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[CF] Blazblue CENTRAL FICTION: News and Gameplay Discussion

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I just hope that the active flow has variant benefits based on how hard it is for a character to maintain aggression. It'd be wack as fuck for someone like Tao or Valk to have comparable benefits to say, Hakumen who generally relies on a more defensive play pattern.

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I just hope that the active flow has variant benefits based on how hard it is for a character to maintain aggression. It'd be wack as fuck for someone like Tao or Valk to have comparable benefits to say, Hakumen who generally relies on a more defensive play pattern.

This.

 

The problem Active Flow (at least out current interpretation of it) is that it'll most benefit rush down characters. What about someone like Nu who likes to keep their opponent back? What about Tager match ups where you general don't throw out as many signs of aggression as you normal would? Or Hakumen players who save their magatama? Terumi, Ragna, and Noel would love this but some times playing defensive and careful is the preferred choice of some players and characters. Some times it's even the better choice.

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Is there any launch window announced?

 

I think someone in this thread mentioned Winter. Not like I could confirm, I can't read Japanese to save my life. 

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BB already rewards offensive play with chip damage and corner carry. You also gain more meter when going on the offensive compared to being on the defensive. (Unless you IB every single hit, I guess.)

 

Not really. Chip damage isn't really noteworthy unless you're playing Amane since it's easy to negate with Barrier blocking and things don't do that much chip to begin with. Corner carry is really a reward of opening people up, not necessarily from being aggressive. Meter gain is indeed better for being on the offensive but the usefulness of having meter itself varies from character to character as well as the situation and the current state of the match. IMO, BB doesn't necessarily reward you for being aggressive but rather, a lot of the rewards come from getting hits and gaining momentum, which is fine because some characters' neutral games have a strong aspect to it that involves playing passively and trying to get opponents to hang themselves really.

 

But not like it's worth talking about Active Flow too much until we get more specific details. Time to continue playing the waiting game.

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I'm actually concerned about the ever growing roster;  There's already a bunch of CP-era characters that I basically have no matchup experience against, so it's like "Buh, I don't even know how Arakune works in this version."   I think after a certain point, the problem becomes not "how do we balance these characters" (which is not, IMHO, a geometric problem) but rather just "how much time does someone have to put in to learn to play decently agaisnt all these characters?"

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I'm actually concerned about the ever growing roster;  There's already a bunch of CP-era characters that I basically have no matchup experience against, so it's like "Buh, I don't even know how Arakune works in this version."   I think after a certain point, the problem becomes not "how do we balance these characters" (which is not, IMHO, a geometric problem) but rather just "how much time does someone have to put in to learn to play decently agaisnt all these characters?"

I will never understand this. 

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Isn't that basically how it's always worked in SF4? They deal with it somehow. We just have to do what they do.

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I'm actually concerned about the ever growing roster;  There's already a bunch of CP-era characters that I basically have no matchup experience against, so it's like "Buh, I don't even know how Arakune works in this version."   I think after a certain point, the problem becomes not "how do we balance these characters" (which is not, IMHO, a geometric problem) but rather just "how much time does someone have to put in to learn to play decently agaisnt all these characters?"

 

USFIV had like 43 characters and Smash 4 has like 53. Though those games are not as complex as BB is, I'm sure it can still be done. Play the characters you want to play, and observe others. Watch tournaments. You don't have to play a character to know how they work (though it would certainly help) It also comes down to how well the game is balanced. If the game's not very well balanced, competitive environments will have a more limited roster than the full one, which makes things easier, but also means an underdog could arise and catch everyone by surprise with a character not everyone knows how to fight.

 

End of the day. Just play the game and I'm sure it'll all come naturally through time and experience. 

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More characters is also more chances to counterpick someone. If a character matchup is bad but a player still has no idea how to play it, you can basically counterpick the player with that character.

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You must also consider that with a big cast there are more than one characters who fill a specific niche and therefore some of what you know for fighting character A may help for character B.

 

 

More characters is also more chances to counterpick someone. If a character matchup is bad but a player still has no idea how to play it, you can basically counterpick the player with that character.

Hmmmmm, well...

http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Super_Street_Fighter_2_Turbo#Strategy

 

Very different game sure, but I just don't know how I feel about counterpicking because it seems like a huge gamble especially in a game like this one.  Anecdotal evidence sure but if you can make it work then more power to you.  

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Character mastery > Counterpicking. Counterpicking was a thing back then in ST when some matchups were simply too horrible for certain character, but nowadays? If your character is reasonably good enough you should have little to no problems against other characters, it's just up to you to understand the finer details of a potentially bad matchup to overcome it.

 

Majority of the japanese players work on mastering their character in every way possible, and that's why you see players using the same character over years and after many iterations. I personally think it's the way to go and that makes more sense, for our context ;)

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Isn't that basically how it's always worked in SF4? They deal with it somehow. We just have to do what they do.

 

This.

 

As a personal comment, do you know how hard it is to find a Carl player online or hell, even at a local scene? Let's face it, in every fighting game, there is that bunch of oddball characters that are present in the game but almost nobody ever uses, which means you can never really learn to fight them as readily as say Ragna, Jin, Hazama etc. It's just a sad fact. I imagine the same would happen if I picked up USFIV now and wanted to learn to deal with El Fuerte only to realise he's as rare as some shiny Pokemon.

 

On the subject of counterpicking, I do not think I've ever encountered anyone that used it against me. BB is one of those games where it seems character love prevails over most so take from that as you will. The only negative side to having so many characters is that you might just like one of them more than your old main and must start the learning process all over again ;).

