Everyone has a fighting chance
UYU|Yuyu is one of the most recognizable Ling Xiaoyu players in the world right now in Tekken 7. The demand and expectation of being a high-level player might seem like a dream on the surface, but as she reveals in her latest interview with UYU, it has its own drawbacks and difficulties.
Drawing from her experiences at Wednesday Night Fights and Combo Breaker, Yuyu explains the different energy between the large American majors and the arcade experience she grew up in.
Source: UYU
This weekend sees the next qualifying event in the RED BULL CONQUEST circuit descend upon Denver, Colorado on Saturday, July 28. Willful warriors out to prove themselves will face off in Street Fighter V, Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, and Tekken 7 to earn qualifying spots for the National Finals in Washington, D.C. in November. From the press release:
Red Bull Conquest’s journey to find America’s best fighting game competitors continues, as it makes its next stop in Denver this Saturday, July 28. In this brand new national fighting game tournament, contenders will battle it out in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, TEKKEN 7 and Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 to see who are Denver’s top regional fighters.
On the stream, viewers will catch Colorado’s top fighting game athletes, including up-and-upcoming TEKKEN 7 player Mia “PitVyper” Uwanawich. At only 16 years old, PitVyper is one of the youngest and best performing female TEKKEN athletes, and is getting noticed for her stellar performance at such a young age. In addition, leading Street Fighter V players John “UrbanFlow” Villegas, the 2nd place winner of the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour Online Tournament, and his close challenger Ryan “Nguuhao” Ward will be battling it out, fighting for the crown.
FGC expert and personality Vicious will be hosting the event, sharing insider secrets, competitor strategies, surprising upsets, and all the way through the electrifying final matches of the tournament where 3 competitors will be left standing, ready to rep Denver at the Red Bull Conquest National Finals in Washington, D.C. in November.
Want to watch the fights? Streaming information is as follows:
Denver Red Bull Conquest Qualifier: Saturday, July 28
Schedule: 11:00 AM MT start time (10:00 AM PT)
Link: twitch.tv/redbullesports
Be sure to check it out!
Source: Red Bull Esports [press release]
Well, this is awkward.
Just a few days after HORI announced their own Nintendo Switch-compatible GameCube controllers, American controller manufacture PDP has come out swinging with a very similar product.
To be fair to PDP, it’s a GameCube controller. It probably should be nearly identical to another company’s take on the same design.
Whether pure coincidence or intentional saturation, PDP’s GameCube-style controller does boast at least one feature not present in HORI’s — a detachable C-Stick/Full-Stick accessory for the right thumbstick.
PDP plans to open pre-orders soon, and will ship before the holiday season starts — no surprises there, since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate drops December 7th.
Source: PDP
Editor’s note: Yesterday we peeked inside the Pandora’s Box that is input latency in Street Fighter V, both online and offline. But it seems that was only the beginning of this tricky subject; here’s a follow-up to provide a closer look at some of the lag issues that SFV players — and competitors — are dealing with while we play!
Fighting game player and tech detective DigitalHalftones recently uploaded a YouTube video dissecting Street Fighter V’s rollback netcode, and his findings revealed a shocking discovery: to make up for one-sided rollback, the game’s netcode would introduce lag to another player should their opponent experience even a slight drop in connection. By connecting a PlayStation 4 console and a PC to one network and manually lowering the framerate, DigitalHalftones was able to prove that the opposing connection would lag in turn. This meant that whatever latency was recorded at the end of a round would be introduced in the following round: in other words, SFV outright creates lag to even out the connection between two players. (Original video follows below.)
DigitalHalftones returned with a second, two-minute video (above) in response to comments about crossplay being a potential factor for the lag he recorded. As in the first video, he used the same setup of a PS4 and PC wired to a single internet connection. He began his subsequent experiment by lowering the framerate from 60 fps to 10 fps on his PC, observing that the PC character was skipping on the PS4 side. He then pushed the framerate back up to 60 fps, and while the PC side smoothed out, the PS4 continued to lag, with PC Cammy still skipping across the screen. However, upon the start of the next round, both sides were completely smooth.
