Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

I do prefer SC3 Setsuka to SC4.
We have so much European representation the dark hair on Setsuka kinda evened things out.
And her kimono was sexy without being overtly sexual.

And her dialogue was a lot better in 3.

As for out fits I’m not sure SC3 had the bulk of the good ones but 4&5 had some decent ones too.

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I’m anxious to see what Cassandra is gonna be like though some of the changes in SC4 from SC3 I really didn’t like.
Like her 4AB from 3 got butchered in 4 that was such an aggressive tool for me.

Bah! Namco always have to drag shit out. :/

EDIT: As for Setsuka voice set 3 was miles better, she had real grit in her debut.


 
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We know so far that we will get a CaS DLC sometime after this month's patch. Also, what's the major differences between Amy and Raph, anyway? Are they just as execution-heavy, something entirely?
 
@Robert_J_King My dream if these items are available, already chosen who would use them.
DLC from SC 5 - Copia.png
soul-calibur-4-1_1213188 - Copia.jpg
I understand @CelestialZodiac some outfits are ridiculous/weirds but always an item that would look great in CaS. We need more boots in this game!!!!
 
@Robert_J_King My dream if these items are available, already chosen who would use them.
I understand @CelestialZodiac some outfits are ridiculous/weirds but always an item that would look great in CaS. We need more boots in this game!!!!

Are those LS variants, SCV DLC, or some combination thereof? Anyway, I absolutely share your general sentiment there; whether you are interested in modern CaS options or not, many "modern" items can be repurposed for more antiquated designs. And some CaS ambitions (original or inspired) just cannot me maid without at least a small amount of tools with that aesthetic, especially when there is at least one moveset now that really invites that oeuvre of design. Or at a minimum, at least a few legacy pieces; the new military uniform (I think it is a SCV hold over, but I can't recall for sure) that they quietly slipped into ver. 1.10 is nice, but I worked that old uniform (jn various colours and both as a uniform and not) into so many creations in IV. I actually think people might have gotten ahead of themselves in expecting that just because they mentioned legacy content they necessarily meant the art assets of established characters. 100 pieces wouldn't get you very far with a cast this large; you could only do full outfits for a handful of the cast and then nothing else. That seems unlikely, unless someone knows of an interview suggested as much? Who cans say for sure, but I think it's going to be a mixed bag of various items for the main cast from throughout the early series and then some other random content. Remember also that it's not all items: there's also textures and patterns and such counting towards the total. But whatever the balance of the stuff gets tipped towards, good lord let there be a sphere--why isn't there a sphere!? Oh, right. They knew they'd be made into testicles. Fair enough, turns out they absolutely would have--it's just that they underestimated the determination of an (un)inspired CaS artist to find something that will look like testicles from the the right angle...

Anyway, I digress. My personal speculation, based on what seems to be a lot of convergent info, is that a season 2 is being planned (though i'd be surprised if it was any further in than pre-development spitballing phase as PS work on finishing the current batch of DLC--or more accurately, since Namco shares its staff between projects, they are working to get DLC out for several different properties) and one of the pragmatic advantages to a company like Namco that owns development and distribution and does its own marketing and research is that they can sit back and test the waters, see how much demand they can create at a given pricepoint, and then when they are sure it is profitable (and I think it almost certainly will be, I think--the market and consumer are ready for this new serialized model, I think) have a game plan to launch straight into that next pack as soon as they deliver the first one. So what does this tangent have to do with creation parts? Well, I think to maintain that consumer buy-in and for a number of other marketing reasons, I think they are likely to try to deliver a second season that is roughly analogous to the first. I won't get into what I think the content of those will be (that's been the major topic of DLC speculation and roster threads for a while now, even more so now that Cass and Amy are all but official) except to say I bet we get another 100 items within a year, as a part of season 2--if (and it's still a big if) there is a season 2. And if they add just an outfit or two with each patch thereafter...well, things will start to feel quite a bit less vexing in the character editor!

