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Is it a bit strange for someone like me, who doesn't have a particular interest in fighters, to have Skullgirls as one of his most anticipated new titles this year? I initially found the weird AmericAnime style and character designs to be a bit offputting, but now that the gameplay, quality animations and graphical flourishes have been fleshed out it's grown on me. It's kinda become the Bayonetta of fighting games in my book: not necessarily something you want someone walking in on, but so amazingly fun that you can forgive a lot about it. It's really a shame that Skullgirls didn't get an official spot in this year's Evo, especially looking at what beat it out. I mean, is there really that much demand for Soul Calibur 5 considering how 4 turned out? Has anyone gotten some real hands-on time and vetted it or was it approved solely under the assumption that people still gave a poo poo? Lastly, what version are you guys generally going with? I'm usually a PS3 guy myself, but I'm not sure if its going to be as popular as the 360 version.
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Jan 7, 2012 17:50
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:It's not at EVO because there's no release date, and because the organisers aren't gonna wait around to accommodate an indie game that won't pay when they could give that slot to a non-indie game that will. Ah, that makes sense. Less irritated now, but still a bit disappointed. Oh well, always next year, right?
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Jan 7, 2012 18:01
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Broken Loose posted:Theoretically, yes, health can be used as a proper balancing tool to give certain characters more motivation to keep the opponent in a certain position. In practice, it never works, those characters are traditionally bad because their health was just a bandaid fix for fundamental problems, and nobody is the wiser. I think this is the most frustrating problem I have with fighters as a whole. There are so many of these odd traditions that get carried through each new game and no one really takes a step back to take into consideration whether or not these old mechanics are at all fun anymore. I like the idea of playing a big bruiser, but I don't like the idea of whether a full minute of tiny hits just to smash face, and that's not even a guarantee against some opponents. I guess a lot of developers think that these archetypes aren't broken, so don't bother fixing them. I think this train of thought can also be used to explain a lot of areas in the genre that are lacking. A well-designed single player campaign could be used to teach newbies a lot of the basics that more seasoned players take for granted, but most games are content with dull-as-dishwater tutorials if they bother adding one at all. Fighting games are still games, and games need to be fun wherever they reasonably can. Fighting games need an injection of designers from other fields FAST if they don't want to end up fading away or bastardized like Street Fighter X Tekken. In happier news, more Skullgirls - ESPECIALLY with guys like Justin and Floe - are very, very welcome. Here's to hoping we get some quality footage of Valentine.
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Jan 8, 2012 07:09
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Singleplayer is pointless in a genre where the primary forms of interaction are "perform a complex series of manual inputs" and "guess what your opponent is thinking and do the thing that beats it." Single player wouldn't and shouldn't be a replacement for multiplayer. Multiplayer is WHY we all play fighting games in the first place. What I'm saying is you use a fleshed out Single Player campaign in place of a boring-rear end Tutorial in order to teach people who are unfamiliar with fighting games the basic skills they need in order to improve themselves. It's not easy to replicate an arcade experience. It IS more reasonable to design AI to teach new players situations where they need to utilize basic concepts like zoning, mix-ups, properly guarding and the like.
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Jan 8, 2012 07:45
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:That's kind of what I'm getting at, though. A huge part of learning is practice, and you literally can't practice mix-up on a computer player; it doesn't have expectations and it can't actually make errors of judgement about what you're going to do. The best you can do is create a set of rules that define when it will deliberately make mistakes, which isn't likely to teach you anything useful. What can an information-based tutorial accomplish that can't be integrated into a single player campaign? You're effectively doing the same thing: beating up an AI controlled opponent to introduce yourself (introduce here being the key word) to a more advanced gameplay concept. It isn't like these two things are mutually exclusive based on some arbitrary mode you select in a menu - StarCraft II's campaign integrated a LOT of concepts from their multiplayer into their campaign gimmick maps. Granted, the skills you learned in those maps didn't translate well into multiplayer, but they weren't supposed to. They just needed to say "THIS is the kind of game this is". The problem with information-based tutorials is that they're incredibly dry. While there are people that don't mind sitting through lectures in order to learn how a game is played, this generally goes counter to why people want to play games in the first place: to have fun. A good tutorial is one that teaches you while you're having fun, and if its done exceptionally well then you don't know you're being taught at all. It's basic game design that companies like Nintendo have specialized in for decades and something that fighting games have dragged their heels with. Single player shouldn't be designed as a replacement for practice or time in training mode, because you're right in that it can't. It's simply supposed to teach your average Joe Blow that you don't play fighting games by holding forward and mashing special moves until you win - something that current fighting games spectacularly fail to do. It also doesn't hurt to teach him a few very basic chains while he's at it, too.
