TheRealBobMan

Thanks for that frame data correction. I wasn't paying close enough attention so I totally bungled that up. Yeah, they need to change this OS shit. I never though the "RC in hit/blockstun, else YRC" was elegant. It's also dumb being able to YRC a whiffed command throw. At the very least they could make it "no YRC during burst startup" so that you'd have to commit 50% and not have it be a mindless OS that only works if they Bursted. I wonder if they'll do a revision before the console version comes out?

I'm not even interested in playing Sin, but I want a combo video for him to "Another Brick in the Wall" enough to make it myself. "HOW CAN YOU HAVE ANY PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT?" As for Sol being poor... dude has been bounty hunting for like 100 years. Unless Ky is taxing him out the ass for sleeping in the wilderness all the time instead of owning property, he could probably afford to buy out that manufacturer if he gave enough of a shit. I bet more than half of his pay isn't even on the books. So anyway, when is TGS again? I want to know when I should be looking for Elphelt footage.

So, with all of these wedding party themed things she's got going, I'm hoping she's wearing a garter belt with another reference written on it. There's just so much potential for that to be hilarious: "It's so Easy" "Welcome to the Jungle" "Paradise City" "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" "You Ain't the First" "Locomotive" Man, looking up all of this Guns N' Roses history is pretty cool. "Rocket Queen" would probably be the best reference they could use on a garter belt since they apparently recorded and included sex noises in that track. Anyway, it'd be pretty cool if she could stance cancel into guns and back out for a benefit like Johnny does, but if they're trying to appeal to a FPS crowd with her, they probably want her to be really simple, so I doubt they'll make her that input heavy... especially if they're not planning on changing Johnny when they eventually add him. Why have overlap in character designs? It might be cool if she plays kinda like Fritz from Akatsuki Blitzkampf in that her combos wind up being very short (like 2-4 hits max) but individual hits (gunshots) do a lot of damage. I really want to see what they've done with her now.

You either don't go back, or you go back in small doses with friends. I used to be pretty invested in Smash, but that died when I got into GG. Now I play it when friends want to play, and most of them would rather play GG so that's not often. P4A is kind of odd because it's simple enough that you could keep playing it without much time investment to be good at it, but it has some silly mechanics that can turn you off. It's another game that I only play once in a while if a friend wants to play. Because GG is complex, you generally have to invest a bit more to keep up with it, so that's a factor for some people. I barely have time to play games anymore, so I'd rather put in the effort to be good enough at GG to really enjoy it, rather than play 2-3 games at a shitty level and never go anywhere.

Could be this or this... or possibly this?

Wow, this is awesome, thanks for posting. It seems like a lot of moves have 1 frame less recovery than before. Either that's an error on the side of the guys who compiled the data or the current data is wrong (seems unlikely that they would make 1-frame changes to everything that isn't f.S), or we got a bunch of really tiny buffs. 2P is actually 2 frames faster, so we're either +4, or even in the event that the data is slightly off, it's +3, unless they made a specific error with that move. 5D is faster again, which is nice. I'd have liked to know when the red flash occurs since that's the "obvious telegraph" point, but we can get that later. For now we can rejoice that the move isn't borderline unuseable anymore. 6H starts 2frames faster, which helps explain the combos I see that end in 6H > HCL ~ D. It also got 5 more frames of recovery time, which will suck if we whiff (especially since it looks like the range is shorter), but with the dash cancel we're better off on hit/block anyway. Confirming that j.D still has 8 landing recovery frames is really disappointing since j.D FDC is more important to I-No's mixup with the nerfs to dive and STBT, but I thought it felt the same during E3 testing so it doesn't sting so bad. Oh well. Backdash being nerfed sucks. Losing 3 frames of invul is going to hurt. That part after the dives... I really hope that 3 > 5 means attack level goes up when the move "charges". Extra awesome if the 6F part is reduced landing recovery. Charged dives being +10 would almost make up for the nerfs. So... can we actually hold STBT or is that an error of some kind? I haven't seen any footage of that.

Arc Revo is for multiple Arc games right? When's Xrd? Wondering if I should stay up late to watch or if I should just look for an archive later (if say BB or P4AU is first).

