The BlazBlue Thread: all the imports!

[Lythium]

I'm really surprised that Platinum is C on the first list. IMO, she's on the upper half of B or possibly at the bottom of A (depending on the placement of other characters). The debate on how good Valk is, is pretty interesting.

I can't say for sure, but I've heard that she doesn't have a solid reversal, so she can't break out of pressure, and she lacks an overhead that isn't a jump, so her mixup and pressure are pretty weak. But imo, that's not really what Plat is about, so... I guess we'll see?

Both my main and secondary look great on that list. :3

By the way, I'm considering actually learning some combos! Is there any particular combo with Noel's normals that I should learn first?

Learn a 3C combo because they are the most damaging. Then learn something that combos into 3C so you can safely get a 3C combo. :3c

 

[Minato]

I can't say for sure, but I've heard that she doesn't have a solid reversal, so she can't break out of pressure, and she lacks an overhead that isn't a jump, so her mixup and pressure are pretty weak. But imo, that's not really what Plat is about, so... I guess we'll see?

Yeah, she doesn't have a solid reversal that's a special. Her bat's a reversal but that's only if you have it equipped.
6B's her overhead. Using Swallow Moon is really good for overheads/mixups also since it lets her fly (think MvC3 fly to quick S overhead but way faster). Attacking after using Swallow Moon lets her land and combo.

Regardless of where she ends up, she looks pretty solid. So once I main her along with Rachel, I won't have any huge difficulties like CS1 Rachel and Tsubaki so that's a relief.

 

[Lore]

Learn a 3C combo because they are the most damaging. Then learn something that combos into 3C so you can safely get a 3C combo. :3c

Well... Isn't my current idea of going 3C into 22BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBC any good? I can sometimes get 3k from it in the corner.

But yeah, I'll learn some 3c combos!

 

[Gates]

From Dustloop:

"May issue of Arcadia has two ranking lists from two different players.

List 1:
S: Makoto, Tao, Hazama, Jin, Noel
A: Carl, Rachel, Lambda, Litchi
B: Tsubaki, Ragna, Arakune, Mu, Valkenhayn, Hakumen
C: Platinum, Bang, Tager

List 2:
S: Makoto, Valkenhayn, Jin, Noel
A: Hazama, Carl, Tao, Mu, Arakune, Tsubaki, Rachel
B: Lambda, Platinum, Ragna, Litchi, Bang, Hakumen
C: Tager

Average of these two lists:

S:     Makoto, Jin, Noel
S-/A+: Tao, Hazama
A:     Carl, Rachel, Valkenhayn
A-/B+: Lambda, Litchi, Tsubaki, Arakune, Mu
B:     Ragna, Hakumen
B-/C+: Platinum, Bang
C:     Tager

Apparently the NOL members all decided to be awesome this time. Apparently Tsubaki didn't get the memo though

Spoiler

because it wasn't written in braille

.

I still think Lambda is a worse character overall than in CS1, but her worst matchups got nerfed even more than she did, so I guess it evens out.

 

[Lore]

I still think Lambda is a worse character overall than in CS1, but her worst matchups got nerfed even more than she did, so I guess it evens out.

Really? What were her changes?

 

[Lythium]

I lol'd at Tsubaki.

Well... Isn't my current idea of going 3C into 22BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBC any good? I can sometimes get 3k from it in the corner.

But yeah, I'll learn some 3c combos!

But you can get like 5 to 6k in the corner off of a 3C. Or 3.5 to 4k midscreen. Not saying that 22BxN doesn't do good damage, but there's better stuff, if you're willing to put the time in.

 

[Gates]

Really? What were her changes?

The biggest ones are 214D having more startup time and recovery (to the point where it can't be combo'd from without meter to RC), the Crescent corner loop being shortened (down to about 3 reps from about 7), Crescent height restriction, and 214A no longer having upper body invincibility. 214D was her best hit confirm and 214A was her best DP, so those two getting nerfed are a big problem for her. Nerfing the corner loop is kind of a big deal for her also considering how good everyone else is in the corner.

Everything else is more or less the same about her though. There's some new stuff that can combo into other stuff but in the end her damage is about the same as in CS1, her zoning is about the same, her defense is about the same, and her supers still suck.

Spoiler

http://www.dustloop.com/forums/show...Discussion&p=917500&highlight=214a#post917500

+ 6D reaches full screen now.
+ 236A goes through people when used close up.
+ 4B(2) dips in closer to the opponent during attack. Pushes Lambda back safely on block (can't counter it). Easier to whiff 4B(1) for a clean hit 4B(2).
+ 2C>5C can be linked now.
+ 60% of the Gravity meter is drained when 214A/B/C doesn't directly hit.
+ 5B/6B/4B(2) now have AA properties. No invincibility properties added.
+ Grab arc is high and wall bounds. Can combo into 6D/2D midscreen. Easier comboability (than CS's dash 6A) at the cost of some combo damage, overall.
+ j.DD knocks opponent down. j.DD will always combo into j.2DD now.
+ j.2DD May have longer hitstun. j.214D(C)/Calamity Sword seem easier to do.
+ 236D knocks down nearby aerial opponents. Hits 6 times now. Does not break primers anymore.
+ Calamity Sword breaks two primers now and can be comboed from a Fatal. Deals slightly less damage.
+ Overall proration is better, especially on 2C- usable in combos again for better combo damage.

