[AC+R] News & Gameplay Discussion

[Digital Watches]

Okay so this topic of discussion is played the fuck out, so rather than recommend some easy characters for you, I'm gonna explain some stuff about why it's kind of a moot question.

People talk about easy characters in terms of reliance on combos, execution barriers, what basic task is required to learn the specifics of how to play. People also talk about how "tiers don't matter that much in guilty gear." They're sort of right. Except that tiers matter plenty. Playing against a good #R Millia or AC Testament is harder for a reason. Guilty Gear is a really fine-tuned game, and there's a lot of work probably that went into balancing characters over revisions and such, but one of the reasons it's able to have a rich and diverse competitive metagame, where you can win a major tournament with a low-tier character, is because it's a complicated game. Every character has a lot of tools at their disposal.

And I actually don't buy that it's about the system mechanics. A lot of games have similarly robust systems, and in all cases, they're not actually leveling the playing field. They're just adding another dimension on which some characters have an inherent advantage. There are some characters who can more effectively utilize certain system mechanics than others, as with any game, even when the mechanics are available to everyone. What makes guilty gear interesting is that the characters are complicated enough that, even if they have a provably inferior (by measures like tiers, statistics, etc.) toolkit than some other character, it's a complete toolkit, and it's different enough that most matchups aren't insanely one-sided.

So when it comes to the question of learning curves, you're going to find that a lot of these characters have very different ones, and it's tempting to say "Beginners should play this character because for x and y and z reasons, it's easier to get over this particular hump of the learning curve." That might be true of a lot of fighting games, it is probably not true for guilty gear. I am personally of the opinion that the fastest way to get good at this game is to choose a character you like (Watch some match videos if you're not sure) and learn them thoroughly.

No matter how "easy" the character is, there are any number of details, hitconfirms, spacing games, ambiguity games, momentum tricks, conditioning games, throw games, pressure games, situational reversals, and so on and so forth, that will win you matches, and that you will need to devote some time to learning a character to get down. What's more, the large option set also makes it pretty close to impossible to keep everything you and the opponent could possibly do in your head at once. All this means that the fundamentals, unlike some fighting games, are going to be very different in application from character to character, despite being the same fundamental games you'd expect from street fighter at a meta level.

So picking up a character that you don't intend to play competitively means you're giving yourself things to unlearn. Habits that aren't even about what the command for a given move is or when the FRC point is or whatever, but about what decisions to make, how to think about approach, defense, what to do in a given situation. If you want to play a bunch of characters and get some variety that's great, but in my honest opinion, the fastest way to get good at guilty gear is to pick the character you want to play and get good at them.

[Lynxfort]

Where can I find the tier list on this game?

I don't think there is one for ACR + ver 1.01 right now...

[Chrome Homura]

Very smart stuff

Godlike as always, Alex. I'm starting to think the reason GG's presence in the US is so small is simply because not enough people follow your advice.

[Ctrlaltwtf]

Godlike as always, Alex. I'm starting to think the reason GG's presence in the US is so small is simply because not enough people follow your advice.

The only reason I'm not playing it is because of the broken netplay /deadhorse.

Unlike apparently most people on these forums, I don't have the pleasure of having any kind of local scene or community for any of my FGs. So online is my only method of playing. I keep checking this thread every other day for news about the +R patch in the hopes that I'll finally be able to take Johnny online.

As for the issue of "who should I play?" I think the answer is always, as stated above, a character who you find enjoyable. Just because a character might have hard execution doesn't prevent them from being fun for the people who enjoy playing them. When I first started playing GG I couldn't find much appealing about the cast at first until I picked Johnny, and knew I immediately had found my main. It's not because he has some incredibly amazing playstyle, or because his metagame is so technical and amazing, it's just because his moves look cool. The appeal of performing and watching his movelist encouraged me to learn his combos/playstyle and I knew I had found my main. I personally feel this method of choosing a main is totally okay, especially in a game with good balance. The most powerful motivator for learning a character is that you actually enjoy playing them.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Ctrlaltwtf

[Chrome Homura]

Hey, the existing netplay deserves at least some credit. I too lack the privilege of a local scene (for GG, anyway. It takes 45 minutes for me to get to my local FG venue via public transport, and I can at least face legit KOF competition there) but while online GG is more or less a different game than offline, it's by no means unplayable and plays similarly enough that I'm content with it... sure, it could be better (I'm just as eager for +R as the next guy) but plenty of fun can be had with it, assuming one has the patience to look past it's shortcomings.

