Blade

HE STANDS FOR SUPER DYNAMIC COOKING JUSTICE. What more do you want?!

Rule of thumb with me regarding lag is: stay on the ground. Less air combos during lag mean less drops, this hurts some characters more than others. Other tips: If you have lag issues...don't host 6 to a room, my God, your internet is slow enough. 3 Maybe...2 (including yourself). If you don't want visitors or voyeurs just make friend slots. If you're fighting a long distance friend, it never hurts to just let the intro play through, let the characters talk and let the game's timing synch up. You'll know everything works by the time the announcer speaks at proper speed or not. So try not to skip the intro. Also it doesn't hurt to avoid complicated stages with 3D elements in them, like the Museum stage. Turn off your stupid microphone during a match...mics cause lag, even in fighting games. Nobody wants to hear your voice anyway. Lag+PSN Chat = Bad, so leaving chatroom during or prior to fight is a good idea too. Not only that but chat covers up the lifebar, so it's distracting. Lastly, TURN OFF YOUR DAMN TORRENTS AND DOWNLOADS...this especially applies to people with laptops running in the back while they play.

I'd like to hear where Makoto lies in JP opinion, but they may not care about her.

Who the hell said El Fuerte was a stereotype? He's a lot more unique than Zangief.

As much as I'm aware of the potential of A.I. programming, I can say that if they "really wanted to" they could make an A.I. that creams us every time and knows how to deal with anything we throw out and punishes with combos we wish we could do (you even see it in the Combo Demonstrations of Challenge Mode). I've seen it in Guilty Gear Character A.I.'s programmed by fans in M.u.g.e.n. Untouchable. At any rate, there's simple, there's reasonable, then there's downright stupid. GG was relatively difficult since the A.I. could IK you. GGX was simple to medium, GGXX varied a little more...but I'd say GGXXAC was closer. I think they could do a little more with BB's A.I. in the next installment at the very least. As far as Guilty Gear DPs go though, Sol usually did three Volcanic Vipers in a row (623S, 623S, 623H), never actually reading inputs per se.

Actually now that' he's been mentioned..El Fuerte would make for an interesting character in MVC3.

When they said there's more than characters added to SSFIV...and the mention of Poison. It dawned on me they could be considering adding a "Final Fight" mode...kinda like GG Boost or GG Judgment beat em up mode for SF characters to mess around in. Cody and Guy and Zangief would be right at home in a game mode like that.

My bad, Linhua too. Also...Ada is Young???? Doesn't she have boobs at least?

It's not just a visual cue...it's muscle memory...and getting your fingers used to pad or stick inputs takes time and patience. Take Haku-men for example...his normals are deceptively simple, yet once you delve into Special Cancels, the possibilities seem endless. Learn what's most efficient, do it over and over and over again till your brain can do it without even looking at the characters (for example, I can do certain combos and look at my Heat Gauges at the same time). Learning new characters like Hazama or Tsubaki when you've played CT can be especially daunting...but the simple fact you played any sort of fighting game before can give you a leg up over most beginners. Also keep in mind that combos don't win fights, setups and tactics do. Learn what pokes are most effective, learn which are unsafe in certain situations, and what gives you the best advantage. Having good training mode settings also helps. Like setting the Dummy to block "after 1st hit" so that you know what combos work and what do not.

