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[CF] Blazblue CENTRAL FICTION: News and Gameplay Discussion

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So... Any feedback of the japanese players about the game so far? Do they like it? Is it balanced / fun / entertaining?

I believe this is the best version of the game as far as i'm concerned, but it's hard to judge with only videos :\

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The number of characters that made it through Braver's Revel 2016 2on2 qualifiers are the following:

7 ... Nine 
6 ... Carl 
5 ... litchi
3 ... Ragna, Arakune, Hakumen, Izayoi
2 ... Jin, Hazama, Makoto, Relius, Azrael, Celica 
1 ... Noel, Rachel, Tager, Bang, Tsubaki, Mu-12, Valk, Bullet, lambda, Hibiki, Naoto, Izanami


Not passed:
Taokaka ... 
Nu-13 ... 
platinum ... 
Amane ... 
Kagura ... 
Terumi ... 
Kokonoe...

source: http://ch.nicovideo.jp/ttg_gerosyabu/blomaga/ar991854

For teams Jourdal made a translation here.... http://pastebin.com/ScJNv36Q

With this sunday being the last qualifer and April 24 being the actual tournament.

 

i was not expecting Nu, terumi and kokonoe to have not qualified. Whereas seeing Izanami and Bullet going up is a surprise.

 

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I don't think Bullet in cf is nearly as bad as she was in cpex. She's not great, but she does seem to do better in her previously terrible matchups. Now she just looks incredibly boring. Haven't seen Nochan. Not sure what the consensus is on Izanami but I think she's pretty good. She just seems very technical. Tenchi and Bokuzen(?) seem to do well with her.

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No real surprises in that list.  Supports what I've been saying since day 1 of Nine: She's not going to get more balanced, she's going to get worse over time. 

Okay, I lie, it surprises me that 5 Litchi's have qualified, but I'm going to put that down to a combination of lots of people still playing her, and Litchi players being whiny every time their character gets anything like a nerf. (Seriously, I swear, everytime a new game comes out it's all "RIP Litchi" and then she goes on to do very well.)

Izanami having qualified once doesn't really surprise me - she seems like a fine character; Her float stuff is helpful, and she has some adequate tools, and can run away like mad, but she just doesn't seem very INTERESTING to me.

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Litchi will always be strong, just like Valken.

This list doesn't mean much, other than showing which character is popular in Japan.

Also, a lot of strong players play the top 3 characters in this list, which is probably why they are overrepresented.

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Nine, Carl, and Litchi were just designed very well compared to the rest of the cast so no shocker there are so many. We will just have to wait and see how things play out with most/all of the players being very skilled and knowing each match-up a lot better then your average player.

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9 hours ago, Davo87 said:

I was not expecting Nu, terumi and kokonoe to have not qualified. Whereas seeing Izanami and Bullet going up is a surprise.

I react as the same as you about Kokonoe, however, even being a Terumi player, I am not surprised about him not making into, but about Hazama being qualified, since he was really nerfed up, alongside Nu-13.

Izanami isn't a surprise either. Like Nine, she is just new and really strong, if you get used with her float ability, so no surprising effect. Bullet, on the other hand, seems that she maintained her stats from CPEX, but with CF mechanics, and a new move.

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52 minutes ago, MoneyD90 said:

Nine, Carl, and Litchi were just designed very well compared to the rest of the cast so no shocker there are so many. We will just have to wait and see how things play out with most/all of the players being very skilled and knowing each match-up a lot better then your average player.

I still can't believe Carl is a popular character now. I remember when people avoided him like the plague due to his learning curve.

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2 minutes ago, Volt said:

I still can't believe Carl is a popular character now. I remember when people avoided him like the plague due to his learning curve.

That's because people were really bad at the game :V

 

That list is pretty funny, Kinda surprised a Kokonoe didn't make it tho. Three Ragna's and Hakumens, so I'm satisfied. And the abundance of Carls and Nines doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

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2 minutes ago, Volt said:

I still can't believe Carl is a popular character now. I remember when people avoided him like the plague due to his learning curve.

