don't think Jin is a super good pressure character, most of the matches I see him win are won with neutral, where he is really strong lately. I guess he does pressure/resets after that though, but I wouldn't precisely qualify him as a 'pressure character'. He has too many tools to pidgeonhole that way.

GGs to Hombre; Still too much respect, my friend.

Nothing really. I mean, you could j.A > j.B > j.BB > j.C > etc to keep them locked down until they hit the ground...

GGs to Litherain, if you're here. I woulda been more entertaining if my ability to DP had not mostly deserted me about halfway through. The number of times I got punched in the face when I got a 2C or something was astonishing. x.x

Aha! I shall have to try this, because previously, my options have been Block Rushing Sword Thing (Sky Dragon?) and get guard pointed, or block it and get mixed up and blown up. Cool.

GGs to Nemesis' room; Some good matches. (Bluh, Jin resets. :P) But those losses to Kagura were embarassing. I just have no idea WTF that character even does, since I don't even have him unlocked, so I have no idea when it's okay to do things.

No. This is Arc Sys, remember? Even when they release notes (which they never do for big changes) they usually don't have everything.

GGs to Jetherin and Raziul. And uhm, whoever that pink-square Ragna was that I TOTALLY STOLE my one match from. There is no way ANY of that should have worked.

I kinda miss super-speed catchup. It beats "Yeah, just sit in the room and stare at the player list until the match is over" so one wonders why they dropped it. If there was an issue with "Well, sometimes the person watching in fastwind would actually hold things up" well then program the damn thing to send all spectators a "Hey, the match is over" notification that makes anyone in fastwind immediately drop to the lobby. Problem solved. Oh well. Another backgrade for CP.