Pretty sure that's true. I remember there was a big stink about ArcSys saying there was a "miscommunication" after the Vita version released without online play.

Maybe it's different in Xrd, but Sol's j.P actually has a decent hitbox considering it's active for 7 years frames and recovers like a jab. It's more a matter of if he can use it before he lands, since you could always backdash at point blank range after running on top of their corpse (you have VV, so they wont always push a button, and backdash would bait a throw anyway). Maybe his j.K would work, though that's a frame slower (though his lower body is stretched oddly so it might keep him from landing for that extra frame). Neither prorates, so he'll still get damage off of it. You really don't think 25% to mixup off of invul-backdash with either a 5-frame overhead, 6-frame low, or 4-frame command throw is worth it? Would you rather spend 50% to mixup with 5D off of VV? There will still be a time and a place for that, but the potential off of backdash YRC seems pretty high.

I somehow didn't expect her backdash YRC to leave her airborne long enough for her 4-frame j.K to start. That's great news for anyone that complained about haircar FRC being removed. Even if you react to the YRC screen freeze and guess right that she's going to go into j.K, causing you to block high > low with perfect timing, there's always the possibility of just landing into low (12 frames faster than expected because of j.K hit-pause), or landing into throw, or even landing j.K into another j.K, using the now 2-hit Disc to get the combo. Having this off of backdash is extra mean since Haircar was only frame-1 airborne, whereas backdash has actual invul. Can you imagine Sol with oki backdash YRC > j.P/2K/WT mixup (assuming j.P works)? I hope there's at least 1 frame of vulnerability on YRC so that you can't just YRC an invul move and OS block a meaty on reaction during screen freeze or do whatever mixup you were planning on using otherwise. If you can run a mixup and/or bait>punish reversal VV by using a backdash YRC there's something wrong. How long does the YRC screen freeze last again? Around 20 frames?

Oh shit, I think I have 800 yen left from when I bought AC for the second time to get JP +R since I got tired of waiting for the US patch. I guess I can use it for that, though I was kinda waiting around with it in case I need to get Xrd early due to more stupidity. I guess I'll get The Missing Link with it if I wind up not getting JP Xrd. That'll even leave me enough yen to buy a stupid JP-Only PSN avatar!

The label on the CD for the OST looks pretty cool. Nice and simple. I hope it's more than 1 disc worth of music.

I think we need a story arc where Faust shows up to deal with Litchi's malpractice.

The PSN Store will match the region and language settings you use to make your account, which will apply for DLC. You'll probably have to log into your SCEJ or SCEH accounts to get DLC for games you bought using those accounts since the DLC usually matches the SKU of the product (meaning it'll be "different" DLC for each region even though it's the same product). Redeeming money on those accounts is more difficult than making an account. You have to buy the point cards at a markup or have a credit card with an address that matches the region. People have written guides on Dustloop so look those up if you need more information. Actually... if a game is region locked, I wonder if changing your system region would let you bypass that? Or maybe you can't change the specific region settings, but changing the language settings might do it. But yeah, you should have no problems recovering and activating your PS3 accounts on your PS4, so that would include any accounts for other regions that you might have. BUT!!! Remember that those accounts need to have their own PS+ for online play, now that PS+ is required for online multiplayer!!! So, if you want to get Xrd early (if it comes out later for US/EU), you'll either have to buy PS+ for that other region account too, or you'll just have single player stuff and local multiplayer with no online play. Most people will be using local multiplayer anyway, but I don't want to see anyone complaining that "ArcSys screwed up the online play" when they can't use it on day 1 when they import with an alt account. Or maybe it'll work. I'm actually not 100% sure now that I'm thinking about it. Maybe you can actually use your US based account that has PS+ and get it to work. If someone currently has an import of some other PS4 game that has online play, it'd be great to have them test that to verify. I might be able to ask someone that would know more about this on Monday if no one has an answer before then. I'm 100% sure you can't use an account that doesn't have PS+ and play online just because you happen to have another account with PS+ on your PS4, but I don't think you'd have any problem playing a game with another region's SKU with your US based PS+ account.

