Soul Calibur 2 Impressions

Hell no VF doesn't need air control. Why do people think they need options after being floated up when they should concentrate on not being floated in the first place? Practically almost every character in VF has to use serious anticipation/risk to juggle somebody (maybe except Akira and Lau) so there's no reason to nerf floating in VF. It already has a enough factors as it is.

Air control already hurts SC2 characters like Ivy whose launchers are impratical, slow, and need counterhits. Luckily she has that all purpose snatch move for combos or else she'd really be up shit creek. Combos make games more dynamic between player types. They kind of balance the game for people who don't want to poke all day, don't want to concentrate on power hits, or try to set you up for that one big opening. I could see maybe an excuse for AC in a game like TTT where practically every mistake leads to a juggle but in a game like VF4 no way. It's not like your character magically started floating in the first place.

 

No offense Marginal, but, you really do not understand what I wrote. At all. Maybe the concepts I'm writing are a little out there, maybe it's that natural defensiveness that arises when someone else evaluates a game that the person likes....whatever.

I'll make one last attempt to say the same thing again for the third time in a different way.


Okaaaay then.... How do 10 strings relate to SC? Tekken's 10 strings seem to mainly catch scrubs. (Those don't even qualify as educated beginners.)

Let's assume that a genius in fighting games exists. The kind of guy that just has a talent for fighting games and can become dominant in any game he/she chooses to excel in. Now let's further assume that he has NEVER played Tekken in his life. So this person picks up Tekken for the first time, spends a couple of games with Paul against the arcade CPU. Figures out Paul's important moves, and he feels he's ready to get some competition and he challenges someone. He fights against some people, and he does pretty well. It's not that complicated. Throws are easy to escape and most of it is just poking and trading hits. But then, out of nowhere, an opponent pulls out a super-scrubby 10-hit string!

Do you think this fighting game genius can successfully defend against a 10-hit string when facing it for the first time??? The answer is HELL NO. He might learn after eating a few hits here and there a few times, but damn, there are a lot of 10-hit strings to learn and that's a lot of potential damage he has to eat unless he wants to study that stuff at home. And most people aren't fighting game geniuses.

SC is similar to Tekken in that context in that there are many strings in SC that are very difficult to block/evade/GI if you're not familiar with those strings. Thus there is a lot of memorization/studying/learning involved before two opponents can get down to the good stuff and use those strings as a platform for guessing games. Get what I'm saying?


sc.relaxism.com has some footage of my Maxi use in the section marked "Marginal" (tho I'm not sure how that'll help the discussion). Level of comp's solid around here incidently.

Cool, I'll check it out when I get broadband (hopefully soon). I'll try to imagine what your Jacky looks like from the video. /versus/images/icons/wink.gif


Maxi has to worry about not being hit as much as any other character does. Offensive flow's fine, but a decent player knows where to stick roadblocks. If the Maxi player's not good with parries, blocking, attack fakes etc, he's going to get mauled.

Don't even try to argue that Astaroth can be as offensively suffocating as Maxi, or that a good defense is more important to Maxi than it is for Astaroth. With Astaroth, it's all about landing three or four big hits. I mean, damn, how can you argue against that? Of course, defense is always important for any character in any game, but we're talking about relative values here.


That's... Interesting, but it hasn't been bourne out by most of the experienced SC players that moved over to SC2. Much of the SC1 play carried over to SC2 quite well. The theories behind Taki, Nightmare, or Talim remain essentailly the same even if Talim's a totally new character. You have to be more careful, but anyone who's moved to a new character's going to be at a greater disadvantage trying to learn the strings than someone using Maxi, or one of the older characters that ended up being relatively unchanged.

Well in your original reply "That particular experienced beginner's going to maul raw beginners," you never made it clear whether you were generalizing or referring specifically to myself. I assumed the former and responded accordingly. If it's the latter you meant...well, I did play SC1 some, but I didn't get equal experience against every character. Naturally, I had more practice against certain characters and certain styles, and so there are a lot of gaping holes in my SC1 game. And so, I didn't have that much to carry over to SC2. (But who cares about my personal experience, we're talking about larger, more conceptual issues...right?)


His bullrush is a strong anti A tool for example. (Punishing A's only takes the ability to recognize a high attack, which any VF player can do.)