DigitalHalftones explained that this event was due to frames dropped at the start of the round, not his connection’s latency between the two systems. “What’s happening is, at the start of the round, when it says ‘Fight,’ the game is looking at the latency, but it’s also looking at the framerate,” he states over the video. “What happens is, when the PS4 lags behind by a couple of frames at the start of the round, the netcode is thinking that’s actual lag. So, say the game is lagging 1 frame, 2 frames, 3 frames? They’re reading that as milliseconds at a time.” With a single frame being equal to 16.6 milliseconds, three frames would be equal to 49.98 ms of artificial lag, causing the opponent’s side to lag just as much in an effort to even out the connection.
“It’s not crossplay that’s the issue,” DigitalHalftones stated. “It’s the system not being able to run or maintain 60 fps, and the netcode. It’s because of the variable input time for the framerate on the PS4.” As is commonly known, PS4s tend to lag when loading — which explains why rounds get worse for players over time when fighting opponents on the console. Through this additional experiment, DigitalHalftones was able to prove that a variable framerate during the start of a round will incite additional rollback that isn’t part of the game.
The term “variable” was also recently uttered by fighting game scientist WydD, who used it to describe his findings of Street Fighter V’s input delay on the PlayStation 4. So far, WydD has tested the game on PC, the PS4 Pro, and the PS4 Slim, where he discovered the game’s variable input latency. He now breaks down his findings in layman’s terms, explaining the cyclical nature of the delay and how it affects gameplay.
“Basically, the game has some kind of internal timer inside its engine,” he stated. “When you plot the amount of lag frames over time during my measures, you get this weird cycle.” The cycle in question looks like an active heart monitor, with lag cycling from 4 frames up to 7 frames, then back down to 4 frames once more. “Basically, when you play the game on a PS4 offline — like in a tournament setup — your input lag is around 4 frames, then goes to 5 frames after a while, then 6 frames, and finally 7 frames… to finally drop to 4 frames again.”
While the cycle is relatively constant, WydD observed that the exact time of the switches varies from session to session, resulting in literally variable input delay. “The timing of the steps varies between sessions, but the overall shape is the same, and the length of the cycle is always around a minute,” he explained. While he stated that he isn’t one hundred percent confident of his findings, he hasn’t observed this cycle on PC, citing colleagues Noodalls and DisplayLag as others who have found similar results.
This variable input delay could definitely have negative effects on players as they duke it out on screen, particularly in regards to hit confirms and reaction timing. “It doesn’t interfere a lot in combos due to the input leniency of SFV,” WydD stated. “The game engine tolerates 5 frames of timing for a 1 frame link. If you’re lucky, you are at the beginning of the cycle and you are generally 3 frames faster in terms of reaction.”
While SFV’s leniency might help give players a fighting chance in this regard, instances can occur that tilt the scale towards saltiness. “There can be other weird instances, like someone presses a light punch and the opponent presses medium/heavy punch one frame after, and the medium punch actually hits anyway because you had a 7 frame delay on the light punch,” he said. “That’s never been seen in experiment, but technically, this could happen.”
WydD also created a series of images that visually represent his findings to better describe this phenomenon. Using Ibuki’s sprite from 3rd Strike, WydD pinpointed the exact frame in which delay begins. Once the command was executed, the screen lost color, and stayed gray until Ibuki’s attack animation was completed. This graphic utilizes his methodology as explained in his YouTube video, but he has since stated that he has improved this setup.
Both WydD’s and DigitalHalftone’s findings indicate that Street Fighter V still has a plethora of issues, at least on the PlayStation 4 platform. With frame drops resulting in actual netcode latency — and worse, the variable, cyclical input delay — the console version of the game leaves much to be desired. As seen in Brandon Chia’s loss in the SEA CPT Online 2, the console version’s build (which is also the CPT tournament standard) can definitely affect players’ performance, potentially leading to whiffed normals and botched reaction times — which, at worst, can cost a competitor a win during an important tournament.
