VF4 EVO ONLINE?

Zangief's Final Atomic Buster
+

Geese's Deadly Rave
+ light, light, light, light, light, med, med,heavy,heavy, + heavy

Move of Doom in VF4
+



Heh, I'm kidding here, too of course, /versus/images/icons/laugh.gif but this online fighting stuff is going to make me into a MS ho' .

 

Why not just an alternate VF series that isn't as technical but is designed just for PC? New characters even, rather than dumbing down the beloved ones...

And is this talk of lag sound kind of VF perfectionist? If you're playing a PC version and you miss a move you would have hit and you lose, well, isn't it just as well to have been playing at all? And didn't the other guy win using whatever moves he got off, despite the lag?

 

Talk of lag isn't perfectionism, it really just ruins the game, even at lower levels. I used to think a "decent" ping in a game like quake was anything under 250. Now I think of "decent" ping as anything under 60. There are probably those who would say it really isn't 'decent' until it's under 20, but that's probably the perfectionist attitude you're thinking of.

Anyway there are a bunch of examples of how lag can screw up a match.

0 lag situation: Kage blocks jacky's knee, and throws him with a TFT. Jacky loses 40% of his life and possibly goes out of the ring. The throw is guaranteed because jacky is helpless for exactly 1/5th of a second before he's allowed to move or attack after his knee is blocked. The throw takes only about 1/10th of a second to come out, so it will be successful. A punch would also work, barely - a punch generally takes 1/5th of a second to come out.

At 10 ping: The throw will still work, but a punch will not. Jacky can always block the punch 100% of the time. That means a more conservative kage who likes to do P,P,b+P after blocking jacky's knee will have to forget about his easy, guaranteed 37 points of damage. He is forced to try for a throw, which jacky can of course escape.

At 100 ping: Jacky can now beat a throw by attacking immediately after his knee is blocked. Nothing is guaranteed for kage, jacky will simply be almost entirely safe every time he tries a knee and it's blocked. It's not too fair to try for a knee combo that takes off over 1/3rd of your life and then be able to be safe from the enemy's counterattack.


Realistically, if I have nice cable or DSL and connect to someone else's cable or DSL, I can expect at least 50 ping, which is 3 frames of lag in VF. With that little bit of lag you can probably still play but moves like akira's knee would be impossible and moves like spod or DLC would be harder.

 

I don't think VF for PS2 would need an internet version if it supported the i.Link hub or ethernet card for network play. With a kind of network/tournament mode, that could make people completely forget about an online version, and have tolerable lag, methinks.