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Jan 8, 2012 08:30
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Edit: They expect the gameplay to speak for itself when it comes to the hardcore crowd. Why do you think ANY self-respecting human being, let alone hardcore fighting gamers, even touch Arcana Heart 3 if the gameplay wasn't promising? You can forgive a lot about a game as long as it looks fun and Skullgirls looks fun as all hell. Tuxedo Catfish posted:By "information-based" I quite specifically mean a tutorial not based on beating up a computer; something like a video series combined with an in-game glossary. After typing in a rebuttal, I realized just how long and involved this discussion has become. Let's both do the thread a favor and forget we ever had it. I don't mean to be rude by disengaging - you've made fair points that have given me something things to think about that I'd like to have addressed - but I think it's probably better if we didn't drag this on in this particular thread any longer. Thanks for debating me though, it's always fun. Broken Loose posted:Supposedly, they were working on a dynamic single-player AI that adapted to the character you were playing and performed predictable patterns that emulated human patterns. Basically, everybody you fought would be like a Megaman boss where you find the opening in their pattern, except the opening would be "punish this attack" or "enemies block way more often when playing as Cerebella." I know I promised to stop, but this kinda illustrates my point that "Fighting Game Developers have fallen behind." Not the Skullgirls developers in this case, but AI programming has become so advanced in games that developers could have utilized this but have sadly neglected to despite how much it could have helped new players actually start thinking about these games as fighting games instead of a 1-on-1 button mashing session. Good on them, though. I think I need to buy these guys a drink if I ever end up meeting them, since they're really what this genre needs right now. Jetpack Postman fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 09:43
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:It's either that or more arguments about the art style. Who cares? Right, so why make it worse? Besides, we stopped talking about game design as is relevant to Skullgirls. I like talking about Skullgirls and how awesome it is. Let's talk more about Skullgirls. It's awesome. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Oh yeah, no problem. If anything this is one of those topics where I'd be absolutely thrilled to discover I know less about it than I think I do. I just don't hold out much hope at the moment. That's cool. Take some time out and browse what industry sites like Gamasutra and Game Career Guide have in terms of in-depth articles and post-mortems on certain games. They're not a huge revelation nor gospel truth, they just add to the argument and give a lot of food for thought, especially when it comes to certain design elements that games share. You'd be surprised how many parallels you can draw from very different games. I'd love to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to these discussions and actually put my crazy ideas into practice - it's what I'm studying for, after all - but for right now I have to make do with friendly debate. Jetpack Postman fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 09:51
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Countblanc posted:I think the largest possibility in terms of let downs at this point is if the game just doesn't get tournament coverage. If it gets played like MK9 does/did then the game will do fine (let's be realistic, it won't get marvel/sf4 amounts of play), but if not then I just don't think the game will survive long other than a few dedicated individuals who just wreck everyone's poo poo online ala AH3. Yeah, this is my biggest concern. Skullgirls has a lot of potential, but all of that doesn't matter if the tournament scene doesn't get off the ground. I agree that the game will never draw, but hopefully whatever scene develops - even if it isn't that big - stays strong. Skullgirls has a lot of good ideas built into it that the big developers should take notice of. The absolute best-case scenario I'm hoping for is that the developers at Capcom and Namco take notice and implement some of them into future games. I've said it a lot already, but fighting games do need to step things up if they want to tread new ground and continue their newfound success.
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Jan 8, 2012 22:10
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On the topic of tournaments, speak of the devil: GameTrailers has the Grand Finals from SoCal Regionals, since apparently there was a Skullgirls tournament there. I'm not familiar with who is playing, but it's 23 minutes and change of tournament play in HD, so there you go.
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Jan 9, 2012 02:59
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PalmTreeFun posted:This game looks amazing in 60 fps, but the audio desyncs really badly even before the five minute mark. Yeah, it's pretty bad. It desyncs, then resyncs after the match is over, then goes onto desync again. I have no idea what the gently caress is going on with that recording equipment.