[Klaige]

GG online is unplayable unless you are willing to look at it as purely a joking/casual thing. For any sort of competitive learning or advancing your knowledge of general gameplay or matchups online is beyond worthless.

[Amadeous]

GG online is unplayable unless you are willing to look at it as purely a joking/casual thing. For any sort of competitive learning or advancing your knowledge of general gameplay or matchups online is beyond worthless.

Ehhhh if you say so? I mean nothing's going to replace offline for GG anytime soon, but I get good matches against plenty of people. Some characters do suffer more than others, yes, and certain tactics become more abusable online (so basically everything Potemkin does, pot buster startup is basically doubled online but giganter unblockables are completely impossible to get out of even if you know how), but if you can get a solid consistent connection with someone, usually in your state or region, it's plenty playable and usable to learn matchups.

[Chrome Homura]

giganter unblockables

Dead angle that shit, all day long. Punishment strength/difficulty varies from char to char, but I personally have yet to suffer it for more than a single rep... which generally gives them an advantage, but it's by no means unbeatable.

[Kaizen]

Dead Angles = Guaranteed Online Reversal

Attempting Sidewinder Loop online is not fun.

[Chrome Homura]

Sidewinder timing is balls, indeed. Also idk if this is just me, or a pad thing, but in my attempts to run Sol online I have yet to hit a full 8 hit (clean) Grand Viper ever... It seems the lag eats so many of my inputs that just getting 6-7 hits is difficult. (This is assuming mashing 4/6 and S/HS all at the same time is the most consistent way to get it, is that the optimal fashion?)

[Kaizen]

I was never able to get clean hit GVs consistently when I played pad, but I remember reading somewhere that mashing the diagonals yields better results. Apparently, going for 1/9 or 3/7 will result in the game reading the inputs better or just reading more of them, and giving you the hits you need.

Of course, once I switched to stick, the whole affair became a cakewalk (where 4/6 and S/H or K/S are the best methods), but it's worth a shot.

[reaVer]

Ehhhh if you say so? I mean nothing's going to replace offline for GG anytime soon, but I get good matches against plenty of people. Some characters do suffer more than others, yes, and certain tactics become more abusable online (so basically everything Potemkin does, pot buster startup is basically doubled online but giganter unblockables are completely impossible to get out of even if you know how), but if you can get a solid consistent connection with someone, usually in your state or region, it's plenty playable and usable to learn matchups.

Haah, have you tried a simple thing as FD breaking online? Characters with long range pokes and unblockables have a big (and unfair) advantage right now due to the lag.

Also DW: matchup difficulty does not reflect matchup results. A 5-5 matchup can be more difficult for one character than for the other as for example, one character has to play around another character. Yet the 5-5 result comes from the fact that there's a 50-50 chance of that character facing the extra difficulty getting it right; Order Sol vs Slayer is a prime example for this. Tiers in Accent Core do not dictate the tournament outcome in any way and therefore they are simply irrelevant. This is in contrast to Third Strike where SBOs were dominated by Yuns and Chuns.

[Amadeous]

Haah, have you tried a simple thing as FD breaking online? Characters with long range pokes and unblockables have a big (and unfair) advantage right now due to the lag.

I play Jam. Everyone has longer range pokes than I do.

Allow me to clarify: Once again, Netplay is not a substitution for offline play. It never has been in any fighting game, and never will be in any fighting game. However, to say it is "beyond worthless" is hyperbole. I'm not only talking about PSN/XBL as well; a majority of my own netplay experience was with the NullDC plug-in, and fighting from Central Ohio to East Coast with a delay of 2 on good days, 3 on average days. It is entirely possible to learn a character's moves, fundamentals, spacing, combos, and gimmicks online. It's entirely possible to learn a match-up online and learn what an opponent can do at any given situation. Some people may be more sensitive to delay than others and might not be able to use online as well, but it is still an option.

