Birthday commentary, Random Blog Stuff

I decided to put together a little birthday blog(look, I'm 40 now <.<) of random thoughts of the week. These will deal with a little of everything, and just be me rambling(or perhaps, sometimes ranting.)

As a side note, I had a lot of fun putting in more time in USFIV again. I think in ways I like it more than V-I think V's roster with some of my 3 favorites+Necalli give me more characters I'd like to mess with(besides my usuals), but USFIV these days is just feeling so much more complete to me. Like V is still going through patch madness, and still, IMO, feels like it's missing a little something even if I DO find AE a definite several steps in the right direction. (That, and I do feel I like the way Claw played in older games a bit more.)

Onto the stuff!

So yeah, we've had a bit of Week-1 Tierlisting. Remember what I said; it's all fun to do for the hell of it, but don't take these things too seriously. I'm not against seeing them, I'm more against taking them too seriously at first until things shake out.(Even the dudes themselves said it was pretty much for fun. It's everyone else that takes these things too damn seriously.)



Too Much Hype?

Next up is a discussion about hype, hype aversion, and what I don't want to see happen with DBFZ.

Okay, so Sajam had a clip from a stream which I'll link here. It's not too long; about five minutes. He starts by going on about twitch haters going into streams just to hate stuff(I don't even get Twitch culture nor can I even pretend to understand it), but when he discusses DBFZ and that he's worried the game may have too much hype about it-I have to agree with him. DBFZ right now is being hoisted up as being the savior of all things Fighting Game, and I reckon it's just going to be another cool fighter. I mean maybe a damned good and popular one-but I don't think it's going to cure world hunger or anything.

And I'm afraid when/if it doesn't end up as the wasp's testicles of fighting games people will feel let down. I don't WANT that to happen. But hype aversion can be quite a strong thing. Here's hoping people's ideas for the game stay realistic. (Oh yeah, and snobs need to stop scaring off the new blood. Jesus, I'm old, cranky, and believe you gotta take some L's to get better, but don't be needlessly cruel in mocking them if they can't complete a goddamn combo challenge. We should be better than that.)

But yeah I think he nailed it. Gameplay wise I'm not too worried(I don't think it's going to be the best balanced fighting game, but it'll be mad fun and be fantastic.) But let's cross our fingers that expectations don't get raised to crazy-high, life-changing levels.


What's with the SFxT talk?

So around twitter lately I've been seeing more and more SFxT talk these days. It's been going for a bit now but it's picked up again. People saying they'd buy it again on PS4, discussing its strengths and discussing how they miss the game despite its flaws.

And I have to wonder how a game that went through a LOT of scrutiny now became more accepted? Hell, I find myself sort of shrugging at Capcom's business practices there. (The P2W gems were a little harsher for me, tbh, but neither thing was *great.*)

I reckon, though-and I had tweeted about this a bit but I can discuss it longer here-that compared to lootboxes and gacha, some on-disc DLC is sort of...tame in comparison. It's kinda lame, yeah, and if it hadn't been on-disc I think people may not have even looked twice at it. But I believe this and the gems-again, the P2W aspect was sort of meh to me(though tournaments can and do ban them understandably) really gave it the bad launch; other things did affect it too(like time-out syndrome at first, where matches would often end in time outs and drag on seemingly forever.)

However, they worked on patching balance bits, again, gems were able to be banned from tournaments and eventually the game became pretty fun! But...the launch sort of already did its damage, trust had been damage, steam and momentum were lost...and yeah.

Years later, now that people can sort of dust off the previous downsides, they're able to see the fun game underneath-and that brings me to why I think this game is starting to get a little hype surrounding it again; I think, between stuff like this, DBFZ and so on, people just want to have some 'fun', over the top fighters in the mix of all of the 'srs' ones they play. The game did have some cool gameplay aspects besides that, but I think a little case of 'don't know what you got' is coming up or something. I don't know the exact reasons, but that's my guess; it's just a case that now that most of the overlaying crap had been cleared away people suddenly say 'Damn, why can't I be playing X/Y again?'

I will say if it popped on PS4? I'd buy it too.


My own personal revisiting of USFIV

So I had gotten the urge to put time into that again. It actually still has a fairly thriving little community(its 200-250 average Steam players is actually better than some newer fighting games, and it filled up its 180 cap at EVO Japan IIRC), and I can understand why; by the time they finally got to Ultra the game played pretty tightly and was decently balanced.