Well, nothing is certain at this point, but I think maybe Namco knew what they were doing, and didn't mind leaving people a little disappointed at the launch selection of content because they knew they'd be releasing it along the way, turning a profit on most of it and throwing out an occasional item to everybody so those customers still holding out on a DLC-heavy model won't be too chaffed. Personally, I think the present selection is about typical of a launch selection, if you average up all of the SC games with a CaS. And it's a much deeper editor than any before when it comes to races and certain other novel customization features, so I wasn't that disappointed at the initial offering--though, again (and like most everyone, I think), I have often been frustrated by the lack of options in some areas. But I think the last game having been Lost Swords kind of pushed the expectations particularly high with regard to customization.

Anyway, at the end of the day, while I feel the deal Namco has offered with this game is much better than what they have with the last few entries, and I'm not inclined to be as critical as some about the opening content, I still very much want more to work with. But its all going to depend on whether the average player/consumer decides to buy the dlc. It's a nuanced situation, I feel. Some companies have really pushed the envelope on acceptable pricing, packaging, and marketing practices, so the consumer is primed to be defensive about what they are getting. But this amount of content at this price in this DLC pack is something I would buy multiple times over for new content. But I'm an easy sale--I'm just hoping I am not alone and that pissing and moaning about "day one DLC" doesn't spoil sales. I mean, to those people inclined to complain in those terms I say that you're concentrating irrationally on the developer's/publisher's production timetable, but what you should be focused on is two questions: 1) What amount of time and enjoyment am I going to get out of the content that was included in the base game, and is it worth the amount they are asking? 2) Does the additional content--some of which is available now (which, contrary to other views, is a good thing!) and some of which will be completed later--justify what they are asking for it? I hope more people will come to look at it that way too and that this model thrives. Believe me, nobody is more more certain than I that gaming companies need to be kept an eye on if they are going to be forced to give you value and not try all kinds of shady and lame things to try to separate you from your money and give you back less product than you got before. But I'm looking at the current model of this game and feeling I'm getting my money's worth, especially considering I will be playing this game for years to come. More than I got for a similar amount of money with V, that's for sure! I just have my fingers crossed that I am on the same page with a lot of series fans. I think I am, but the next six months will tell the tale.
 
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@darkfender PLEASE listen to @Apoc Revolution

I ran into Apoc when he was either B4 or 5 with a 135 Win streak.

Cool so my opinion worths more than his….(top 4 raph on pc).
Luckily i am smart enough to know online doesn t mean much... btw it seems my raphael works against some known tournament players but here we are with the online latence again…

And the best part is writing that in the same topic where people said more than once that unded D rank people are mostly clueless :| (not that i agree again… some people simply don t play ranked).

So indeed raph PRESSURE is a scrub* killer while he works decently only on HIT when he punishes (see last tournament with whoazz being punished by IVY...despite he is quite an awesome player).

As i said i gave you the tools to avoid to fall for gimmicks, its your choice to use them or not...if you read them you might start getting better.

You only need to fear raph 66B+K that is a slow vertical at +7 on block (see again whoazz vid).

*used word scrub only because it was used already...but i don't like it lets say "people ignoring framelists and matchups"
 
We know so far that we will get a CaS DLC sometime after this month's patch. Also, what's the major differences between Amy and Raph, anyway? Are they just as execution-heavy, something entirely?

They play substantially differently. As I understand it, Raphael has gotten quite techy these days himself (I left off playing him consistently in III:AE/IV precisely because I gravitated toward's Amy's style), but traditionally Amy's execution was a little more complex, though neither of them (even back in III and IV) has ever been a beginner's character exactly (well, Rapha was quite accesible back in II, I suppose, but has gotten a little less so each successive appearance). They are similar insofar as they both require a strong knowledge of mix-ups and both have a lot of baiting moves that are meant to draw your opponent out and then punish them by beating them to the punch from an angle of attack they weren't expecting. Amy however, is faster and can really keep the pressure up, and her moves are (in my opinion) more high-risk/high-reward, requiring you to know with a high degree of precision which moves will be just those few frames quicker than what your opponent is telegraphing or what you think you can lead them into. Both Amy and Raphael are probably best described as mid-range fighters, but Amy tends to need to close the gap to attack, but can do so very quickly, whereas Raphael tends to stay more towards his maximal range throughout many of his attack animations.

