Airk

Is it super cynical to guess that they probably didn't change the D version at all so now it's only ever going to be used for [4]6D>236D?

It's exactly the same as 5D now. Which is dumb, but there you go.

Well, a couple of possible reasons: #1: They're not even done making them. This wouldn't shock me much. #2: Some changes just don't 'type up' easily. "Adjusted hitbox on Move X." is kinda vague and useless. #3: Left hand not talking to right hand. Whoever sent out the 'change list' to the magazine probably didn't know all the changes. #4: These are only the "interesting" changes. #5: Mori selected these changes to troll the community. Who knows. Arc has NEVER been good about full disclosure.

Why? Because a character needs to be able to abuse resets until you die? The 'level' Ragna plays this game at is much more entertaining for me to watch than watching Jin set up another braindead freeze reset. No, either you are explaining yourself super badly (which I think you are), or you are completely insane. If you balance a game around giving everyone the 'strongest stuff you can give them' you get HNK, where the game devolves into a complete train wreck of who can put the other guy into their inescapable situation/setup/combo/whatever first. Jin verges on this because it's "LOL resets anytime you are frozen you are in a crazy bad mixup reset situation" and is why I have no interest in balancing a game to his level. (His damage is also too high, but whatever to that.) There are some times when adding more power to a character is just bad for the game. What if everyone was Kokonoe levels of dumb? That game would be awful. This has nothing to do with what power level "my" character is. This has to do with what makes the game not dumb. You are right that the method of 'balancing' being applied to BB is stupid. ASW seems to have separate standards for seperate characters, which leads to nonsensical stuff. You're probably right that they have a way they think "the game" is supposed to play, but most of the cast doesn't actually play the game that way.

I saw a bunch of whining about him when CP first came out, but it seemed like the sensible people stopped once some decent combo paths were figured out. I don't really see what the problem with Ragna is, honestly. Is he great? No. But I think he's near the level where the game should be balanced towards (rather than, say, the level Jin is at). Well, lemme tell you, if they were to fix that stuff, I'd be super pleased! :P This is BACKWARDS, IMHO. If a character isn't popular, you BUFF them. That's how you get more people to play them. The problem is that she's not going in a "Direction"; Seriously. They made up a bunch of completely new random **** for her for CP. "Here! Have a ground projectile! and a command grab! And this weird super that provides 'oki' but leads to no damage. But we're going to nerf all the stuff that was previously your signature" - to me, it's clear that they have NO IDEA what they want the character to do, which is pathetic and absurd, especially when they keep delivering nerfs in the name of what's 'appropriate to her design' or something. There's no such thing. And again - it would be EASY to change a few things (mostly, the badness of her normals) that would improve her without changing a damn thing about her 'design'. "design" is a cop out excuse, especially when you are flailing around as much as ASW is here. P.S. I haven't called for nerfs to anyone. Except Hakumen and he got them. :P I just hate on your 'justifications' for Azrael. I don't actually want him nerfed, I just hate your reasoning.

I agree. This is actually us giving them the benefit of the doubt after observing changes for 4 iterations. The alternative is "casual ignorance and lack of basic understanding of design." :P

This community has no people in it, so it's totally okay to shed members of a small subset? That's the opposite of how it should work. :P I guess it's hard to sympathize with "My character is perfectly fine, but not as much fun as I'd like" when playing a character who isn't fine. I know that, but it's not like Japan doesn't complain about Tsubaki. I swear ASW is just doing this **** at random or something. Edit: GDI, stupid scratchpad.

This is NOT A BAD THING. Do you REALLY WANT characters pooping out 5k damage combos from 5A again like in CS1?

Damage numbers don't really matter - it's EASY for them to tune how much damage a character's combos do. It's Tao's neutral game that is hard to manipulate. Giving her recovery on her drives would drag her down fast and make a huge difference.

I am not sure what the objective is for that change. Come to that, I'm not even sure what that change will MEAN for the game. x.x I mean, it's not like people are going to stop doing jump ins because they're doing less damage. I mean, if it's just a proration change, it probably won't even change the combos people DO from their jumpins, so like... I guess it...reduces overall damage? But what a weird way to approach it.

Salt totally keeps people playing the game, right? At this point, it's less the predictably depressing changes and more the "Well, I don't think you deserve anything, hurr, you're obviously doing it wrong if you haven't found a less 'dumb' combo, there must be something wrong with your character's "design"" nonsense from the "Community" that produces the frustration.