- j.214D cannot be comboed from without RC.
- Crescent loop still exists, but can't do more than 3 reps and proration is bad. Not used anymore past 1 rep.
- 214A/B/C no longer floats on grounded opponents nor has invincibility. It has Fatal Counter properties now.
- 4B(1) has much more hitstop. Much easier for opponent to see overhead coming. You can get grabbed out of 4B now (...everybody's command and normal grabs...), still low invincible though.
- 6C does not wallbounce. Wall bounds when close to the wall. Leads to new loop.
- 214D may be a bit slower. Don't know. People are now using 236D after 3C hit because of overall advantage it provides.

* Bursts round Primers down which is good for Lambda's play style.
* Perfect blocks and Counter assaults are actually worse. Defense is worse in the game- more people have to use the counter assaults to escape from the buffs that blockstrings have now.
* Game's Counterhit state seems to last for more than 1 attack. Easier to hitconfirm CH 5D/5C(1)>236C. Any type of CH that eventually leads into a 4B seems to combo from more things.

 

[Lore]

But you can get like 5 to 6k in the corner off of a 3C. Or 3.5 to 4k midscreen. Not saying that 22BxN doesn't do good damage, but there's better stuff, if you're willing to put the time in.

Well, I'm going to put the time in! :D

The biggest ones are 214D having more startup time and recovery (to the point where it can't be combo'd from without meter to RC), the Crescent corner loop being shortened (down to about 3 reps from about 7), Crescent height restriction, and 214A no longer having upper body invincibility. 214D was her best hit confirm and 214A was her best DP, so those two getting nerfed are a big problem for her. Nerfing the corner loop is kind of a big deal for her also considering how good everyone else is in the corner.

Everything else is more or less the same about her though. There's some new stuff that can combo into other stuff but in the end her damage is about the same as in CS1, her zoning is about the same, her defense is about the same, and her supers still suck.

Well, hey, as long as she's decent, I'm happy. ^_^

 

[Raziek]

Well, Hazama seems to still be set in his "Almost but not quite tierwhoring" spot, so I'm just dandy with that.

Tao being high annoys me though. I hate Tao. SO MUCH.

 

[Yamada]

Im so happy that Carl is still top :D

 

[Gates]

Well, hey, as long as she's decent, I'm happy. ^_^

I guess so. I just still really miss CT Nu.

Well, Hazama seems to still be set in his "Almost but not quite tierwhoring" spot, so I'm just dandy with that.

No, he's still tierwhoring since he's pretty much consistently been in the top 5 ever since he was released.

But really the whole concept of tierwhoring or anti-tierwhoring is just dumb. Everyone knows you should just pick a character who fits your playstyle and not worry about the tiers at all. It your character ends up being high tier then let people hate; if your character end up being low tier that just means you'll have to work a little harder than everyone else for your wins. The only disadvantage of maining a high tier character is if your community is incredibly vocal and the developers are stupid enough to actually listen to them and they end up taking away 1/4 of your character's health after the game had been out for a month (****ing unneeded Sentinel nerf).

Im so happy that Carl is still top :D

Top? What? He's high, not top. He's never been top, otherwise you would have heard people *****ing about him endlessly like they did with Rachel/Lambda/Arakune in CT and Bang/Litchi in CS1.

 

[Raziek]

No, he's still tierwhoring since he's pretty much consistently been in the top 5 ever since he was released.

But really the whole concept of tierwhoring or anti-tierwhoring is just dumb. Everyone knows you should just pick a character who fits your playstyle and not worry about the tiers at all. It your character ends up being high tier then let people hate; if your character end up being low tier that just means you'll have to work a little harder than everyone else for your wins. The only disadvantage of maining a high tier character is if your community is incredibly vocal and the developers are stupid enough to actually listen to them and they end up taking away 1/4 of your character's health after the game had been out for a month (****ing unneeded Sentinel nerf).

Three major problems with this post, two of which aren't completely your fault:

1) I don't consider playing a Top 5 character tierwhoring if the Top 5 are reasonably balanced relative to each other. I consider it tier-whoring if the character is better than every other character by a good margin (MK, for example), or when someone plays a character SOLELY because they are high tier. This leads me to #2:

2) I don't play Hazama because he's high tier, I play him because of his character design and playstyle, which is exactly what you mentioned in your post. I decided to main him before the game even came out, based solely on his character design. Even drew up my stick art before I even bought the game! xD Obviously I can't expect you to know that, though.

I just wouldn't want to feel like an *** by playing him if I DID consider it tier-whoring.

Oh, and finally, a rare chance to give Gates the ****:

MvC3 Version 1.002 (Sentinel Nerf) Patch Was Planned Before Release

People whining had nothing to do with it.

 

[Yamada]

Top? What? He's high, not top. He's never been top, otherwise you would have heard people *****ing about him endlessly like they did with Rachel/Lambda/Arakune in CT and Bang/Litchi in CS1.

True but you get my point that he is still high :D

 

[Rutger]

Well, Hazama seems to still be set in his "Almost but not quite tierwhoring" spot, so I'm just dandy with that.

