Silmerion

All right, let's do this intro thing. Name: Darago/Silmerion (Abbott) Location: Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University Contact info: PMs Mains: Other games: Soulcalibur V (barely at all these days), Yomi (Sirlin's fighting card game) Travel: I cannot provide transportation, sorry. I'll travel for events if I can find rides/public transit.

Comparing P4A to BBCT seems undue. As far as I can tell, this game is pretty decently balanced - I mean, if there are really only like 6 notably bad match-ups (out of 91), and a majority of characters are in the same tier, I'd say that's a victory. It's certainly better than lots of other first efforts Arcsys has put out over the years (GGXX, BBCT, Basara, HnK), and is much better than anything Capcom puts out.

Regarding 3P: It's tough to say for sure since frame data wasn't supplied. My first instinct is to say "No," but that'd make 3P a lot worse, so who knows? Regarding FB Kyoku: the launch height looked high enough that you could, but I never saw anyone do that specifically.

Hm! It does seem to have five frames (frames 10-15) of upper body invuln. Been a while since I checked the frame data. No idea if it's still got those frames. Dustloop is literally Hitler.

I don't think 5H ever had actual invuln frames - just a high-priority hitbox. So yes?

The second hit of 3P vacuums like his other chains. I didn't see whether or not it still trips on CH. Regarding Housobako: I, er, think it's a slight buff, since I guess we can ostensibly frame trap with it now? Horokei, do you know if Axl can activate Shiranami no Homura if the opponent doesn't hit his guard point?

So wait, is Rensen -> 8 now a guaranteed knockdown after a short combo? EDIT: Aww, CH Kokuu no longer pops straight up.

Yeah, it really seems like they're trying to make his space control better at all points on the map, and in exchange they're nerfing his high situational damage. Seems reasonable to me. EDIT: Whoa! [4]6D is really fast. EDIT 2: Combo into Rensen -> Bomber loop doesn't actually look significantly nerfed from AC. Rensen is a lot faster. Random AA combos do a lot more damage now (about 10%, looks like). Rashousen, my favorite move in the whole game, is now maximum lulz. EDIT 3: 2H is now a legit high/low mixup. This is awesome.

Note, though, that only the second hit of each chain attack eats more guard bar. The first hit is unaffected.

Hey Shinjin, Axl's chains all received the following change: "The guard meter balance of the pull back-part of the move has been reduced (x2 factor). " Could you elaborate on what that means?

Next round of changes (thanks to Shinjin for the translations): Notes and impressions: The chains now hit once if you hold the button, as opposed to hitting once if you tap it. I like this option a lot more - it invalidates less of my muscle memory. Does anyone know what the "guard meter balance" change on all of his chain attacks means? Does that mean his chains lower the guard bar more on hit? Less? Axl Bomber now has an early FRC. Mindgames! RASHOUSEN IS GETTING BUFFED. In exchange for losing the corner set-up after S Raiei, but still. j.S now gatlings into j.6P. 2P now gatlings into 6H and f.S. 2H now gatlings into 2D (!). Overall, this seems like a substantial and cool buff, though it's hard to say for sure since 1) balance is relative and 2) if his chains lower guard bar twice as fast as they used to, that's a huge damage nerf.

Thanks, Shinjin. Your hard work is much appreciated.

Dang. Thirty bucks for 18 fighters and no unlucky draws? I might have to pick this up.

Eh. I'm not nearly as angry about it as I was - I just kind of overreact to stuff sometimes. This was one of those times, I think. There's a certain section of the playerbase that's going to love Menelker as he is right now. I did a 72-damage combo with Geiger last night. Felt like a Goddamn king.

Man, I'm excited about the normal draw rule. Valerie's optimal play is really unintuitive as it is right now ("I'm a combo character, so I should...block a lot?"). It does seem like it would cause problems for Rook and Midori though.

Maybe so, but that doesn't really explain stuff like Zane's 5. Besides, I think flavor stuff like that is best when it's obvious, not when it's learned. EDIT: Eh. I think the expansion's probably too far long in development for the changes I'd like to see (i.e. sweeping reduction in suit-matters, Menelker gets completely changed).

EDIT 2: Disregard what I originally had in this post. I was a little too harsh, I think. In summary, Onimaru, Bal-Bas-Beta, and Gloria look like a lot of fun. I think Menelker is actively bad for the game - his mechanics are super oppressive, even if they're balanced. Quince, Persephone, and Menelker have mechanics (Quince's 2, Persephone's Ace and 10, and Menelker's 7 and 10) that make Yomi feel like less of a fighting game and more of a card game, and I think that's a bad thing. I also think that most of the card-suit-matters mechanics are poorly implemented and end up being just another annoying variable to track.

I never have the self-control to end on Pilebunker. I'm pretty bad at reading my opponent during oki. Maybe if I actually knocked down more often I'd be better at that, hm? Thanks! The site seems to be down at the moment, but I'll take a look after work today.

I totally agree. My original sig was going to be Ghost Riposte -> Pilebunker -> 6 -> Daggerfall Thrust, but it was too long. There is sometimes a pretty good reason to throw away the DP, though: it's a good way to make your opponent feel more secure being aggressive, which you can use to your advantage. I have not! Would you be willing to link me? I do know that Sirlin is testing a rule that would make attacks cantrip whenever they don't get beat out by faster attacks. I like that rule a lot, because attacking from neutral in this game feels really risky right now.