Switching to character models instead of using sprites like before. It's expensive to have the modelers work on even one character. Think of all of the deformations for characters like Eddie, Faust, and Millia that require alternate body parts - probably a factor in why Zappa isn't there since he morphs so much and is like 5 characters in one. The riggers then set all of that stuff up (they get paid probably 1.5X to 2X what a modeler gets). Then theres the time spent in R&D to figure out some of the challenges like getting the Cel-Shading look just right. But once all that is done, they can use those models again, and they have significantly more freedom with the models. I know most of the recent fighting games use flattened 3D models to achive the 2D look, but with the models Xrd uses being full 3D and not flattened, they can do a lot more without having to make yet another set of models. If they want to include cut-scenes or outsource an anime (another step in appealing to the non competitive crowd), they probably could. They also had to modify Unreal Engine to their needs, and now that that's taken care of, they don't need to do that again. They just need to invest in making more characters and story mode content. They're also already ready for PS4, and if they can get PS3/PS4 cross-play they'll have invested in net-code that they can reuse too.

Keep in mind it takes about a month to go from pushing the "Gold Master button" to First Party Testing to the game launching. A lot of work can be done on DLC in that time. Though yeah, wouldn't be surprised if they held back an almost-finished character to sell as DLC. You can't go without the characters if you're competitive, and DLC doesn't have as much overhead as the physical product, so the profits are usually pretty good. Also, if a DLC character is accidentally unbalanced, there are scrubs out there that would buy them to win (look at LoL new champions - they usually launch in an OP state and wind up nerfed 2 months later), and competitive players know that it'll eventually be fixed or the game will die so they'll deal with it. Quite frankly it'd probably be better for the consumers to include all the characters and make stuff like story mode DLC (assuming the base game was a reasonable price to compensate), but story mode is what hooks the non-competitive players so they can't do that. I'm also assuming it's a problem to try to sell cosmetic items in fighting games. If you think about how the majority of sales of that kind of thing are to a very small hardcore market, then consider the main market for fighting games (competitive players), you see the issue. Competitive players mostly wont care about buying extra costumes, and it's hard to appeal to the kinds of players that form the core market that buys that stuff because they wont get as attached. I mean, you sell cosmetics in a MMORPG and people go crazy for it because they're attached to their character. They leveled them up, they wanna play dress-up, or they identify as the character and get into Role Playing so they want to look cool as part of the power/sex fantasy. That shit doesn't work with color palettes, and alternate costumes might require a tech/expense commitment that makes it not worth the sales when the initial market is relatively small (you're not going to get people to go out and buy a niche fighting game because they're excited to go spend extra on the DLC costumes). Maybe they need to bring back Boost Mode from Isuka as DLC and sell cosmetics in that. ArcSys's strongest option would probably be to sell their OSTs in various formats/markets, especially if they gave a nice discount on complete albums for PS+ users or something. There's a lot of music they could sell, and they don't exactly need to go through a record label anymore with all of the digital options. Anyway, how long till ArcRevo?

I'm not sure, but 2H might even be one of her dash-cancelable normals (though those dash cancels are always really late and don't enable a combo - they sort of assist with her mixup though by making things slightly tighter). The thing is, only the actual Mortal Counter hit can be dash canceled, so the second 2H wouldn't leave enough time to link into another j.S. I'm pretty sure that even on regular CH with 2H you could dash into j.S, but after that there wouldn't be the CH hitstun (because Mortal Counter doesn't add extra stun or ability to dash cancel to the whole combo). That first hit can be followed up with just about anything because of extreme levels of stun and potential time slow. After that it's a regular combo.

Mortal Counters are not BB Fatal Counters. The hit that actually lands as a Mortal Counter has the increased hitstop+hitstun+slowdown, and can cancel into any other move, but that's it. No increased hitstun for the whole combo.