I admit, online does have problems. As argued above, you do have to think farther ahead to make up for the delay; something that's really hard to do in certain situations. Some things that were normally just tight to get out of (Giganter unblockables when you have less than 50 meter) become nearly impossible to do anything about. Even being on defense against a rushdown character becomes much harder, as it becomes harder to utilize your IBs/FDing and punish accordingly, to say nothing of reacting to overheads.

I'm just going to sum up my point here: Sometimes the only way you're going to play anyone in GG is through netplay, due to no scene or no ability to travel. And in that case, some Guilty Gear, even with delay, is better than no Guilty Gear at all.

---

Also, honest question to the guys that are saying netplay is shit; just curious how much you guys have actually tried netplaying. I'm asking just to get a better idea here, cause I live in Central Ohio with a pretty good internet connection, and I can get pretty good connections with about anyone in-state (except Circuitous but that's because Comcast is literally retarded), and I get good connections to people as far away as Montreal and Atlanta. But it does seem to me the connections are either 100% playable and delay is minimal, or completely laggy and impossible to do anything in. So I'm not sure if you guys just got more of the latter than the former and gave up on netplay really soon (I've also noticed even good connections sometimes go sour, likely a result of PSN being terrible, so that's another reason why your matches may not have been so hot).

[VR-Raiden]

I was never able to get clean hit GVs consistently when I played pad, but I remember reading somewhere that mashing the diagonals yields better results. Apparently, going for 1/9 or 3/7 will result in the game reading the inputs better or just reading more of them, and giving you the hits you need.

Of course, once I switched to stick, the whole affair became a cakewalk (where 4/6 and S/H or K/S are the best methods), but it's worth a shot.

Interesting, I hadn't heard that before, but I wouldn't be surprised. I get it on pad pretty much every time and I do 1/3 + P/S. It could just be that there's less distance you're thumb has to go to get the inputs, since on a DS2 you're basically pivoting the dpad over/across the down direction.

[Digital Watches]

I can always count on reaver to say something smart and then say something dumb. It's definitely worthwhile to point out that just because a matchup is in your favor doesn't mean it's easy to play well, (Though a bad matchup against a good player who knows the matchup is still inherently harder to win, by definition). But tiers are based on results, not difficulty, and at a high level of play, you do see a tendency for higher tier characters to win more. That is the definition of high tier characters.

To say that tiers are irrelevant is logically equivalent to saying that they don't exist, by the way tiers in fighting games are defined, IE by the sum of the relative observed performance in matchups of a given character compared to other characters. What's impressive about guilty gear is that the tiers aren't as strong as in many other games. You don't see a lot of 8-2 or so matchups, and they aren't clustered around single characters generally, so more often than not, the mere heuristic that is a character's "tier" isn't enough to completely predict the outcome of tournaments as falling within the top few characters. This is impressive compared to games like third strike, but it doesn't mean that, ceteris paribus, Eddie isn't still more likely to take a given individual match given no other information than I-No is.

Tiers have some predictive value, and to say otherwise is to ignore facts. Many people misunderstand exactly what that predictive value is, or why it works the way it does, or how much it actually matters in an individual match or tournament, but that doesn't mean that it's not there. That being said, the game still is balanced enough that you shouldn't pick your character based on their tier ranking.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Digital Watches

[Lynxfort]

satou's johnny ( johnny in AC vanilla didn't have any match up in his favour) changed my perspective on tiers..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBce4a5nD4A

Edited April 9, 2013 by Lynxfort

[reaVer]

I play Jam. Everyone has longer range pokes than I do.

Allow me to clarify: Once again, Netplay is not a substitution for offline play. It never has been in any fighting game, and never will be in any fighting game. However, to say it is "beyond worthless" is hyperbole. I'm not only talking about PSN/XBL as well; a majority of my own netplay experience was with the NullDC plug-in, and fighting from Central Ohio to East Coast with a delay of 2 on good days, 3 on average days. It is entirely possible to learn a character's moves, fundamentals, spacing, combos, and gimmicks online. It's entirely possible to learn a match-up online and learn what an opponent can do at any given situation. Some people may be more sensitive to delay than others and might not be able to use online as well, but it is still an option.