Maybe the biggest difference is that, while again both are mix-up intensive, Amy requires an extreme level of aptitude with chaining--in order to make her work in a competitive fashion, you have figure out ways to cleverly link her guaranteed strings together by making sure your opponent is not appropriately guarding for the initiation of each string--and there are so many variations, a lot of them involving a backstance game and other tricks to convince unwary opponents to go on the offensive when it seems safe. Raphael by comparison (and I think this holds true through today from what I can tell playing against others) tends to play a little more defensively, wait for openings and then delivering shorter (but just as high damaging) strings and then retreating to the far-middle distance. A good Amy player is constantly up in your business (not unlike Talim, but with a different flow), and when she does pull/jump back, you better be wary, because odds are it was just a momentary defensive measure and she's about to come back in fast, or (perhaps even more likely) is anticipating you giving chase at which point you are getting knee-capped, launched, or stunned. She has a fair number of highly effective launchers in general (though most with obvious telegraphs) and a really strong ring-out game--though that's most characters in SCIII and SCIV, honestly. She takes a lot of dedication to get down to a level where you an be competitive with that high aggression/have to sort of make your opponent complicit in their downfall style of gameplay, but I absolutely love her moveset--can't wait to have her back as my main! :sc3amy2::sc4amy1::sc3amy2::sc4amy1::sc3amy2::sc4amy1::sc3amy2::sc4amy1::sc3amy2::sc4amy1::sc3amy2::sc4amy1:
 
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Back in scIV raph was LONG range spacing poker.
Amy was short range pressure monster.
They removed raph spacing tool in scIV and they reduced his range and damage in scVI...but gave him some pushback tools in Exchange (AG,AB or 6B+K).

I just hope they won't nerf raph 6B to make space for Amy but knowing namco its probably what they will do….they even said publicly they want some characters to be low tiers when they nerfed raph to the ground back in scV.
 
Back in scIV raph was LONG range spacing poker.
Amy was short range pressure monster.
They removed raph spacing tool in scIV and they reduced his range and damage in scVI...but gave him some pushback tools in Exchange (AG,AB or 6B+K).

I just hope they won't nerf raph 6B to make space for Amy but knowing namco its probably what they will do….they even said publicly they want some characters to be low tiers when they nerfed raph to the ground back in scV.

Yeah, I never know whether to call Amy short or mid range. On the one hand, the majority of the damage she deals out comes from extreme close range, but then she also has a good dozen moves that come off of backstep, plus plenty of options that let you jet forward over decent distances from neutral as well. Without a doubt, in IV, she plays close, but it's sort of hard to determine what that means in relative terms; I actually played some SCIV for the first time tonight since first playing VI and holy moly does it just feel like a claustrophobic game by comparison--I didn't fully appreciate just how much spacing had changed over the last few entries before I played the extremes back-to-back. But yeah, even relatively speaking, she is mid-to-close range and I expect that will stay the same, relative to the greater spacing and increased speed of VI.

For what it's worth, I don't think they're going to nerf Raphael on account of Amy being added; the usually balance characters idiosyncratically. If Namco has said they are expressly tier-happy, that's news to me. Certainly the current game has most characters clustered in the middle, with some obvious exceptions. Of course V had allll manner of nonsensical design choices, and many of them relate to how there was an attempt to move the game towards more conventional fighter conventions (notably, very Street Fighter-esque); the tier-happy mentality might have been a part of that overall design philosophy, since multiple noticeable tiers are a quality of that franchise.
 
