LockedAndClush

Why they did this to Pot Buster and not to Sol's P.B.B. (which does more damage than Buster now, haha) is beyond me. I forgot to check the most amazing change of all - the Homing Dash. Is it really Potemkin running? Or at least making a short hop forwards? Or... something? A thing at all?

I'd disagree. I only played vs. Elphelt a little bit (my own Elph is scrubby as hell and barely a 3rd pocket character, so I have to base it on my opponents) with my Sol, but I was able to IB the grenade and hit my opponent out of rifle stance with f.S. It might have been far from a frame-tight setup, but with the grenade disappearing now, this seems a lot easier to get out of. Of course, spending an additional 25% meter after grenade toss to YRC in stance and turn this situation around seems an option. Someone more proficient with Elph's unblocks than me should just test this.

My experiments with Sol, Ky, Venom and Elphelt lead me to the conclusion that you can't reject airborne opponents from the ground, no matter how close they are. So if the rejection occurs on even the very last frame before landing, you're safe (unlike Leo's counter, which I assumed might be a benchmark for the new Blitz - thankfully not). Projectile oki is still a go-to for many characters, the BS change affects projectiles in pressure more. I might be wrong, of course, since I only tested it for about an hour. Still, the new BS seems a viable, but not game-changing tool. EDIT Scrap all that. Ground to air rejecting works, but of course requires being very very close (like "dashing into your opponents head" close). Of course it can be thrown off by just landing etc, but we'll see just how much this affects Venom.

That's rather because they changed Faust's hurtbox.

Early impressions, I only had about an hour, but certain things are apparent: - GOD the WT nerf hurts. The whiff is so long, the animation just looks like Sol's thinking "I'm too old for this shit...". - Vertical range on c.S is really fun, allows for much easier combos into it from BB etc. - Mashing out GV is so easy now. Maybe I'll finally stop waking up my girlfriend every time I try to do it when playing at night, haha. - Reduced block pushback on Kudakero doesn't seem much of a problem yet, maybe I'm yet to come across a time where it will. - P.B.B. is really fun now. WT to P.B.B. combos are unburstable and actually high-damage now. Sweet. Overall I think that while we didn't get all that nerfed, we did kinda get the short end of the stick. We can always be happy we didn't take a hit as hard as Ramlethal, at least.

So... your problem is that when you try to do something that requires three buttons pressed at the same time and you press three buttons in succession (or two and then one or whatever), it doesn't work? If you want to play on pad, better get used to shortcuts. At least for the RC. Also yes, the game is designed for arcade sticks. The only thing the developers can do to make it easier for pad players without compromising the playability of the game (and reading inputs the way you mention would be quite a compromise) is to add these shortcut options.

The Gunflame hits>YRC thing works the same for BB, Fafnir and BB juts happen to be YRC'able quite late into their active frames compared to most moves. Not very practical at this point, except maybe Bukkirabou setups, and Fafnir YRC>WT is much more reliable. It's kind of how I did GF YRC > HSVV whiff > Gunflame hits > RC yesterday, despite the fact you can't RC VV's on whiff - the Gunflame got blocked by my opponent on the ground and put him in blockstun, which let me RC the otherwise fatally mistaken VV attempt. Things like this happen, while they do bring a little bit of depth to the system, I wouldn't go as far as to call them very usable.

Is advice from people playing the other side of the matchup welcome here anyway? Some hints from a Sol player (with plenty vs I-No experience) - if Sol does Bandit Bringers very predictably, try to jump towards him and instant block (normal block is fine too, but IB is better) the Bringer. Basically free throw as you land (becomes -4 due to landing recovery), unless it hit from really, really far. You can even throw BB out of it's startup. Be careful though, because good Sol players will utilize the opening you create this way to YRC the Bringer and grab you or just straight up do Revolver, which you have to FD. I-No's 6P usually results in clash with Bringer at far range or outright loses to ones done deep enough, and you DON'T want to eat a CH BB, like... ever. Blitz Shield is also an option, but remember that BB can be YRC'd very, very late into it's startup and early active frames, so it's not a foolproof solution. I'm pretty sure that a certain distance BB can be stuffed with I-No's command throw (got hit with it this way multiple times), but if you miscalculate it you're eating a beefy punish for that. Always bear in mind that when Sol does a Bandit Bringer in pressure (not necessarily intending it to hit you, just keep you blocking) it's to reset this pressure, and for the most part he's free to do so on I-No if you didn't IB the Bringer on the ground. Multiple options beat what you have, so don't try to contest Sol's pressure reset there too much, unless he's predictable, of course. Try to wait for that point in Sol's pressure strings where he's forced to reset it again and escape from the corner, you have the mobility to do so. Force him to commit to more risky approaches by keeping him out with FD, but don't overdo it, because that's asking for a command throw. Patience is your friend against Sol, but at least you play a character that can wholeheartedly repay him for his kindness with bollocks mixups of your own.