I think there are aspects I like more about IV, and aspects I like more about V(when it comes to the newer games, I will always state my top 3 SFs are in no particular order Alpha 3, 3rd Strike and Super Turbo). Aspects I like more about IV is that as of now it simply feels like a more complete game; it had six years, four expansions, and lots of balance patches, so that's only natural. Also, I admit-I actually like old Claw's design and moveset a bit better overall. (Plus lots more costumes and such from then.) it does have a bigger overall roster with some good stuff(Claw, the Final Fight crew, Rose, others.)

On the other hand, I really don't like how they ignored some very popular characters(Alex, Urien, Nash a couple others), and brought back others just because of easy recycled content(I don't want to hear anything about Nash being dead, they brought him back a million times already, they could have done it again). That had me pretty salty at the time, I admit(I had long since gotten over it; in fact, the me of 2013 even was different than the me even of 2015. I dunno why but I had more roster salt in the early 10s than I did later. I suppose its why I can have some sympathy for people missing characters but have little patience for people who spam developers; I would have never gone that far.) Finally some MUs could get to almost redonk 3S levels too once you got to stuff like Hugo and Sagat(though Valle STILL managed to body Bonchan in '15!) Its balance was pretty decent though. I liked Claw's balance a lot; a solid mid tier(FINALLY, christ he had it rough in the first couple versions), but counterpicked several top tiers.

V has some neat re-imaginings. I straight up love new Nash more than Alpha Nash in terms of gameplay. The arcade mode content is great fun to unlock, and some of the new artwork as I mentioned is fucking beautiful, like this piece:

On the other hand, the gameplay does lend itself to leaning toward characters who can perform a big ol' CRASH comeback, Claw feels like he's fun and has good tools but he's not as 'cohesive' as he used to be in that it feels like the devs aren't sure on how to revamp him like they were say Nash, and I feel the game still is a bit...unfinished in ways. 2nd V-Triggers without 2nd V-Skills, CAs or reversals feels a bit off to me; like the game is almost there, but needs still a little more time in the oven(spoiler alert; this tends to be SF games in general. I mean c'mon how many versions of each one gets released?)

So IV has been providing me with some more entertainment lately. I'm really pumped for the 30th, like I said.


Azzy's Learn Someone New in 2018 Challenge

I also decided to challenge myself a little by learning a new character in a few fighting games. This isn't for a main or anything(just a fun sub type), but it's to broaden my horizons a bit. The only 'rule' I'm keeping for myself is that it has to be a character type I'm not used to maining(hence broadening horizons.)

In Guilty Gear, I've been starting with Zato-1. I've of course fooled with most of the cast but I decided to hunker down with this guy. I don't really play puppet characters, so this seemed like an interesting challenge. It's been pretty fun so far!

Over in Tekken land, I was considering Gigas at first(I usually don't go with low-tier big bodies), but decided on Steve Fox, since I generally don't play boxers. So here's hoping this goes well too! I always liked dabbling with him before, so I figure time to actually learn him.

Finally in SFV I'll go with FANG. Weirdo that he is, he's generally not my style of character which makes him perfect. (I'm experienced with charge characters already so that part isn't too new, but his whole general 'schtick' is.

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ANYWAY I hope you enjoyed my random bit of rambling. I hope to do more of these, maybe as filler when I can't figure out something useful to actually write about.

I also want to thank everyone for dumping a lot of birthday wishes on me. It makes getting older so much easier you guys <3

See ya all soon!

Jumping the Gun: AKA: The Attack of the Day Zero Tier Lists

You've all seen it.

Early tier lists.

Hell, I've made a few myself...for fun. Just for a giggle and to look back some months later-after the dust has settled(at least somewhat), and the meta to shake out(again, somewhat, I'll get to this), and see how close we all were at our predictions.  I find it a fun exercise in educated guessing and character examination. There's nothing wrong with making an airy, loose and early call on how you think stuff will play out-something like "Rashid is looking pretty evil this season, I think he'll be high", or "I think Rog's nerfs really hit him hard-I think he might have an uphill battle."

That said, there are people-even respected, high level players-who I think are very, very swift nowadays to actually try to seriously predict too much too soon.