To me, it sounds like a bug that a move like Fafnir has a worse Mortal Counter than regular Counter Hit. If they don't want to make it so good that it has extra hit stun or other properties on top of the already good CH properties, that's fine, but why make it worse? Offering a game pad with a LE... I wonder if they'll do that with EU/US versions, if they give us a LE at all (I'm like 98% sure they will). They know that really serious players would play stick, but then adding $150 to the price tag raises the barriers for entry, and they're trying hard to get new players. When bringing it to other territories I wonder if they'll have the same mentality. The button layout on a gamepad like that makes it easier to play someone like Zato without spending a ton of money or having to remap buttons. As dumb as the button thing sounds, some total newbs might want to play Zato and use his Negative Edge as an excuse not to play him, then tell people that say "remap the buttons" that it's "cheating" or something. I mean, we still have people all these years later who say using the C-Stick in Melee is cheating, and it's a fucking default controller option. But yeah, I wonder if they're going to think it's worth it to market a game pad like that in the EU/US territories. I think part of the idea would be to bank off of "hey, get this specialty game pad for PS4 and have it for any other fighting game you want a gamepad for. It's not like anyone else makes these right now!" Except I can't think of any PS4 fightan gaem that anyone would care about. Has there been any announcement of anything besides Xrd, or rumors of SF5? I could see BB going to PS4, but I could also see it NOT going to PS4, unless they do a split release like with Xrd where you can get the other version for higher res if you happen to have the console. With everyone invested in their PS3 sticks though, I feel like this would be a bad business decision... I don't think the sales on PS4 would offset the Development Costs + First Party Costs (like TRC) + Marketing Costs, considering the majority of PS4 sales will be people who don't play fighting games competitively. That market is actually rather big, but it's not their core audience, so it'd be more of a gamble. Or maybe they'd make it so that BBPS4 would actually support PS3 sticks to **** on whatever game Capcom puts out around that time that probably will require new sticks (you know that'll happen because they're buddy-buddy with MadKatz because they sponsor tournaments, which gets people to play the games and gets them sales). Fuck man, all I want is a CD based Sound Track, and that shit could already be on the market as a separate SKU if they had the time to deal with a record label. Somehow I get the feeling the Game Pad's D-pad wont even be as good as a regular DS4 D-pad, so I'm kinda hoping a LE in other territories will include the OST with something else. Give me a 24X20 poster to frame and put on my wall, and I-No's or Ramlethal's hat, or Ky's or Sol's belt buckle or some shit.

Uh... she can't use Does it Blend? Toranshi with blades equipped. It's hard to say without frame data since Toranshi is so good, but sometimes you want to have the swords equipped and might need to use a super that's better than her "explode" super. I can't say with any certainty, but I think Ramma-Ray Calvados does the highest damage of her supers, since Explode is supposed to be her reversal super. Calvados also goes full screen right? So it might be able to punish some stuff at full screen pretty effectively, though without frame data it's hard to say. Really, while Toranshi is insane, the raw damage doesn't seem that great... it's probably comparable to the Explode super. It's great for screen control, pressure into mixups, corner push, and adding 40 damage to the end of a combo like with Justice's Imperial Ray, but if you had a reason to combo into super earlier than when they're OTG (like to prevent bursting), Calvados probably works there if your swords aren't deployed. You can burst bait with 2S > 2H > RC > 2S > 2H if you have your swords on you, but RCs still prorate meter gain and supers don't. I would say that it's not useless, but it is pretty situational where you'd want to use it. Most of the time you'll have a better option, but sometimes you'll need a super and wont be able to use Toranshi... in that case, Calvados is probably going to be better than Explode.

