RedDave2 wrote:

New SFV Trailer dropped for those who care (granted, not many here). Season 3 brings back Sakura, Sagat, Blanka and Cody with 2 new characters in Falke (looks like a female Ed) and G (warped Uncle Sam). Sakura is up first and her trailer is in the tail end of the video.

Good to see some old faves return at least.

Cody could be good, and for appearance, Sakura is by far the best so far.

Pretty certain it's hist first Street Fighter game, so he doesn't have tendencies brought over from past games.

Plus, he's eighteen, so fears nobody.

Roujin wrote:

SFV is a game that punishes you if you are used to being able to do certain things like consistently punish jump ins, or do a reaction dp or try to play footsies and get blown out by a crush counter that hit you by the time your move became active once the delay renders out. It makes experienced players freeze up and as soon as you freeze up the delay compounds your already delayed decision making and the aggressor usually has landed the mix up they were looking for.

Good writes.

— To give a greater impression of power and impact, V has more ‘jagged’ attack animations than IV (often as many frames and sometimes one fewer, but with bigger transitionary jumps), with more dramatic — and much smoother — recoils. This makes it slightly harder to ID moves you're looking for.

— Reactions for predicted visual events are significantly faster than for unpredicted, and that's typically the factor between being able to punish on reaction and not. Punishes on true reaction require immense physical gifts of both reaction speed and input dexterity.

— Visual reaction + execution time + input lag + hitboxes versus hurtboxes. Consideration for the latter sometimes adds time before executing. If you recognise a jump-in during its initial frames while primed for one, you can punish it. Your hands don't start moving for another ten or so frames, there's execution and lag to add on, and then hitbox interactions if applicable. You'll often have a handful of spare frames.

When I played as Cammy I'd buffer DP all the time, because her HK version has decent horizontal travel (albeit they're quite slow at 4, 5 and 6 frames respectively, from LK to HK). If my inputs weren't finished by the apex of a jump I'd lose, whereas in IV it was a few frames later while they were still high on the falling side of their jump.

The problem for me was that people could dash towards me, I'd press a button to DP, and they'd be blocking on their screen when it hit. The twin lags — online and in-game — made it feel impossible to punish offence on reaction. And that's with a move that beats almost everything unless it's blocked or stuffed. I couldn't react in time to a jump after its first third, and I'm not exactly slow.

High-level play's always been predictive, the difference in V is that you have to commit to a lot of actions before being able to confirm anything. In IV you might predict two or three things, and if correct you had enough time to recognise what you were looking for was happening and punish it confidently. The trick to winning was obviously doing something unforeseen.

So much is unpunishable on visual reaction in V that it resembles a turn-based fightman. It's not that what players are doing is unforeseen, but that too much of it works unless the other player's bet the farm against that particular thing. Trying to establish the entirety of players' patterns is V's cold-reading backbone, and footsies are futile in the traditional sense, now relying on major speed-versus-priority gambles. In terms of anti-air, every character feels like Abel.

The latest trailer's like an old-school Tekken intro. LET SOMEONE ELSE MAKE VI NOW! With Viper.

hunk wrote:

you can't punish jump ins on reaction.

Not sure if this is strictly true. I can only really speak for Necalli but I find I'm as consistent at going for anti-airs in this game as I would be in any SF game previous (and I still tinker into USF4 on my laptop and SF2HF on my wii-u) Is the lag a major problem? Certainly enough people complain about it to say yes, but I find a lot of Escapes analysis is way overestimating the problem (from my own experience). You dont have a ton of defence options but they are there - block the anti air and hit a v-reversal, step in and crouch SP, if the distance is bang on hit SP and then you have LP / MP raging light depending on how the enemy is coming in - general head on and MP works best, if they are going cross up LP. And you can still snuff out quite a few attacks with standing LP, especially if you have hit v-trigger. Going further, back jump with LP will work for a lot of attacks if you have room to get back. So for me there is a lot of single buttons there to work as anti-air if I'm stressed and if I'm feeling good I'll be better at timing my Raging Lights. For me the balance is decent enough, and some players have an excellent anti-air game.

Now yes, the online aspect can creep in but I've played a huge amount of matches and while I'm not anywhere near top tier, plenty of matches seem to go smoothly and anti-airs arent only there as reads. I would agree that too many moves overall are not punishable enough but this seems to be a design error rather than lag. Far too many Strong buttons across the board are relatively risk free because they also have decent range (Necalis standing HK for example) 

 I dont want to come across that the game is flawless or that Capcom have handled it well but as an online fighter I've found it as given me more fun that any other game. Granted thats on pc so the competition is not as strong but I think some of the complaints are more aimed at this game because it is somewhat the flagship mainstream game of the genre in the same way FIFAs and CODs get slated. Certainly SFV is not the pinacle of the genre nor was FIFA or COD but these games are pretty easy to pick up and do well in. There's something to be said for having games like that. I dont have time or interest to throw hours into SFV on practice mode but I can flick it on for an hour, get mostly good fights and enough of them to make it worthwhile.

RedDave2 wrote:

block the anti air and hit a v-reversal

step in and crouch SP

back jump with LP

So for me there is a lot of single buttons there to work as anti-air

— But you shouldn't have to block on negative frames just for being fractionally late in reacting to a semi-predicted jump. Plus meter.
— Stepping anywhere has to be done preemptively. It's not like IV where I could shuffle into position for Balrog's cr.HP after seeing a jump.
— You can backjump to a degree, but it's not foolproof when you soon reach the corner or show a willingness to do it, leading to grounded punishes or post-dash pressure.
— Necalli's one of the lucky few!

RedDave2 wrote:

Certainly enough people complain about it to say yes, but I find a lot of Escapes analysis is way overestimating the problem (from my own experience). You dont have a ton of defence options but they are there...