I mean, cripes, they could at least just tamper with the hitboxes on her moves so half of her combos don't need character specific modifications. A little quality of life or something? Or undo the random nerfs to 5BB and 2C they gave us for CP? Something? Nah. "We're going to speed up the projectile you depend on for neutral control and oki, that'll make you better, right?" ... No?

That's like saying "Blood Kain was totally key to Ragna's damage." - it doesn't really matter how 'good' something is if it basically has a huge flag on it that says "Use your burst now". It's not like you have other good combos that that people are going to want to burst, so either you whittle them down to enough life where they feel threatened by your normal combo and burst it, and then it doesn't MATTER that you can do 4k+ with install super because they've only got 2k health, or you try to do Install Super while they still actually have life and they burst you. If you somehow manage to land starters good enough to do install super, twice, while having both 1+ charges and AND 50 meter, you would've won regardless. Double nope. Projectile is probably a significant nerf. 6C is probably a moderate nerf. (Special cancel is sortof irrelevant, so it all depends on what the heck they are actually talking about with regard to the hitstop). And considering that the "Dumb" fireball>charge>repeat combo (that is no dumber than any of the various boring looking jump loop combos that half the cast STILL has) is using a move with a P2 of 99, I doubt we're going to suddenly discover "Oh, it'd be a much better idea to use some of our 'meh' grade other D moves instead! How did we not notice this before in 14 months of trying to find combos?" don't you think? The thing that still hurts my brain is that there are so many simple little changes that would make Tsubaki so much more dangerous that wouldn't change anything fundamental about her character at all. Like, you know, making some of her normals less hilariously slow. (Go go 2B, slowest 2B in the game, and extra bad proration to boot! What an awesome close range rushdown character we have here.) Apparently, Mori has decided to balance her according to story mode or something, where she loses all her fights. :P (Not actually true, she only loses the ones she cares about.) No one here is saying "Tsubaki needs nothing but buffs!"; Everyone is saying "Wouldn't it be nice if the changes resulted in a net improvement instead of a net nerf to a character that basically is only played by a tiny handful of people because she's not good?"

Operative word in this sentence is "SHOULD" but they don't, so.... This is the exact kind of crap that pisses me off; There's NOTHING. NOTHING about the "Designs" of these characters involved here. The fact is that some characters are being given tools to do their jobs and some aren't. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with their "design" - that's just their GOAL. That's nice. This doesn't mean disagreeing with you about other stuff is irrelevant. :P It's fine and all to talk about what's "appropriate" but when the results of setting for what's "appropriate" (arbitrary standard) make a character -bad- maybe it's time to think again about what's "appropriate" and make changes based on what matters. Tier lists aren't based on which character's moveset is most 'appropriate'. It's not like you can neutral jump it on reaction. It's 13 frames of startup for crying out loud. If you start neutral jumping around like an idiot, he'll just dash forward and AA you with one of his 6 AAs. :P This is also the same solution for CS2 Tsubaki shield rush, only that had MORE startup on all versions, and more active frames, so you actually almost COULD jump it on reaction. [quote For a character like Tsubaki, who has access to all of the normal mobility options in the game, something like a fast advancing move with a good hitbox that is pretty safe on block most likely IS too good, from a designers' perspective, especially if it's something that made the character significantly better than she is now or was previously.

This is all a load of crap. You know who else has a hard time getting in and doesn't get any special toys to compensate? Tsubaki. who got like, nerfs in this patch. Rock on with that 26 frame overhead. Oh. And Makoto. I don't mind Azrael being good, but it's garbage to try to JUSTIFY it like this. I just wish they'd f-ing balance everyone in this game to the same standard. There is no way that Tsubaki has comparable tools to Azrael right now, but they figure "Oh, hey, we don't like that for OD, 50 meter and 1 charge she can do good damage, nerf that stuff." While Azrael who has to "Work" to get in (How does that work when you can just fly in with Gustav from half screen and be +1 or BETTER (Hi, for you 'oh, oh, if you IB it's a BIIIIG -2!' folks, you're wrong - it's only +1 at point blank range - any further away and you are MORE PLUS.) This is like, the same stuff they nerfed on Tsubaki when people thought her CS2 shield rush was too useful. But no, he gets it, because he has a 'hard time getting in'. :P Because a teleport dash is in no way as good as other people's. Right. So yeah, if I'm bitter at Azrael getting BUFFS for no reason, it's because they keep treating my character, who has a fundamentally similar gameplan (Short range normals, need to get in, mix up, do damage) like crap. Also, where are these so-called Jin nerfs? Not seeing anything in his notes that looks remotely nerf like.