His bullrush, unfortunately, has been majorly toned down in SC2. As for your second statement, that's obvious...just parry if the AAs are plentiful. But that's your assumption.


You seem to be throwing out a lot of generalities like Asta lacking an equivalent to a ducking punch in VF4.

That's not a generalization, that's a FACT!! Unless you want to consider the GI as a form of LP...but I don't think the comparison would be valid. (Do you understand that stuff I wrote about the LP and how it structures the game?)


What I'm getting at is how difficult or easy the adjustment is... Is up to you.

You write that as though I'm a lazy scrub (OK, I AM kind of lazy). If I want to be really good at SC2, I know exactly what to do.

1. Print the movelists (or buy a mook)
2. Study the strings
3. Try them out myself or challenge people that use them
4. Get comfortable with the hit levels, the execution times of attacks, the initiative after, the direction of dodging if necessary, and what options are available in terms of flow for every character
5. Pick Astaroth, GI, and PILLAGE

See? I know what to do if I want to get good. I'm actually very comfortable with SC2's system (except the dodging, for now).

Now, before someone writes, "But all those things you have to do for every fighting game!" STOP, because it would only demonstrate how that person has no freaking clue what I've been writing. And I don't want to repeat myself for the fourth time!

Remember the point is that in SC there is just more studying (steps 1-4) necessary in order to compete at a more interesting level than in other games.


Spending a few minutes over at SC.com would do a lot to clear up the gripes you've been voicing.

Oh God no. Explaining oneself can be quite exhausting. And this is to only one person, you, and you seem like a reasonably intelligent guy. It'll be a madhouse if I post this in GI.com or SC.com, and the consequences are definitely not worth the effort.


I'm not sure how you can do that while saying that SC's system doesn't make much sense.

Huh? Did I say that? Where did I say SC's system doesn't make sense? /versus/images/icons/confused.gif Where are you getting this stuff from?

 

I believe that SC is an advanced version of DOA in such that all of the characters have GI, a similar way to cause guaranteed damage and the player needs to have greater knowledge of the characters but the choices still almost are very close to paper-rock-scissors situations (GI, mid, low or circular, repeat) with less reward than DOA's system.

OK, but it should be emphasized how long the reversal windows are in DOA (and how it can be done mid-stun), and how it automatically takes a lot of damage. In SC2 the window is awfully short in comparison, and GIs guarantee nothing (except quicker AAs?).

 

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OK, but it should be emphasized how long the reversal windows are in DOA (and how it can be done mid-stun), and how it automatically takes a lot of damage. In SC2 the window is awfully short in comparison, and GIs guarantee nothing (except quicker AAs?).

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, that's what I meant by less rewarding. In DOA, your guess is often final once made. If you threw someone with a command throw, the opponent had no chance to break it. Similarly, if you countered a hit then you would get guaranteed damage. In SC, you get very little advantage for guessing GIs correctly and yes, the window is smaller (33 frames vs 12 frames I believe). DOA's counter stun cancel system is also another paper-rocks-scissors situation as you have to guess one of three hit areas for the counter or you get staggered again. SC2 doesn't reward janken as much and there are more options available to the player but I don't see it as more than advanced DOA. You have to janken faster for less reward and think about a few more things.

 

Wow, I just saw this and felt like I had to comment.

WCMaxi, one of the world's greatest soul calibur players, now lives in Chicago and I've had the pleasure of learning and playing against him this past summer. I think I've learned how to play the game pretty well during that time.

Didn't really read through most of the complaints, but I will say this. Soul Calibur is a fun game. I think from a system stand point, it's not as good compared to VF, but it's deep enough to play it on a serious level and not get too bored with what's going on.

It's not that hard to pick up and start playing. Every game requires a certain amount of memorization. It doesn't take that long to pick up on all the different strings as long as you are taking it seriously and paying attention.

Of course if you're more willing to keep and open mind and try to get used to things you'll probably end up enjoying it. But if you get stuck in the mindset of comparing everything to VF, then you're going to get dissapointed. I did this with Tekken and absolutely hated the game. Now, I think it's pretty fun. No where near as good as vf, but still fun in it's own right. That's how I feel about sc2, although it's not quite as bad as tekken compared to vf. /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif

 

Heh, good old WCMaxi, guy banned me from SC forums and the SC chatroom after I bragged about the horrible defeat I handed him at E3 99, it became personal.
Maybe Reno remembers /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

Annyways, you might have noticed that this discussion is not about SC but rather about SC2 so why you drag SC1 into this as justification is kinda beyond me I guess.