On topic of streamlining and loosening the inputs: Let's remember Persona, that has probably the most lenient inputs I ever saw and doesn't even feature a SINGLE DP or half-circle. There are like three characters that use charge motions in the entire game IIRC, the rest is just quarter-circles and button combinations. Dashing in Ultimax is so easy I could do it with just my thumb, both ways. Even with a name as big and beloved as Persona 4 the game just couldn't pull in and hold the players for the competitive aspect. The anime/ASW fighters/whatever you want to call them community is considered by most outsiders to bandwagon to the newest release every time it happens. Over the last year people played BBCP and moved to Ultimax, and then dropped Ultimax to play GG, and a lot of players will now turn away from GG to play CPEX, and we all know it's true - I did this myself here and there. No one "from the outside" wants to dedicate countless hours to GG only to watch everyone around move on to a different game barely by the time they learned anything.

It's actually satisfying. I dislike throwing around numbers as ratings that are supposed to reflect anything, because they never really do. Chronophantasma sounds really "alive" compared to Xrd, and my lucky guess would be that it simply had a bigger budget and/or more time to be recorded. Where most guitars and bass on Xrd sound like high quality digital amp simulations (as in the kind of ones you get running on your computer) and CP sounds closer to real amplifiers (I'd like to think I'm experienced enough with a couple of years of playing a 120W high quality amp myself to tell, haha), which doesn't exactly mean that they were, because when you have good equipment (like an AxeFX or something like that) and proper mastering, you can fool even the most experienced ears (on CD, that is, but let's not go beyond that, considering it's all we have). CP was quite a breakthrough for BB music sound quality, because previous albums sounded really bad - thankfully Xrd does have better quality than those. The thing that bothers me the most is how Xrd sounds worse than Overture did. While GG2 OST had a simple, raw sound, it was more dynamic than Xrd and I cannot understand why. I'm being so hard on Xrd's sound quality strictly because I love the music, I think it's the second best OST Arc ever put out (in terms of songs themselves, although my number one here is also Chronophantasma). After CP I simply had high expectations.

Well, I'll keep it short because it's basically an offtop, but here's the thing: I'm no Beatles fan, quite opposite of that, really. But their self-titled/so called "White Album" is an engineering masterpiece. It captured sounds in ways unheard of before it, and rarely heard afterwards, bringing rich tonality, dynamics and masterful mixing, crafting a soundstage (as in how much space it feels like the music can occupy in a properly set up room with a good set of speakers etc.) that makes it feel like you could just reach out and touch the band playing. Xrd OST just doesn't have even a slightest bit of that, it's very flat and lacks breathing room, like it was made on a computer. If it sounds like crazy talk, it is, because being an audiophile is a severe mental condition. So, I want to make an explicit note of that again - my "3/10" opinion on Xrd's soundtrack has nothing to do with how good the music itself is, or claiming it to be unbearable or whatever, far from that. In my daily listening, I enjoy it very, very much. I'm just rather disappointed with the production quality after hearing BBCP's magnificently done OST album. Even Overture sounded a lot, lot better than Xrd does. It's an opinion of someone who always searches for more in music production than even the musicians ever intended, but that doesn't mean I can't just enjoy some music from my earphones every once in a while.

There's difference between the CD being "fine" and someone asking for a comparison with the goddamn White Album - like Hollysmoke did. It's a completely fine sounding, competent record for a video game soundtrack. I happen to work in the hi-fi industry and have heard tons of records on nigh unmeasurable amounts of equipment and my entire commentary there was based on that experience. For your average music listener and video game fan, the quality on the Xrd OST is just fine and will be a great listen. When I called the CD quality fine, I meant as in "the music is in CD quality", not like in the game itself.

I'd say a 3/10. It's not a hi-fi recording. He'll, even for video game standards it's pretty poorly recorded/produced. Sounds kinda like your average modern metalcore record, to compare to something, only with less punch in the mid range and muddied bass. Chronophantasma OST was way better, more organic. Here the guitars sound like high quality amp simulations (which means "like a poor man's guitar amplifier"). The drums seem well recorded, but whatever potential they had is quickly lost in the master. It's listenable and enjoyable, but lower the fidelity of the system you use (in reasonable boundaries of course), the "better" listening experience it is.