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I made some basic statistics again, not from my matches this time, but from the ranking table per character (on Steam).
I watched for each character the number of players with a A, B, C, D or E rank.

the first graph gives a good idea of the popularity of the characters on steam:

Rank1.png


The position of 2B is skewed because it is a recent DLC. Tira also probably pays for being (unpopular day-one) DLC, but she appears already, with Voldo, less popular than 2B.
Seeing the top, I guess players love big sword and big breast (double check for 2B!). Bamco probably knew it, would explain both season pass and Tira's cup size change...
I'm surprise to see Asta so high, and Geralt and Azwel so low. Geralt was very popular after launch, but it seems the interest for the witcher quickly run out of breath.

I also wonder if a character was doing better than the others proportionnaly. So I ranked them according the ratio [players above C5 / players above E5]
rank2.png

So again, there is many bias : 2B had less time, there is pre-patch and post-patch data behind, the ranking system is arbitrary (I would have something different with D+ instead of C+)...

Also, I don't sell it as a tier list because it's online, and that mostly reflects casual players. Buuut the tier-list participates, among other factors, to this ranking.

Note that on steam, There is currently juste one A-ranked player (a Raphael). There was previously a S-ranked Inferno, but he got ban.

I take this opportunity to congratulate 8wayrun's players that are sitting on first page of their character. I remember seing @MONEYMUFFINS :sc4sop1: , @Party Wolf :sc1kil1: , @Hayate :sc1kil1:, @Kura :sc2tal1:, @Ring :sc1ivy3: and probably other I forgot or don't recognize (sorry). Good job!

Edit : forgot Ring_PL!
 
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Certainly the current game has most characters clustered in the middle, with some obvious exceptions.
Actually this is the least balanced of the series with 3 characters dominating the offline scene, and other making random appearances with no real results……

Worst thing is they refuse to deal with them...they indeed changed a little IVY but Siegfried keeps getting ognored and then Okubo says nonsense despite his collaborators clearly understand the game better than him apparently…


Look at what they are doing with Groh….

Online with latence any gimmick will work so character matters a little less (well some characters are almost like cheating) but balance is offline oriented except for the nonsense of the flapjack nerf that was ridiculous in the same game where Mina and dumbed down GI exists.
Also the majority of strong players barely touch ranked.

I made some basic statistics again, not from my matches this time, but from the ranking table per character (on Steam).
Except for popularity they doesn t mean much unfortunately.
Play with the average copypaste online IVY and play with @Ring PL: the latter looks like an offline Ivy for what is possible while the others are just based on latence based gimmicks.

And when it comes to SIegfrieds you see the worst online can offer with mixups that doesn t exist offline and gets easily punished on reaction but for some reason gets unblockable unless you live in the same country with good ISP.

For what concerns Geralt and Mina i can think most people get bored to use 3 moves so they are not so popular online.
 
Online with latence any gimmick will work so character matters a little less (well some characters are almost like cheating) but balance is offline oriented

This right here is what the majority of people who come on here whining about characters need to understand. Although i think in most cases they really dont care and actually expect game balance should cater to their online play.
 
And when it comes to SIegfrieds you see the worst online can offer with mixups that doesn t exist offline and gets easily punished on reaction but for some reason gets unblockable unless you live in the same country with good ISP..

You complain about lag on Steam, which is supposed to be a better platform for online than my ps4. Yet I play Siegfried and I can tell you that stance mixups DO get interupted and punished all the time. I don't know what kind of potato router you're using but I don't have that kind of lag. People who know how to fight Siegfried keep me honest just as if I was playing offline. People still block lows and then punish.

At most there is a few frames of lag. Why don't you do what I do and only search for 4+ bars? Anything less and I will notice lag. The only thing I notice is the occasional lag spike but 99% of the time it's pretty seamless. Also, why are you playing people in different countries anyway?

Seems to me like the quality of your internet and the close proximity to your opponent matters more for online lag than the platform you play on. People complain about ps4 lag all the time yet I see people on steam experiencing more of it than I do....It's only once in a blue moon where it's bad for me.

