The Marvelous Essentials team is back with another episode of their biweekly Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 round table discussion podcast. In addition to the regular roster, tonight the crew will be joined by special guest Kevin “Dual Kevin” Barrios.
The show is set to open with a spotlight feature for Dual Kevin, after which the team will discuss the Naptown Clutch and Rumble in the Tundra tournaments. Additionally, they’ll be discussing the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capacom 3 8v8 draft that’s been drawing some attention in the scene. As always, have your questions ready for the Q&A at the end!
We’ve embedded the stream below for convenience, or you can head over to Twitch to join the chat.
The folks over at VGBootCamp recently went live with another installment of Smash @ Xanadu from Xanadu Games in Baltimore, Maryland. These weekly broadcasts provide a great look at the region’s Smash community, with tonight’s stream focusing entirely on Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and its recent patch.
The stream is live below, but you can also head on over to Twitch to join the chat.
For many, Capcom’s decision to develop Street Fighter V exclusively for PlayStation 4 and PC came as quite a shock. And while the initial surprise has worn off a bit, GamesRadar was able to catch up with executive producer Yoshinori Ono to discuss the factors that led them down this path.
“We wanted to really unify the community,” Ono divulged by way of a translator. “In previous titles we’d say, ‘We’re having a tournament,’ and [it was] like, ‘Which version? Is it PC, Xbox, PlayStation? Which joystick should I bring? Which framerate should I practice in?’ It was all over the place. We wanted to have it be one place to play Street Fighter.”
Folks in the fighting game community will remember Xbox 360 quickly becoming the platform of choice during Street Fighter IV’s lifetime due to ongoing issues with the PlayStation 3 versions. With development focused solely on one console and additional support from Sony themselves, it appears as if Capcom is looking to improve that experience in Street Fighter V while also giving competitors a dedicated meeting ground for tournaments.
Street Fighter V is scheduled to launch on February 16.
Later today, Rising Thunder’s alpha build will receive yet another patch, adding new content, balance adjustments, and more to the free-to-play title.
Apart from visual upgrades, players can look forward to slight damage reductions on Dauntless’ Charged Piston Tremor and Revolving Hook, a brand new Vlad variant that offers projectile-invulnerability and a wallbounce in exchange for longer startup and recovery, consistency improvements for Edge’s Merciful Gust, and a whole lot more.
We’re unsure when this update will drop, but you’ll find the full range of changes below to study beforehand.
Rising Thunder 11/17 Patch Notes
Chel
Stinging Wind’s (S3v2) initial hit range has been reduced slightly.
Dev Notes: Stinging Wind still combos consistently from triple light attack chains, but sometimes misses after c.M at long range. Frankly, this variant had more range than needed to serve its purpose, and remains extremely useful without the extra conversion coverage.
Supernova (OD) invulnerability has been reduced by 2 frames.
Dev Notes: This change forces Chel to become vulnerable for 1 frame before kinetic-canceling Supernova, which creates some interesting counter-play options. Capitalizing on it requires good positioning and strict timing, since the projectile is guaranteed to appear. Chel may still come out on top in most cases, but the possibilities are expanded.
Crow
Aerial Core Slicer (S2) damage has been reduced from 100 to 90, dizzy has been reduced from 150 to 100, and meter gain has been reduced from 120 to 80.
Dev Notes: Crow simply generates too much damage/dizzy/meter from midscreen combos and loops, and Aerial Core Slicer is a big part of that equation. These numbers are more appropriate for such an effective and versatile tool.
Dauntless
Charged Piston Tremor (S2v2) damage has been reduced from 150 to 140.
Revolving Hook (S3v1) damage has been reduced from 150 to 135.
Dev Notes: The power hits system pushed Dauntless’ damage output a bit too high. These changes should allow her to retain above average damage potential, without going too far overboard.
Due to server cleanup, Dauntless users may notice their variant selection has been reset. Re-selecting variants should save them again. We don’t expect any further issues.
Edge
Reduced Merciful Gust (S3v2) knockback slightly, to improve midscreen S3v2 -> OD consistency.
Talos
Walk forward and walk back speeds have been increased by 10%.
Dev Notes: Talos needs to play footsies in order to close distance and put his opponent in the danger zone. Increasing his movement speed should help him get to his preferred spots.
Meteor Breaker (S1v1) and Titan Smash (S2v1) now reach max charge after frame 25 rather than frame 50. (This is an experimental change.)
Meteor Breaker (S1v1) charge is now throw invulnerable during its first 5 frames. Uncharged Meteor Breaker is still throw invulnerable during startup frames, but not during active frames.
Charged Meteor Breaker (S1v1) is now a power hit, mainly to make it more viable after dizzying opponents.
Dev Notes: Despite their damage potential, the charged versions of Meteor Breaker and Titan Smash rarely impacted high level matches. These changes should make them more prevalent in Talos’ gameplan, hopefully without oversimplifying the interaction between players.