Tao being high annoys me though. I hate Tao. SO MUCH.

Tao being top isn't going to change anything, besides her already being top in CS1, no one plays her for whatever reason. I don't see that changing much.

Why do you hate her anyways?

 

[Gates]

1) I don't consider playing a Top 5 character tierwhoring if the Top 5 are reasonably balanced relative to each other.

They shouldn't really be balanced relative to eachother, they should be balanced relative to the rest of the cast. Top tiers in Melee are balanced relative to eachother but Melee as a whole is a poorly balanced game because a person playing, say, Yoshi, has very little chance against a Fox player of the same level. MvC2 is probably the best example of this since the 4 gods are balanced amongst eachother (Sentinel beats Magneto beats Cable beats Sentinel and Storm goes about even with all of them) but almost nobody else in that game is viable.

Of course in BlazBlue the top tiers are pretty balanced compared to the rest of the cast (except CS1 Rachel who was overnerfed and Tager who consistently sucks because Mike Z slapped Mori's mom in the face with his GIGANTIC TAGER or something), so this isn't a concern in this game specifically.

I consider it tier-whoring if the character is better than every other character by a good margin (MK, for example)

This is kind of a skewed case because:

1. Brawl isn't a real fighting game.
2. Brawl isn't a real fighting game.
3. Do I really even need to say more than that? Seriously, if you're complaing about balance in Brawl you might as well complain about balance in FFX ("Tidus is broken in the endgame because you can just Haste up and Quick Hit everything to death and then use Osmose when you run out of MP if you got it from a black magic sphere on Lulu's grid").

I do understand where you're coming from though.

2) I don't play Hazama because he's high tier, I play him because of his character design and playstyle, which is exactly what you mentioned in your post. I decided to main him before the game even came out, based solely on his character design.

All of the things in bold are also not reasons to pick up a character. You shouldn't force yourself to play a character just because of their design because they might end up either being terrible or completely clashing with your playstyle. If you had told me before MvC3 came out that I would be using Sentinel I would have called you a ride back to the mental hospital because my opinion of him was so low. "No permanent super armor, slower than ever, flight only lasts for a few seconds, and no Cable to back him up? No way I'd play a character like that. I'm going to stick with good zoning characters like Arthur, Chris, and MODOK." But it turns out that I was totally wrong about Sentinel and that he was still as good at zoning as he was in MvC2 only with more of an emphasis on his ground game instead of flying away. I ended up loving that character and hating MODOK and Chris because their zoning was one dimensional and just generally really bad. I also wanted to main Ibuki before SSFIV came out but I ended up just not being that good with her, so I soulsearched and found Dhalsim. It's really better to go into a game with an open mind about how characters are going to play and to try all of them out than to just make kneejerk reactions on who to play based on how cool they look or their breast size or whatever. I mean ****, do you think anyone would play someone bland like Jin if they didn't fit their playstyle?

But generally I was just agreeing with you in that statement. I realize that Hazama fits your playstyle and I commend you for it and if anyone gives you **** for it you can just stick your snake up their *** (no homo).

Oh, and finally, a rare chance to give Gates the ****:

MvC3 Version 1.002 (Sentinel Nerf) Patch Was Planned Before Release

People whining had nothing to do with it.

Wow, you told me something I already read about 2 days ago because I follow Marvel more closely than any other game. You sure showed me.

I'm also doubtful that they really did intend to always have Sentinel at his current health level. See, what they referred to specifically in that patch was mostly the glitches that were fixed by it and not so much Sentinel's health. I can understand how you could accidentally have a glitch in the game that has to do with one of Spencer's super animations and I can even understand how Akuma's Tatsumaki hitstun scaling didn't work, but I don't understand how Sentinel having a lot of health initially was a glitch. If they had released Sentinel with just over 900K health, I would have believed that it was intentional and that playtesting had determined this to be the best course of action and that Seth was going to make Gen better in SFIV etc. But instead they released him with 1.3M health and Gen still sucks, which makes this nerf look like a kneejerk reaction to the fanbase's kneejerk reaction. Maybe the Japanese keyboard is different from nine, but I'm pretty sure the "9" key isn't next to the "13" key on the keyboard, so I have no idea how they'd do something like that accidentally. Maybe they didn't realize that Sentinel was an incredibly scrubby character until after the game was finished and they decided to patch it so that he'd have a more manageable level of health, but the rushed nature of the patch and its attempt at balancing make it seem like they honestly didn't know that they had an arguably overpowered character they were shipping on the disc. Seth Killian isn't stupid completely stupid comatose and he was doing a lot of work with the balancing of the game, so I really feel like if they had felt Sentinel was overpowered they would have changed him before the game's release instead of a month after.

But the patch has very little point anyway. Sentinel isn't scrubby because of his health, he's scrubby because he can use his super armored normals and X-factor to kill any character in half a combo. That's one of the reasons why I like Sentinel so much, I can go through the motions of his combos while I'm watching PSG on the side and then in the time it takes for them to make a sex joke (happens on average once every 2 minutes) I've already won the match. This also sets an unfortunate precedent for Capcom. I though that balance patches and DLC alternate costumes were only for PC games, but Capcom seems to be making so much damn money off them that MvC3 may end up going the way of Hat Fortress 2. Maybe in 2 years we'll see Storm with an afro and Kanye glasses carrying a medieval wooden shield and offering "Stout Shako for 2 refined". Although I would like Wesker to go "POW! HAHA!" when he shoots his gun.