He still having the plague, but with that HP buff and being a High-Risk (and time to learn)/High Reward, with great offenses and Nirvana able to take lot of damage, he is pretty good

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2 minutes ago, BlackYakuzu94 said:

That's because people were really bad at the game :V

 

That list is pretty funny, Kinda surprised a Kokonoe didn't make it tho. Three Ragna's and Hakumens, so I'm satisfied. And the abundance of Carls and Nines doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

That explains why I still avoid him like the plague. :v

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1 hour ago, MoneyD90 said:

Nine, Carl, and Litchi were just designed very well compared to the rest of the cast so no shocker there are so many. We will just have to wait and see how things play out with most/all of the players being very skilled and knowing each match-up a lot better then your average player.

I don't get it. What is "well designed" about Nine?  Unless you are using the term "well designed" as a synonym for "powerful"?  There is nothing about her spell system that makes her inherently "well designed" or even "good".   It makes her complicated, yes, certainly, but complicated is not the same as either good or well designed. What does "well designed" mean here?  My personal definition of "well designed" implies "has interesting weaknesses" as well. Otherwise, your definition of "well designed" ends up being way too close to "powerful" which is not actually what I would think of a good working definition for fighting game characters.  Or are you using "Well designed" to mean "unique"? In which case, I agree that that's a good definition of "well designed" for the purpose of creating interesting characters, but it's not a good indicator of being good or not.

Carl hasn't even been considered particularly good in a lot of games.  He's been pretty definitively middle-of-the-pack a few times out, sure, you can say that he's "never been below A tier" but  when your tiers go from "SS" to "B" that's not actually that meaningful. And yes, he's never been suck tier, but neither have a lot of characters.  Does that mean they are all well designed too?  Then why are they less good this time? What about Hazama? Everyone was talking about how he was always going to be good because high mobility and damage and stuff, but most people put him in the lower third of the cast for this game. 

"Well designed" is not the same as "good" and neither is any guarantee of future goodness.

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22 minutes ago, Airk said:

I don't get it. What is "well designed" about Nine?  Unless you are using the term "well designed" as a synonym for "powerful"?  There is nothing about her spell system that makes her inherently "well designed" or even "good".   It makes her complicated, yes, certainly, but complicated is not the same as either good or well designed. What does "well designed" mean here?  My personal definition of "well designed" implies "has interesting weaknesses" as well. Otherwise, your definition of "well designed" ends up being way too close to "powerful" which is not actually what I would think of a good working definition for fighting game characters.  Or are you using "Well designed" to mean "unique"? In which case, I agree that that's a good definition of "well designed" for the purpose of creating interesting characters, but it's not a good indicator of being good or not.

Carl hasn't even been considered particularly good in a lot of games.  He's been pretty definitively middle-of-the-pack a few times out, sure, you can say that he's "never been below A tier" but  when your tiers go from "SS" to "B" that's not actually that meaningful. And yes, he's never been suck tier, but neither have a lot of characters.  Does that mean they are all well designed too?  Then why are they less good this time? What about Hazama? Everyone was talking about how he was always going to be good because high mobility and damage and stuff, but most people put him in the lower third of the cast for this game. 

"Well designed" is not the same as "good" and neither is any guarantee of future goodness.

"Well-designed" is literally exactly what it sounds like, a character that is solid all around with good tools for their gameplan. Nine has tools that help that other characters do not, namely her normals which makes her neutral exceptional. This is balanced by the fact that she has very limited movement and defensive options. 

That's all there is to it really.

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I don't really consider Nine to be a well-made character either, since it was plain as day from the start how they wanted her to play out; really setup heavy, with seed unblockables even.

What we have now is a character that... just hits stuff until they die, and most of her setups are closer to being gimmicks than setups.

Of course that doesn't mean that she's bad, but I really don't think this is what they had planned for her.

Then again, I've hardly watched any Nines lately exactly because she didn't turn out what I was expecting her to be, so I might be wrong in case new tech has surfaced in the meantime

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9 minutes ago, BlackYakuzu94 said:

"Well-designed" is literally exactly what it sounds like, a character that is solid all around with good tools for their gameplan. Nine has tools that help that other characters do not, namely her normals which makes her neutral exceptional. This is balanced by the fact that she has very limited movement and defensive options. 