 

I gotta put my input on this at a later date. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif After I play some more. But you guys should listen to Marginal, He knows good shit.

 

Geeze, this just gets worse and worse... now SC's being compared to the worst 3d fighting game ever made? DOA? *Vomits*

GI's insure nothing. Not even in SC2. You can still attempt to GI Taki's AA etc (even if the timing's extremely stringent). For that matter in SC2, you cal also soul charge cancel the GI'ed state, or a GI whiff. DOA is pure janken. SC2 despite its warts does little to reward or encourage janken games. (Really, why would anyone want a fighter that plays like a game you can do with just a hand and antoher poor slob who also happens to think that taking a 1 in 3 chance is fun?Shallow gameplay's a poor way to foster interesting gameplay...)

The whole point of promising nothign post Gi is to make a player explore other options. Low attacks, attack fakes, attacking, or throwing straight out etc. Not sure how more complexity equates to less rewarding gameplay. Eh.

Ice, I've mainly been speaking in a general sense. Even my suggestion to go to SC.com was a suggestion for you to read some of the strategy threads on Astaroth, not to go trolling. /versus/images/icons/wink.gif (Keyword being READ the forums not repost it here. If I was that concerned that you didn't like SC2's learning curve, I'd have simply linked this thread to SC.com myself...) There are lots of resources in the forums, newbie silencers etc that contain a lot of the more common Astaroth strategy discussions etc. Going through those would take considerably less time than trying to flowchart out Asta's movelist, learning all blocking heights etc.

Going by comments from Asta players there, most Asta players do not fold up in close, and their play style involves a lot of charging forward etc rather than turtling or doing nothing but keeping people at range.

I keep mentioning the A's because if you even see one, there's your opening. You don't wait for it to finish, you punish the high attack right there.

(Risks being told "you don't understand" again)

This goes right back to the ten string example. There's no reason to try to block it all. Not if there's a high poke in it that you can punish with a low attack, a whiffed attack that leaves the potential for a throw etc. Why sit there trying to memorize the attack heights if any high attack leaves them wide open for a counter hit?

My point, (such as it is) can pretty much be summed up like this: You're making the learning process too hard. Because of that, I'm not surprised you don't feel too motivated to play.

The idea behind my other posts was that other modes of thought, or at least a different perspective could speed the learning process. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point of the thread was.

 

re: - Air control
I'm just talking about some way to mitigate the juggle damage

There actually is already a mitigator in place, damage scaling. It's pretty severe. You lose a minimum of 20% per hit for in-float attacks and further along the scale 40, 50, and 60 percent. Lengthy combos are OK to show off while short combos are the best to inflict damage. That might sound like it makes combos boring, but it actually has the opposite effect - it's no longer ideal to do TFT, knee, then some variation of swipes-PPPK for EVERY character. There are now at least six TFT combos one should keep in mind vs. different pairs of characters if you want to maximize damage.

I mean it makes sense that Pai is more air mobile than Jefferey.

I generally say that realism is a stupid point to make in a fighting game, but I think from the designer's standpoint it just doesn't make sense to have someone able to control themselves in the air. You certainly can't in real life... try being like Mario and jumping in one direction, then changing your mind and turning around in midjump. It just cannot ever happen. You have SOME control over what happens when you land, but nothing at all you can do when airborne. Once she's kneed in the chest and starts flying backwards, Pai wouldn't have any more air control than a falling safe.

To some extent VF4 has actually already done something a bit like what you have in mind - without TR's and QR's you can be hit on the ground at least once more after almost any combo, and sometimes up to 4 or 5 times more. So instead of having air control to stop stupidly strong float combos, we have tech rolls to stop stupidly long otb combos.

Finally the best argument I could come up with against air control for VF is simply that it's not part of the already carefully wrought gameplay system. You can argue street fighter 2/3/etc have better jumping systems than VF and mid air techning, but jumpkicks and move cancels are the meat of street fighter combos while floats, crumples, or flops are the way the designers chose to make VF. It doesn't mean VF is inferior, it's just different. The implementation of air control would break or alter other parts of the game, like tech rolling... if you can stop combos while still in the air, obviously there's no need for concern about OTB hits.