Sources: DigitalHalftones (YouTube); WydD (Twitter)
Arcade Shock, Jasen’s Customs, and Brook Gaming have joined forces to bring you the means to build near-total console compatibility to a single controller: the new Brook Retro Board.
While there are other retro PCBs on the market — such as the Toodle’s MC Cthulhu, or discontinued models like the Akishop’s PS360+ — Arcade Shock wanted players to have access to a rock-solid PCB that would allow compatibility with a wide variety of systems. The Brook Retro Board can be used with the following platforms:
Pairing the Retro Board with Brook’s Universal Fighting Board can offer compatibility with every major gaming console, both old and current-generation. Details follow from Arcade Shock.
With Brook’s expertise in manufacturing and product support, we asked them to work with us and Jasen’s Customs to develop a board that is extremely simple to install, update, and — most importantly — work seamlessly with their Universal Fighting Board. With current methods, it’s possible to use two boards in a single arcade stick; however, they require increased cost and time to mod (labor: 90 minutes or more, for the seasoned modder), two separate cables, a hard switch, or other PCB switching circuits.
With the new Brook Retro Board, a 20-pin Multiplier Board designed by Jasen’s Customs, and included cables, you will be able to toggle between this board and the Brook UFB with a button combo; all of these functions are programmed into the Retro Board’s software, and with no extra hardware required! Using a RJ45 common output, you can use existing products on the market — such as Akishop’s RJ45 to USB, RJ45 to Sega Dreamcast and RJ45 to PS1/PS2 cables. Furthermore, we are in the process of developing NES, SNES, GameCube, and Sega Saturn cables that will use the common RJ45 jack, which has never been offered on a commercial basis.
There will be a few variations of the Brook Retro Board to make installation a snap:
Product Overview / Benefits:
Dual Mod Support
Upgradeable Firmware
Effortless Installation
Zero Lag
The Brook Retro Board will be exclusive to Arcade Shock and Jasen’s Customs, and will soft-launch at Evo 2018; check out Arcade Shock and Jasen’s Customs to order online for late August 2018 shipping.
Source: Arcade Shock [press release]
Welcome to the Rollback: a frame-by-frame look back at our past week’s most notable news — and our favorite SRK articles — from July 20 to July 26, 2018!
Zavian “mushin_Z” Sildra, Editor-in-Chief:
Frame 1:
Gameplay trailers unleashed for base form Goku and Vegeta in Dragon Ball FighterZ
Goku and Vegeta just have too many iconic attacks to fit onto one (or even two) versions of their characters.
Frame 2:
Evo 2018 preview: A spectator’s guide to Tekken 7 at Evolution Championship Series
Crow_Spaceboy helps you pick out who to watch, and who to root for (or against) in the upcoming tournament at Evo 2108.
Frame 3:
Fighting EX Layer updated to version 1.0.7, adds Arcade Mode and some fixes
ARIKA wants you to know that they’re still working on improvements to their little fighter — be sure to check it out.
Frame 4:
The U.S. Army is hosting its own Street Fighter V tournament circuit
Has the meta come around, and now Guile has an influence on the actual U.S. Air Force? Will this help Capcom settle on what Guile’s rank actually is?
Frame 5:
Street Fighter V netcode decoded: Capcom’s online system introduces artificial lag between users
Street Fighter V must be one of — if not the — most-scrutinized fighting games on the technical level, as savvy users examine how the game is put together from the retail side. And the fact that the developers are so tight-lipped about their design decisions is the likeliest reason why.
Crow_Spaceboy, Assistant Editor:
Frame 1:
Sector K Games announces Evo side tournament for Punch Planet, new character Maxx will be playable
I feel like I have been waiting for this character to get revealed forever. Get ready to throw cars, friends.
Frame 2:
Nunchuck opponents into submission with this no-nonsense SoulCalibur VI Maxi breakdown
Seeing the SoulCalibur II 236B animation again was one of the best feelings I have had in a while.
Frame 3:
Gremlin ENT announce legendary composer Shinji Hosoe will create “Gravity Breakers” theme
Go to Mr. Hosoe’s Wikipedia page and listen to the OST of every game listed there. You’re welcome.
