Ultra Street Fighter IV

[Lyrical Donut]

Harsh.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

[joffocakes]

What the hell. That's just amazing.

[Plopboy]

Oh Desk you little tinker you

[mayor_mike_haggar]

At least I can be 100% sure that there's one man out there having less sex than me.

[Plopboy]

I'm sure he has the pick of the ladies with those skills.

[JLM]

I think he's just an abnormally dexterous man with a good sense of rhythm, much like Marlinpie, who has a real life girl friend who lets him hold her hand and everything.

Good IRL Games to Allystah for Saturday/Sunday. It later emerged that young Mallow's theft of my iphone headphones did result in their demise, but the left speaker was knackered anyway so it just made me buy the new ones I needed anyway. 70 games of Marvel were fun, though I already hate your new team.

Marvel 2 was equally fun, and that's the most time I've ever spent playing that using the same team repeatedly. In the Dreamcast days we used to play it on random select, which is why it still feels like playing it for the first time every time I load it up. I will have new tech ready for next time to combat your secret high tier MSZ team.

Also the SF4-ing was excellent and it is still my favourite of the games. I will have a 10k BP Chun on two different accounts soon enough. I don't know how to convey the noise of Guile's spinning back fist in text form but it is hilarious.

Also also, thank you for the Nando's.

Additional also also; I found my keys.

Additional addendum to the also also: Yellow Starburst eh? What were all that about? Oh to be a morbidly obese "comedian" from Bolton.

[Lyrical Donut]

I totally abused Guile's spinning backfist against Haggar last night, mostly because of the sound it makes. I used Bipson's HK way too much against him too, for similar reasons.

[imp]

Man, Ammy got nerfed pretty hard in Marvel 3, in Okami, she is ridiculously OP. For instance, she gains hyper armour by doing combos. But, this armour isn't just during moves, it stays around her like a shield until she gets hit! And when fully powered she can take three of them before anything starts to threaten her health! But yes, like hyper armour, having it broken won't interrupt her attack animations.

Also, whenever she uses her brush powers, she can stop time. I know she can slow it in mvc3, but the difference is staggering. Oh, and it doesn't cost her any meter to do. And speaking of which, her meter is constantly refilling automatically.

It's amazing. What a game.

[df0]

Guys, what is FADC?

[Goemon]

Youtube

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

Loved that! I still think there is room for reading individuals and performing these types of armor setups; especially into the ultras.

I watched the final of the 5v5 today. I'm not interested in talking about the fight but more James Chen's comments about the fact that Sako uses the Back/Start buttons to help him plink LPs. What I find interesting that that his comment was that he wished 'Capcom would patch it out'.

I really don't understand he can say this is bad, yet normal plinking is fine!?

And other things too

Option selects - fine

Unblockables - bad

So forcing a player to block because you option select his counters is okay but forcing a player to do a move because the setup you're doing is unblockable is bad

Technically ALL this things are bugs in the system and in other instances could (and probably would) be considered cheating.

You talk about best players in the world but how would that potentially change if ALL these types of things were removed from the game.

[JLM]

When you perform a focus attack (MP + MK), at any point during the wind up or after the attacking part hits or his blocked, you can perform a dash and cancel out of it. This is called Focus Attack Dash Cancelling.

[Qazimod]

Yeah, I'm bored this evening. Any fightings later?

[JLM]

I don't think there's any legs in the argument that the best players in the world would be exposed without option selects and plinking and unblockables. They're playing a game that has those things so they use them, if they'd learned a game that didn't have those things then they'd play differently and it's impossible to say whether they'd be better or worse as a result. It's like asking if Zangief players would be so effective if they took away his special moves. They wouldn't be playing the same character or even the same game any more, so there's not really a comparison to be made.

Also, a number of the best players are the best at multiple games accross multiple generations, so you could perhaps speculate that a lot of them would still be up there, though again I think it's a bit pointless. They don't all make use of all of these things anyway, and in some cases it's a case of where you draw the line. Buffering a special move or Super into a poke so it comes out if the normal hits is an option select, so is crouch-tech-ing. The latter one people have found a hard counter to, and that's the case for a number of other option selects in the game.