The great thing about Yomi is that it's so simple to pick up that you can probably convince a few of your friends to play it with you routinely, and a dozen more to play it with you occasionally. The scene forms itself. DeGrey IS awesome. Jedi mind tricks for days. I've been playing a lot of DeGrey and subbing Midori and Valerie. I like those two for the oddball challenges they present - Midori's ostensibly a grappler, but requires an inordinate amount of setup and opponent-training to do his Dragon Form thing properly; and Valerie is a combo character that has to be very, very careful about when she combos and empties her hand (unlike Setsuki, Jaina, and Lum, who have a lot of built-in recursion/card draw and are more or less encouraged to unload at every opportunity). So I guess I like awkward characters? Was Argagarg the character you had the hardest time getting used to fighting? He was for me.

"Hai." That's a nice piece of swag. I'm not sure it'd be worth the money, though.

I don't know of any videos or tournament reports you could read, sorry. I can give you a couple of examples, though? - The character I play the most is named DeGrey. His Ace card has a special dodge on it called "Ghost Riposte": it returns to my hand at end of combat unless I got thrown, and if I dodge an attack with it I get to hit back with a full combo, rather than a single attack or throw. It's very powerful; in fact, it's the best dodge in the game. Trouble is, people will almost always know when it's in your hand - either they'll have seen you play it, or they'll have seen you fetch for it - so people will try to play around it. One of the challenges of playing DeGrey is measuring how likely your opponent is to try and play around Ghost Riposte and calculating your actions accordingly, while also lulling them into a false sense of security that makes them more likely to attack. These two goals aren't always aligned, in fact they're sometimes at odds - it's a balancing act. - One of DeGrey's special abilities is called "Troublesome Rhetoric" - it's on his 4. Using Troublesome Rhetoric lets you name attack, throw, block, or dodge, and if the opponent uses that option as their combat card this turn, you gain 12 life (most characters start at around 80-90 life). Using this card effectively requires timing and a good understanding of your opponent's tendencies - usually your opponent will just not use that card this turn, but sometimes you can use Troublesome Rhetoric to trick your opponent into doing the very thing you name. For example: say I've been using Ghost Riposte a lot and my opponent is tired of getting combo'd. I could discard Troublesome Rhetoric and name "Throw" - a sure tell that I'm going for another Riposte. In my opponent's irritation, he decides to go for the throw anyway - what's 12 life if it means he no longer has to deal with my annoying dodge? So he throws...straight into my Pilebunker. "Take 14. I gain 12." That's the kind of thing that happens routinely, and every character's is a little bit different. For example, Valerie's a big combo character, but her attacks aren't really fast enough to beat other attacks, and since she has almost no built-in card drawing your hand tends to empty pretty quickly if you attack too much. She has to lean on her blocks more than other aggressive characters, both to draw cards and to make the opponent want to throw her so she can start a combo. It's about setting up the pins and knocking them down, except the pins have a mind of their own that you constantly have to guess at.

(Okay, so it's not quite a fighting game, but it's close enough.) http://www.sirlingames.com/collections/yomi Yomi, developed and self-published by the (in)famous David Sirlin, is basically a fighting game card game. Currently, there are ten different decks available, each representing a different character; each deck is composed of 54 cards: 52 normal playing cards and two jokers. The game is pretty simple to pick up. Combat plays out very similarly to rock-paper-scissors: each player plays a face-down card, then both cards are revealed simultaneously. Attacks beat throws and slower attacks; throws beat blocks, dodges, and slower throws; and blocks and dodges both beat attacks. If you land an attack or throw, you can go for a combo; each character has a certain number of combo points they can use, and each attack or throw consumes a set number of points. If you play a block card, it gets returned to your hand at end of combat unless you got thrown. If you successfully block an attack, you draw a card. If you play a dodge card and successfully dodge an attack, you can hit back with a single attack or throw. There are also jokers; they function almost identically to bursts in Guilty Gear. After you lose combat, you get a chance to play a joker or a bluff card face-down; if you play a joker face-down and your opponent decides to try and combo you anyway, you can flip it over to cancel the combo and draw two cards. You can also play the joker offensively; it beats attacks and throws, and when you hit with it you get to search your deck for two Aces (basically your super moves; amusingly, using a joker offensively is called "Gold Burst"). Each character also has special abilities that no other character has. --- I am going absolutely nuts over this game right now (as you might be able to tell by my avatar/signature). It is so much fun, and simple enough to pick up that people who are scared off by fighting games' mechanical difficulty can get right into the complicated mindgames. It might not be a video game, but it is certainly a fighting game, and a great one at that.

It's just a reasonable guess based on console FG history. I don't believe that any console fighter's online play has been totally lagless, and >10 frames (or equivalently, >0.16667 s) of lag is considered quite acceptable. I don't think it'll have a LOT more than 3 frames, but it'll be significant enough that you'll train your FRCs wrong.

Judging from some estimates made in AC+ training mode, it looks like - and obviously it's tough to be sure right now - at any range where you could connect [4]6D from a 5P, you could probably connect 6K instead. So it might be more for extra damage than utility, which is sad.