I'm pretty sure I've seen Ram catch Grand Viper and Sol's 2D with that thing. It'd be great if I-No could go under it, but I highly doubt it. I honestly think that's one thing that's a little too much with that move... if you can go under Dark Angel, why not this thing? *edit* "He also likes to use VCL loops in the corner, no idea why I don't see that from other players. It does good damge." Hm... most of the early footage I saw involved use of RC, but it looks like he's moved away from using that with his VCL loops and does meterless variants now. Damage is probably comparable without spending meter because of the prorate. But anyway, if damage values are mostly unchanged, VCL loop would hit really hard, compared to going into the dive loops I see lots of people use, but the dive loops build more meter if that also hasn't changed. c.S > VCL > c.S > VCL damage is like 34 > 45 > 34 > 45, whereas c.S > j.S > j.H > Pdive > Sdive does 34 > 23 > 32 > 30 > 30. The thing is, VCL builds 2~3% meter whereas dives each build like 7%. Those Pdive > dash Pdive > Sdive > c.S > j.S > j.H > Pdive > dash Pdive > Pdive (knockdown) combos build significantly more meter, and have the added benefit of letting you get 5-hit note oki, which builds guard bar and boosts the damage of your next combo if you mix them up successfully. Going for damage is generally the better play, but if you were using a highly prorated starter or something with a lot of forced proration (like old f.S, not sure about the Xrd one since people still avoid using it), the Pdive loops are great. Though if you want to focus even more on building meter and less on damage, Hdive has 3 hits, so looping that into a Pdive knockdown string would probably be optimal. I think I saw a training mode combo video that included a combo like that vs Ky (the one with the Hdive > Hdive), but I think I-No had full meter when she started or at least near full, so I couldn't tell how much she built. But yeah, U-Zen is pretty awesome since he's managing to make I-No look flashy in Xrd with the j.D FDC stuff. Other players should be going for those VCL loops, especially if they land Fortissimo in the corner. Most people go right into j.S after Fortissimo, which is silly since j.H is really easy to link there, and c.S/5H > VCL is optimal in the corner (really, j.D is optimal, but only works off of perfectly TK'd Fortissimo, is like 1-frame status, and might not offer the best follow ups depending on the character). We'll get more experimentation when the game hits consoles. *Sigh* I can't wait. I'll hopefully be on contract break at work when it comes out (finally), so if it's late in the US by even only 2 weeks I'll import that shit.

I figured this is important enough to be worth a topic here. If there's good footage saved in a livestream archive from some tournament, make sure you back it up on youtube or something. http://www.destructoid.com/twitch-is-changing-its-approach-to-video-archives-279202.phtml "Broadcasts that are cut down into highlight clips can still live on the site forever, but full-length broadcasts will only be hosted for 14 days (or 60 days, for Partners and Turbo Subscribers). And under the new system, highlights can only be up to two hours long. In other words, broadcasters who want their shows to be viewable in full will need to export their stuff to YouTube or elsewhere. That also goes for existing broadcasts stored on the site, as those will be removed beginning three weeks from now." I just don't want awesome footage to wind up lost because someone counted on Twitch to host it for forever. So yeah... just a heads up for all the stream monsters out there, and all of the awesome people like Psyblade/Goldenrody who back up everything on youtube anyway. Feel free to lock the topic. There isn't really a reason to respond to it.