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Tekken has 50 billion characters(in Tag 2 at least), and all of them have 70+ moves(even though about 10-15 of the moves are worth using), characters with custom movesets(Combot) and hell, Mokujin is basically every character in the game in one. 

The more you play(and the more varied your opponents are), the more you'll learn how to handle matchups, that simple.

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Character mastery > Counterpicking. Counterpicking was a thing back then in ST when some matchups were simply too horrible for certain character, but nowadays? If your character is reasonably good enough you should have little to no problems against other characters, it's just up to you to understand the finer details of a potentially bad matchup to overcome it.

 

Majority of the japanese players work on mastering their character in every way possible, and that's why you see players using the same character over years and after many iterations. I personally think it's the way to go and that makes more sense, for our context ;)

 

But you can MASTER multiple characters. I'd like to think my nu, kokonoe, and bang are pretty great (though far from mastered)  :v:

 

I mean theres only so much you can do with just one character, and some characters have unwinnable matchups such as:

Nu vs Bang

Tager vs Mu

 

so its great to have those characters in your pocket for counterpicking specific matchups or other characters to avoid those matchups.

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I don't know what your definition of mastery is, but I just don't see how someone can truly master more than a small handful of characters.  Maybe mastering a character will give you the skills to play another one really well but master is a very strong word.  Being extremely good is not the same thing as being a master, I would wager only a very small handful of DL posters are truly masters of their character.

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Truth be told, I STILL don't know how to deal with characters like Arakune and Carl.

That said most people don't fully know what Kagura can do since he has the online stigma of "scrub bait".

Japan probably has a lot less of a problem with this than we do since character specialists common.

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It seems they copied arcana heart 3 love max with these od-only supers that use OD but no meter, specifically the Arcana Eclipse supers in that game. Very interesting.

 

 

In that game, these supers were somewhat weaker than those that do use actual meter but also a lot more flexible due to their meterless nature, though in that game Extend force is much easier to attain than OD is in BB so I expect the ones here to be somewhat meatier.

 

Looking forward to it.

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USFIV had like 43 characters and Smash 4 has like 53. Though those games are not as complex as BB is, I'm sure it can still be done. Play the characters you want to play, and observe others. Watch tournaments. You don't have to play a character to know how they work (though it would certainly help) It also comes down to how well the game is balanced. If the game's not very well balanced, competitive environments will have a more limited roster than the full one, which makes things easier, but also means an underdog could arise and catch everyone by surprise with a character not everyone knows how to fight.

 

End of the day. Just play the game and I'm sure it'll all come naturally through time and experience. 

 

One thing that makes it easier in SF and Smash is that they have lots of clone characters, while Blazblue tends to make more unique characters. It'd be like if they released 8 Ragna clones. "Ragna 2 steals more health with Drive attacks. While Ragna 7 Does more damage with Gauntlet Hades. But you really need to watch out for Ragna 4 because Carnage Scissors does 200 more damage."

 

Doesn't really matter...still the same matchup.

 

You can't really play against any two characters the same in BlazBlue. Unless you're a zoner maybe.

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Sure there are a lot of characters, but basic fighting game principles still apply. You can never play against a certain character but still be able to deal with them. Footsies will still work so will neutral game etc. Just do your homework. Top players prepare extensively in case these situations pop-up. You don't want to go into a match lacking information.

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As for learning matchups, you just wanna make a checklist and seek out a famed user of each char and play them for like 100 matches each. Tons of people have way more than the 3000~ matches this would require under their belt and it's not like you'll have to relearn all the MUs, some chars don't change as much as others. Hell, if people REALLY wanna get their MUs in order I'm sure we could organize a skype group or forum topic towards that aim, if it's a serious concern and not just a talking point.

 

 

Character mastery > Counterpicking. Counterpicking was a thing back then in ST when some matchups were simply too horrible for certain character, but nowadays? If your character is reasonably good enough you should have little to no problems against other characters, it's just up to you to understand the finer details of a potentially bad matchup to overcome it.

 

Majority of the japanese players work on mastering their character in every way possible, and that's why you see players using the same character over years and after many iterations. I personally think it's the way to go and that makes more sense, for our context ;)

Counterpicking only is worth doing when the person playing hasn't mastered anybody. It's much easier to be competent with a bunch of chars than really really good with any one char.

 

 

 

edit: Just noticed, Active flow sounds like the Emotion system in Aquapazza minus the negative emotion state. Like the opposite of a negative penalty. That's also interesting.

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So when are we going to get the gameplay videos? sorry if slow-poking 

 

 

 

Hibiki stuff I snatched from greatfernman's twitter. Thanks for translating when you were so pressed for time BTW!

  • Hibiki is a technical, tricky, bunshin (clones) using character His drive is Double Chance: Sends a bunshin forward, and depending on lever direction, he can also leave a bunshin and send his real body forward
  • He also has a special that puts him in the air, where he then has multiple follow-ups, including a projectile (some parts I don't get)

Sounds really cool

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So when are we going to get the gameplay videos? sorry if slow-poking 

Location testing starts this weekend.

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Sure there are a lot of characters, but basic fighting game principles still apply. You can never play against a certain character but still be able to deal with them. Footsies will still work so will neutral game etc. Just do your homework. Top players prepare extensively in case these situations pop-up. You don't want to go into a match lacking information.

 

This is only going to get you to some basic level of competence.  And folks say "They deal with it in SF4" but I've been watching MAJORS where top tier players were struggling with matchups because they didn't have experience with them.  Recently.  In a game where footsies and fundamentals will carry you a LOT further.

 

There IS such a thing as too many characters.

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