I do think unblockables are more harmful to the game than option selects though. I absolutely think forcing someone to block or stop using the same get out of jail free card is not nearly as game breaking as making blocking impossible. I don't even think there's any contest there.

I don't particularly want plinking, OS's or unblockables patched out of the game, and I think campaigning for one of them to pbe patched out whilst supporting the others is a bit nonsensical. I do feel that unblockables are the ones that will shorten the game's competitive lifespan the most though.

[Lyrical Donut]

Loved that! I still think there is room for reading individuals and performing these types of armor setups; especially into the ultras.

I watched the final of the 5v5 today. I'm not interested in talking about the fight but more James Chen's comments about the fact that Sako uses the Back/Start buttons to help him plink LPs. What I find interesting that that his comment was that he wished 'Capcom would patch it out'.

I really don't understand he can say this is bad, yet normal plinking is fine!?

And other things too

Option selects - fine

Unblockables - bad

So forcing a player to block because you option select his counters is okay but forcing a player to do a move because the setup you're doing is unblockable is bad

Technically ALL this things are bugs in the system and in other instances could (and probably would) be considered cheating.

You talk about best players in the world but how would that potentially change if ALL these types of things were removed from the game.

Yeah, Capcom really need to patch James Chen so he chats less bollocks. That's not going to happen though, sadly. Blinking has been going on for a while anyway, and it's not just Sakonoko doing it.

Also, option selects are evil, evil, bad, naughty things.

[JLM]

Donut loves a cheeky little back dash. Oh yes he does.

[ah]

Someone needs to patch James Chen, that's for sure. Blinking is an awesome name for that tactic, too. I may just take apart my stick and remap the back button in honour of its awesomeness.

IRL Fighter 2 stuff

MVC2 was a lot of fun. If you're going to actually practise it then I may have to buy the game though to learn at least one combo of my own. I do think my team will be totally exposed if you actually learn to play, though, but I guess if I do get the game I'll try and make it work. Zangieto/Storm/Sentinel for top tier in 2013: count the Fs that armoured Zangief gives, about anything. I might have to buy it just to make a video of that assist coming in against Strider's Ouroboros.

I was happy to see my new UMVC3 team didn't lead to instant death - given that I previously got about 50% of my wins from L3 X-Factor Akuma and he's no longer even on the team, I was worried it would go horribly wrong once I took it out of training mode (where it had spent about 30 minutes). Now I just need to learn how to play as my new character.

I was less happy to get entirely bodied at SF4. especially because as you rightly point out it is the best of the games. I need to stop fooling around in Dark Souls all the time and get practising.

Everyone else, you should come to my house and play street fighter some time. Alternatively I can come to yours. Either way :-)

[JLM]

Yes, Iron body Zangief assist was doing armoured Hsien Ko assist before it was cool.

Oh, I played Avatar Fighter with an IRL friend for about three hours yesterday. My god that game is more fun than it should be. It's the fact that you can choose a pre-defined set of normals, any two special moves and one super and assign them to your character that makes it fiendishly addictive. So the match up keeps changing on the fly and becomes something of an arms race until you've both settled on the most fiendish set up you can find. It's great because all the combos and set ups you create feel like your own because your character's tool set is unique and chosen by you. I thought it was worth 80MSP anyway.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

People at the highest level will probably just end up learning all the unblockables on their character and getting from frame perfect blocking down. Look at how crazy top level sf2 is now. Of all the glitchy system dynamics its the worst by miles though.

Option selects you can't really remove unless you eliminate hitstop, which seems unlikely.

[Goemon]

Yea, I don't think it would expose the top players as frauds but I talking about the difference between a potential top 32 vs a top 8.

I sure there's a video some where that shows option select rising jaguar best all of Hondas wake up options so all he can do is block, which is pretty harsh!

But yea unblock abeles will probably end up doing the most damage and I think mayor is right that the game will potentially end up an insane mash of system dynamic glitches, which it was never designed for!