This is a request, since I can't actually record it myself with the equipment I've got (need a decent Video Card), but there are quite a LOT of things the A.I. does that I really think needs work. Making a video of the various dumb things, and explaining them and possibly submitting it to ArcSys for their viewing. Prior to that though, I wanted to make a formal list of all the dumb things I've seen the A.I. do, so that people could get a solid recording of them and know what to expect. So with that, said, here's a few things I'm aware of: 1. Random DPs Any character with any sort of anti-air or invincibility move will react to any normal with high to medium recovery frames by spamming said special over and over again, this is regardless of what position they happen to be in, this applies to Ragna, Jin (especially Jin), Tsubaki, Hazama, Tager (though not as much anymore compared to CT), Haku-men, Litchi (with her pole), though there may be others. This also applies to air throws, as whenever a character doesn't have a air DP move and they happen to be in the air, they will do a throw wiff animation for no reason (Jin does this alot). Here's a way to test...Have Ragna fight Jin and just sit half a screen away and crouch and mash Jab, Jin will do several things: Random DPs, Throw Wiff Animation, an occasional projectile of varying speed. On the flip side, fighting against Ragna you'll get: Random DPs, Throw Wiff Animation (x2), and whenever he's airdashing (regardless of how high), if you throw out a normal of decent recovery (such as 5C) he will use Inferno Divider and be easily punished. It gets even worse when playing as Tager, do 421B Super Armor near Ragna and he will 99% of the time end his combos with Inferno Divider which can be easily punished, particularly with things like Gadget Finger > B Buster loop. Jin would be just as bad if not for the idea he tends to get throw-happy near Tager in the Corner (single-hit Throw lands Throw Reject Miss so easily now it's not funny). Another way is by simply playing Jin VS Jin or Haku-men VS Jin: Have your Jin spam 236B and Jin will almost always Eat it, else he'd dodge it with his DP, easy kill. In Haku-men's case, a simple 4C or j.2C to create a Fumajin will make Jin sit and spam projectiles till he airdashes into the Fumajin on his own. There's other examples, but you get the idea. 2. Astral Heats Only on rare occasions will you actually see the A.I. use an Astral Heat. I can tell you right now that for the most part, whenever the A.I. has heat, they will expend it on Overdrives regardless of their position, over, and over, and over for the most part...Jin is notorious for this. But in some cases you have completely stupid and pointless periods where characters do their Astrals for a complete waste of heat. So far I can say that Lamda-11(Nu-13) and Litchi will NEVER do their Astrals because of how efficient their A.I. seems to be at attacking, I haven't found any instances to trigger theirs if any. Also Makoto will never do hers, despite all the opportunities granted to her...also the A.I. will never use Rapid Cancel for anything. They simply spam DDs regardless of range or distance. --Haku-men will only activate his from wake-up animation, regardless of position, so long as you're attacking, which isn't too bad...but it only assumes you're Ragna, or some other Rush-down character. --Jin only activates his if he hasn't expended his heat (besides spamming you most of the time with his DDs) and you just "happen" to be Turtling in the corner...which in most cases can be spotted a mile away. --Tager does his mid-screen regardless of whether or not he has Magnetism...so he will wiff a lot, this also assumes you aren't mashing and he reacts with GETB half a screen a way as well. --Noel is the one of the worst and needs fixing...she actually will do her Astral FULL SCREEN DISTANCE AWAY from you! In other words, she's wasting meter for no apparent reason. Plenty of time to Taunt her. --Bang has this really really stupid thing regarding his Astral where he will use it at the dumbest moments...for example, if he manages to get FRKZ activated, he will Triple Airdash upwards in the air and use his Astral at max jump height. In other words he isn't aware of his own position and yours when you could be standing on the ground laughing at him. --Carl will do his Astral regardless of his position on screen and will never even attempt to push you towards Ada in this state... Poor Ada. 3. Random Prorated Techable Combos (Blue Beat Combos) In a lot of cases, all you see Jin do is randomly jab with 5A, or try and mix you up...but the problem with this is, despite successfully mixing you up, he never follows up with anything combo-able. He's not the only one with stupid combos, Ragna will try and land double Carnage Scissors out of the corner, even if his opponent can tech, or if at any point the A.I. wiffs in a special, they are stuck doing nothing until the animation completes (Ragna's Inferno Divider on wiff of the second move). Jin (in the corner) will spam 5A 623A over and over and try to juggle you with such lame pointlessness. There are many others, with exception to Litchi, who actually has combos she can use. 4. Inability to dodge (Free Counters). In most cases, this applies to people who play as Jin. Any time you use a move that wouldn't normally be safe to cancel in to (i.e. it doesn't gatling unless they're crouching or it's a counterhit), it will still hit the A.I. anyway, because they are busy backdashing for some dumb reason. This can create a bad habit with some players on Guard Strings. Here's an example: Ragna A.I. is blocking. Jin does 5B (2 hits), 5C, 2C, 6C. 6C will almost ALWAYS hit, even if the move technically doesn't combo, simply because it can be cancelled in to. This also applies to Jin's 5D in situations where it normally wouldn't combo, and nets him a free Freeze. Despite all this the A.I. is busy backdashing... The only time this won't work is versus characters who can punish the move (such as Haku-men, who can mix D moves between Guard string gaps). There's other examples of combos that create bad habits on players because they work on the A.I. so well, and when you fight against and actual player, they will simply not work and you get easily punished. Closing Remarks The reason I would like to create this video is to showcase what sort of changes could be made to encourage improved gameplay. While certainly, you do learn a lot more from human players than you do the A.I....at the very least the A.I. shouldn't be such a pushover to lose to abusive tactics and breed scrub behavior (i.e. Icecar > 5C spam on block). I want to definitely submit this to Arc System Works, if only so that they see what changes could be made for later installments to their fighting game franchises.

I said "older" dammit....and also, I meant Platina's "pre-Dark War" form....god you guys are freaks.

That's a really really bad picture...who the hell stuck action figures in front of the cabs?

He's still a member of Dustloop you know. But yeah...Tracing official art is....well...it sucks.

I love GG/BB Cosplay Swaps...we really need more. Potential girls in question: Baiken, Dizzy, I-no, "Older" May, Jam, Millia, A.B.A., Valentine, Aria, Nekomata Noel, Lambda, Nu, Mu, Litchi, Tsubaki, Makoto, Caelica, "Older" Trinity, Nine, Taokaka, Torakaka, Ada, "Older" Rachel, Saya Wow...lots more girls on the BB side of things... Anyway, thems da list. Think about it.

Jeez, I'm not Japanese, how do you guys keep tabs on this stuff...?

Someone needs to do a sprite edit for Bloodedge with the hole in his arm.