Vowtz

I'm having a boring Story mode, does that count?

Nice work! It's good to see initiatives like this beginner mode to bring new players in Guilty Gear. Unfortunatelly there's still this unnecessary health handicap, it feels too unfair with newbies, since they already suck at the game. Instead of that, autocombos and easy specials should just have a slight reduced damage, just enough so new players would feel inclined to learn the correct motions after playing for a while.

But blitz would work, right?

More like "let me use blitz shield and backdash online too" or even more like "Oki online does not need to suck, it can be good" adjusting your wake up inputs with lag is not an easy thing to do, especially when different opponents have different delays.

XRD online mode has some great aspects and some very bad drawbacks, it is great so you can play against lots of different people and different playstyles, and you can face human opponents without leaving you house or calling your friends over (IF they are available). The inconvenient part is, of course, the Lag. It is a consequence of the distance between players and of the technology used to connect them. Lag causes a lot of problems in a fighting game, where decisions have to be made fractions of seconds, with any delay being able to cause devastating results. Not all problems caused by lag are unsolvable (while many, unfortunately, are), and that is the reason for this post. One of the worse things that happens when playing online is that no one respects your Oki, getting up after a knock down is a nightmare, and the reason is not because your enemy made a clever trap, it is just because of the input delay. There are tons of "online only" players that use "false oki" and keep attacking even though is not safe, because they are confident that LAG will shield them from any response. One time I was playing as Sol agains a Faust, that damn Faust used one of two things on my wake up: - 2K into going my way combo - 6H into going my way combo He did one of these two EVERY SINGLE TIME, because he new that my chances of pulling a Shouryuken reversal on lag were very small. On other time I was playing as Millia against a Potemkin that kept repeating - safejump S, 2K, 2D He did it like 10 times in a row, while I was trying to blitz or backdash, but he new I would not be abe to do it online. I knew he was trying to make me get used to block so he could change the sweeps for a potemkin buster next time, a very pretty tactic, but one that does not work at all offline, where people can blitz There are tons of other examples, the fact is: oki online is A LOT different than offline. The good news are: there is a solution for this problem. The better news are: there is no bad consequences. The even better news are: it is really easy to implement (it is already in the game, but not in an efficient way). To solve this problem, just make the game execute any input you did while knocked down as soon as you are able (input buffer). The fact is, it is already there, you have a 3 frame window to do your move, and the game will execute it as soon as it is able. But the thing is, what use has this 3f window if I'm playing with a lag of 4f? Wake up should read inputs with the same logic as when the screen freezes after you win the first round in XRD. After you win, the screen freezes and the word "Slash" appears, during that frozen time, the game will read any special attack you do and execute immediately after the screen unfreezes. It should be the same way when a character is getting up. Just upgrade these 3 frame that are already there on wake up to 10f and this "online only" oki tactic will vanish.

I agree with you! I have the same issues you addressed about online Ky's Greed server and dusts, specially after charged stun edge oki. The same goes for AXLs unblockable, every time I get hit with that online I actually reacted on time, when playing offline that thing almost never hits. Also with faust's 6Hs. Oki in general is pretty false online, that is maybe the greatest problem with online play in my opinion, naturally when you are waking up your options are already limited, like (defend, throw, backdash, reversal) depending on the character, but with lag it's a lot harder to do what you want, and a lot harder to react to your opponent overheads. In my opinion the best solution would be an increased input buffer on wake up ( and just for wake up). I read that they will increase the buffer from 2f to 3f in all situations. But the most obvious time when the buffer problem appears is on wake up. Some of the problems you mentioned, and that I also agree with (like whiff punish), are unavoidable, after all it takes time for the information to travel from one place to another. The "online wake up" likewise cannot be completely fixed, but a bigger buffer on wake up would bring back some options and make the game much more enjoyable.

It is clear that playing online and offline offer a different experience, but what aspect of the game is most changed by online play? For instance, I think most overheads become a lot stronger online, since lag will slow all your reactions, so you got to guess to defend while standing or couching on advance. That goes for all things that require reactions, like chipp's teleports, zato's mix ups, just defend, and so on. To "Wake up" online is also a nightmare. And for you, what's the main difference in your opinion?

I was not talking about winning, I was talking about easy inputs for beginners, so they can get their special moves out when they want to. Xrd Version 1.1 will probably have adjustments for easier inputs, I think it is a good decision.