But anyway, all of this can go in the MvC thread so we should just discuss it there.

Why do you hate her anyways?

I believe Hazama hates cats in-game, so it's likely that Raziek is just trying to stay in-character with his main. It's pretty dumb but then again I throw swords at people so I guess I can't judge.

 

[Minato]

I guess so. I just still really miss CT Nu.

Considering Nu was the only real bad matchup for Rachel, I sure don't. lol

I don't tier***** since I've stuck with Rachel in both games and still plan to in CS2. I'm just going to pick up Platinum as well since her playstyle is somewhat random and awesome. I don't care if people tier***** though to be honest. Plus it's fun to pick strong characters in order to compete in some games.

I do agree with what Gates said on how developers go way too far by listening to the fans and nerf the hell out of strong characters.
Happened to me with characters like Rachel.

 

[Lore]

... I actually picked up Noel and Lambda because I love their design. I guess that I just got lucky that they fit my playstyle? XD

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Damn.

I was gonna quote Gates' post and say something snarky, but Minato beat me to the punch by not quoting Gates' post and saying something...germane to the topic(?). Agreeable, even(?).

>_> I was going to regale people with my sordid tale of picking a main for this game. In the end, however, it turns out that I didn't really have a main because I just didn't like the way the game played. So, really, there's nothing to tell.

(I did play Ragna, but he bored me to tears. I honestly thought I would enjoy his derpy rushdown 'cause I usually play derpy rushdown characters. Apparently not.)

I may give it another shot when CS2 comes out, if certain characters have changed as much as they have.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Raziek]

They shouldn't really be balanced relative to eachother, they should be balanced relative to the rest of the cast. Top tiers in Melee are balanced relative to eachother but Melee as a whole is a poorly balanced game because a person playing, say, Yoshi, has very little chance against a Fox player of the same level. MvC2 is probably the best example of this since the 4 gods are balanced amongst eachother (Sentinel beats Magneto beats Cable beats Sentinel and Storm goes about even with all of them) but almost nobody else in that game is viable.

Of course in BlazBlue the top tiers are pretty balanced compared to the rest of the cast (except CS1 Rachel who was overnerfed and Tager who consistently sucks because Mike Z slapped Mori's mom in the face with his GIGANTIC TAGER or something), so this isn't a concern in this game specifically.

This also depends highly on the size of your cast. Brawl is a game of about 36 characters, and roughly 11 or 12 are viable at high level play. That's actually not that bad, MK just happens to bust things a bit. When you consider that both Brawl and Melee are not actively balanced by the developers, that level of balance is not awful.

This is kind of a skewed case because:

1. Brawl isn't a real fighting game.
2. Brawl isn't a real fighting game.
3. Do I really even need to say more than that? Seriously, if you're complaing about balance in Brawl you might as well complain about balance in FFX ("Tidus is broken in the endgame because you can just Haste up and Quick Hit everything to death and then use Osmose when you run out of MP if you got it from a black magic sphere on Lulu's grid").

Could you be much more closed minded? Major respect lost, Gates. Brawl is a platforming fighter. Deal with it.

Wow, you told me something I already read about 2 days ago because I follow Marvel more closely than any other game. You sure showed me.

Considering you directly said that you believed the nerf was a kneejerk based on post-release whining, yeah, actually, I believe I did.

I'm not really interested in discussion the balance of MVC3 because I can't take the game that seriously, but my main beef is with the TIMING, not whether or not it was warranted. MVC came out a little over a month and a half ago.

I know a guy who works for Ubisoft, and he informed us that the nerf HAD been planned pre-release based simply due to the amount of time needed for a patch to complete the Microsoft QA/Approval process.

If it was based on post-release reactions, they'd not only have had to give it a few weeks to clear Microsoft, but I imagine they'd ALSO have given it a few weeks just to see if eventual counters emerged, or if it truly became a balance problem.

The window to make that judgement and have the patch still clear QA in time for release is to small for this to NOT be pre-planned.

I believe Hazama hates cats in-game, so it's likely that Raziek is just trying to stay in-character with his main. It's pretty dumb but then again I throw swords at people so I guess I can't judge.

No, I actually ****ing hate Tao, lmao. She's like the most annoying character in the game to play against, both from a character design AND a playstyle perspective. She has complete freedom of movement and also happens to be annoying as all hell.

Hazama also hating her just happens to be a convenient perk.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

...Ubisoft people are aware of the inner workings of Capcom?

Huh.

Also, Brawl isn't a fighting game. >_> Not that it makes it terrible or anything (it's terrible by its own right), but it's just simply not one in the strictest sense of the word(s).

Smooth Criminal

 

[Gates]

Considering Nu was the only real bad matchup for Rachel, I sure don't. lol

... I actually picked up Noel and Lambda because I love their design. I guess that I just got lucky that they fit my playstyle? XD

Really? Their design? I guess if you like Lady Gaga.

Spoiler

The resemblance is uncanny.