- 8WR
forgive my laziness, I could probably find your reasons for the statement, but could you reiterate them? I wouldn't be shocked if you were correct, eight way walking (nothing to do with dodging, just the act of ambling in one direction) seems to have little to do with serious fights in VF, sort of like how takeoff kicks were always fairly limited use in VF2/3.

- Range games
This is way waaaaay too vague. Every VF character has a range that they'r well suited to and some are flexible. Is it true you can always get the best stagger setups and combos from shorter-range attacks? Sure, but that's because nobody wants to play a VF character like SF2:CE's m.bison ... if you could do anything even remotely powerful from a 10-mile-long safe range, it'd be dull and encourage chicken play, so long range moves like lions' df+K+G or kage's ff+PKG are made very risky.

In any case it's just a matter of scale. The ranges in SC might be 1 real inch, 2 real inches, 4 real inches ... while in VF they're 1/2 inch, 1 inch, 1.5 inches... but both games still have special moves and tactics suited to short, mid, and long ranges.

Attack inertia (weight)

it's in VF but it's subtle. When wolf's HCB+P,P is blocked, the opponent goes back a few inches. When lion puts his whole weight into f,f+P you fly back a little, turning a theoretically throw counterable move into an uncounterable move. The pushback effect also makes akira's single palm safe and makes akira's double palm seem less counterable than it truly is (you can throw it if you block it, but the grab seems to happen from 2 inches away)

There are more extreme examples with lau's f+K+G, kage's f,f+P+K, and the various block stagger effects you see when you block wolf's flying dropkick, charged attacks, shun's flying headbutt, etc.

 

In SC, any attack that hits low will usually connect with someone down.

True of VF, tho it doesn't mean ALL low attacks, just low to the ground... all low kicks, sweeps, hand sweeps, and some weird ones like akira's bodycheck...

If they try to techroll, you can hit them with the result usually being a juggle.

Ditto VF but you could argue VF is a little deeper. Rather than a simple guaranteed combo that direly punishes tech rolls, it sets up a 50/50 guessing game in the attacker's favor. Guessing games aren't always better than straight damage but I think they are here (if it's guaranteed then you might as well never tech roll and eat a 25 pt pounce). If I'm reading correctly that's how GI's or whatever were changed in SC? So that you get less guaranteed? Or am I misreading?

It's a very powerful way to give the prone opponent pause before they attempt a quick rising attack.

Vf sort of has an equivalent too... you CAN do a quick rising attack in VF, but if you roll first or delay it's less risky and less easily interrupted. A standard in place rising attack is more easily floated/combo'd by a knee or equivalent combo tool.

re: the HCF motion from b to u to f, that allows you to get up faster than usual so that you can then do a regular attack .. .. does anyone have a reason to not use it? I sort of have to see to get an idea of how fun being able to do ANY attack when you rise is. You might be right, it may be deeper than having the rising attack system. Or it might just be like having no rising system really, the battle just continues right away from a standing position - sort of like a really quick version of the VF P+K+G.

All that on top of being able to roll in any direction while on the ground, or possibly recover from a combo in mid air.

Vf had the roll in any direction (well, f,b,u,or,d) in VF4, but the forward roll was removed for some reason. Not sure why. Imo it added a hair of depth to the game, but then again you can get pretty good rewards (like a throw) from a rising attack and maybe the designers wanted to ensure nobody's encouraged to just play dead like Lei Down in TK3. As for the air control, eh, that sounds like an equivalent to TRing, except maybe it shortens combos even further.

Air Control does makes the juggling game better. (Not much yomi involved in say, a Lau juggle comparatively...)

That's a cheap argument /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif .... every fighting game these days has true combos vs. not-true combos. If I knew a single guaranteed 4 hit soul calibur combo I'd say "not much brains in XXXX either" .. but since I don't, how about 'not much brains in a cassandra stun infinite'?
Soul calibur has guaranteed combos and combos that are avoidable by air control.
VF has guaranteed combos and combos that are avoidable by QR/TR.
In both games I'm betting people who don't avoid combos by using air control/TR look sort of dumb. Is there ever a reason to NOT use air control? There's definitely a reason to not TR in VF.