I admit, online does have problems. As argued above, you do have to think farther ahead to make up for the delay; something that's really hard to do in certain situations. Some things that were normally just tight to get out of (Giganter unblockables when you have less than 50 meter) become nearly impossible to do anything about. Even being on defense against a rushdown character becomes much harder, as it becomes harder to utilize your IBs/FDing and punish accordingly, to say nothing of reacting to overheads.

I'm just going to sum up my point here: Sometimes the only way you're going to play anyone in GG is through netplay, due to no scene or no ability to travel. And in that case, some Guilty Gear, even with delay, is better than no Guilty Gear at all.

---

Also, honest question to the guys that are saying netplay is shit; just curious how much you guys have actually tried netplaying. I'm asking just to get a better idea here, cause I live in Central Ohio with a pretty good internet connection, and I can get pretty good connections with about anyone in-state (except Circuitous but that's because Comcast is literally retarded), and I get good connections to people as far away as Montreal and Atlanta. But it does seem to me the connections are either 100% playable and delay is minimal, or completely laggy and impossible to do anything in. So I'm not sure if you guys just got more of the latter than the former and gave up on netplay really soon (I've also noticed even good connections sometimes go sour, likely a result of PSN being terrible, so that's another reason why your matches may not have been so hot).

I'm so sorry for not counting characters that have a fullscreen dragonpunch that goes into IK...

Now what I'm trying to point out, GG online with proper netcode is a viable substitute for offline play. It isn't exactly the same thing(oh wait, according to Teyah's delay test it IS (2(#Reload and probably nullDC)+2(delay) = ps2 delay)). But the netcode as it is now turns GG into something that cannot be called GG. It gives characters like Faust and Venom the ability to keep characters at range without those characters ever being able to get close because noone is able to guard anything there. Same thing with Eddie's unblockables, tried dragonpunching those? Even the crappiest most delayed unblockable cannot be guarded or reversaled because the protocol has insane delays and slacks those delays at its own accord. This is fact. I figured this out in the first few weeks, I back then still had pretty much noone near me to play against and I haven't touched it since. I have been waiting for that patch for 6 months now so I can finally pick up the game again(and have a playable connection to people in sweden, which on average are 30ms away from me).

Now, back to DW: tiers are based on matchup charts, matchups are based on character performance in optimal conditions. So obviously, players like Inoue have a major impact on the tiering of Order Sol, players like Ogawa on Eddie, etc. But my own observation has been, especially in Accent Core is that the game developed so far through that the matchups as they used to be reported are no longer valid. I haven't seen a matchup chart on GG in years and the general consensus has been that trying to divide characters into tiers is completely pointless. Even I cannot really say I have a distinct advantage or disadvantage over any character with my Order Sol (aside from my lack of experience). Eddie is counterable, Testament is counterable, they all are by any character. And there is my original point again: it's not to say that these matchups are more difficult for me than others, but I do know that if I put in my effort, my chances of winning are equal to his.

[M.Song]

I play Jam. Everyone has longer range pokes than I do.

Allow me to clarify: Once again, Netplay is not a substitution for offline play. It never has been in any fighting game, and never will be in any fighting game. However, to say it is "beyond worthless" is hyperbole. I'm not only talking about PSN/XBL as well; a majority of my own netplay experience was with the NullDC plug-in, and fighting from Central Ohio to East Coast with a delay of 2 on good days, 3 on average days. It is entirely possible to learn a character's moves, fundamentals, spacing, combos, and gimmicks online. It's entirely possible to learn a match-up online and learn what an opponent can do at any given situation. Some people may be more sensitive to delay than others and might not be able to use online as well, but it is still an option.