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Jan 9, 2012 03:27
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Broken Loose posted:There is male DLC planned down the line. The goal is to have the gender proportions of other fighters, but reversed with men as the minority. The guys in my post on page 1 are near the front of the line. I haven't seen it asked yet, but is there any news on how DLC might be structured? Like, will the characters be released in two-or-more character packs or individually? I'll still buy them regardless, but it'd be cool to know if they had a battle plan going into it. Since I haven't chimed in on the "Who's your favorite" discussion yet, my team of choice is looking like it's going to be Valentine and Peacock. These videos posted earlier show that Valentine looks pretty drat fun to play. Peacock needs to real explanation. Not sure how well they synergize as a team, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. No use thinking too far ahead.
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Jan 9, 2012 15:59
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Jmcrofts posted:I have actually played this team a lot. One nasty setup is that valentine's s.HK chain (the IV attack) puts them into a sliding knockdown. Then, you can call peacock's bomb car assist, dash up, and you're basically set up for a really hard to read crossup. Plus, you can mix that up with her throw, which crumples them setting up a free combo. <3 valentine. Well gently caress, and here I thought I was going away from the popular builds by not picking Cerebella. Oh well, hahaha. Does Valentine have any supers besides her Dio Brando one? Not that it matters that much - a well aimed super that has most of the scalpels hit looks pretty beastly.
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Jan 9, 2012 16:12
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rocket USA posted:I mean, you also just described Thor's command grab super in Marvel 3. It's a good move but if it gets baited it's hecka unsafe and it's most effective if you're player her solo, but solo Cerebella basically can't beat Peacock or Parasoul (or even Painwheel really). That seems par for the course with a lot of fighting games. If I'm not mistaken, grapplers in general are usually strongest early on; I remember Zangief being considered one of the top four characters in Street Fighter 4 when it first came out. Once people become more familiar with the game and the characters, grapplers become less of a dominating force. Cerebella looks like she has enough tools that she won't see as sharp a decline as grapplers usually do (at least from what I've observed with Gief and T. Hawk during SF4/Super, respectively), but at least her command grab super won't be as threatening once people start to learn how to deal with it.
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Jan 9, 2012 20:13
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Liar Lyre posted:DL games DO come out on Tuesdays. SG and Twisted on the same day. If that's true, I don't think I'd be able to contain myself. DL games come out depending on when the service normally "updates". PSN games are released on Tuesday morning, XBLA games on Wednesday morning. Bovineicide posted:Can we take out stages from random select? One of my major pet peeves is when either the training stage keeps coming up or a stage that is just grating as gently caress. The only game I can think of that lets you do that is Smash Bros., and that's not even a real fighter. To be fair, in Smash Bros. the stages actually DO something so it makes sense for "balance" reasons to allow them to be opted out of. Despite living in fighting game Mecca (SoCal), I can't believe I miss all these events. Those fights were pretty good and certainly promise better to come. On the upside, I apparently live a good hour away from where Revenge Studios is. *No, I really won't.
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Jan 10, 2012 17:00
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Jmcrofts posted:I'm at college currently, in Indiana. So what I'm saying is bring it on. I've got two weeks of vacation, a half tank of gas, a prescription of Prozac I've forgotten to refill, a Guitar Hero controller I don't care for and I'm wearing sunglasses. Don't say I didn't warn you. Also, I envy you, you lucky punk.
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Jan 10, 2012 18:46
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Nerokerubina posted:He's in Indiana instead of being in SoCal you're not supposed to envy him. He's in college and I'm bored out of my loving skull. Sue me. Edit: I'm also hopelessly addicted to corn friend in meth. It's a huge weakness of mine. VVVVVVVVVVVVV Jetpack Postman fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jan 10, 2012 |
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Jan 10, 2012 18:51
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Edit: Oh cool then. Thanks Crofts. Nice to know that the company's PR has some influence over what content goes out.
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Jan 10, 2012 19:23
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scuz posted:Where does SG fall on the execution scale; MvC3 being 1 and KoF13 being 10? From what I've seen and read on the Wiki, my best guess is somewhere between SF4 and MvC3, leaning pretty closely to MvC3. The game has its own magic series combo and most special moves and super combos are very simple to execute; most are QCF or QCB moves with a few Shoryukens, charge moves and only one 360 - currently, there's not a single character with a half-circle move. However, the game does have a full 6-button layout like SF4, so that makes things slightly more complicated. Not by much, though.