Luckily I won't ever get to that level!! ><

Actually one thing I will say about the Canada cup...the commentating was a focusing (<- this should have been fucking but iPad auto correct changed it rather aptly) shambles!

Tonnes of dead air and absolute random bollox! Please don't let random people on the stream chatting any old shit - it's annoying!

Only time I enjoyed it was with Chen and Zhi, where it was about the game with a good understanding of what's actually happening at the time.

[ah]

Thing is, even with unblockables and option selects you still need a knockdown (sometimes a very specific knockdown) to get started, without which the other dude can be doing what he wants right back at you at the same time - which includes zoning, footsies, fakes, and all that other good stuff that makes the game exciting when matched up against an attacking character. I don't think there's too much cause for alarm yet, though as previously discussed I'm not amazingly thrilled about the vortex characters getting more powerful than they already are because it's been feeling pretty well-balanced up to this point.

[JLM]

I guess it could be considered harsh to have an OS that covers your full range of reversals/escapes, but you know what, if I've worked to get in and knock you down, I don't think you should have a luxurious array of escape options. When you knock someone down, particularly with a hard knockdown, you're supposed to have the advantage as the attacker. They're supposed to feel disadvantaged and be on the defensive, not just think "which of my twenty five options sould I derp out this time?" In ST your basic wake up options were block or do an extremely risky reversal which would cost you the round if it was the wrong call.

In SF4 you can focus back dash, do a reversal, do a reversal and cancel it, do an invincible back dash, do an invincible reversal, do an invincibile reversal that most characters can't punish, wake up with a high risk move that can do 40-50% damage if it hits, wake up with buttons, wake up with stand tech, wake up with crouch tech, and the reversal timing windows for these options are ridiculously forgiving. Frankly I think it's a beautiful thing when occasionally you can say "no! it's my turn to do things, you're going to block something and you're going to like it." It's why some of the new school players like Wolfkrone are shit at blocking despite being great at everything else, because the game has too many safety nets and a lot of people don't bother (or even need to) work on their defense any more.

There are safe jump set ups that mean your only realistic option is to block as well, and again, I think the attacker has earned the right to limit your options by besting you in other aspects of the game.

That outlook is why characters who have lots of short cuts and don't really need to outplay the opponent in other aspects of the game are the ones I'd rather not see dominating tournaments. I also agree with Alistarr that vortex fighter 4 isn't the direction I want the game to go in even though it seems inevitable, but I feel that unblockables are what will take it there rather than option selects. An option select can make a vortex harder to escape, but if you defend correctly you can still get out, an unblockable makes defending correctly near impossible even when you've made the right recision.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

The mago Ricky match was a portent of what the game could well become , which was rubbish. Unblockables are, like, a step too far.

[JLM]

So this guy money matched Noel Brown at Youmacon and lost $90 and was upset about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcyxFNuQlwo&feature=plcp

I must say I felt quite uneasy watching this. At first he seems like he's laughing about it, but as it goes on it just feels like some mean folks bullying an autistic man. Erm, thoughts?

[joeplus]

Yeah, that's pretty uncomfortable, autistic or not. Fucking internet tough guys.

[Plopboy]

And the FGC wonder why they have a bad rep

[joeplus]

I have deep loathing for some parts of the FCG, and deep admiration for others. I suppose in that way it's like football, which is a proper sport, so that's alright then.

Except it's not, is it, because the shitty parts are driven by hordes of online teenage stream monsters, and there isn't an older generation who can tell them "you're being a little shit, shut your mouth" on matchdays.

I'll stop this rant now, because it's just a shitty video. But geek/gaming culture. Fucking ugh.

[JLM]

Indeed, this is why I'd only go to SVB if I had assurances that some of you lovely verified non-dickhead folks would be attending, and why I wub this thread so much.

[joeplus]

Indeed, this is why I'd only go to SVB if I had assurances that some of you lovely verified non-dickhead folks would be attending, and why I wub this thread so much.

I can totally print conference-style badges saying Verified Non-Dickhead at my work if needed.

[JLM]

Nice. We'd also need a signing in/signing out book in case you want to be a dickhead after you leave.