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Two opposing articles on Xrd

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Your title does not represent the content or relationship between the articles at all.

 

 

- Kimosabae 

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Sirlin is a clown. His time will come soon enough.

 

Mike Z is complaining about some of the wrong things, but gets it right overall.

 

Though, really, if you need an article to tell you what to think about a game, that probably means you need to play it more.

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I read Mike's post last night when I got home after talking to him at GG casuals, but I didn't know that Sirlin had written his thoughts.  Thanks for drawing attention to that.

 

Like SynikaL said, the thread title isn't very accurate.  You should probably edit that.  They're both "thought dumps" that had nothing to do with each other, and in many places they agree on the same topic.

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I view them as opposing because they are effectively both pros and cons lists with one concluding that the pros outweigh the cons and the other concluding the opposite.

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MikeZ has a lot of valid points, some others are just "wtf worthy" 

Yeah +R is still the superior game, no one can deny that, however, unlike him i'm supporting Xrd because i want it to get better and better (and i'm sure it will), same goes for my local scene.

MikeZ can keep playing +R / #R / X or whatever for the rest of his life if he wants.

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Yeah +R is still the superior game, no one can deny that, however, unlike him i'm supporting Xrd because i want it to get better and better (and i'm sure it will), same goes for my local scene.

 

I'll deny that because I dislike how "bloated" +R system is lol, but that's a problem with all versions of AC really.  That aside it would probably still be superior though.

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I disagree with mike z on like 90% of his gripes.  I never knew he was such a baby.  He almost quit because he had to learn an frc.  That doesn't surprise me as a pot main for over a decade.

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I'd say I agree with the majority of Mike Z's points, though I still feel he's exaggerating the impact of YRCs setting up option selects (I at least feel better knowing this isn't his sole reason for not playing Xrd).  Regardless, I feel like I understand where he's coming from on both the positive and negative aspects he covers; his views of the game are informed and make sense to me.

Sirlin's article is kind of all over the place.  It reads as stream-of-consciousness rambling with no central focus and very little organization.  If he wasn't forced to publish a rough draft to meet a deadline, then he really shouldn't be calling himself a professional writer.  I wouldn't even mind the subpar quality of the writing if it weren't for the fact that the info seems very poorly researched.  Sirlin gets terms wrong, repeatedly expresses confusion about the nature and/or history of what he's describing, and dedicates entire sections of the piece to complaining about minute aspects of the characters' designs in Accent Core: a subject that ultimately has nothing to do with his thesis.  It's also a bad sign that he had to write the sentence "I am a very experienced Guilty Gear player," to secure his ethos, especially when he proceeds to describe how *even* he "couldn't pick" Ky because of his Stun Edge FRC and apparently Slayer's Dandy Step variations just blew his mind to pieces.  Also, does he really not know where Roman Cancels got their name?  I would think anyone who'd been playing GG for years would just figure that out on their own at some point.

Sirlin makes a few decent points, but he makes them in such an ineptly-written article that I almost want to adopt the opposite opinion out of childish spite.  I swear, that man could write an article about the farming industry that made me want to boycott eating my own birthday cake.

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Did Mike Z actually complain about the lack of negative edge, when the fucking games NEVER had it in the first place? (not in a legit way at least) And input ease? lmaoEDIT: I AM WRONG Lol

 

I respect him as a player, but I can't agree with him.

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Did Mike Z actually complain about the lack of negative edge, when the fucking games NEVER had it in the first place? (not in a legit way at least) And input ease? lmao

 

What exactly is a legit way of having negative edge?

 

I've owned every version of GG on Naomi and ps2, and as far as I remember, all those games had negative edge.

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Wait what

 

I'm sure I've played the Naomi versions of most GG games (X, #R, Slash and AC) and I don't remember being able to Negative Edge in any of them (except for Zato's Summon Eddie moves, for obvious reasons). Inputs in Xrd still feel the same to me.

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Oh okay then, I retire what I said then lol

 

then I probably never used that shit. Always got used to input everything exactly.

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My understanding is that in +R negative edge is not in the arcade version but is in the console version. I haven't heard anything about the older games.

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I'd say I agree with the majority of Mike Z's points, though I still feel he's exaggerating the impact of YRCs setting up option selects (I at least feel better knowing this isn't his sole reason for not playing Xrd).  Regardless, I feel like I understand where he's coming from on both the positive and negative aspects he covers; his views of the game are informed and make sense to me.