Going to throw in my 2 cents in no particular order. Tier Placement: Guilty Gear AC and +R are pretty balanced. There are some rough matchups in there like I-No vs May in AC (better in +R) or ABA vs Justice in +R, which are around the 7-3 mark (which is still really good compared to matchups like Roy vs Ganondorf in Melee). Overall, a character like Bridget who's considered near the bottom is perfectly playable at high level and can win tournaments against the top characters. Hell, Bridget has unblockable setups, a cancelable multi-hit DP, mobility, and range. Sounds like he should be super good right? Potemkin being low tier though... he looks weak in Xrd, but I thought his nerfs were somewhat elegant going from AC to +R. He still gets to combo off of Slidehead, but it costs him meter. He doesn't get 36% meter for the knockdown off of Heat Knuckle anymore which is probably cool since he doesn't build 50% meter off of a BnB that does 35% damage while giving good oki. 6H into Slidehead isn't as tight anymore so it's not as much of a braindead trap that screws you up for mistiming your IB > backdash by 1-2 frames. He still hits like a damn truck with APB loop, still has his strong mixup options, can faint Judge Gauntlet I think? Also, more health because that was universally buffed, which helps him out as he has high defense. I barely get to play the game, but I have no idea why someone would say he's bottom in +R when he's still really strong. He just has to work a little harder. Input Leniency: Feels good. Games like BB have that "hold to repeat input for 3 frames" thing which isn't in AC/+R, but AC/+R have Negative Edge which still gives you a 2 frame window on at least the button press. The stick movement feels tight enough that you don't get bullshit you don't want, but isn't so tight that you can't hit an input. AC vs +R and Xrd: Xrd is pretty different, but +R and AC are very similar. +R had some universal changes like increased health which makes matches take a little longer, and characters were reworked, but the majority of the characters play similarly to how they did in AC, with some new tools added. You're fine playing AC. Dust: It's really simple. 5D (or neutral D) is a universal overhead (everyone's standing D hits high). 2D (or crouching D) is a universal low that knocks down, except for Robo-Ky (his has some fancy use, but his 2S is a low that knocks down to compensate). Jumping Dust moves tend to have different properties to them (I-No's j.D causes her to float while landing and fall when used while rising, making it a mixup tool) and all of them have additional landing recovery (in GG, most air normals have 0 landing recovery). Force Breaks are special moves that consume meter, and are used by doing an input with the D button. For example, Anji has a projectile move that moves forward until it either fades or makes contact with the opponent, then bounces and lands on their head a half-second later if it makes contact. With the FB version, the landing part hits overhead, which sets up some strong high/low mixup. Jazz Combos: Smash is kinda crazy in that you have to read DI in order to combo in most cases, though in some cases you're guaranteed a follow up if a move hits, although you'll get a way better follow up if you risk something that requires a DI read. With GG, there are some cases where you have to adjust on the fly based on what you're seeing (I-No needs to adjust her combos based on where the opponent is on the screen when she lands certain attacks), but for the most part they're referring to something a little different. You still have some optimized rote-memorization combos, but the opponent has the ability to attempt a burst, which is a 0-damage attack with strike-invulnerability that can be used during hit or block stun. This is similar to how DI works in Smash, in that you can use it to attempt to escape damage, but it also has enough startup time that you can bait and punish an attempt, usually at the cost of optimizing your combo (you either drop it or use a significantly weaker version). GG lets you chain most moves in ascending order, so P > K > S > H > D, though they don't always work, and/or they'll chain but wont combo. The chains occur during a move's "active" frames, so in some cases you might delay the next attack by a few frames for various reasons like baiting a Slashback (it's kinda like 3S parry). You might go into a move that's different from the damage optimized move because it might go under a burst and give you a reset even though it wouldn't have comboed. On top of this, you have the ability to cancel some moves during specific windows on hit OR whiff, as well as the ability to cancel some moves on hit/block so you can go into whatever follow-up you want. A great example of this is Order Sol's 2H, which is a crouching overhead that can't cancel into anything, but has enough stun on counter-hit to go into a combo, and has lower body invincibility so that it beats lows (In +R they buffed it to also have throw invul). So, in the neutral game, you can use it as a poke to beat low/throw and get a combo, or if you have the other guy in a blockstring you can use it and spend 50% of your meter to cancel it and get a combo or become safe and reset into another block string. This leads into the last point I want to make, which is that GG likes to have moves that have specific purpose, so you don't get a lot of moves that are useless like in Street Fighter (SF4 has close and far moves for every button right?). Some moves very clearly have partial body invulnerability, so if you know the other guy is going to do move X because he always does it, you can beat it clean. In turn, they usually have a move that will beat that move clean, and so you have a very deep decision making tree. However, unlike BB which simply assigns a property to every move such that no matter how you approach, a "head" type move can't hit someone using a "head-invul" type move, GG just has different vulnerable parts of hitboxes, so an AA can still fail if the jump-in is spaced perfectly. So not only do you have a lot of freedom in what you're allowed to do, you have a reason to use that freedom (baiting bursts during combos, baiting escape tools during block strings, etc).

Hellfire is active when your health is flashing, which seems to happen in the 15% neighborhood if you reset to neutral, or a little bit less (maybe 10%?) if you're still mid combo. Guts activates around the 50% mark, though in past games it depended on how high your guts rating was (you'd see the effects kick in at 50% if you had guts 5), which was character dependent. In Xrd, you might do a combo that takes away the first 50% of a person's health, then do it again for only 25%. It's really front-end heavy now, and I don't know if it's as character dependent as before. Eddie was one of the Guts 0 characters before, but even he takes significantly reduced damage when he's low on health in Xrd. That said, I've seen 80% combos on Chipp in training mode footage from both I-No and Ramlethal. We need more information on how defense and guts values work in Xrd, and we're not likely to get it before the console version comes out. : (

I-No wasn't in Hell Fire, Zato was. He also only got hit by the last part of Desperation, and it was while he was so low on health that guts was kicking in at near full value. I don't see anything wrong. His drill wouldn't have gotten the Hell Fire buff since it only applies to supers, if that's what you were thinking?