Looking And Waiting For Something Special?

Update: Dec 25 - Patience finally pays off?

SC is back! Get ready, fans! http://twitpic.com/3j16ui

Well I'm sure most of you were worried, as all the surprises we've seen so far have been Tekken related! But you were promised something spectacular, and now you finally get what you've been waiting for... Daishi Odashima, Lead designer for the Soulcalibur series has just opened up his own twitter!

Odashima-san used to be a tournament player in Japan back in the Soulcalibur 1 days! Since he's the new director of all things Soulcalibur at Namco, and by his own admission, has the final say on his team; you should follow him on twitter. Merry Christmas everyone?

I say again!! The day has finally come when I can tell you all about it. Soul Calibur is BACK !!

Update: Dec 23 - Katsuhiro Harada recently unveiled a new trailer and character for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. He also promises that more surprises are on the way:

Thanks for tons of comment !! OK next !!
I have something new to tweet about tomorrow night. so get ready!
(Not a footage. But important)

Update: Dec 21 - from Katsuhiro Harada's twitter:

Sorry guys I'm so busy now.
However, I want to show you something within the course of a few days...

Original Post - Namco-Bandai's Katsuhiro Harada has been having a lot of fun with his twitter account lately; their community manager FilthieRich is no different:

Looking and waiting for something special?
Make sure to continue following and tell your friends to stay tuned ....

What could this cryptic message possibly mean? Well that I couldn't really tell you. All I can say is that Namco-Bandai is probably planning some big surprises for the holiday, and you should pay attention to the twitter feeds. Just look at that face... you know he's up to no good!

We'll do our best to keep you updated with any relevant information here on 8WayRun.

 

I see what you did there. War will be back though.

 

Hilde also had the issue of binding to constantly have her charge moves charged, and really those moves have stupidly OP properties when you can throw them out at leisure. The C3A(?) has aGi, TC, positive on block, decent SG, sets up for an RO combo, I can't deal with that BS primed every other move. If they had made it so hitting her resets and she couldnt charge in air or ground she couldnt spam them while turtling, she'd be forced to limit their usage and use them wisely. It's fine they're as strong as they are, but they were intended to not always be accessible. People were suggesting ban binding to stop it, which is an absolutely terrible idea. Hilde was broke on many levels, the Doom Combos just put it way over the top. And even so, some people can still do plenty of damage holding A/B and using kick normals till they fish for the doom combo.

Algol, needed no nerf, just other characters buffed. Tho my force gauge bubble idea would've been a fair nerf to Algol.

There are definitely cases where nerf, over character buffs are needed that apply outside of a broken character. Some ROs need to be toned down, somethings just track to well that shouldn't, and some moves just have far too many advantages. But for every nerf I like to see a replacement buff occur. EX: If you tone down a tracking vertical, give a better anti-step horizontal. The issue is the vertical is playing roles outside it's intended use while covering what it should be doing, so you split the benefit between 2 moves so the player cant cover all grounds on 1 move alone but aren't losing anything. I think it's totally reasonable to say Ivy's SW 3B needs to not track so well and her SW6A should catch all step. I think Kiliks 1B need toning down too. TC and TS, CH combo, fair range, tracks like a mother fucker, safe, and even decent SG i think. I say make it unsafe or take out the TS so that you can stuff it with AA or a grab, a move does not need that many benefits. At least Ivy's CL 214B is unsafe as hell even sometimes on hit.

[edit]apparently 1B is unsafe afterall...hmmm...well then[/edit]

 

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure the whiny guy on SRK is Artilust; he basically came here and did the same thing. Some people just want to be heard.

As for SC5, as I've said before, I'd rather let the devs do their came and leave open the possibility for patches (as they can't have the aforementioned foresight). I think, in simply designing the game, they have a much better grasp of how things effect other things than any of us. On top of that...I've heard people here call Asura broken, so... >_>

 

I hope they realize that even if the guest characters aren't coming back, that's no reason to toss out perfectly good movesets. I'd love for a Vader and Apprentice hybrid, with a different weapon and design, to make it into SC5.

 

^This. Really I don't want to lose my main at all so if they could just give his move-set to some new character I would be happy as hell.

 

I want an archer with a short sword! And, no, I never liked Link. =D

 

Kiliks 1B gripe gripe gripe, safe, and gripe gripe SG i gripe.

It's unsafe

 

I can't be bothered to check frame data <.<

lol point remains tho (just non specific to 1B cuz i fail)

[edit] LOL -16?!? Fuck you online, fuck you indeed!

 

Think it might have been Jaxel who once stated moves should only have so many benefits stacked on, and for the most part im agreement, exception being moves that have a drawback to balance it out.

 

Ivyfanboy

I understand fully how good Mitsu is, it is just my opinion that the gap between top and bottom tier should be much smaller. Even other games could aim to decrease the gap between the top and bottom tier some more. Mitsu to Amy is an appropriate gap. It is kind of a lot to hope for but it's not at all impossible. At the worst I could accept bottom tier being at Siegfried's level but I am hoping for better.