Sirlin's article is kind of all over the place.  It reads as stream-of-consciousness rambling with no central focus and very little organization.  If he wasn't forced to publish a rough draft to meet a deadline, then he really shouldn't be calling himself a professional writer.  I wouldn't even mind the subpar quality of the writing if it weren't for the fact that the info seems very poorly researched.  Sirlin gets terms wrong, repeatedly expresses confusion about the nature and/or history of what he's describing, and dedicates entire sections of the piece to complaining about minute aspects of the characters' designs in Accent Core: a subject that ultimately has nothing to do with his thesis.  It's also a bad sign that he had to write the sentence "I am a very experienced Guilty Gear player," to secure his ethos, especially when he proceeds to describe how *even* he "couldn't pick" Ky because of his Stun Edge FRC and apparently Slayer's Dandy Step variations just blew his mind to pieces.  Also, does he really not know where Roman Cancels got their name?  I would think anyone who'd been playing GG for years would just figure that out on their own at some point.

Sirlin makes a few decent points, but he makes them in such an ineptly-written article that I almost want to adopt the opposite opinion out of childish spite.  I swear, that man could write an article about the farming industry that made me want to boycott eating my own birthday cake.

 

Sirlin was inaccurate about some things, and could have been more clear about other things.   For example, his explanation of Giganter loop included RC, which would make the loop impossible because of the increased meter cost and reduced meter gain.  He also didn't do a good job explaining the difference between RC and FRC.  The information is there (RC is on hit/block and FRC is in a small window), but he made it sound like FRC is just a reward for hitting your RC in a smaller window.  He could have explained the new cancel system a little more thoroughly too.  It helps to know that you can't just YRC a DP on whiff, and that it's possible to YRC a projectile before the projectile actually exists, which in some cases leads to the projectile coming into existence after you can move, and in other cases means you don't get your projectile.  Knowing that the game pauses for 20-something frames before the time slow kicks in is also really important.

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Honestly I don't mind the articles themselves. What bothered me was to see so many people acting like complete assholes on twitter. Maybe if people having different opinions than yours pisses you off so much then you shouldn't be on the internet.

 

Sirlin doesn't like the throw OSs, I don't mind them considering that they are easy to perform anyway. Sirlin didn't like AC Potemkin, I didn't like AC Testamant. You can have your opinion and hear other people's opinions without being an asshole about it.

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I don't disagree with many of the things MikeZ says.  I'm probably more on the side that YRC is insanely strong.  It does encourage making unsafe things safe and with meter gain where it's at, you generally have enough to spend on YRC.  I'd like to see YRC pushed to how Sirin described FRC.  You commit to doing it so trying to cancel big whiffs is more BRC and YRC is a very intentional thing that you usually know that you're going to use ahead of time (like Bedman deja vu > YRC > stuff as opposed to Task C > Oh shit, I'm going to get killed > YRC > stuff).

 

All of that said, where I really disagree with MikeZ is that none of this detracts from my experience in any appreciable way.  Were the game to stay exactly as it is right now, I'll continue to main it... danger time and all.

 

It did detract from the experience for him; however, and that is equally as fine.

 

 

MikeZ could probably take some notes on someone like FAB, as for what overall carin' for Guilty Gear might mean 

 

What's this mean?  I'm very, very new to the GG community.  What's FAB been doing to help the community?

 

Edited to add:  @tataki

 

I agree 100%.  People have been unreasonably nasty for really no reason.  Sirlin things it is an upgrade over AC... that's fine.  MikeZ thinks it is a downgrade from AC... also fine.  They both bring up interesting points worthy of consideration.

 

I do understand the OS thing to an extent.  It is an artificial barrier, and you are either doing it right or you are not optimal which seems silly.  But unlike Sirlin, I think by adding it into the tutorial all is forgiven.  It explains it clearly, "do it this way for 'such and such' reasons" which removes an artificial barrier of knowledge that is worthy of bitching about in my opinion.

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Here is what I took from these articles: "Let me start by saying, as I always do: Play what you enjoy. If you like a game then great!" - Mike Z

Everything else is just opinion...personally I love playing Xrd.

For the purpose of this discussion: Sirlin states his opinions as facts. I don't agree with this.

Also, in general, Sirlin and Mike Z have alot in common when it comes to game design and balancing.

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YRC is a very intentional thing that you usually know that you're going to use ahead of time (like Bedman deja vu > YRC > stuff as opposed to Task C > Oh shit, I'm going to get killed > YRC > stuff).

 

 

 

 

I don't understand this. When you do Task C, you have a very limited window to YRC. If you YRC a Task C, it becomes a pseudo air dash with limited air movement. Even before you reach the zenith of your upward movement from Task C, your YRC becomes a PRC and costs a half bar. Most of your "Oh shit" moments require a PRC and 50% meter to keep you safe.

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I agree.  Though generally persuasive writing avoids things like "my opinion is..." because it is assumed that the opinion expressed by the author is their own.

 

It is interesting though, you're right that MikeZ and Sirlin are similar in some respect.  Their articles often mirrored each other exactly.  As I stated above, the interesting bit is how given such similarity in where they start, they end up in very different places.  MikeZ sees YRC as a step backward even though he is not a fan of previous implementations of RC.  Sirlin sees it as a step forward in that it removes artificial barriers. 