I don't think rollback netcode would make a big difference in player base. I think the main issue with Guilty's popularity is the initial "proficiency" requirement, doing simple stuff like a half circle or an overdrive in guilty gear require some adaptation, while in other games they come out naturally, without effort. Just those input shortcuts for special attacks (that were criticized by our coleague on the first page) would help a lot to bring new people in. Because guilty gear already has: - Best Graphics; - Greatest diversity between characters; - Great music; - Great number of options, both on defense and ofense. I have a lot of friends that think the game is really cool and want to play it, but give up after realising they can't get their special moves out when they want to, some of them are even familiar with other fighting games. You can say they are "lazy" but well, it is a GAME, not a college dissertation, do you expect a very serious aproach when you will have fun in your free time? what's the point of making people work hard if they are not even sure if they like the game or not yet? That is SO TRUE! There's nothing to be gained by saying "yeah, you have to work hard like me to play this game". It is a GAME, before being thecnical and hardcore it has to be FUN to play! Right now, guilty gear is too demanding on complete beginners. Before a new player starts having fun he has to get used to doing perfect motions (nobody is happy when they try to input an overdrive and end up with an 6HS), and even then casual players will never have confidence in doing their intended attack on the right time. I have a friend that always chooses Zangief in Street fighter. He is not a good player, far from it, but he is confident that he can do a Spinnig PileDriver if he wants. He loses a lot, but he plays the character he wants in the way he wants without training a single hour and have fun with the game. This same player will not be able to do a potemkin buster or a tirant rave consistently without first getting used to the game and being careful with his motions. The game should not require much for anyone to play at a basic level, it should be like that saying "easy to learn, hard to master", guilty gear right now is just "hard". MY POINT IS: It is useless to design a game to be atractive only to "old school" or "pro" players, these guys will buy the game one way or the other, and will always master advanced techniques and be ahead of casual players with their training. The correct aproach is to make it as atractive as possible to beginners without ruining the advantage of training and experience.

My experience so far is positive with Axl against Bed, most Bedmans tend to fly around a lot, so 6K forces them to be grounded or eat an axl bomber combo. If they decide to fight it out on the ground then [4]6S should beat most of his stuff. I usually prefer to be at middle range in this matchup, no closer than 5S maximum reach. If he throws his head at you just jump over the projectile and go for j.S or j.6P to put his head back in place on guard or hit.

I think we are in the same page then, I do agree that wake up reversals should be really risky, and require careful consideration.

I went and watched a video of very good players, Ain(Ky) and FAB(PO) for about 15 minutes, and both of them woke up on reversals a couple times (not a lot, of course), Ky did Vapor thrusts and Pot did blitz shield as reversals. Seeing so high level players do it just means it is not so useless and definitely not just a beginners tool. I agree it's a matter of perspective, some think that to enjoy the game you must dedicate your body and soul to it, going to training mode and doing fingers exercises to ajust every frame to your body. Some like me want everybody to be able to play it, with basic stuff being easy to do and more complex things being harder. High execution barriers for simple stuff just push new people away, and makes no difference for high level players.

It is clear that some people come here to say things like "I'm great, my execution is flawless, I work hard to make every frame count, I am the voice of experience", (that last one was really funny, I almost died laughing). You should just ignore those, if going on the internet to talk big about themselves makes them happy, it's ok then, makes no difference for anyone else. From a business point of view it is really obvious that it is better to get as much people as you can to enjoy your game so you can sell more, the cost is the same for a super nerd who trains 18 hours a day and a working guy who call his friends to play on weekends and likes to enter an online battle now and then. For me personally, I just want more people to play it, calling myself "elite" and bragging about how I can get perfects in the corner with Zato is as far as possible from what I want. The other point presented here is " guilty gear is great because of its difficulty". If they want to believe that guilty gear is loved because of "execution difficulty and requirement of hours of training" instead of GREAT GRAPHICS, GREAT SOUNDTRACK, COOL CHARACTERS, HUGE DIVERSITY IN GAMEPLAY FROM ONE CHARACTER TO ANOTHER, CUSTOMIZABLE ROMAN CANCEL COMBOS, GREAT OVERDRIVES, LOTS OF OFFENSIVE, DEFENSIVE AND MOBILITY TOOLS FOR EACH CHARACTER, it is also their right to do so, people are different, and can have different opinions. As you said, the difference seems to be the lack of negative edge on XRD. Maybe developers really want to get rid of negative edge, since they decided to increase buffer frames instead of putting it back.

Some posts mentioned how good is the fact that it is difficult to execute reversals, and how guilty gear is liked for its precise execution in all these years. I want to remember you guys that both on GGX AND GGXX to wake up on dragon punch was VERY EASY, even a newborn child could do it. Now we see people almost losing their fingers to do the reversal mission. Well, this matter is already settled, it is gonna be patched to improve the input window, all "pros" will still to do it, and new players will be able to get rid of poorly executed okis. The only ones who will suffer are those who abuse crappy mixups because common people cannot escape it.

Very true, but still it helps a lot, adding another factor. Try reversal dragon punch with 5f lag, it is a nightmare. I guess they decided to improve the input buffer mostly because of online.