I wont' even start to get into the people making serious tier lists for DBFZ...before the beta was released. (There were some making tiers for the FEXL beta too after about five minutes. I am pretty sure there is actually a type of Cordyceps that somehow appears whenever a new patch or expansion comes out, ends up in the bodies of FGC members and systematically controls them to start churning out fully fleshed out and explained day 1 tier lists.) 

So this was brought up by the release of SFV AE. Today I was perusing Twitter and amongst mixes of doom, 'OP' 'dunno' and whatnot, I saw a tweet from Alex Myers, a known Sakura main who was quite excited for her to be back in. Apparently, Momochi and Tokido-two very very high level, very skilled, liked, and respected players-felt that 'she had no future.'

It's been five days. I think that's a bit fast to bury the poor gal. Especially when she's finally possibly gotten Ryu in her sights. (Really, watch the story and arcade modes. XD) I mean, they are hella respected players! But I just think, even with raw data, it's too soon. (Hell, apparently Infiltration and a couple of others aren't convinced of Akuma himself right now and don't feel too hot on him!) Yes-again, these are super-high level players-some of the absolute best in the world-and I generally DO believe their opinions a lot! But even then I don't necessarily think they're right 100% of the time-and sure, I think they can jump the gun too.(Early tier lists at one point in Tekken 7 had Dragunov as a high-mid. He ended up one of the top 3 characters of the game.)

Some players have said she feels like a 'Poor Man's Akuma'-this is fair; it simply states 'This is how she feels right now.' It doesn't quite doom her. All it does is describe how her current state feels for the limited time someone played with her.

Apparently right now Zangief is also DOA, Balrog is DOA yesterday, Ibuki is DOA, Ryu is probably still DOA, Alex didn't get enough buffs, Laura is broken the other way(according to the West, Japan isn't still thrilled with her performance), and Claw players can't make up their mind/are split into three camps-one group thinks he's doomed, another thinks he actually feels better now with new anti-airs and other neutral stuff, and the last think he still feels mid with the nerfs but the buffs equalized him, but needs a playstyle shift. (To be fair, at least this is alright since it allows discussion, though anyone doomcrying about any character right now this early grows tiring.)

Mind you-I don't think it's so bad to lament some of the nerfs a whole lot of us got(to be fair; Karin fans, for example, seem to be happily willing to trade her CC HP back for something that's not -5.) It does suck when you lose something you liked or a playstyle you dug, and especially when a company doesn't explain the changes, it can really make someone feel frustrated, and I get that. And I think some tilt is a given and there's no problem with that(I've complained about nerfs before, I'm not saying just sit back, grin and eat every nerf that gets thrown your way.) But there's a difference between that and like, you know, going into full on DOOOOM mode.

(Funny thing with Zangief, on Day -1 and Day 0 people were lamenting his massive VT2 damage and being terrified. Two days later he was apparently crap. I'm sure someone will pull out the Itabashi Zangief OS at some point.)

As an aside-Claw is a very long played character of mine; if he's in an SF game, I'll play him. Claw, Alex, and Remy(along with the Final Fight crew, so rest assured Cody is going on the list and I really want Sodom back), are constants for me. (I've been enjoying AE btw-as someone who was on the fence about SFV, it pushed me over. I think that vehement SFV naysayers won't be sold, but if you like casual content, AE has LOTS of stuff there now. I feel that besides V-Trigger 2's the game can use 2nd V-Skills, Critical Arts and Reversals as well. Just a mini-review.) I'm on the side of 'He took a couple nerfs from 2.5, but he also gained stuff that I've been getting mileage out of.'

Now-as usual, I will play devil's advocate with myself. I have to at least offer another side. Yes, it's true nowadays that we have ways of getting raw data in front of us. We have programs out the ass, awesome stuff like Toolassisted(or TOOLASSISTED I should say), the games themselves often give us more information, and we have ways of getting frame changes, hitboxes, hurtboxes, and about all raw data you could want, so I do admit, there is at least SOME grounding here to having more of the actual data to work with.

If, say, a character in a game got just nerfs all down the line in patch notes, and nothing but nerfs nerfs nerfs under the radar, yes, I think it's safe to say that they're definitely pretty heftily nerfed. Even THEN, though, we can't make a total prediction of where they'll be. What if six other characters were nerfed heavily? What if there were mechanic changes, a lot universal? What if their worst MUs were ALSO nerfed just as much-if not more-than them? This, and more, are all things that take time to shake out.