I admit, online does have problems. As argued above, you do have to think farther ahead to make up for the delay; something that's really hard to do in certain situations. Some things that were normally just tight to get out of (Giganter unblockables when you have less than 50 meter) become nearly impossible to do anything about. Even being on defense against a rushdown character becomes much harder, as it becomes harder to utilize your IBs/FDing and punish accordingly, to say nothing of reacting to overheads.

I'm just going to sum up my point here: Sometimes the only way you're going to play anyone in GG is through netplay, due to no scene or no ability to travel. And in that case, some Guilty Gear, even with delay, is better than no Guilty Gear at all.

---

Also, honest question to the guys that are saying netplay is shit; just curious how much you guys have actually tried netplaying. I'm asking just to get a better idea here, cause I live in Central Ohio with a pretty good internet connection, and I can get pretty good connections with about anyone in-state (except Circuitous but that's because Comcast is literally retarded), and I get good connections to people as far away as Montreal and Atlanta. But it does seem to me the connections are either 100% playable and delay is minimal, or completely laggy and impossible to do anything in. So I'm not sure if you guys just got more of the latter than the former and gave up on netplay really soon (I've also noticed even good connections sometimes go sour, likely a result of PSN being terrible, so that's another reason why your matches may not have been so hot).

i've tried quite a bit on both psn and xbl

and to be perfectly honest online might as well be considered unplayable

i use roboky, so a lot of fights involve instant blocking for meter because you just can't lay mats in a lot of matchups

and i've had like maybe 2 connections where it was decent enough for me to ib like i can offline

so in all those fights i'm sitting there with no means of gaining meter and no options, and forced to deal with netplay mixups as the worst char in the game

so yeah... like the opponents don't get a full grasp of what would be safe/unsafe in regular play and i'm unable to do anything at all.. so yeah unplayable

[qwerty]

The way I play fighting games online is simple: focus primarily on spacing, and keep timing and execution requirements as low as possible.

The netcode is definitely bad, but if you can find a good enough connection, you can practice spacing against a live opponent well enough. Alternatively, you can just play against the CPU and only focus on poking and anti-air. But if you do that, you don't really get a sense for how human opponents will act during the neutral game.

[Sophisticat]

I've said it before, but the netcode is awesome for local play, not so good for anything outside of that.

Seriously, it's more or less lagless if you live in the same region... So long as you're not playing on wireless or so the Montreal community keeps reminding me. >_>

[Oniros]

We have a release date for the Vita version in NA (it seems)! Edited April 10, 2013 by Oniros

[iora]

gaahhhhh damn it, i want an update on the console version ><

[White Man]

We have a release date for the Vita version in NA (it seems)!

Oh man, the five people in the US who bought a Vita are gonna be all kinds of jazzed over this. Presuming they all play semi-obscure Japanese fighting games, I mean.

But back to more important matters, I love the way GG netplay is now. As someone who isn't terribly skilled at the game, the presence of lag gives me the same universal excuse for screwing up as the economic recession gives people who were incredibly stupid with how they invested their money. "Bet you're real proud of that double perfect, huh scrub. Before you go gettin' a big head there, let me just state for the record that I totally could have landed that elaborate FRC-overhead-into-a-midair-dash-cancel-unblockable-setup and slashback'd every attack you threw at me if it wasn't for all this goddamn lag. ASW did this on purpose to make American players look bad, FYI."

This works so much better than BlazBlue where I have to pretend like I just got a call from the hospital saying my grandmother fell down some stairs every time I drop a combo.

[Solid Gold Wall]

lol

[Delrian]

But back to more important matters, I love the way GG netplay is now. As someone who isn't terribly skilled at the game, the presence of lag gives me the same universal excuse for screwing up as the economic recession gives people who were incredibly stupid with how they invested their money. "Bet you're real proud of that double perfect, huh scrub. Before you go gettin' a big head there, let me just state for the record that I totally could have landed that elaborate FRC-overhead-into-a-midair-dash-cancel-unblockable-setup and slashback'd every attack you threw at me if it wasn't for all this goddamn lag. ASW did this on purpose to make American players look bad, FYI."

This works so much better than BlazBlue where I have to pretend like I just got a call from the hospital saying my grandmother fell down some stairs every time I drop a combo.

Best post on dustloop.