That's all there is to it really.

If Nine is what passes for "very limited" defensive options, then Amane and Nu called, they want their safe on block reversal, please. I know Nine can get caught with no stocks to use flux nurture, but having a magic stock is something nine has far more often than she doesn't, and many nines like to sea moss gate a single stock so they can get a stock on them if you reset to neutral. The very fact she has this tool compltetly disqualifies her from being bottom of the barrel in defensive options, or anywhere even close if you ask me.

I've seen people say she has "limited movement" a lot too, which i guess is true in that she's floaty and kinda slow to cross the screen, but the very same limited movement is very versatile and allows her to do shit like dash across the screen against zoners like Nu with impunity. Sure her movement has downsides, but I think you're undervaluing the upsides her teleport provides. Maybe the weakness would be more pronounced if godhand didn't fuck up people who try to zone her, but... God hand still exists and it's not exactly what I'd call punishable.

To me, Nine's gameplay is TOO tight. She can brute force her way through so many matchups with kunzite of faceblock, and she has tools to cover her weaknesses, and then some. It's a little crazy.

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21 minutes ago, Putin said:

I don't really consider Nine to be a well-made character either, since it was plain as day from the start how they wanted her to play out; really setup heavy, with seed unblockables even.

What we have now is a character that... just hits stuff until they die, and most of her setups are closer to being gimmicks than setups.

Of course that doesn't mean that she's bad, but I really don't think this is what they had planned for her.

Then again, I've hardly watched any Nines lately exactly because she didn't turn out what I was expecting her to be, so I might be wrong in case new tech has surfaced in the meantime

She plays the same as when you watched her.

Nine is fine in the powerlevel chart. I'd like to see more of her other spells than ice block / overhead / meteors. I think they will need to heavily tweak her other spells for her gameplay to be less straightforward and... boring.

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53 minutes ago, BlackYakuzu94 said:

"Well-designed" is literally exactly what it sounds like, a character that is solid all around with good tools for their gameplan. Nine has tools that help that other characters do not, namely her normals which makes her neutral exceptional. This is balanced by the fact that she has very limited movement and defensive options. 

That's all there is to it really.

To me "well-designed" is too broad of a term to be taken literally since it could used for things like their design based around a character's personality or occupation or gameplay etc, depending on how a person perceives it. For instance, I think Litchi is a poorly designed character because she doesn't do anything that makes me think she's a doctor of some sort. I could get behind her design if she was a dancer or something. Nine is a well-designed character because what she does matches what she is. She's a powerful sorceress who's gameplay is designed around that.

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1 hour ago, BlackYakuzu94 said:

"Well-designed" is literally exactly what it sounds like, a character that is solid all around with good tools for their gameplan. Nine has tools that help that other characters do not, namely her normals which makes her neutral exceptional. This is balanced by the fact that she has very limited movement and defensive options. 

That's all there is to it really.

See I'm finding problems with this logic already;  Carl - and, according to you, Nine - are not "solid all around" characters; Carl has clearly defined weaknesses.  If that were the definition of "well designed" Carl wouldn't qualify.   If all we use is "has good tools for their gameplan" we're left with a definition that just maps to "strong" again, which is not useful.

So what is it that makes her "well designed"? It's the fact that she has "Good tools"?  To me, that's not design - design is "Okay, we need a character who has strong neutral, weak defense, and uses spells made up from a combination of elements to do whatever.  Her moves are <list>, and they serve these purposes <list>."   But whether those tools are -good- or not is a balance question.  Whether a tool is +5 or -1 on block, or whether it can gatling into anything, or what its proration are  - those aren't design, those are balance.   And those are subject to change.  And they are at least as important in determining whether a character has "good tools" as their design.

If, say, in the next version of the game, someone went in and gave Nine's dash teleports big recovery, so that they were no longer a good tool, is she suddenly "not well designed"?

So what does "good design" mean?

 

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IMO.You guys are thinking too hard about the definition. When I say well-designed I'm only talking about a character's tools vs. the rest of the cast and what they need to do in order to run their game plan.  Nine, Litchi, and Carl all have tools that give them very strong advantages compared  to the rest of the cast or you flat out can't do anything but respect it and let them run their game plan.. Nine, Litchi, and Carl are  prime examples of characters that are well-designed (how does she/he use their tools to make stuff die and not die themselves). Now if you feel that x or y is too strong that's another story.