So it might be a little premature to conclude that the hitstop change screws up the ability to do 6C > jc > j.D > j.A as a frame trap. Running the math, it looks like: 6C = 20 frames blockstun (discounting any hitstop shenanigans) 4 frames jump startup 14 frames of j.D 7 frames j.A startup 4+14+7=25 25-20=5 frames? Would theoretically trade with 5 frame jabs if done as fast as possible and if they were super mashy. OTOH, using j.C will now lose to pretty much any anti-air that has any head invulnerability to speak of. Still, not seeing a lot of really exciting stuff here. The only good thing I'm really taking from this is that it's going to be easier to do 6C > Command grab. Well, and the once in a blue moon when 6A hits someone trying to jump out, you'll actually be able to combo off it, which is nice, I guess. The 6A change will break 6A oki setups, but no one does those in CP, as far as I can tell. I think the worst change here is the SMP in mugen. Yeah, as if us actually being able to do dangerous damage by using 50 meter, overdrive and at least one charge was super broken. What's the source on these changes anyway? Is this stuff straight from the "horse's mouth" or are we looking at random crap people 'discovered' ala a loktest? Thanks for the 'buffs' Arc Sys, you're doing a bangup job as usual.

Much as I would love a jump cancellable 6D, you probably meant 6C here. :P (And it's wrong in the guide too, which is what matters)

Where is the option for "all of them"? It's idiotic to limit yourself to one console at this point. The fact that they are PS only just goes to show how much of a side business home versions of these games are for Arc Sys.

Visually, it still looks really good. The soundtrack is still good too. Otherwise? Eh. Not so good. Well, the story hasn't changed. If you liked it then, you'll like it now.

Yeah, because games sure do get bad if you have to like, explore the nuances and stuff over time...

No, this is not really true. Sure, he has to go into stance first, but he hasn't COMITTED to anything yet, so you can't adjust your block. You have 19 frames to notice that he has gone for the high, or 21 to notice the low. All you know before that is "Oh, he's going to do stance mixup now." so you can't include that in your reaction times. If he had to go into one stance to do a high, and a different stance to do a low, and they were visibly different, THEN it would be the equivalent of 26/28, but since both moves come from the same point, for purposes of reaction, they're still 19/21.

Dreize had an excellent post on, of all things, the SRK BB forum about ways Valk could be toned down to be non-stupid without fundamentally f-ing up his design, so I defer to that, but a few: Remove the ability to cancel out of rasen-wolf startup Remove wolf cancel properties from some human normals Reduce frame advantage on 6B/6C Reduce hitstun on [w]j.A Etc. There are lots of small, tampering things that could be applied gently to reduce his capabilities while keeping his basic design intact. I'm sure the same kind of things can work for Litchi. Hazama is relatively easy to fix - make his normals less absurd and you're pretty much there, though it'd be nice if he had ANY special moves that you can punish him for. (Yeah, yeah, Gashoukyaku is -22. It's still stupid hard to punish due to pushback.). Making Resenga -2 or something instead of freaking PLUS (c'mon, really? a 19 frame overhead that moves you forward, can be combo'd from, gives you frame advantage on block and happens out of the same state as a 21 frame low? Really guys? This is okay? On a character with a +1 on block 2A?) Tao... I dunno enough about how Tao works, but I have confidence that a person who knows Tao well could find some. This stuff really isn't rocket science, it's just a question of gently nudging things and seeing what results it gives.

I don't think even Valk is too much (are we using him as the standard for 'top tier but not Kokonoe'?); But I think he's skirting the edges, so it might not be a bad idea to tone him down a little gently while other people are brought up. Same for the rest of the S - tier. (Litchi/Hazama/Tao). But any more 'unnecessary' than that and the game becomes silly. (The aforementioned 'everyone is as absurd as Kokonoe' game.)

Did it occur to you that, since you play a character who can compete, you are perhaps not the best judge of how balanced the game is or how 'easy' it is to compete with the lower tier characters? Just sayin'. Believe me. If MY character were A tier I would shut the **** up about everyone except Kokonoe. Edit: Note: You may interpret this as a good reason to buff Tsubaki, if you like. ;P Double edit: Kiba - if you think that we don't want to add to the "unnecessary" list, what do you think of the idea of nerfing Valk down to levels where he no longer has any 'unnecessary' stuff? Honestly, I think having each character have some 'unnecessary' stuff makes the game fun, but it has to be EACH CHARACTER, not "Some of the characters have nonsense that has no right being in this game, while other characters are balanced as if no one has any stupid ****" like we have right now.

I'd pick Extend over CP for balance in a heartbeat, and balance in Extend was...okay.