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Jan 11, 2012 06:39
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Dias posted:If it's Melty Blood-ish I'm happy. Although I think that's about as easy as MvC3 so meh. My execution stardards are hosed up, I seriously believe SFIV has a pretty high execution ceiling, but that's probably because I suck at one-frame links. Nah, that's not hosed up standards. Street Fighter has been in a need for a rehaul of its system for a while; for what's considered THE mainstream fighting game, the execution barrier is pretty drat high. I don't think anyone who buys the game on a whim learns a combo more complicated than Jab+Jab+Jab+Sweep. poo poo like Simple Mode is a bandage to the problem that ends up being a crutch at best - players don't learn the game, they just let the game play for them as they mash buttons. I'm of the school of thought that executing moves and basic combos should be easy, if not intuitive. I find that a sign of good controls is how much effort it takes for a player to turn a thought ("I want to do THIS super!") into action. Having a high execution barrier for supers or even special moves (see: ANY fighter that uses 360 joystick inputs) just needlessly delays players from focusing on where they SHOULD be putting their time and effort into: honing their reactions and mastering the gameplay systems. This isn't just unique to fighting games either - ALL games should ideally follow this, no matter what genre. This is probably the biggest reason why I think Fighting Games overall really need to step up their game in terms of design. They need to stop pretending they're developed in a vacuum and start paying attention to the lessons learned from other developers when they can.
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Jan 11, 2012 17:21
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rocket USA posted:My one beef with this is inputs are often part of game balance. Not using incredibly wack inputs like two-half-circle-backs I 100% agree with, but something like a 360 is a fairly involved input for a reason. Zangief would be a very, very different character if SPD were a QCF motion and his 720 were QCFx2. This is another thing: complex inputs shouldn't be used as a tool for game balance because ultimately they don't work. The only difference between two otherwise identical characters with simple and complex inputs is the amount of time you have to invest in order to perfect your execution. These aren't advanced combos that rely on a great number of other variables in order to execute (things that SHOULD require high execution and practice in order to be able to do - the real benefits of a high execution level); these moves are a simple joystick input. People who pick up the game might not be able to do it right all the time, but a player who goes to tournaments and already puts in regular time in Training mode - the audience fighting games want to keep - will be able to make doing these inputs second nature given enough time. These types of inputs do not seriously impact gameplay at all. Look at tournament videos for UltraDavid or any high-level Gief or T.Hawk player: they can do an SPD or standing 720 supers at the drop of a hat. Execution and the time it takes to input the command are not a problem. If these factors aren't a problem and you're using execution to balance out a move's damage or utility, then you're purposely giving certain characters more powerful tools than others and that's not balance. If these moves are more in line with others, all you're left with is a balanced move with a needlessly high execution barrier. Making these inputs more simple wouldn't change how these characters are ultimately played in the slightest. But that's not to say that tweaking inputs CAN'T be used for balance purposes. I have no problem with charge characters; their unique style of inputting commands gives them a deliberately different pace and style than other characters, and changing how these moves work would have drastic ramifications. Any video shown of the 3DS SSF4 can show you that. But this is because their inputs are simply different, not more difficult.
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Jan 11, 2012 19:12
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The 19th Person posted:360's aren't that way simply to counterbalance the effectiveness of SPD's. They are that way so that 1) you can't buffer the joystick input without jumping, unlike say a person buffering quarter circle motions while moving foward 2) they can be done without regard for the direction the opponent is standing, so they can be used for things like catching a crossing up opponent. If you can find the source, that would be fantastic. I'd like to read why that is, since I hadn't heard that side of the argument before. Pretty much all of my observations are just baseline stuff that I've observed watching tournament play and playing games on and off throughout the years. Anything from folks who are more intimately familiar with the nuts and bolts of fighting games would be awesome.
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Jan 11, 2012 19:38
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This thread is moving a bit slow, so here's some more SoCal Regionals videos: Round 3: Koyunlu vs. Copperdabbit Round 4: Baloney O's vs OFC Kingsley Round 5: Copperdabbit vs. At My Limit Round 6: Oddo3 vs. Shinatproof Round 7: Baloney O's vs. Dantarion Enjoy! Edit: Fixed spelling error. Jetpack Postman fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jan 14, 2012 |
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Jan 14, 2012 07:12
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Nerokerubina posted:at this point everyone's just misspelling Koyunlu just to gently caress with me aren't they It's how they're labeled on the video listing.
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Jan 14, 2012 07:30
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Brother Entropy posted:I don't see why anyone would have a problem with DLC when the game's probably gonna be 15 bucks max. I think people just assume the worst when they hear DLC is planned before the game is released, especially when a game like Skullgirls doesn't appear to offer a whole lot from the get-go. I do agree that fretting over it right now is a bit silly, especially when we don't know how its even going to be priced. Though I'm fairly confident it's not going to stoop to MvC3 levels where they're asking for $5 each character.