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Just now, MoneyD90 said:

IMO.You guys are thinking too hard about the definition. When I say well-designed I'm only talking about a character's tools vs. the rest of the cast and what they need to do in order to run their game plan.  Nine, Litchi, and Carl all have tools that give them very strong advantages compared  to the rest of the cast or you flat out can't do anything but respect it and let them run their game plan.. Nine, Litchi, and Carl are  prime examples of characters that are well-designed (how does she/he use their tools to make stuff die and not die themselves). Now if you feel that x or y is too strong that's another story.

My point of disagreement here is that how good a character's tools are is completely dependant on stuff like frame data. And that's not "design", that's balance. Especially if you start using caveats like "vs the rest of the cast." And balance changes every game.

Therefore, saying "They are good because they are well designed" is incorrect.

They are good, this game, because they have been balanced to be strong.  And there is nothing about them that guarantees they will be good in the future.

Design is forever.  Balance is transient.  If you can think of a way to make a character bad by changing their frame data, then they are not inherently strong because of their design.

I feel like this is an important distinction, because people seem convinced that certain characters will always be good. They are incorrect. Hazama is proof.  Heck, the fact that Tsubaki and Tager are good this game is also proof, just the other way around.

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20 minutes ago, Airk said:

My point of disagreement here is that how good a character's tools are is completely dependant on stuff like frame data. And that's not "design", that's balance. Especially if you start using caveats like "vs the rest of the cast." And balance changes every game.

Therefore, saying "They are good because they are well designed" is incorrect.

They are good, this game, because they have been balanced to be strong.  And there is nothing about them that guarantees they will be good in the future.

Design is forever.  Balance is transient.  If you can think of a way to make a character bad by changing their frame data, then they are not inherently strong because of their design.

I feel like this is an important distinction, because people seem convinced that certain characters will always be good. They are incorrect. Hazama is proof.  Heck, the fact that Tsubaki and Tager are good this game is also proof, just the other way around.

Seems like the same stuff at the end of the day so I say everyone just call it whatever you want. lol. Basically all I'm trying to say is Nine, Carl, and Litchi SEEM to have very high/the best tools for getting wins atm so seeing a ton of them is expected especially at high lvl play. 

But I will say this. Nine is clearly that character everyone is on the fence about this time around and I'll be interested to see what they do with her going forward. 

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1 hour ago, oh no, he said said:

If Nine is what passes for "very limited" defensive options, then Amane and Nu called, they want their safe on block reversal, please. I know Nine can get caught with no stocks to use flux nurture, but having a magic stock is something nine has far more often than she doesn't, and many nines like to sea moss gate a single stock so they can get a stock on them if you reset to neutral. The very fact she has this tool compltetly disqualifies her from being bottom of the barrel in defensive options, or anywhere even close if you ask me.

I've seen people say she has "limited movement" a lot too, which i guess is true in that she's floaty and kinda slow to cross the screen, but the very same limited movement is very versatile and allows her to do shit like dash across the screen against zoners like Nu with impunity. Sure her movement has downsides, but I think you're undervaluing the upsides her teleport provides. Maybe the weakness would be more pronounced if godhand didn't fuck up people who try to zone her, but... God hand still exists and it's not exactly what I'd call punishable.

To me, Nine's gameplay is TOO tight. She can brute force her way through so many matchups with kunzite of faceblock, and she has tools to cover her weaknesses, and then some. It's a little crazy.

Flux Nurture really is not as good as you're describing it; its hitbox is small and it has a very noticeably long startup, yes it sounds annoying to deal with on paper, but if you have the level of awareness that you should be having when playing the game, then you can easily OS it and stay on top of her.

Her movement is very telegraphed and does not have invulnerability on frame 1, and she can only move in two of three directions. God hand has a fuck ton of recovery and she can be punished for it if you're in range. Why do you think so many players only use it at full screen, outside the range of where it can reasonably be punished.