Can't beat my, can't beat my, no he can't beat my Crescent loop.

I picked up Nu to cover CT Arakune's bad matchups (Rachel and Nu) and I ended up winning more with her, so I decided to just main her. Especially when I heard that Arakune's curse was being changed in CS1 to not be derptastic anymore.

germane

What?

Germane is the chemical compound with the formula GeH4, and the germanium analogue of methane. It is the simplest germanium hydride and one of the most useful compounds of germanium. Like the related compounds silane and methane, germane is tetrahedral. It burns in air to produce GeO2 and water.

...so Minato made good use of germanium?

(I did play Ragna, but he bored me to tears. I honestly thought I would enjoy his derpy rushdown 'cause I usually play derpy rushdown characters. Apparently not.)

Well there is such a thing as TOO derpy.

And I thought you played Tager?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

MINATO. TOO GOOD AT CHEMISTRY.

And fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge no I didn't play Tager. I hate grapplers. My (ex)-roomie did. I played Ragna ninety-nine percent of the time I owned the game, but then I got really really bored with him. Not 'cause I won a lot with him (I did), I just got really bored with the same BnBs and the same loops over and over and over again. Ragna, to me, kinda became this exemplar of all those bad things about BB that I shoved aside and tolerated for the longest time. I tried overcoming it by playing different characters, but I just couldn't get into them. It just bored me.

It probably would have been a little better if I had more people to play (like I have with MvC3), but meh.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Minato]

No, I actually ****ing hate Tao, lmao. She's like the most annoying character in the game to play against, both from a character design AND a playstyle perspective. She has complete freedom of movement and also happens to be annoying as all hell.

Oh, so that's why KumaOso decided to pick up Tao.

 

[Gates]

This also depends highly on the size of your cast. Brawl is a game of about 36 characters, and roughly 11 or 12 are viable at high level play. That's actually not that bad, MK just happens to bust things a bit.

"A bit"? Have things changed since I last played Brawl? Cause I seem to remember Metaknight pretty much dictating the entire metagame. And there's only 8 characters besides MK that are viable in Brawl - Everyone in A tier, Pikachu, and Olimar. Dedede sucks, Game & Watch sucks, and Lucario and ZSS struggle a lot against the high tiers. Everyone else isn't viable either to a cripplingly bad matchup against one or more of the high tiers or the fact that they're just plain bad.

When you consider that both Brawl and Melee are not actively balanced by the developers, that level of balance is not awful.

That's like saying when you consider the fact that George Lucas didn't actually put any thought into the story structure or seek out any advice from people about the screenplay of the Star Wars prequels they weren't completely terrible movies. A game being unbalanced is unacceptable regardless of how much effort the developer put into it.

Could you be much more closed minded? Major respect lost, Gates. Brawl is a platforming fighter. Deal with it.

Could you be much more naive? Major respect lost, Raziek. Melee is a platforming fighter. Brawl is a fundamentally broken, slow, unbalanced pile of ****. Deal with it.

I honestly don't know why we're even arguing about this. I mean I guess I was kind of calling you a unintentional tier *****, but I then basically went on to say that there's nothing wrong with it and it doesn't matter if your character is high tier or low tier as long as you mesh well with them. So what's the problem exactly?

...Ubisoft people are aware of the inner workings of Capcom?

Huh.

Because Japan shares a border with France, so they're aware of eachothers' culture and business models. Duh.

Oh, so that's why KumaOso decided to pick up Tao.

Dude, that's even why he said that he wanted to play Tao.

 

[Raziek]

...Ubisoft people are aware of the inner workings of Capcom?

Huh.

Also, Brawl isn't a fighting game. >_> Not that it makes it terrible or anything (it's terrible by its own right), but it's just simply not one in the strictest sense of the word(s).

Smooth Criminal

Ubisoft aren't aware of the inner working of Capcom, but they ARE aware of how long it takes to get through Microsoft QA, and how long it usually takes to develop a match.

In the strictest sense of the word, if the game revolves around attacking a human opponent in combat, it's a fighter. Christ, I hate fighting game elitists.

Oh, so that's why KumaOso decided to pick up Tao.

To annoy Hazama?

"A bit"? Have things changed since I last played Brawl? Cause I seem to remember Metaknight pretty much dictating the entire metagame. And there's only 8 characters besides MK that are viable in Brawl - Everyone in A tier, Pikachu, and Olimar. Dedede sucks, Game & Watch sucks, and Lucario and ZSS struggle a lot against the high tiers. Everyone else isn't viable either to a cripplingly bad matchup against one or more of the high tiers or the fact that they're just plain bad.

While he still virtually dictates the metagame, there are still people who consistent place at regionals and nationals with characters as low as the bottom of B tier. All of the character you said suck have been doing work. Coney almost beat M2K recently (Due to lack of a ledge grab limit), Vinnie just recently placed quite high at WHOBO3 using GW/ICs, NickRiddle consistenty places high with ZSS, and Trela and Junebug are still placing with Lucario. inb4nameseraches.

That's like saying when you consider the fact that George Lucas didn't actually put any thought into the story structure or seek out any advice from people about the screenplay of the Star Wars prequels they weren't completely terrible movies. A game being unbalanced is unacceptable regardless of how much effort the developer put into it.