Frame 4:
Media Indie Exchange reveals the Evo 2018 MIX Indie Game Developer Showcase
For me, the passion project of indie game development is the heart and soul of the industry. Go check out all of these guys, and see the love they’ve put into their craft.
Frame 5:
WWE Superstar Xavier Woods has a $150 Windjammers bracket bounty at AnimEVO 2018
Mr. Creed continues to be an inspiration — as does Windjammers‘ unlikely 2018 momentum.
Catch up on what you may have missed in our prior SRK Rollback compilations.
With over 2.5 million units sold, Dragon Ball FighterZ is an unequivocal success for a fighting game. Eurogamer recently got to talk to the game’s producer, Bandai Namco’s Tomoko Hiroki — as well as its director, Arc System Work’s Junya Motomura — about its success, and the factors that led to it. This includes the appeal of the game’s source material, as well as how the game’s broken out beyond the core audience. To this, Hiroki replies that it’s because they were “able to deliver to users quite a surprising animated expression, as well as a genuine fighting game mechanic,” continuing with, ” we believe the fusion of these two was quite impactful for the users.”
In regards to being able to stay true to the style of the original anime, Motomura cites their experience with the Guilty Gear games — they knew how to achieve that look. The main challenge was in taking their previous work, then getting the style to match the visual style of Dragon Ball. This was helped by paying homage with a lot of references to moments in the series in the games itself, something that came easily because they had fans of the franchise on the team. “A lot of us are fans of Dragon Ball, so we had a lot of people who were well informed about Dragon Ball, who knew the basic aspects of it,” Motomura states.
The other challenge was to create a game that appeals to both fans of the Dragon Ball franchise, in addition to fighting game fans. They cite the 3-on-3 tag team system as something that helps, since fans would like to play different characters. Additionally, they decided that they wanted to focus less on execution, and more on mind games.
That said, the system Dragon Ball FighterZ is built on is pretty free and open, allowing players to pull off a lot of things — including touch-of-death combos. On the latter, Motomura stated that the team didn’t want to limit the players’ freedom to discover things. In addition to this, he also stated that there was a lot more to discover in the game, and that some characters were underutilized as of yet. Hiroki actually points to Frieza in particular as one such character.
Of course, this is just part of what they talk about in the interview. Head on over to Eurogamer to read the whole thing.
Source: Eurogamer
Following up on their prior sweet designs for Evo-branded fight sticks, Controller Chaos has unveiled their design for a limited-edition Qanba Obsidian stick for Evo 2018:
We're back for the 3rd year bringing you the official Qanba Obsidian #Evo2018 fightstick! Limited quantity, don't miss out! pic.twitter.com/kylbAGvCy6
— ControllerChaos (@ControllerChaos) July 26, 2018
Evo 2018 attendees that want to snag one of these bad boys should make a beeline straight for the Controller Chaos booth once Evo kicks off on August 3rd.
Source: Controller Chaos (Twitter)
On July 20th, Motohiro Okubo wrote up a blog post that introduced both veterans and newbies of the Soul Calibur series to the latest game’s brand-new features. Okubo expressed that he is applying “key lessons” from his work with Tekken 7 into the weapons-based 3D fighter, while keeping the gameplay both fresh and true to the series’ previous titles.
The game’s new elements include the Reversal Edge and Lethal Hit, alongside original mechanics like the Soul Charge and Guard Hit. Okubo expressed that the Reversal Edge was a product of the game’s developers wanting newer players to “have fun, excel, and compete against players that have more knowledge and experience” through a fair and balanced means. When players land a successful Reversal Edge, a slow motion sequence is triggered, wherein a kind of rock-paper-scissors mini-game ensues. If players choose the correct action in answer to their enemy, they are rewarded with definite damage, removing the need for in-depth knowledge on characters and gameplay.
Much like the Guard Impact system, the Reversal Edge allows players to parry incoming attacks — this time automatically. The longer a player holds down the Reversal Edge button, the longer they can parry their opponent’s strikes. The Reversal Edge also builds meter, allowing access to the Soul Charge and Critical Edge systems. In sum, the Reversal Edge gives opportunities for newer players on a more even playing field, and eliminates the need for hard data in favor of reading one’s opponent and guessing their next moves.