Look, I'm not saying Nine isn't good, because its pretty obvious that she is and is easily one of the best characters in the game atm, but that doesn't mean that she does not have her faults that can be exploited. That's what I'm referring to, she's a character designed with a game plan that obviously makes her good, but she does have shortcomings that limit what she can do.

55 minutes ago, AchedSphinx said:

To me "well-designed" is too broad of a term to be taken literally since it could used for things like their design based around a character's personality or occupation or gameplay etc, depending on how a person perceives it. For instance, I think Litchi is a poorly designed character because she doesn't do anything that makes me think she's a doctor of some sort. I could get behind her design if she was a dancer or something. Nine is a well-designed character because what she does matches what she is. She's a powerful sorceress who's gameplay is designed around that.

None of that has anything to do with what goes on in the game screen though, so its kind of irrelevant to my point. :\

I don't care about personality, or aesthetics, all I'm looking at is: What character X is doing and how are the other characters dealing with it. That's it, nothing else. 

50 minutes ago, Airk said:

See I'm finding problems with this logic already;  Carl - and, according to you, Nine - are not "solid all around" characters; Carl has clearly defined weaknesses.  If that were the definition of "well designed" Carl wouldn't qualify.   If all we use is "has good tools for their gameplan" we're left with a definition that just maps to "strong" again, which is not useful.

So what is it that makes her "well designed"? It's the fact that she has "Good tools"?  To me, that's not design - design is "Okay, we need a character who has strong neutral, weak defense, and uses spells made up from a combination of elements to do whatever.  Her moves are <list>, and they serve these purposes <list>."   But whether those tools are -good- or not is a balance question.  Whether a tool is +5 or -1 on block, or whether it can gatling into anything, or what its proration are  - those aren't design, those are balance.   And those are subject to change.  And they are at least as important in determining whether a character has "good tools" as their design.

If, say, in the next version of the game, someone went in and gave Nine's dash teleports big recovery, so that they were no longer a good tool, is she suddenly "not well designed"?

So what does "good design" mean?

 

What isn't useful about it though? A character's tools and how they work directly translates to how strong they are...? Is that not how fighting games work?

You know design encompasses more than just the very specific definition of what you just described, if I am talking about a character in a fighting game and what can they do, then what I mean by "design" should be incredibly obvious. Arguing whether to call it "balance" or "design" is debating about semantics and technicalities, which kinda sidesteps what I was talking about before. 

But for the sake of peace, we'll use your definition and call it "balance". Nine's a balanced character, there, that's all I was really saying. She's great, but not overpowered. There. Simple.

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20 minutes ago, BlackYakuzu94 said:

What isn't useful about it though? A character's tools and how they work directly translates to how strong they are...? Is that not how fighting games work?

You know design encompasses more than just the very specific definition of what you just described, if I am talking about a character in a fighting game and what can they do, then what I mean by "design" should be incredibly obvious. Arguing whether to call it "balance" or "design" is debating about semantics and technicalities, which kinda sidesteps what I was talking about before. 

But for the sake of peace, we'll use your definition and call it "balance". Nine's a balanced character, there, that's all I was really saying. She's great, but not overpowered. There. Simple.

I think it's important to differentiate between a character's fundamental core concepts - their, dare I say, "design" - and the stuff that changes about them every single game like the properties of their moves.

Because I'm really tired of the idea of that "character X will always be good because of their design." since the very people who say that seem to espouse ideas of "design" that in fact, change every game. 

Words are important and not just "arguing semantics" - If I say "<move> is safe." when it fact the move is actually plus, is it "arguing semantics" to correct me? No, it's not, because it makes a difference.  The same is true here.

All that said, if Nine's DP is so susceptible to option selects, why isn't everyone doing it?  It seems weird that if it can safe jabbed, that all the top tier Japanese players who are losing to her right now aren't doing that.  Right now, to me it seems better than a lot of DPs in the game since it is so difficult to get a punish on (Calling out a DP with with 2k jab combo is nothing like actually being able to punish it) , so calling Nine a character with "limited defensive options" just doesn't add up.

Until we get some honest to god frame data that proves otherwise, I'm going to maintain that she is too strong and only getting worse over time.

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