Umm, not really, the just means that the effective cast is the same size. If a game with 12 characters is perfectly balanced, and a game with 36 characters has 12 viable characters, then the effective cast size is still the same. The key is having at least 5-6 viable characters to keep some variety in the game.

Could you be much more naive? Major respect lost, Raziek. Melee is a platforming fighter. Brawl is a fundamentally broken, slow, unbalanced pile of ****. Deal with it.

Seriously, you guys are *****. There's no reason at all for you to be elitist about it.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Ubisoft aren't aware of the inner working of Capcom, but they ARE aware of how long it takes to get through Microsoft QA, and how long it usually takes to develop a match.

In the strictest sense of the word, if the game revolves around attacking a human opponent in combat, it's a fighter. Christ, I hate fighting game elitists.

So, uh, a multi-platform game defers to Microsoft now? I'm confused.

As for calling me a ****ing elitist:

Semantics, Raziek. I can say the same thing for FPSes or just about any other game with that kind of competitive element to it. Is that how it is? No, it's not. There are genres and, for Smash, sub-genres for that. Smash would be considered kind of an off-shoot of a fighter, hence a sub-genre kind of game. It includes some elements that a fighter has but is predominantly possessed of mechanics belonging to that of a platformer or a action game. Simple, right? Apparently not.

I'm speaking strictly of FIGHTING GAMES. You know, the ones with the health bars and the fireballs and the Dragon Punches and the stuff? That genre already CODIFIED by years and years of preceding games and gaming communities? THAT one. I don't give a damn about Smash's "hybrid status;" it is more of a platforming brawler than anything else, with the emphasis on removing your opponent from the stage and dealing with the complications resultant in stage selection and many, many other factors like hazards and platforms and etc. In fighters, you don't have to deal with half the crap that you deal with in Smash. It's just...genre-breaking, and is wholly dissimilar to CONVENTIONAL FIGHTERS in that regard.

Does that make the series terrible all of a sudden? Does it make the rest of the fighting game genre somehow sacrosanct? Did I say anything to imply otherwise?

Lemme bold this for you: NO. I just said that it is not a TRUE, HONEST-TO-GOD, DEFINITIVE fighting game.

Don't call me a ****ing elitist cause you're the one walking around like you got a feather in your cap and a stick up your ***.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Zero_Gamer]

No, guys, Lucario sucks.

 

[Gates]

In the strictest sense of the word, if the game revolves around attacking a human opponent in combat, it's a fighter.

By that definition, Starcraft, WoW, and every FPS are fighting games, it's just that their definition of combat is different.

To annoy Hazama?

No, Kuma loves characters with good mobility and mixups and a zany playstyle.

While he still virtually dictates the metagame, there are still people who consistent place at regionals and nationals with characters as low as the bottom of B tier. All of the character you said suck have been doing work. Coney almost beat M2K recently (Due to lack of a ledge grab limit), Vinnie just recently placed quite high at WHOBO3 using GW/ICs, NickRiddle consistenty places high with ZSS, and Trela and Junebug are still placing with Lucario. inb4nameseraches.

You wanna point out Gimpyfish and Taj while you're at it? Hell, let's talk about Justin Wong taking 2 games off the best Ryu in Canada with Dan.

Seriously, the argument for low/mid tiers comes up constantly in smash and it's been done to death. Yes, there are always specific people with specific non-top tier characters who can do well at the game. No, that does not make those characters good. Gimpyfish even admitted that Bowser sucked. Looking at everyone ZSS and Lucario are higher on in the tier list, yeah they're better than them, but that doesn't mean that they're high tier or some of the best characters to use in tourney or whatever.

And that one guy secondaried ICs right? Weren't they like 3rd on a recent tier list? Haven't they consistently been top tier characters for over a year?

I didn't know Coney almost beat M2K though. As a former Dedede main, I gotta say to him if he namesearches this: Good **** man But did you Dededecide him?

Still though, almost beating someone is like getting almost *****.

Umm, not really, the just means that the effective cast is the same size. If a game with 12 characters is perfectly balanced, and a game with 36 characters has 12 viable characters, then the effective cast size is still the same. The key is having at least 5-6 viable characters to keep some variety in the game.

...

...that's really not what balancing is. Like, at all. Having an effective cast size that's the same as a perfectly balanced game isn't balanced if your game is exponentially larger than the balanced game. For example:

BBCS1 arcade (ie. no Makoto/Valkenhayn) was a very well balanced game (even with Bang and Litchi) and it had a total cast of 14 with an effective cast of 11 (everyone but Tsubaki, Tager, and Rachel was viable) in Japan (ie. Tager is worse because people don't drop combos on him). This means that about 80% of the cast was usable competitively.

MvC2 was a very poorly balanced game that had a total cast of 56 with an effective cast of 11, and that's being very, very, VERY generous (it was really more like 4, but I'm giving Strider, Doom, Iron Man, War Machine, Blackheart, Spiral, and Cyclops the benefit of the doubt). This means that about 80% of the cast was unuseable competitively (but again, it was really more like 90%).