You also said that the devs should be nerfing Sieg. I'm curious what you think is unbalanced about him. Sure he can dish out gobs of damage but he takes risks and is slow and unsafe, all stances interruptable. He can't apply pressure the same way others with +frames can. His CE is ass, his SC is underwhelming, his RE is like the worst in the game, and he has a very hard time closing the distance VS Ivy (the most popular online cheese character).

I'm not saying Sieg isn't a strong character, but he certainly isn't a brainless 3 move character like Mina.
 
Actually this is the least balanced of the series with 3 characters dominating the offline scene, and other making random appearances with no real results……

Worst thing is they refuse to deal with them...they indeed changed a little IVY but Siegfried keeps getting ognored and then Okubo says nonsense despite his collaborators clearly understand the game better than him apparently…


Look at what they are doing with Groh….

Online with latence any gimmick will work so character matters a little less (well some characters are almost like cheating) but balance is offline oriented except for the nonsense of the flapjack nerf that was ridiculous in the same game where Mina and dumbed down GI exists.
Also the majority of strong players barely touch ranked.


Except for popularity they doesn t mean much unfortunately.
Play with the average copypaste online IVY and play with @Ring PL: the latter looks like an offline Ivy for what is possible while the others are just based on latence based gimmicks.

And when it comes to SIegfrieds you see the worst online can offer with mixups that doesn t exist offline and gets easily punished on reaction but for some reason gets unblockable unless you live in the same country with good ISP.

For what concerns Geralt and Mina i can think most people get bored to use 3 moves so they are not so popular online.

Look there's always going to be some degree of subjectivity implicit in any balance analysis but this is clearly not the least well balanced game in the series at launch. Without question that title goes to Soul Calibur III's initial console release. Up until that point a lot of balancing work for the console editions was conducted during the earlier arcade releases and thus PS were less experienced at conducting as extensive an amount of pre-release balancing as they do today. The result was a --legendarily-- badly balanced game that famously pretty much destroyed the competitive scene for the series for a good while (although SCIII:AE brought a huge amount of improvements in the form of a balancing overhaul and bug fixes, it was a little too late to rescue the game's reputation). Indeed, the trend of poorly received balancing continued in Soul Calibur IV (I thought that one was alright in terms of not having too many high tiers--reasonable Hilde complaints not withstanding--but it did have a number of classic characters nerfed far too hard, and most players disagree with me altogether and think it was barely better balanced at launch than III) and Soul Calibur V, which was rushed out the gate and had all manner of half-balanced movesets, including infinite wall and backthrow combos for numerous characters at release.... It also benefited from more post-release balancing than had typically been seen before in the series, so (even not being a huge fan of that entry, I have to admit) it also ended being pretty solid on balance, I think, But a launch, not so much. Soul Calibur VI is not perfect, but it is clearly better than all three of its immediate predecessors in terms of the state of balancing at launch.

All of that said, I absolutely do agree with your other argument that, even if the majority of characters are balanced, there are three (and you're right, it is exactly three, I think--though I'm not certain we are thinking of the same three) characters who are so OP, your eyes could bleed from observing the sharpness of it. It is a problem and yeah, the balancing has been lackluster or even exacerabtive of the problems with this elite top tier so far. But I believe all of that is pretty consistent with the statement you quoted and seemed to be responding to: "Certainly the current game has most characters clustered in the middle, with some obvious exceptions."
 
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Whoah. The damage that comes from super finishers with Cervantes. It's like they forgot to scale it.

Ehhh, he probably needs it? I don't know the details, but I feel like I am slapping that previously intimidating style around every time I see him.

...but I am maining 2B right now and she pretty much shuts his zoning game down before it can even begin, so...
 
Does anyone know a good strat to beat Raphael.

Sophie and Zas struggle against him.

My main problem is openings I find very very little.
Although his attacks are mainly vertical focused his attack speed is pretty brutal and they usually come with knockdown follow ups,
I don’t know if I’m getting up right either as im getting trapped into more follow ups.

And the fact his punishes cancel into a CE just leaves me lost.

I’ve tried stepping and ducking but I’m getting caught out really badly he’s either way too fast or his range is surprisingly long.
 
