YESSSSSS

Amazing, it took 5 years for focus attacks to be added back in to SFV.

I mean, I guess it's actually an invincible backdssh for meter with a counter attack built in or something. Nice tool to have back.

Strive demo I'll probably just wait and see tbh, I'm not a huge fan of some of the be changes they've made to the roman cancels and the new screen break stuff, I love Potemkin but videos from the last test of him two touching people for the round with summer pretty brain-dead looking combos ain't it for me chief.

My big fear is that Arcsys have tried to get the game to appeal to more people but it's come at the expense of the freedomyouused to have to do pretty much anything by you wanted as long as you had the meter/positioning for it in the previous games. The vampire samurai character did look sick though.

Must admit , I don't find any of the sf v characters appealing so far. Dan is more or less in the game already in the form of Kage, Rose is OK, and thirteen and Oros are not characters I've ever really tried with sf3. No idea about Akira from rival schools. Still it's a lot of work going into a game that's just gone 5 years old.

RedDave2 wrote:

There's also a new Street Fighter V Beta coming as they are adding a pretty game-changing mechanic... makes me wonder how much of this should be going into SF6 or if its more a test run. New mechanic is V-shift and it seems to be a universal V-skill based Parry/ Back Dash that really does seem to change the whole flow of the game. 

I've long had a fantasy fightman mechanic that is more-or-less this - a parry system that dodges/bullet times instead of cancels blockstun - so I'm pretty interested to see how it turns out. Just wish it was a in a game I could possibly give a fuck about. Not even bunging my beloved Oro in SFV is enough to drag me into that shit. Not like this baby, not like this.

I just don't trust Capcom to rescue the franchise at this point.

Turns out there are no lobbies in this Strive beta, and now I remember why I didn't try it last time. What is it with fightman devs and the concept of friendship.

Did a lobby with 2 mates on SFV for first time in... years? It was shit. The lobby that is. And so was that game. Mostly. Once I got used to it again a bit, enjoyed it somewhat. But it’s just not exactly a great fighter.

I dunno much about what characters do and don't have in Strive compared to Xrd, but Potemkin used to have the flick to eat/reflect projectiles, and also used to have his ground slam rc into ICPM as a full screen punish to projectiles if you have meter. You also used to be able to just hit RC in open play and either eat the opponents input or slow time for a few seconds to help with getting around projectiles, but RCs have been completely reworked now and you have to hit with them, so that's probably not an option, and also I guess kills the ICPM cancel since I guess you can't do it.

I assume he still can't dash or air dash so you need to be aware of his limited mobility, but in the air he has some tools, 2d in the air lets him buttslam straight down after clearing a projectile and I can't remember if it's hs, or d in the air but one of them has insane reach and you can just punch over people's fireballs. 


I've seen a few clips from Smang and I'm still on the fence. My biggest fear is that Arc have SFV'd the game in order to make it dipshit baby friendly. That's not gatekeeping either, I learned +R and Xrd from scratch. There are a lot of mechanics, but you only have to learn them incrimentally, usually you just started with learning how to use the roman cancel and remembering to use burst as your panic button/get off me move and then you can build out into your stuff like faultless defence, dead angle, blitz shield, just defend, from there. What I loved the most about Guilty Gear was the freedom to do whatever you wanted more or less, as long as you had the meter for it and it seems clear from changes to things like the gatling system and the change to the rc system and I think the removal of stuff like blitz shield and the fact that normal combos are doing 50% damage across the board and people had optimized combos out of the first beta that the game will have more appeal at first to new players, but it risks not having the depth to keep anyone playing. 

That's my big problem, you can't have depth and also be super beginner friendly. And you also can't be super beginner friendly while at the same time expecting a game like that to keep people interested in playing and maintaining a decent online playerbase for years between installments. 

That said, I haven't played the beta yet, so I dunno. It could be the best thing evar, but Xrd already was pretty much the best thing ever and they took things out of it.

Edit: Basically I'm salty that stuff like this is not coming back because of the changes to RC, the combo system, the move sets and the mandatory wall break stuff:

Sorry I should caveat - Strive even in it's current state probably dunks on all the other fighters right now for free, even if it turns out to be somewhat constrained compared to Xrd.

Like, I'm here griping like a salty little baby about system changes I haven't properly checked yet, so hopefully I'm wrong. But even if I'm not, most people who want to play GG but are put off because they've seen a FAB highlight reel or their mate told them how it was shit because they were stuck in a corner for 2 rounds in a row against an Eddie or Milia player and they "couldn't do anything" will probably actually have an easier time getting into Strive than the older games, and from their point of view if they play it for 6 months and have a good time, maybe they buy one or two of the future character updates, then it's job done. 

But all the old men like me, who came from a time where games weren't having to compete against fortnite and shit for an audience, when you could only afford one or two games a year so spending six months learning the vagueries of some beat em up was cool, should realise we aren't the target audience and we aren't the people the developers should be catering for, because there's like 37 of us left in the whole world or some shit. 

Anyway Guilty Gear is still the best fighting game, Arcsys are the most based fighting game developer and if you disagree I will need offerings that can surpass this:

Does the use-360-pad-on-ps4 Brook doohickey thing work with the 360 MadCatz fightpad?

Roujin wrote:

If Tekken 8 turned up with half its moves missing but loads of people started playing it again...

Is the vibe I got from this beta: of a fightan that might just appeal to the most people since Street Fighter IV, stopping short of V's lamentables. Gatlings are a huge loss to creativity it seems, but some of its characters are still deeper than any Capcommer since Viper. Nago in particular has fun cancels.

I missed you all

I wouldn't say half the moves are missing... the returning characters all have thier defining movesets intact. Pot has moves to cover distance, spam hammerfist with pride, hammerfall/break has armour, flick still works on projectiles and he still had ground slam/aegis reflector.

the flow is very different, gatlings all but gone and being able to chicken block with impunity really changes things up. far less airdashing in and rushing down, seems more grounded fishing for counter hits (i've heard alot of people say strive has been "SFV'd") and the general pace is much slower.

also it's a beta, ARC like to fiddle and i remember the final version of XRD was quite different form the beta, it was mainly to test netcode i think.

also the rediculous damage takes emphasis away from piano receital combos, which i think is mostly a good thing in that i feel able to dabble with most of the roster without labbing a 15 hit anti air.

I just hope for a steady stream of regular players, I remember similar hype for Xrd but most new players dropped off after a few months

Going anywhere.

Smang wrote:

I wouldn't say half the moves are missing... the returning characters all have thier defining movesets intact.

I was on about a Tekken 8 hypothetical of cutdown movesets bringing in more players, which I'd probably welcome at this point. Although I'd say too many characters is what really puts off newcomers. The first two games had 8 and 10 respectively, whereas Tag 2 had 59! Dark Resurrection's 33 (34 with Moku) was a good number.

Strive's reduced pace feels pretty close to how I imagine a modern Alpha would, and I don't think that's a bad approach. It's got that sort of flow, where it's more gung-ho than 3rd Strike, but dialled back enough for us old 'uns to play some footsies. Star of the show so far is its netcode, though, which is the best I've ever used. So it's well-presented if nothing else.

I often saw pings below 40, which is unheard of for my connection. And when I'm finally able to upgrade to full fibre those times might halve. I wish Namco had netcode that good. That and rapid matchmaking was so nice after Tekken 7, where I have to twiddle my thumbs for five minutes for a laggy match.

You could retrofit this netcode to Tag 2 and have a team of separate-console online players. Gonna say it again: Harada needs to retire to the beach in his thong.

I miss playing on the same team as friends, like in the ancient times.