Now I love MvC2, but calling it balanced is like calling Hitler a pretty cool guy. I also love BB, and it's balanced quite well. They both have the same effective cast size, but that doesn't mean that they're both balanced. It's analogous to sociology - If 30 million Canadians controlled 90% of the wealth in the country it wouldn't be so bad since that's most of the country's population, but if 30 million people in China controlled 90% of the wealth in the country it would be a problem since that's barely 3% of the population, and it would cause a huge stink amongst human rights groups.

Do you see my point here? It's not that there's an equal number of characters to play, it's that the power isn't distributed well and that the gaps between low tiers and high tiers are so large.

Christ, I hate fighting game elitists.

Elitist? I am not being elitist, I am making points. Do you want me to be elitist? THIIIIS IS BEING AN ELIIIITIST. ALL THESE NEW GAMES ARE SO DUUUMB. THESE SHORTCUTS ARE SO SCRUBBY AND THESE COMEBACK MECHANICS ARE GAAAAY. FIRST THAT STUPID RAGEQUIT MODE IN TEKKEN THEN EASY LEDGEGRABS IN BRAWL THEN ULTRAS IN SFIV THEN RAGNA THE DERPEDGE AND THE NISSAN ICE CAR AND NOW X-FACTOR. THESE BLOCKSTRINGS ARE SO SAFE AND EASY TOO, COULDN'T THEY PUT FRCS INTO THE GAME? AND WHAT IS UP WITH FOCUS ATTACKS, PARRIES WERE SOOO MUCH BETTER. EVERYTHING SINCE KOF98 HAS BEEN AAAAAAAAA***.

 

[Big-Cat]

This also depends highly on the size of your cast. Brawl is a game of about 36 characters, and roughly 11 or 12 are viable at high level play. That's actually not that bad, MK just happens to bust things a bit. When you consider that both Brawl and Melee are not actively balanced by the developers, that level of balance is not awful.

I believe both were attempted to be balanced. Regardless, an game is imbalanced whether or not the developers actively balanced it or not.

To me, 33% of the cast being viable is not enough.

And yes, if a character has great mobility and zaniness, I'm likely to play them. However, I'm not afraid to venture out to other playstyle if I like the character design and enjoy watching them, hence me wanting to play Platinum.

 

[ETWIST51294]

ARGUEMENTS.

FLAMIN WITH ETWIST. COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU.

dsnkcndnkls

 

[Gates]

No, guys, Lucario sucks.

See? And Zero's a total furry, so he's obviously speaking from his experiences as a Lucario main, just as I was speaking from my experiences as a Dedede main.

So, uh, a multi-platform game defers to Microsoft now? I'm confused.

Microsoft and Sony likely have similar standards with their online services.

Spoiler

By which I mean Sony steals a ton of stuff from their competitors. Also, PS3 has no games, RROD, waggle, etc.

As for calling me a ****ing elitist:

Semantics, Raziek. I can say the same thing for FPSes or just about any other game with that kind of competitive element to it. Is that how it is? No, it's not. There are genres and, for Smash, sub-genres for that. Smash would be considered kind of an off-shoot of a fighter, hence a sub-genre kind of game. It includes some elements that a fighter has but is predominantly possessed of mechanics belonging to that of a platformer or a action game. Simple, right? Apparently not.

I'm speaking strictly of FIGHTING GAMES. You know, the ones with the health bars and the fireballs and the Dragon Punches and the stuff? That genre already CODIFIED by years and years of preceding games and gaming communities? THAT one. I don't give a damn about Smash's "hybrid status;" it is more of a platforming brawler than anything else, with the emphasis on removing your opponent from the stage and dealing with the complications resultant in stage selection and many, many other factors like hazards and platforms and etc. In fighters, you don't have to deal with half the crap that you deal with in Smash. It's just...genre-breaking, and is wholly dissimilar to CONVENTIONAL FIGHTERS in that regard.

Does that make the series terrible all of a sudden? Does it make the rest of the fighting game genre somehow sacrosanct? Did I say anything to imply otherwise?

Lemme bold this for you: NO. I just said that it is not a TRUE, HONEST-TO-GOD, DEFINITIVE fighting game.

The term you were searching for is "2D fighters".

But no, when I said that Brawl wasn't a fighting game I didn't mean it...sort of. The Smash series in general are fighting games, platform fighters. When I said that Brawl isn't a fighting game, I meant from a competitive perspective. Smash64 and especially Melee weren't designed as competitive fighters (and the fact that they're not very balanced proves this), but they were at least designed to have deep enough fighting systems that they could eventually become competitive. Brawl intentionally eschewed this, with the addition of tripping and the lack of balance, which admittedly isn't that much worse than Melee, but the only difference is that instead of a handful of characters being dominant with a larger perhiphery of viable characters, Brawl has one dominant character with a perhiphery of viable characters that's proportionately smaller than it was Melee. There's also the fact that Brawl was a pretty rushed project, with Sakurai himself not knowing about it until E3 2005 when Iwata put words in his mouth and announced it, delays being associated with acquiring the rights to use Snake and Sonic, working on shoehorning motion control into the game which wasn't well known about seeing as how this was originally slated to be a 2007 game, planning new items and **** that tournament players aren't going to use anyway, plotting out the story mode which even a lot of causal players wouldn't touch, and of course writing the algorithm for random tripping, which Sakurai will take with him until the day he dies (hopefully he'll die of massive head trauma from tripping while running away from a tornado AHH SWEET DELICIOUS IRONY). Melee was kind of rushed, but at least Sakurai not only knew that he had been contracted to do it while he was still fresh off making Smash64 but was able to work with modifications of existing technology and wasn't completely given free reign over how much stuff he could shoehorn into the game given that Melee was basically intended as a Gamecube launch title (and they kept it that way). I get the feeling that when you factor in all the extras and stuff into the game, Melee is this sleek, streamlined, sexy game that is able to retain the core gameplay while not having a bunch of needless extras while Brawl is this bloated cow who tries desperately to please as many fanboys as possible but only ends up attracting the ones who weren't already wooed by Melee or who just want to use her as a meal ticket. But now I'm just rambling and comparing video games to my ex-girlfriends so I'll stop now.