I made some basic statistics again, not from my matches this time, but from the ranking table per character (on Steam).
I watched for each character the number of players with a A, B, C, D or E rank.

the first graph gives a good idea of the popularity of the characters on steam:

View attachment 57480

The position of 2B is skewed because it is a recent DLC. Tira also probably pays for being (unpopular day-one) DLC, but she appears already, with Voldo, less popular than 2B.
Seeing the top, I guess players love big sword and big breast (double check for 2B!). Bamco probably knew it, would explain both season pass and Tira's cup size change...
I'm surprise to see Asta so high, and Geralt and Azwel so low. Geralt was very popular after launch, but it seems the interest for the witcher quickly run out of breath.

I also wonder if a character was doing better than the others proportionnaly. So I ranked them according the ratio [players above C5 / players above E5]View attachment 57481
So again, there is many bias : 2B had less time, there is pre-patch and post-patch data behind, the ranking system is arbitrary (I would have something different with D+ instead of C+)...

Also, I don't sell it as a tier list because it's online, and that mostly reflects casual players. Buuut the tier-list participates, among other factors, to this ranking.

Note that on steam, There is currently juste one A-ranked player (a Raphael). There was previously a S-ranked Inferno, but he got ban.

I take this opportunity to congratulate 8wayrun's players that are sitting on first page of their character. I remember seing @MONEYMUFFINS :sc4sop1: , @Party Wolf :sc1kil1: , @Hayate :sc1kil1:, @Kura :sc2tal1:, @Ring :sc1ivy3: and probably other I forgot or don't recognize (sorry). Good job!

Edit : forgot Ring_PL!

Are there really that few users above E5 per character on all of Steam? Surely even with Steam being the least common platform for the game that's like, at most, one player in ten? Fifteen? Holy moly there's a lot of casuals buying this game! I hope it's a sign of a revival in broad popularity. Can you link to the steam metadata page from which you sourced your figures?


Does anyone know a good strat to beat Raphael.

Sophie and Zas struggle against him.

My main problem is openings I find very very little.
Although his attacks are mainly vertical focused his attack speed is pretty brutal and they usually come with knockdown follow ups,
I don’t know if I’m getting up right either as im getting trapped into more follow ups.

And the fact his punishes cancel into a CE just leaves me lost.

I’ve tried stepping and ducking but I’m getting caught out really badly he’s either way too fast or his range is surprisingly long.

I wish I could provide something more concrete, but this is my very abstract and general advice that let's me prevail against him more often than not: Number one, don't be afraid to embrace spending a little more time guarding than you might normally be inclined to do. Raphael is at his most effective when he preserves a relatively static amount of range that is at the outer edge of mid-range. And while he has range and speed in the sense of wind-up frames, that's not the same as returning to neutral fast and that's where he is weaker; he cannot keep up sustained pressure from a distance. The trick is to make the Raph-wielder feel like they have you cowering in turtle mode (well, to an extent, they often do) and, when they think they are setting the pace, have them come in too close while trying to apply the pressure. In that mid range your Zas (and to a lesser extent, Sophie) will have more options and if you're anticipating that moment, you'll have a decent shot at taking the frame advantage at that point. And your opponent will have to be careful about trying to lean on their own quicker mid/close range attacks because many give significant frame disadvantages on block and/or have wide punishable windows regardless, relative to the close range arsenals of many other characters at that range. You already identified step as essential, and once you break your opponent out of the pacing inherit in Rapha's safe zone, you'll have a better shot at that, though as you obviously already know, Raphael has the tools to punish even then, if you get too one-note in your approach.

Again, I know that's a little generalized, but I really don't know Zas or Sophitia well enough to give you a more detailed match-up break down. For that matter it's been a loooong time since I gave Raphael's frame data (even if we had it nailed down for this game already) a detailed look or even so much as did match-up training against him. And while the above works well for me, my characters tend to be speed demons--there may be a more efficacious way to to do this with the decent mid range options of those two characters.
 
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