But honestly, who even really needs gameplay in fighting game story modes? Unless they can make some kind of cool, non-playable boss encounter, like in BBCP or P4AU2, there's no point to fights anyway. I'd rather have a cool cutscene that show stuff impossible in the core fighting engine (like we have now) than just another lifeless fight with the CPU.

He doesn't, of course, but there are other examples. In Kudakero RC combos you'd want to get dash-Bandit Bringer (236[K]) for maximum carry to get the dustloop afterwards, but WT command (623K) gets in the way. Slightly delaying Bringer by doing 41236[K] works, but doesn't get quite close to the carry that could be achieved without the 412 part. On that note, I kind of feel like it's sometimes (intentionally or not) balances certain things. Being able to just do running BR's and BB's with Sol would be pretty crazy, and this prevents it from happening (well, without 25 meter anyway). I might be digging to deep into it, but in this case, it always struck me as such.

I have about half of it figured out by now, it's a pretty straightforward metalcore-like song. I should tab at least some of it soon, when I'm done working on a theme for my regional GG league now (if you don't have a lot of players at least have flashy intros and music, haha, yes, we like to pretend).

When spaced properly, Ky's meaty 6HS works like a safejump - if you do a invul move, he recovers in time to block (or stays out of range entirely if he did it far enough, but good Ky players avoid this cause they won't get as good pressure afterwards) the VV or TR - found out the hard way... It's pretty easy to see when this happens, cause he has to connect the 2nd hit only. Of course reversal Blitz Shield beats it without problem. Pretty much means that a good Ky player will unconditionally force you to respect this, unless they really slip up.

Well, it's no reason to not buy or play a fighting game, of course. Maybe it's just my personal obsession with music being at least well produced, but I kind of expected more than crappy sound from a game so centered and revered for its music. At least the CD is fine.

Running some quick comparisons between the sound of the PS4 rips and average quality CD rip... there's something wrong with not just the bitrate of the in-game version. It's like the production is off in so many ways. The mid-range is non-existent in the game versions, just compare Give me a break for 10 seconds each and listen to the drums carefully. It goes beyond the simple lack of information in the 128kbps PS4 file - even if you downgrade the CD rips to that bitrate, they still sound way better. The game version is just simply rubbery in the low register and totally not there in the transition between low/mid and mid/high. A totally botched job... I never bothered comparing the way in-game music from BBCP sounds to the CD, but if it's like this too, SOMEONE at ASW needs to get fired. I know playing fighting games is not a goddamn audiophile experience or whatever, but from a game released in 2014 and on hardware like PS4, I think we can demand... ANY quality at all. Horrible disappointment.

I have had the chance. Take my word for it. Okay, it's not like I have any actual data here. It's pretty clear-cut that Arc bombed the music quality in the game... it was released in 2014 and for PS4 no less... is demanding Audio CD quality really all that much? There's no merit to this decision, no argument supporting it whatsoever. On a side note, the tracks on the actual CD are very much fine - you could even say they have some dynamics in the mid-low range, and that was out of the question in the case of game rips we had. Also... Six Black Heavens Guns rocks my socks off.

I think you're confusing the PS3 rip and the old, old arcade rip of then released tracks that circulated the internet way before we even had a console release date. That one was IIRC 84kbps or something around that. I haven't had a chance to analyze straight PS3 rips, although it's reasonably easy to compare by just playing a song from Overture in the gallery and comparing it to a rip of the GG2 OST - sounds pretty bad. The PS4 version though, rips from that sound just fine. I didn't had a chance to run the same comparison though. I don't think there's reason to doubt the quality we'll get on CD. It's still mostly a collectors item, if they wanted real quality they'd press that stuff on vinyl (I'd buy that so hard).

Yeah, I figured that much, the thing I'd like to know is what is happening in these screens exactly. I know that the annotation under 6HS says she'll get hit on the next frame, but why doesn't she get hit in her f.S or 2D like any other character would? Don't they have hurtboxes on the extended parts? I'm pretty sure I used to hit Elph players multiple times in the flowers with Sol's f.S and such, so maybe it's just projectile invul? What I want to know most if it is the current state or something from the 1.10 update.

Hi guys, I'm not an Elph player, but I came across this "gem" here. https://twitter.com/takehara_yury/status/572347386334351361 Care to explain? I've heard these are her 1.1 changes. Or is it how it is right now and they're fixing it? Should I worry or just drop GG for good before it becomes a total Elph-rape-fest and play some BlazBlue? EDIT The training mode overlay on these screens makes me think it's from the console version, but I heard they're revamping the arcade sparring mode, maybe that's it.