To make a good competitive game, you not only need accessible and functional game mechanics (that DON'T cause completely random events) but you also need to spend a lot of time on it and design it with the idea that it is going to be played competitively, or at least by hardcore gamers, from the start. Development for MvC3 started in 2005 or 6 and the game was only just released, partly because the team was working on TvC (that's another thing Brawl has against it, it wasn't developed by the Melee team but by a studio that made SHMUPs and the Lunar series for old Sega consoles), but partly also because they wanted the game to be as good as possible and to be similar to MvC2 and "really feel like Marvel", as cliched as that is. The team knew going in that the game was going to be played at a competitive level. With Melee, Sakurai had no idea that it was going to be played at a competitive level. It was a complete accident that Melee was as successful as it is, and apparently Sakurai was shocked by it enough that he decided to make Brawl a really casual game. Sakurai dumbed down the game to the point where you can lose for the dumbest reasons, like tripping, or win for the dumbest reasons, like planking. I have no problem with considering the other games in the Smash series legitimate fighting games, but Brawl is just too much of a mess.

So if you want to consider Brawl a fighting game, fine, but you should also consider Shaq Fu a 2D fighter, Superman64 a flight simulator, and ET for the Atari 2600 an adventure game.

Don't call me a ****ing elitist cause you're the one walking around like you got a feather in your cap and a stick up your ***.

Smooth Criminal

I kind of have to agree with this though. Raziek, you are kind of blowing this out of proportion. I didn't intend my original comment with any hate or malice or anything but you seem to have misinterpreted it and it's spiraled into this ridiculous flame war.

But Smooth Criminal, idk why you got so angry with Raziek about it. His beef is pretty clearly with me, idk why you're taking it so personally. If you keep this up, people are going to start to think we're the same person or something.

 

[ETWIST51294]

Smooth Criminal

lololololllolololol

 

[Gates]

Aw, ****.

Fixed.

Smooth Criminal Gates

 

[Spelt]

This is definitely not what i expected to find when i clicked on a blazblue thread lololol.


anyways, what about a leak?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Well, I took a fraction of what he said (as quoted in my original post) as directed towards me and it clearly was. I can see where the bulk of this lies between the two of you, and that's fine. Ya'll can piss and moan and argue and post My Little Pony scenes all the live long day.

Spoiler

(My God she sounded like one of my exes.)

I (as in "me, myself..." et. al.) just don't cotton well to being called an elitist when I was just stating simple fact (or, in this case, merely reiterating what was kinda established before). Smash isn't a conventional 2D FIGHTER (thanks, btw). It IS, but at the same time, is not one (how competitive it is, on the other hand, is another can of worms entirely). It's not like I'm pissing in his goddamn Cheerios or decrying his "beloved Smash." I love Smash and I think it's a great series. You just can't look at it as a true blue 2D fighter because it is very, very different in many respects.

I'll take my chill pills or whatever. I'm cool now.

Gates

Spoiler

Smooth Criminal

Spoiler

ETWISTS? I'mma tell yo momma on you for staying up so damn late if you keep this up.

GODDAMN IT! BLAZBLUE! CS2 LEAK! BROUGHT TO YOU IN PART BY OPHY! I AM ON TOPIC.

And I need to finish cleaninnnnnnnnnng.

 

[Spelt]

...I was legitimately asking for information about the link.

 

[ETWIST51294]

Spoiler

ETWISTS? I'mma tell yo momma on you for staying up so damn late if you keep this up.

But...But *dashes away in sorrow*

 

[Gates]

Ya'll can post My Little Pony scenes all the live long day.

Nah, I already did that on Friday for April Fool's day.

BUT IF YOU INSIST.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bjkM_y-Wps

...I was legitimately asking for information about the link.

BBCS2 is being released for the PSP but it was leaked early to Japanese PSPs. Damn near everyone who owns a PSP has jailbroke it and uses it for piracy (and if they don't they're dumb), so there's a lot of people playing it now.

Asking for or giving out a link to the files for downloading it are against this forum's rules though.

Spoiler

(My God she sounded like one of my exes.)

You date horses? Maybe we really aren't the same person.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Spelt]

How was it leaked? is it a downloadable game or something?

and i don't even own a PSP, just curious.

 

[Gates]

PSP has DLC capabilities so I assume it's available via download.

WHY DO YOU ASSUME I KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT ILLEGAL STUFF.

brb cocaine time.