But if Cassie's infinite makes VF4 people feel better about themselves.... (They're losers. Heh.)

There's a pretty big different between 45% life and 100% life /versus/images/icons/smile.gif ... infinites are pretty poor. If the game designers make infinites possible on accident, then 55% is probably possible on purpose without godlike skills... correct me if I'm wrong, where do SC2 combos generally max out assuming we're not talking cassie's infinite? In VF they max out at between 40-50 percent without fail, pai and aoi getting their best non-wall floats at around 35-38 percent, wolf and jeff closer to 45-48%.

To be fair, almost NONE of the 'perfect damage' float combos take godlike skill. Wolf's is the best example... f+K, P, b+P, u+P. Pretty easy, doesn't need an interrupt vs. most characters, does about 46 percent.
But I don't try to claim that VF has the best, hardest, coolest combo system out there, just one that's decently balanced and balances risk with reward pretty well.

 

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True of VF, tho it doesn't mean ALL low attacks, just low to the ground... all low kicks, sweeps, hand sweeps, and some weird ones like akira's bodycheck...

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not talking about juggles on a bouncing opponent. I'm talking about when you're opponent's *down* in a prone posistion having failed (or just not wanted to) recover from the fall beforehand. I was under the impression that at least up to Version C that VF didn't allow just any low attack to hit grounded. Instead, you get stuck with a handful of things (like Jacky's soccer kick etc).

In the case of a techroll in SC, it's more of a tradeoff. You don't have to roll directly at your opponent. If you do, and they pop you up, you're going to take some damage. You can always roll backwards, to the side etc which makes pursuit and resulting damage much harder to mete out.

In all, I tend to go with the idea that more options on the ground leads to more more depth in general. SC still contains elements like Ura, body crossing etc, a well spaced and timed 66K by Maxi can even make an opponent rise facing the wrong direction and so on. Not to mention the interrupt potential. Rising does enforce a few rules that you can exploit if you're quick in SC....

In cases where they are ready for a techroll etc, you're probably just being too predictible. You always have the option of just staying on the ground, quick recovery etc which'll diminish the damage, or allow you to block (in the case of a quick rise)

GI's insure nothing really. You parry, and anything you throw back can then be parried/repelled by your opponent. (Presuming they can judge your attack height properly.) Damage post GI requires a fair amount of effort at high level play. Lotsa attack cancels, slow moves, reposistioning abd the like start coming out to bait the reGI attempt. GI's are simpler to do in SC2, but that's about as far as it goes (Without getting into the various glitches that keep turning up. With the glitches... There's still no whopping advantage.)

The thing with AC is, it can shorten floats, or it can prolong them. Certain situations, like being at the ring's edge will restrict air control options that would've been available to you in that direction etc. You can still try to avoid the juggle in that direction, but you get to lose the round for your trouble in such cases. /versus/images/icons/wink.gif SC also modifies damage based on length of the float as VF does. 70% for the first hit, less for each successive hit.

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That's a cheap argument .... every fighting game these days has true combos vs. not-true combos. If I knew a single guaranteed 4 hit soul calibur
combo I'd say "not much brains in XXXX either" .. but since I don't, how about 'not much brains in a cassandra stun infinite'?

[/ QUOTE ]Cassie's inifinte takes about zero brains to apply. At 33 frames, landing that first hit takes some doin' tho.

Anyway, the point was that Once the opponent's been popped up by Lau, the opponent doesn't really have much to do but wait to come down. (Not much of a mindgame there in other words.) Lau could be breaking out a combo with insane timing parameters in an amazing display of skill etc, but the opponent's pretty much doing nothing while floating around...

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If the game designers make infinites possible on accident,
then 55% is probably possible on purpose without godlike skills... correct me if I'm wrong, where do SC2 combos generally max out assuming we're not
talking cassie's infinite? In VF they max out at between 40-50 percent without fail, pai and aoi getting their best non-wall floats at around 35-38 percent,
wolf and jeff closer to 45-48%.

[/ QUOTE ]Cassie's infinite works simply because it leaves her with less recovery time than the opponent's histun. She hits them, they spin around, and Cassie loads up another and hits them again while they're stuck in the stun animation. (Seems to be an oversight since it's so amazingly sloppy.) Most hits of that nature by other characters don't get much better than 50% at most. There are exceptions, like in SC1 Maxi had an inifinite but that required getting a counter hit stun going for the initial hit on the opponent's back. Royal pain to land in practice. SC2's still new enough that the full damage ranges aren't out there. Astaroth does however have an 80% combo (though presumably the final move is escapeable via air control, which would make it unremarkable...)