Titan Wreck (S2v2) now auto-faces opponents until frame 6.
Dev Notes: F+H works well against frontal jump attacks, but Talos suffered a bit too much against crossups. This change gives him a more reliable option against repeated crossup pressure, especially when cornered – although using it properly still requires good timing.
Magnetic Buster (S3v1) damage has been increased from 50 to 85.
Dev Notes: Even though Magnetic Buster is extremely useful as a setup tool for S1/S2 mixups, Spartan Rush (S3v3) actually has more utility in the current meta. To compensate, Magnetic Buster damage deserved a bump.
Aerial Magnetic Attract and Aerial Spartan Rush meter gain has been increased slightly, to match Crow’s Aerial Core Slicer.
Vlad
New S3 variant! Bolshoi Bash goes through projectiles and sends opponents off the wall, but has longer startup and recovery than Clobbering Rush.
Bug Fixes
Ground throws no longer trigger juggle scaling when used on dizzy opponents.
Standardized landing frame properties in ground attacks with airborne frames, such as Chel’s S3v2, Crow’s F+H, and Edge’s S3v1 overhead.
Dev Notes: There were some inconsistencies in when these attacks were considered airborne or grounded. Now those attributes should all match their animations and frame data exactly.
Visual Improvements
New Vlad textures for shinier spinning!
Stylish new VFX for all of Chel’s blade and projectile attacks!
Slight pose improvements to Chel’s c.M.
Talos’ walk animations have been toughened up.
Under the Hood
Updated to Unreal Engine 4.9. If anything breaks or acts funny, let us know in the Bugs and Glitches forum.
If you’ve followed me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been posting long reads on Tuesdays about fighting games. They’ve ranged from how-to guides to strategy and philosophy. This column is a continuation of that.
I want to share my experiences with both new and intermediate players who might be stuck. If you read one of these and think, “Well, that was obvious,” then good! If you take something away from these articles, then that’s good too.
For those of you who have been following these, I’ve added a section called action items at the end of the article. These are a bit like homework – it’s something you can try immediately. Let me know what you think in the comments!
If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, feel free to ask me on Twitter at @LordKnightBB. Previous articles in this series can be found here.
Fundamentally, offense is pretty easy to understand. As a quick review, you can break down a match up to essentially four phases:
Neutral: When you and your opponent aren’t directly attacking each other. It’s essentially the battle for space control and to gain advantage.
Offense: When you are directly attacking the other player, forcing them to block.
Defense: When the other player is attacking you directly, forcing you to block.
Knockdown: When one player gets to set up offense on a downed opponent.
These definitions are very broad. While neutral is a huge topic due to how open the interactions between two players can be, offense, defense and knockdown are a little more narrow. Offense and knockdown, especially, can be practiced alone.
The main idea you want to consider when thinking about offense are intent and your character’s goals. At the most basic level, what’s the point of offense? You want to:
Discourage the opponent from taking certain actions (which vary by character)
Open up their defense with your characters tools (whether it’s command grabs, high/lows, etc)
Some combination of the two
I previously covered the different types of goals characters have in neutral. In that case, almost all the time, none of those goals are mutually exclusive. But it can be different with offense, and this varies depending on the character and the game.
Let’s start by looking at a character that is 100% reliant on discouraging the opponent from taking certain actions. How would you go about structuring your offense?
The goal would be to condition the opponent to feel like there is no safe way to escape your offense. Because you have to set up your offense based on your opponent’s defensive options, you need to make sure you understand them, and how they vary by character. Essentially, you’re looking at:
Backdash
Mashing
Jumping
Reversals (supers, DPs, etc.)
Guard Cancels
Game-specific mechanics (Pushblocking, etc.)
The options your opponent will select will tend to vary by game and character, but you can count on having to at least look at mashing and reversals.
Where you’ll want to start is establish what’s safe. Either you’ll have a move that’s safe on block, something that you can delay cancel late (generally in anime games), or something that puts you in an advantageous position. Take Mitsuru in Persona 4 Arena – a lot of her attacks and strings, on paper, aren’t safe. However, she can always keep herself in an advantageous position by pushing herself out. Since she has so much range, you could easily punish mashing and rolls, and react to jumps.
If your opponent doesn’t respect the offense you’ve established, then great! You just got yourself a free win. But for this type of character, if you only do “safe” (as in, the established safe offense that we discussed above), then you won’t get too far against stronger players. If your opponent understands your character’s offense, from there you can begin to build interactions set up by you to try to get some damage. Doing this can vary greatly by game and character, but keep in mind that the next step would be to create a situation in which they could go for one of those defensive options listed above, but doing something else.