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Jan 15, 2012 02:52
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Holy poo poo, they really did save the best for last. A great combination of old moves with a new spin and new moves that just look incredibly fun. I was a bit worried that Double was going to be the black sheep - as most doppleganger characters tend to be - but they did a great job in making her interesting and fun. All the cool kids are going to run a Pheonix team of 2 meter batteries and Double just to abuse the Gradius Boss super. Everyone else are just chumps. 
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Feb 18, 2012 00:37
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The GIG posted:Any PS3 goons getting this on Tuesday? I hope we get a decent amount in here. You can count me in, too. I have both a PS3 and 360 and I plan on grabbing Skullgirls for both since there aren't any other games I'd like to play until mid-May. I may not be able to get both at the same time, but I'll be sure to snag the PS3 version first to help represent us Sony-side folk. Which also means as a rule that yes (jmcrofts being an exception), I'm pretty terrible at fighting games as well.
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Apr 9, 2012 07:24
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Downloading now. Veblen01 is my PSN name, so feel free to add me up. Can't wait to get some real games going.
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Apr 10, 2012 21:08
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Feenix posted:Don't get me wrong, I have much love and excitement for it, but I swear "We cut it for time" is going to become some kind of meme. Wait, you mean it hasn't been a universal game developer party-line all this time? Also, to Crofts: Are the combos and stuff they make you do in the tutorial indicative of how things generally work out in a typical fight? Because if so I need a tutor or buddy or something because I need a helluva lot of work on my game. And that's just with one goddamned character.
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Apr 10, 2012 23:01
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Elephantgun posted:Man, not having a movelist is enormously awkward and clunky. Not really sure how I feel about the game in general, which is weird because I was so looking forward to it I agree. Even though there are full movelists available on the internet, it's still a noticeable and irritating problem having to go to the computer, turn to your laptop or refer to a printed-out list instead of having the option of pulling up a menu in-game. Even the shittiest fighting games have a movelist built-in at the very least. I understand that there aren't many programmers at Reverge, but you still shouldn't cut them any slack for this. Even if the art assets for the official movelists weren't finished, there still should've at least been a placeholder to give players basic information. It's a big, baseline mistake to make people turn to the internet just to learn the basic special moves and command normals for each character and it needs to be rectified as soon as they can manage. Which sucks, because as I understand it patching through consoles can be an expensive, time consuming process and Reverge certainly doesn't need one hanging over their heads already. I'm not trolling or hating; I genuinely LIKE this game. I think it's great in a lot of ways that really count: the characters are fun (though Ms. Fortune is a bit obtuse for a newbie like me), the gameplay is excellent, the game has a lot of humor and personality, the netcode is solid, the game looks really good and runs incredibly well. But it still has a lot of rough edges it needs to smooth over. The lack of programmable CPU in training mode and no in-game movelists really hurt this game. I don't mind buying the game in its current state since it supports the developers, but Skullgirls still has a while to go before we can consider it "finished".
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Apr 11, 2012 05:24
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Doing peacock/parasoul at the moment, feel like I want to switch to full rushdown though.
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Broken Loose posted:This just in: Microsoft Japan contacted Konami and Reverge because they were overwhelmed by people calling in asking why Skullgirls isn't out in Japan yet. It may be because of my cynical streak, but I'm not sure if this news is more encouraging or disconcerting. I guess it's best for everyone if we don't think about it too much or look at it too closely. ThisIsACoolGuy posted:Anyone have any good Painwheel combo vids? Everyone I talked to, literally everyone says she's utter trash, and I'm inclined to agree, but I refuse to believe she doesn't have some kind of redeeming factor. Trash in what way? I've actually warmed up to her playstyle a bit after some time in training mode (mostly from all the ways I can land her air-super), but I'm a bit curious as to why she's gotten a bad rep so quickly. Supply some names too, so Crofts can get in there and teach some ignorant fools some manners.
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Apr 13, 2012 04:50
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Shadow Ninja 64 posted:Fly combos. Awesome! Thanks for some basic fly-canceling that I can practice. Out of curiosity, have you been able to figure out any BnBs that make use of Painwheel's Spin Dash? It's a neat move, but I can't figure out how to work the damned thing into anything because I'm a damned fat-fingered idiot.
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Apr 13, 2012 09:25
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