In general however, SC2's damage levels seem toned down vs SC1. IMO, it has checks and balances enough in the combo system to make it worth my time. YMMV. /versus/images/icons/grin.gif

 

DOA the worst 3d fighter ever made?!
You're being harsh here!!
I would hand this title to games like fighting layers, or maybe Fighting wu shu...
Or if you think about PC games, Fighter's FX...
Don't seem to remember other crappy games...
Personnaly I find DOA 3 fun, it's not as good as it could have been but it's fun nonetheless /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

Anyway, I wanted to ask you, are the SC fans happy in general with this sequel or not?

 

CreeD: Most of your options/tricks involve working around the kick. Although I brutally overlooked what can be done even at that stage, VF's semi-invincibility still just irks me.
SC: As well as what you listed, and Marginal added(Marg: Don't remember me? I'm a GI member....just don't have SC is all...and I'll only see SC2 as soon as a European with no arcades; 2003 ugh), you can leave the opponent be and soul charge. (if your SCUB knocks down, then that's another okizeme for free).

 

So let's say I float my opponent and I anticipate he's going to use air control in the hopes of avoiding my air combo. Can I use this in any way to my advantage? Or is air control essentially a free get out of jail card?

Depends how long your combo was going to be; AC only starts after the first hit...2 hit juggles are generally unaffected....otherwise you have to give up some damage. If the opponent ACs(well) you have to either forward-track them a moment or juggle with inferior As. (that's how I remember it)

 

In reply to an earlier post:
I mean attacks that hit you while grounded

me too, VF's got a ton of them now in VF4... all low kicks, most sweeps, akira's bodycheck, lau's df+P+K shrieking knifehand, as well as his b,b+P turnaway knife... pai's f,f+P... kage's d/f+K+G ...aoi's f+KK ...shun's df+P. Failure to tech roll can turn shun's QCF+ ... ... [here they tech roll] into QCF+ ... ............... [the last four hits all smack a grounded enemy].

re: it doesn't take any brains for the floated opponent vs lau...
this still is a nonpoint. A true combo is a true combo and it's by definition something you can't do anything about. Surely there's combos like that in soul calibur 1/2 where the opponent might as well let go of the controls for a few seconds. I'm assuming as you said that there are x number of hits that the opponent will ALWAYS eat even if they use air control. Or when expert players play there's ALWAYS a guaranteed 3 or 4 hits that work if you use an inferior A rather than something bigger. I'd think it'd hurt your argument to argue that you can get out of any combo with a little bit of brains in SC2, because a combo is a fair reward for a risky move (like that slowass 33 frame cassie attack /versus/images/icons/crazy.gif )

Even teching out of floats takes a LITTLE bit of brains and skill in VF. You can't do much about hits 3 feet above the floor, but the ability to tech roll activates surprisingly far from the floor, like ~1 foot. Using the lau example, any akira player can frequently roll out of the sweep in D/F+PPPPsweep (akira's a tubby bastard), but it's not obvious... it LOOKS like a true combo and registers as a true combo on the PS2 if they fail to get out.

A better example might be this - kage's TFT has been a bit neutered and his max combo vs. everyone is 80-84 points. There's an EASY tech rollable combo of ~86 points, and the average guy might assume they're helpless because the combo ends in a move that slams you (preventing TR's) and then a low kick that scrapes you off the floor, followed by one of the df+K ground hits. You can TR after the low kick, but the timing is tight and to the naked eye it doesn't look doable. Not much brains, but you reduce the combo damage by like 20 points if you have the timing and know what you're doing. My point in all of that is that while teching is a given vs. good players, it's easy to be fooled into thinking you can't tech and there are some brains needed in understanding where and when you can tech. There's also some timing and reflexes to being able to tech off-the-floor hits, it's not just mash the command once you're down. A few moves (the ones that make you spin when you're hit) make it harder. Is air control in soul calibur ever hard or does it need pretty tight timing? (asking seriously here, not to be a wiseass).