We can see what the data tells us and make educated guesses-but I think there's a huge predisposition these days to just immediately declare a character 'dead, pick whoever is being said to be the top tier.'

Hell, the issue with that? What if the top tier ends up being not-so-top two months down the line? Gods know that has happened before. (I can go on a separate rant on how I feel games are, on paper, better balanced than the ones in the old days but there's such a big push to tier whore even mid tier characters get the sideeye anymore. I guess I can blame e-sports money somewhat there.) I've seen instances of presumably 'bad' characters actually being good but then getting buffed to stupid levels because no one put the work in, and also instances of not-so-hot characters being nerfed because everyone cried when they weren't that bad(One word: Nash. In his case, his problems would have probably been over once they fixed the frame issues, but...yeah, we saw what happened there. Hell, this was even a few months after the game's release and it was too soon to nerfhammer him!)

But really, as I'll say again, the meta needs time to shake out. We don't know if an apparent 'doomed' character will be a meta counterpick(won't be the first time a lower tier happens to be good against certain meta picks.) We won't know if all of the OTHER changes everyone got will affect things overall(this is a big thing, because previously bad MUs for some characters can end up not as bad, which can change things.)  We've seen some tournaments of various sizes. It takes much more than a week for a meta to shake out, like I said a few times now.

I think sometimes people are right, of course. Nash being nerfed was easier to tell. I think Nash's case was a little bit different though; they double nerfed him, in a way(in fact, in a funny instance, people SAID that double-nerfing him was unnecessary and Capcom didn't listen!) After fixing the input lag, that alone probably would have been enough to fix some of his issues; by double-hitting him they went too far. (Even then, Bonchan could make him work!)

Also, I think people are on the right track when they say Rashid and Abigail look strong. Sure, I do think some hypothesis-even early! can be correct, I just think that people think they can predict the entire damn meta in the first week far too often, and I think that outright dooming a character usually goes too far, too.

Let's think back to last year and list some examples of stuff that went the other way.

Birdie: Well he's the biggest one. Birdie wasn't on the radar until Capcom Cup when he apparently became the cheapest character in the game and went up three tiers. (IMO, he was just pretty much a decent character that Mena knew how to use really well.)

Rashid: Believe it or not-Rashido-one of the 'cheapest' characters by the end of the year-was seen as not that great for a long time. And then, Oil King happened and he reduced everyone to quivering mounds of QQ. Then Moke came along and continued the tornado rampage. Both Birdie and Rashid took awhile, too, to 'figure out.'

Now let me say I don't always agree with Capcom's balance choices, oh nooo. I don't think Claw needed any nerfs at all going in(no, he didn't get that many non 'universal' changes, where they did a lot of nerfing of light attacks for characters, etc.) They could have given him the other stuff along with what he had though I think. Maybe they were afraid of his VT2? I still think he's going to be pretty solid once the meta shakes out and the new tech comes down the pipes, though-again, just a guess; I don't know either, anymore than someone who says he'll be OP or someone convinced he'll be trash in thirty seconds.(I also think there are times Capcom doesn't quite know what they want to do with him style wise, but that's for a different blog.)

I also think they hit Balrog way, way too hard. Like, one of those Nash feelings. Especially since as strong as he was he wasn't that dominant. I also wonder if maybe Gief didn't get a little much yet. But I'm not going to completely jump the gun on this. I also do think there are times that the game mechanics themselves could use an overhaul, and that would actually help some of the issues.

(Capcom's patch notes were pretty bad, and I would love-absolutely LOVE-if Capcom and ALL companies would take the Killer Instinct route and actually explain why they did the changes they did, along with every change properly listed. It's a pipe dream, I know, but I think it should be something all developers should strive to do.)

But really, in the end, wait a bit. It's fine to guess, it's fine to have some opinions-positive, negative, or neutral-but just remember what Oil King did to everyone with Rashid or Mena did to people with Birdie before actually seriously dooming something.

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PS: Yeah, it's been ages since I've written. I really really want to try to update this more! I have started to scribble a Claw 101 guide for new players out since I like writing guides for new players. I really need to try to put something on this thing weekly.

PPS: People aren't kidding when they said the art is better in the arcade mode. Look at this!