I agree with that.

Escape wrote:

It's not like IV where I could shuffle into position for Balrog's cr.HP after seeing a jump.

This is actually one of the changes I respect... Guile, Honda and Blanka were extremely hard to play against in 4. It was almost possible to win fights without leaving your half of the stage with those characters, because AA was so effective... I mean, how many jumpins did you see Sagat players commit to?

The were able to combo into Ultra from an AA FFS... It was Sagat's best set piece.

Now, far fewer fireballs are thrown, and both players actively fish for attack openings, and stage position. And as Dave says, you can still catch an anti-air, but tbh, you should be attacking anyway.

Again, I think SF5 is alright, but Capcom scuppered their own ship with a rushed development that really badgered QoL components like online play, menus, single player modes, and for a long time, even basic controls...

What's more, Xrd 2 feels many, many times better than any 2D fighter currently knocking about. Once DBZ comes out, Capcom will be dead.

But I digress...

I still can't work out what's changed at the top level of play to enable MenaRD's result... I think it could be a little more complicated that just mere age. Though I suspect widespread Japanese apathy to the game, and a move away from the arcades (which are still a big deal in Japan) have had some impact...

Think about it... The nearest parallel that comes to my mind is that time when Greece won the European championship in 2004...

Rank outsiders... Many different reasons were cited, the best being that as a second rate team, much of the squad were playing at second rate club teams, or benched in bigger squads... With that being the case, they were comparatively well rested, and thus able to do enough to win games, on their relatively lucky route to the final... The same might have been said of Wales run last year, but they didn't win...

Here though, two lower ranked players have won Capcom Cup for two years in a row... So yes, the cult of youth, perhaps, but even then, Nuckledu in all probability should have finished much higher... Same for a good number of other players, if that was the key correlate.

I don't know...

Perhaps I'm finding this far more interesting than it actually is...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's true... I was just testing yall*... :}

But the point about Ricki Ortiz and character choice leads back to game design, and that's what I'm keen on exploring.

All this stat management/big data shite is bound to have an effect on high level play. But unlike overt shit like input lag, and high execution set pieces, the effect doesn't seem as clear.

*Was I fuck...

RedDave2 wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean here so ok, you are probably right.

Against Cammy, I have to play a much more turtle game unless the player isn't up on anti air.

If you half-expect a jump-in I think you should have a fair chance of beating it. Light Cannon Spike's the same four frames as Necalli's jab, but takes a lot longer to input. If you've ever played a character with a DP, you'll know how much easier it is to AA when you're already walking forwards. If you happen to be holding back in V when that half-predicted jump occurs, chances are you'll not want to risk a bad trade and just block, and that leaves you at a frame disadvantage.

Gief has a worse AA game than Cammy, but his SPDs eat a lot of post-jump moves on priority. It's sometimes even preferable for him if you keep jumping. Roujin knows that my AA game was decent, but from my point of view it felt like a bit of a lie, because I was especially focused on it, rather than reacting as I used to with Rog's cr.HP (and if that was too slow, st.MP).

dynamiteReady wrote:

This is actually one of the changes I respect... Guile, Honda and Blanka were extremely hard to play against in 4. It was almost possible to win fights without leaving your half of the stage with those characters, because AA was so effective...

No, I agree that Rog's AA was overpowered. But that was cr.HP itself (which he needed to plug the holes in his game elsewhere), whereas I'm arguing in favour of having time to counter a jump-in if you're ready for one as part of a varied diet. Like I say above, I was okay with Cammy's AAs because I was concentrating on jumps and dashes at the cost of more nuanced play. I got blown-up by silly things.

The netcode was terrible for me, though, so I'd maybe find it a lot less irksome offline. It still lacks enough distinct animation frames for attacks, so it'll always be hard to play footsies unless they reduce UE4 lag down to 3. Even with Tekken 7's high lag, I rarely eat something that's pushing 30 frames like Birdie's Dolphin (unless I'm already committed). Dolphin doesn't even animate for its first few frames! Whereas in Tekkens the majority of big moves have well-realised animation arcs. V's not responsive enough to cope with the speed and lack of animation of its moves.

I figure their plan is to release S4 characters in 2019, and then VI in time for Evo 2020.

And yet he feels easier to jump on a lot of the time. Maybe 'cause he's normally trying to get closer and that leaves him at funny angles for his jab? Maybe he's buffering and can't press a neutral button? Dubs' air-to-air seemed more threatening when we played. Like I said above, I get the feeling that most Giefs generally forgo AA for proximity.

I'm interested in Blanka's frame data. I imagine they're gonna have to nerf him for balance. Will Cody be a CC monster...

ChopperByrne wrote:

Fighting EX Layer Demo is available now: https://store.playstation.com/en-ie/product/EP3637-CUSA10552_00-CPS025EUDM001000

I'm enjoying this. Unbeaten online so far, the many hours of Ex + Alpha back on PS1 are serving me well.

It looks very interesting, the buff system is a fresh approach to fighting game convention

There are definitely infinites all over the shop.

For pity's sake people, juggle clocks.

Certainly on my radar. Have a feeling they are taking the sf4 approach - new fame mechanics but a heavy dose of nostalgia to win back old fans.

DO NOT BUY ANY CAPCOM PRODUCTS. ESPECIALLY THEIR FIGHTMEN.

THEY ARE FUCKING INEPT, SURVIVING OFF THEIR LEGACY FROM 20 YEARS AGO AT THIS POINT. Absolute wastemen at this point after the way SFV and MvCi have panned out.

THE LITTLE FUCKERS.

Give Namco/Arcsys/SNK/Netherealms/MikeZ or the dudes who did Killer Instinct your money instead.