The second type of character can establish themselves in a different way. When a character has a specific mixup tool, like a fast overhead or command grab, you can set up your offense based off that. At a basic level, consider the following:
Type of mixup
These pretty much only fall into a couple of categories – high/low, left/right, poke/throw. The unique aspect is how the character implements whatever they do.
How fast is the mixup tool
Can the opponent see any part of the sequence and act accordingly? As a frame of reference, 18 frames tends to be the agreed line between “reactable” and “unreactable.”
Is the mixup “real”
As in, is the mixup a true 50/50 guess, or can the opponent use some sort of defensive technique to mitigate the severity of the mixup. Examples of defensive techniques would be things like fuzzy block, option select blocking, etc.
How safe is the mixup tool
As in, how safely can you apply the mixup. Can you set it up safely, or do you have to establish respect from your opponet first? A high/low that’s unseeable and is air tight is very safe, but command grabs tend to require the opponent to be scared of something else you have first.
I like to use Valkenhayn in ver.1.0 of BlazBlue: Chronophantasma as an example. I switched to him because not only is his high/low mixup impossible to react to, but it can be implemented in a very safe fashion. On the other hand, most characters in the game have a ground overhead that is possible to react to (between 21-25 frame startup). In addition, while there are answers to specific parts of his offense and defensive techniques the opponent can use to mitigate his offense, there are things that they outright cannot react to. On top of all of those things, because the opponent has to respect his offense, you can take advantage of his command grab.
Action Steps
Identify the type of offense your character has. If your character is the first type, try to figure out options against the defensive options of the character you play against the most. If they’re the second type, try to find ways to implement your offense safely against the character that gives you most difficulty.
With a promising premiere having already laid out the foundation for his journey, Cultivation returned this morning to detail another chapter in the legacy of American competitor Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis. While still focused on Lewis, episode two zeroes in on a pair of influential community members that affected his career: Alex Valle and Daigo Umehara.
After a devastating loss to Umehara at Evo 2015 caused him to barely miss out on qualifying for top eight, where does Lewis’ path lead? Check out the video below to learn more about his road to Capcom Cup, the American competitive scene as a whole, and more.
Editor’s note: In order for English translations of Daigo’s dialogue to show up, you’ll need to enable Closed Captioning in the YouTube player’s settings.
New episodes of Cultivation: House of Snake Eyez are scheduled to debut on a weekly basis leading up to Capcom Cup.
Only a week after opening Cammy pre-orders, Pop Culture Shock has added a sculpture of Mortal Kombat’s Kintaro to their Winter 2016 arrangement. This warrior from the Tigrar clan is set to release in November 2016, and pre-orders have been open since yesterday
Kintaro will come in two variations: the Klassic model, limited to 500 pieces retailing for $499.99, and the Shokan Roar exclusive with interchangeable face, which is restricted to just 275 pieces and $20 more.
Arc System Works’ latest entry in the BlazBlue series, BlazBlue Central Fiction, is set to hit Japanese arcades in just two days, but not without a little bit of news beforehand. On top of additional gameplay systems and newcomers Naoto Kurogane and Hibiki Kohaku, Famitsu has confirmed that another character will be joining the cast of the game: Nine, one of the franchise’s legendary Six Heroes. This probably doesn’t come as shocking news if you’ve been paying attention to Central Fiction’s trailers and visuals, but those of you that had any doubts can rest assured.
Famitsu provided a very small screenshot depicting Nine in-game, showing that she makes use of a unique subsystem meter. Look forward to more info on how the witch plays when Weekly Famitsu drops on November 19, the same day as BlazBlue: Central Fiction’s arcade release.
It appears Dragon’s Dogma Online isn’t the only non-fighting game to have Street Fighter guests this month. Capcom recently announced that some of their iconic world warriors will also be making appearances in the DeNA strategy game Blood Brothers 2 for iOS and Android.
This promotion will see Street Fighter characters like Ryu and Chun-Li join special events to fight against an invasion by M. Bison’s Shadaloo army. More characters are scheduled to appear in future events.
Participating in these events may even net players real-life rewards, including an iPad Pro, a Street Fighter action figure, or a copy of Street Fighter V’s collectors edition box. All you have to do is sign-up here for a chance to win.
The first Street Fighter x Blood Brothers 2 promotion will take place December 2-9, with a second event set for December 17-23. Interested parties can download the game for free through iTunes and Google Play.
Olympic Gaming is back with more Ultra Street Fighter IV action, this week turning their attention to Integra’s Ken. In the video, Mr. Masters faces off against a horde of top online competition including WFX|801 Strider and Tampa Bison.
You can learn more about the featured player in the video’s description, which, in this case, points out that Integra is not part of Team PIE, and the name that appears in the highlighted footage was created simply to troll Smug. If you stick around to the end of the video, you’ll get to see Smug’s priceless reaction to the name through footage taken from one of his streams.