 

I really just thought the articles themselves were interesting read one after another as I respect the opinion of both and in this case, their opinions were contradictory.

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Everyone pretty much already knew that Mike Z didn't like the game from the get go, so this opinion piece is not really surprising, though IIRC his problems with YRC went beyond simply not liking the option selects, which are silly (as almost all OSes are), but honestly don't have a huge impact on the game due to their restricted usage. I mean, not only do you need to have a very specific amount of meter, but the inputs aren't quite as simple as they're made out to be. Additionally, if you're using combined inputs and button priority to implement the OS, something as simple as changing your Burst timing (which is much more realistic than it sounds) will easily defeat it. I found this out while trying to implement the OS into my basic corner routes with Sol and finding that unless I did the input with a certain timing, it would not activate the YRC. Not to mention that frequent Burst baits that were "automatic" in certain combos are nothing new to GG, so I don't see what the malfunction is all about. I do have to say that it's not the first time that I've seen someone suggest that ASW should simply have kept FRCs in and added a buffer window to the FRC input, but this assumes that input difficulty was the only problem with FRCs, which is not something I think was necessarily true. I personally very much prefer the new RC system, because the sheer creativity allowed adds a huge amount of fun factor and fits in very well with the whole "Romantic" concept that RCs embody.

 

For removing difficult inputs, this complaint would make sense if their goal was to eliminate difficult motions for the sake of making things easier for newer players, but there was clearly a specific reason why certain motions changed and why others were left as is. I-no's Chemical Love was a move which clearly lost utility due to its motion, not to mention unnecessary combo difficulty that arose from it. Most of the other moves Mike mentions are Overdrives, which naturally should have more difficult motions. I mean, he mentions Tyrant Rave as needing an easier motion: really? What alternative motion would actually work out? Would you want to make it a double QCF, where it would overlap with over half of his moveset? This really seems like a BS complaint to me.

 

I won't bother to comment on the negative edge complaint because while I personally never purposefully use Negative Edge and I don't feel like my execution suffers from its absence, I also don't know how much it actually affects other players. The JI comment would seem more valid if JI were more prevalent, but I have yet to see instances where JI is really necessary at high level play for most characters in Xrd, with the exception of Chipp (and Chipp is supposed to be hard anyway).

 

Unblockables...eh, I don't like them either, but I also don't think they need to be completely removed. Unblockables that loop you to death should definitely not exist, but despite what Mike is saying here, the fact that they are uncommon at high level is relevant to whether or not they should remain; after all, if something is in the game, and players of the character enjoy using it, while it has little actual effect on the metagame, I don't see the point in removing it. Mike wanting them removed on principle is his opinion as a designer, and should not necessarily be a standard that players should deal with.

 

Throw breaks being removed is a good thing, IMO. They were largely unnecessary and just seemed like they were tacked on because having throw breaks just seems like a "requirement" for a modern fighter to have. To me, it is telling that throws as a mixup option were typically not used much at high level in Accent Core, in spite of there being ways to OS with them on offense. The defensive option selects against them were too strong, IMO, especially when you account for the huge amounts of throw invulnerability present on wakeup and after leaving blockstun. For someone who hates OS so much, you don't see Mike saying a whole lot about the myriad defensive OSes that exist in GG against offense. This also helps explain why offensive throw OS still exists in the game, because even with throw breaks being removed, there are still tons of ways out of getting thrown.

 

The Hell Fire complaint also seems similarly pointless due to the relatively minor effect Hell Fire has on the game. Really, has anyone had a match stolen because they got hit by a Hell Fire Overdrive? Not to mention that being in Hell Fire on the winning round leaves you open to eating IK combos. Not much of a comeback mechanic. Just seems like more "this sucks because I'm a game designer and I say so" opining.

 

Everything else is opinion stuff that I won't bother to address, other than to say that I don't think Xrd is some huge step backward in balance. The number of C tier characters fluctuates between 0 and 2, which seems just fine to me. In typical GG fashion, pretty much every character is viable. Overall though, I don't really follow why Mike is refusing to play Xrd. That's his choice, and as long as people continue to play +R, there's no problem. But as numbers for Xrd increase (which they most likely will), and as numbers for +R decrease (as they seem to have been), it remains to be seen as to whether or not anyone will have enough access to competition where they can choose to play +R exclusively.

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I actually like how Xrd is more like reload in a sense.  I didn't really like how much fluff was put into AC+R. 

 

Although I think the skill cap on some chars are way too low comparatively to before.  Such as Millia and some what Chipp.   But eh what can you do.  I'm going to guess 1 hit Ensenga won't be as difficult once Johnny comes around. 

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