While the Soul Charge is a returning mechanic, SCVI aims to make it quite different from its predecessors. SCVI’s Soul Charge will give characters power ups, allowing players to utilize additional moves and deal greater damage for a limited time. Characters’ Soul Charges will also give them different visual properties, “drastically” changing their appearance. According to Okubo, the manner in which the Soul Charge is used will largely determine players’ playstyles, and allow them freedom to express themselves in they way they choose to play the game.
The Lethal Hit is another new element of the SoulCalibur series. While different for each character, the Lethal Hit triggers another slow-motion sequence when successfully executed. In this sequence, players deal a damaging attack, which opens up the opponent for a follow-up hit. Unlike the Reversal Edge, the Lethal Hit is meant for players to showcase their knowledge and skill; it isn’t easily triggered, and players who can pull a number of Lethal Hits are shown to be high-level. Additionally, Lethal Hits break away characters’ armor for a satisfying, visual reward of the winning player’s strength.
There are only three months left until SoulCalibur VI’s completion, and Okubo has stated that the game’s character roster is not yet complete. With Evo just around the corner, the possibility of a character reveal is high, and game’s new elements could be further explored in forthcoming trailers.
Source: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Since the release of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, many users have experienced a noticeable worsening of online connection quality. To discover the source of this sudden lag spike, reddit user SunTzu-81 put on his scientist’s gear and got to work experimenting with SFV’s notoriously poor netcode. His findings revealed an interesting development in the game’s netplay: when lag was introduced on one setup, the other created input delay to keep up with the lagging system.
However, his weren’t the only findings to uncover some of SFV’s secrets: French fighting game wizard WydD also broke down the offline input lag of multiple fighting games, discovering that SFV itself had input latency close to that of Dragon Ball FighterZ and the original Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-.
SunTzu-81, known by his YouTube handle as DigitalHalftones, uploaded a video on July 1st that broke down SFV’s long-bemoaned netcode. To do this, he set up two systems in his home across the same network, one on PC and the other on PlayStation 4. By manipulating the game’s latency and framerate, he was able to discover the source of latency through SFV’s one-sided rollback. (To clarify, “rollback” netcode is a technique that doesn’t rely on input from another user before a game begins a subsequent frame; rather, rollback netcode predicts a player’s inputs, simulating the next frame without delaying the user’s experience. This type of netcode is common in modern fighting games, and good examples of it can be found in Skullgirls 2nd Encore and the PS3 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV.)
Before introducing artificial latency on one side, SunTzu compared the movement of the characters (here, the much-dreaded Cammy) across the network. Each side appeared to be moving smoothly, with no latency between the two platforms. However, after forcing the PC side to drop below sixty frames, the PC Cammy began to show delay on the PS4, displaying some of the signature “jitters” of latency. After moving around a bit, the PS4 likewise experienced a bit of skipping on its end, proving that there is a perceivable effect for the other player when one experiences a drop in framerate.
In the second round, SunTzu adjusted the latency so that the PC side received packets 150ms late from the PS4. Thus, the PC experienced rollback, causing the opposing character to delay and stutter across the screen. However, once the round ended and the next began (with the forced latency still initiated), the PS4 began to lag locally. Since turning on the artificial lag, the PC had dropped seven frames slower, and was lagging less harshly than its PS4 counterpart.
Based on his findings, SunTzu surmised that SFV takes the recorded latency at the end of a round and creates input delay based on that data, likely to sync players together in order to avoid total one-sided rollback. His PC was delayed seven frames in order to compensate for the PS4’s lag over the network, which caused the PS4 to skip frames in turn. “They must be adding some sort of artificial lag or input delay on the PS4 side in order to be doing this,” he stated over the video. “Whatever the connection is at the end of the round will determine how laggy it is for both players.”