BTW your air control example near rings applies to VF as well... if the edge of the ring is parallel to the game screen, I'd be dumb to press d+PKG to get out of a combo there, I'd roll out. Alternately I might know that rolling with u+PKG might allow my enemy to harass me with a move like akira's b,f+PK .. which smacks tech rolls pretty effectively. So I get up with P+K+G and hope akira went for b,f+PK anyway. Or I stay down, but he better not have had the foresight/reflexes to see that, otherwise I'd prolly eat another 25 pts of damage.
======

From your description air control it sounds more and more like teching... AC side to side or straight back vs. teching side to side or straight up.
I wouldn't want air control in VF though. Damage scaling takes care of stuff like kage's TFT combo, the idea that even the 3-hit, 80 point TFT combos might be screwed up by the victim doesn't sound good.

PS - 80% doesn't sound too hot either. I know who amma pick in the SC tournament if cassandra is banned outright /versus/images/icons/smile.gif
PPS - sorry this is so long. Arguing with a windy typist can be tedious, I know /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

 

Harold, you know me, I give all games an open chance. It's mainly that outside of VF, I usually don't have the motivation to really "master" a game. I prefer to know the key things and then just play for fun. That's my approach to Tekken, CvS2, 3S, DOA2, etc. It just seems that I'm not going to get as much success as I've had in those other games as I will in SC2 with that kind of effort. Defending against those fast characters without any study is pretty tough...it's like facing Eddy Gordo for the first time, but against many more characters. But of course I will adjust, eventually.

It doesn't take that long to pick up on all the different strings as long as you are taking it seriously and paying attention.

Yeah...but you're naturally talented at fighting games!!

Of course if you're more willing to keep and open mind and try to get used to things you'll probably end up enjoying it

I do, it is a fun game when I know what's going on. Heh heh. Anyway, I did play a few games again today...quite a crowd at the arcade. I think there were a few players from SC.com and GI.com playing. I didn't fare too badly, about 50%. Of course, my matches were against Nightmare, Ivy, and Mitsurugi...

 

Ice, I've mainly been speaking in a general sense. Even my suggestion to go to SC.com was a suggestion for you to read some of the strategy threads on Astaroth, not to go trolling.

Yeah, I did check out a few of the threads there (I'll probably do a much more comprehensive read through once I get that damn cable connection). It's all kind of academic at this point though...a lot of the stuff currently there are holdovers from SC1, and Asty's new stuff doesn't seem all that compelling yet on a basic, general level. But I'm sure more stuff will come in.

I keep mentioning the A's because if you even see one, there's your opening. You don't wait for it to finish, you punish the high attack right there.

Marginal...think about what you just wrote there. And pair that up with your recommendation of using Asty's B in that situation.

(Risks being told "you don't understand" again)

This goes right back to the ten string example. There's no reason to try to block it all. Not if there's a high poke in it that you can punish with a low attack, a whiffed attack that leaves the potential for a throw etc. Why sit there trying to memorize the attack heights if any high attack leaves them wide open for a counter hit?

Heh heh..."you don't understand."

Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point of the thread was.

To be honest, I haven't even read the other "VF and SC comparison" posts in this thread. My intention was merely to share my little insight...one which I don't really consider an argument, since it's so...unarguable it's practically a truism.

That's why I'm quite surprised my post received such a vociferous response. I just thought how interesting it was that most people see VF as a difficult game to get into and SC as an easy game to learn. While that's true for complete beginners, it is actually the opposite for experienced beginners.

 

Heh, I understand the whole mastery thing. If it weren't for the fact that there are such strong players around here, I don't think I would have gotten into the game as much as I have. It's fun though. Another side game to play at Vf gatherings. ha ha.

 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Heh, good old WCMaxi, guy banned me from SC forums and the SC chatroom after I bragged about the horrible defeat I handed him at E3 99, it became personal.
Maybe Reno remembers

Annyways, you might have noticed that this discussion is not about SC but rather about SC2 so why you drag SC1 into this as justification is kinda beyond me I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seeing as how this discussion is about sc2, why you would assume I'm talking about sc1 is kinda beyond me as well. Especially when I had even written "sc2 " somewhere in my post.

It's obvious that bringing up WCMaxi brought back some bitter memories for you. But knowing him and your obnoxious attitude, it's not surprising that you were banned. Fuck off.