Hello everyone, I'll be in Winterhur (Switzerland) between 13th and 24th of April (working, but I should have time off in the evenings), and hoping not to forget everything I know about fighting games I'm looking for someone from around there to play with. I tried to search the forum for someone from Switzerland who might play Xrd, but I couldn't find anyone.

A lot of how you use your meter is determined by the resources available to your opponent (health and Burst) and their habits. Picture this: you have 10% health, 50 tension and your opponent has about 30% (let;s assume they're in the "average" defense/guts group, like Sol) and a Burst. You get a c.S>2D>BR combo in the corner. What you can do using your meter falls into two categories: a) extend your combo with RC>j.D>Fafnir or 5HS>dustloop or whatever you want b) use YRC to get Gunflame okizeme, to make a tick throw WT safe (not gonna work as well after the new patch rolls around, but still works), try some Fafnir YRC WT shenanigans, to make your safe jump stronger, throw off their reversal or get some breathing room... generally go crazy on their ass remaining relatively safe If you pick a), you'll most likely end up both losing 50 tension and getting Bursted, which can lead to a potentially deadly situation when you're back to neutral and have no meter to come back at them. It's unfavorable. And even if they don't Burst, you might not be able to get the kill with the combo after RC. Sure, some opponents will just eat that combo and then easily get hit afterwards, but you shouldn't be assuming your opponent plays poorly for the sake of such theoretical discussion. Picking b) does make you work for that last bit of damage a little bit more, but it gives you resources to do so and, if you play it smart you'll remain Burst safe or, even better yet, you might steal their Burst (WT is a great Burst bait in such situations - just WT>2HS>jc. and either block or try to throw; even if they don't Burst you can still try to get a knockdown with VV after jHS). YRC gives you two big chances to pressure and mix them up, and it should be used. Of course you can also just get the BR knockdown and Dragon Install. But you shouldn't (kappa Sol Dragon Install lol). As far as neutral usage of meter goes, YRC GF is not too useful at range. You should keep your meter for reseting pressure when you're closer to your opponent, because even when they block your c.S or f.S and you cancel into Gunflame, you can get a YRC easily and just keep pushing them into the corner. Also, any time you can use meter to make yourself safe is a good time. A blocked GV (should never happen, but we all know it does happen), VV or a bad BR (done to close with your opponent stand-IBing it), all these things can, and for the most part should be RC'd (of course you have to be fast to get a RC with GV and VV, because you can't YRC and PRC these). Converting stray hits into knockdown with 5HS RC BB is never a bad idea per se, but if it's possible to get a 2D, BR or any other knockdown, I prefer to keep my meter. But if you really want to turn the tide and your opponent doesn't have a Burst, go for it. Or if you want them to lose their Burst - most people just go for it once they see Sol players do that. Kikuichimonji makes a good point with using meter to force a Burst like this. On defense, Sol has strong options thanks to VV, so a Dead Angle Attack is not something you'll see all that often. If you want to get out of pressure you can just go HSVV>RC for the most part. If they block, you get the momentum, if you hit, you get a beefy combo. Of course you cannot use VV to get out of a safejump this way. You can also just use Blitz Shield, but it's pretty difficult to do so and it can be baited. FD is also essential, because it will allow you to push your opponent out of the range of their pokes, forcing longer startup moves that can be punished with VV or just plain keep pushing them out until you can reset back to neutral. As far as Overdrives go... I love my Tyrants and Installs, but there are select few situations where they are worth it. Tyrant Rave is good at disrespecting people's okizeme - it will even go through another Sol's Gunflame oki on hit. It's not too safe and good players will even punish you between the two hits, so you have to be careful of when you throw it out. If you get a 2D in a corner, however, go for a Tyrant Rave right away - get that unburstable damage and follow up with a 2HS>Dustloop combo to boot. Does some slick 240-something damage if I remember that right. I use Dragon Install too much... it is the ultimate risk-reward gamble in the game if you ask me (except picking Potemkin of course). It should only ever be used when you're either confident you can get to your opponent, sit on a 100 tension so you can RC back to safety after something or you're just feeling lucky. Having a Burst also helps. There's nothing worse than getting a fat combo in the face when in DI only to land and get another one. Gee, that turned out long. I hope I didn't just spew some bullcrap, lost in my favorite kind of fighting game playing - theoretical one. EDIT Also, there's empty YRC and it's uses (throwing off inputs, creating breathing room etc.), but I never really used that much, so I can't really comment on it much.