SunTzu likewise noted that, since the lag was artificial, the PS4 continued to receive the PC player’s movements in real time. “I’m assuming that this still gives the PS4 or laggy player the advantage while visually ruining both games,” he wrote. “My guess is that they tried to compensate for the rift in in between rounds after seeing the GPO panel, and I bet they made this change with the AE release, hence the increased lag problems reported.”
While SunTzu’s findings took place over cross-platform netplay, he assures viewers that the platform didn’t make a difference. “This is video is not showing that PS4 is worse or better than PC, or that cross-play matters,” he explains in the video’s description. “It’s showing that frame drops on one side do not affect the other’s game at all. Only the latency does. In the remaining part of the video, I applied 150ms of lag to the PC from the PS4, and the result was [that] the game artificially delayed the PC game by 7 frames at the start of the next round. This artificial delay is applied by the netcode itself, and is determined by your connection to your opponent only at the start of the round.”
SunTzu wasn’t the only FGC scientist to discover some of SFV’s hidden innards. While unrelated to netplay, French fighting game player and computer scientist WydD decided to take matters into his own hands to truly break down the game’s input latency, utilizing a unique input lag setup to record his observations. “The idea behind this was to replicate results I’ve seen on Twitter, coming from Noodalls,” he explained over the r/StreetFighter podcast. “He had trouble measuring SFV. He said basically, when he tries to make a measure, everything is blocked, and he doesn’t know why. I said, ‘I can’t do the measure with his method, but I have some spare parts — let me try to figure out how we can measure input lag.’”
WydD used an original capturing channel to produce his results. At its beginning, he used a PS3360+ PCB, to which he bound Cammy’s st.LK and st.MP (jeez, we can’t get away from that girl, can we?) in synchronization to a FC4 d-pad. This setup was connected to his PC via USB, which directly connected to the motherboard. An HDMI fed the information from the setup into a video component converter, which converted the HDMI inputs into a component — here as three separate plugs. These plugs operated three channels, labeled Y, Pr, and Pb. The Pr and Pb channels corrected a black and white signal, fed into the Y channel, to display colors. In essence, he bound a small circuit to the st.MP button that aimed to cut the signal to the Pr and Pb channels when pressed.
The plugs then went into a capture card, which was plugged into another PC on which SFV was being played. “If you cut the signal, you will have no colors on the screen,” WydD explained. “Because it’s analog, the image will turn gray right when you press the button.” While no discoloration occured as he pressed st.LK, stark discoloration occurred during st.MP., and would continue if he kept pressing the st.MP input. After recording his results, WydD would play back the footage frame by frame, using a ruler (reading each millisecond of a frame) attached to the side of the monitor to measure just when the latency occured by seeing where the color still remained on the screen.
By measuring exactly when he pressed an input between the amount of frames it took for the input to show on the screen, WydD was able to determine just how great the game’s input latency was based off Cammy’s st.MP. “Depending on when you press the button, you will have different results,” he explained. “And that is what I have recorded here.” Through recording the average latency of his button presses, he discerned that SFV has around 3.42 frames, or 57.1ms, of native (local) input lag. This is on par with Dragon Ball FighterZ’s latency, which measured at an average of 3.43 frames, or 57.1ms. Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- weighed in at 3.14 frames/52.3ms, while Tekken 7 had an average of 4.73 frames, or 78.9ms of lag.
While the PC’s latency wasn’t overt, the PS4’s lag for SFV sat on his “C” tier and was dubbed unstable. SFV weighed in at an average of 6 ms of latency, with an estimated 43% stability through his findings.
This data comes in the wake of an r/StreetFighter poll, asking the community which of SFV’s issues they feel should be fixed. According to the subreddit’s moderator Joe Munday, SFV’s netcode has been the number one choice since July of 2016. With SunTzu’s findings concerning the game’s artificial latency in online play, fans are certainly hoping for an adjustment in answer to AE’s “quick fix”. And as another DLC character will no doubt be revealed in the next two weeks, we can remain hopeful that Street Fighter V’s netcode may also receive some much-needed repair in the future.
Sources: DigitalHalftones (YouTube); WydD (Twitter); WydD (YouTube)