 

While that sounds great and all it's really hard to have that small of a gap. Mitsu to Amy is not a whole lot, noticeable but not a lot. The developers will hopefully strive for that but inevitably that's hard to achieve with how deep this game can get considering how many moves per character there are. I can do mid tier to Amy tier and be content with calling it a success. Though i heard SC2 was VERY balanced (i didnt play competitively so i dunno) with only X being comparable to our Amy, and Yun being Mina tier.

Here's hopin you're right tho.

 

Think it might have been Jaxel who once stated moves should only have so many benefits stacked on, and for the most part im agreement, exception being moves that have a drawback to balance it out.

A move can be FAST, POWERFUL, RANGED or SAFE.... Pick only TWO. No move should ever have more or less than two of these properties. That is really the best way to create balance. These are simple rules of economics.

 

It's a lot harder to make the tier list a lot smaller with such a large roster of characters. Even more so with different ranges and play-styles. Of course I want the game to be as balanced as possible, but I am not getting my hopes up that it will see the level of balance everyone seems to hope for. However, that is what makes this game so interesting in the first place. You see players adapting to there lack of reach, or lack of speed just to name two examples. While you may see the top players using top tier characters, they can just as easily pick up a lower tier character and get the same results. So as long as they make this game with a better netcode, new and rewarding modes and perhaps a more engaging story line...I'll be a happy camper.

Oh.....BRING BACK LINK!!!! XD

 

While that sounds great and all it's really hard to have that small of a gap. Mitsu to Amy is not a whole lot, noticeable but not a lot. The developers will hopefully strive for that but inevitably that's hard to achieve with how deep this game can get considering how many moves per character there are. I can do mid tier to Amy tier and be content with calling it a success. Though i heard SC2 was VERY balanced (i didnt play competitively so i dunno) with only X being comparable to our Amy, and Yun being Mina tier.

Here's hopin you're right tho.

SC2 was not balanced, it was SUPER safe. Hence why X stood out because everything she did was hella safe. (as well as most of the cast)
Then you had your few mid tier (Kilik, mitsu)
then you had your lower tier (yun)

 

Yeah. there's too many overly versatile moves and ones that you never want to use. Ivy has SO many useless moves that never see play. I just wanna see some of those perks on the good moves transfer over to the bad ones.

 

SC2 was not balanced, it was SUPER safe. Hence why X stood out because everything she did was hella safe. (as well as most of the cast)
Then you had your few mid tier (Kilik, mitsu)
then you had your lower tier (yun)

I am all in for this. SCV should be imo like SCII was in terms of balancing.

Almost every character was awesome. I prefer a game where alomst every char is very strong than a game in which almost everyone is crap.

Damn, i still love those SCII command lists... :/

 

Would like to see a competitive Nightmare.

Yeah. there's too many overly versatile moves and ones that you never want to use. Ivy has SO many useless moves that never see play. I just wanna see some of those perks on the good moves transfer over to the bad ones.

Speaking of Ivy moves, I was never a fan of coil stance. It shared some moves with sword stance, so I always felt coil wasn't needed. I would like to see some of CS moves integrated into sword stance, and do away with CS.

 

isn't strength and crappiness relative ?

Would the game be more fun if every character was a hilde variant or a mina variant? It seems like if every character was mina level, in order to get ahead, you'd have to take some risks and get lucky. On the other hand, if every character was hilde level, the victor is generally the one that makes the least mistakes (and therefore take the least risks).

 

SC4 is pretty balanced from mid to top. But things like Amy's 2B+K shouldn't be in this game, a fast low that stuns and you can combo off on?...this isn't Tekken. Hell in Tekken those kinda of fast lows get your launched on block.

Low tier characters in this game a really low tier. Talim has an unsafe BB, so does Zasalamel for that matter. Way too many negative frames for some of these characters, leaving very few options.

I feel like every character should be scary to some degree.

What makes characters different in this game is they're disciplines or sword style. So regardless of balance the characters will never be the same. Amy isn't Raph, Cass isn't Sophie or Lizz, and NM isn't Sieg. This is the one FG where balance doesn't comes with boredom.

 

No. At the start of learning Ivy I didn't like CS either, but it's totally unique and very good. I feel the method of stance shifting was PERFECT in this (tho I would love no buffer lock even more >_<...cmon Sword -> Whip mode!). CL has better anti step than SW and a few move like CL 1BB+K and A+B that are fantastic. If anything her SE needs a LOT of fixing and WP could use some tweeks (so many bad WP moves). I think my only complaint about CL would be 214B pulling random 180's and completely fucking you over at times. I would love to see more push and pull options with natural flow to shifting EX: a new move CL 6BB+K would be a string that pulls them in and goes to SW mode or CL6A+K would push them and go to WP mode, CL 6BA+B+K would be something inbetween.

I would actually love too see a lot more options in strings that dealt with controlling position and direction and even soul gauge set ups