Jimbonator
[14] Master
Hi, first of all this is an opinionated thread but I felt the need to make it. Debating is not only allowed but encouraged.
This thread was made to talk about common opinions that are posted on the forums from general threads and soul arenas. I want to offer a reasoning on why things are what they are in SCV as opposed to SCIV and even the earlier iterations.
Barring forward step, moving is now -20 on all fronts. Movement now has a significant risk to it as opposed to the step G mechanic that has been with the series. This change in of itself makes characters that can contain movement very strong, throwing SC4 versions of the current roster would not work as the weak will get weaker and strong will get stronger. So changes to the moveset were needed just to make the mechanic sound. Speed of moves and reward on run counter and normal hit had to be assessed. So lets start with the reduction of moves available at neutral with no movement involved.
The past system had no movement buffer needed to do attacks like a 22B, 11K, 33A, etc but given the movement change that was no longer the case and a 10 frame step was added to moves like this while 66 and 44 moves remained the same. In order to make these moves attractive to use, they needed very strong effects. Moves like these would be incredibly stupid if we could use them from neutral willy-nilly.
Ezio 22K
Tira 22B
Pat 11K
Nightmare 22A
Algol 22A, 11K, 22B
Omega 22K, 11B
Sieg 22A
Raph 22B, 33KB 22A
Mitsu 22A, 33K, 22B, 11B
and many many others....
This also devalues other moves these characters can do from neutral without movement. Without the movement requirement to certain attacks, Mitsu's issues with safe mid step killers and lack of easy to access TC moves would be gone. Omega would constantly have a decent ranged, very fast, safe mid step killing kick to keep people in check and Raphael would be a nightmare to approach. Pat's 1K would also be much less attractive to use, etc etc etc. The movement change forces you to use your moveset fully and weigh the pros and cons of everything you do. Characters were much easier to diversify now despite the added prerequisites to do particular actions and removal of certain moves...which leads me to.
Mitsurugi
SCIV Rugi: Rushdown mix up character
What was removed: Relic stance. (while cool, everything was unsafe, couldn't move well or block, but decent pressure)
SCV Rugi result: Very safe poking adept character with access to immediate 50/50s if all else fails.
Ivy
Ivy is a character who changes drastically with every new iteration and she morphs to reflect the system she is in. A drastic system change demanded a drastic Ivy overhaul, she just now happens to be a lot simpler. Ivy in SCIV was also incredibly stupid. So the developers had to change a dynamic character to thrive in a completely new system with movement changes and just guard. Ivy then had her stances gutted as A) We are cutting down on useless moves and B) She was near broken. This was the product we got.
Siegfried
Stances were a prominent part of Sieg's movelist in four so instead of taking that away, he was given moves that had a clear, strong purpose. Base hold now had a clear and consistent purpose in repelling horizontals. Chief Hold A+B was removed because Chief Hold B did the same thing post 3B hit and it became a stance about getting damage and covering your ass on a miscalculation (getting it blocked.) Reverse Side Hold is clearly now about an immediate 50/50 and Side Hold can be used to backstep punish really unsafe moves or to play with interrupts on a blocked entry. Siegfried has a clear purpose in life now. to whiff
Raphael
Shadow Evade Beta was cool and had really good moves but it was the most impractical thing in the world to access, just having one shadow evade with the good stuff is what Raphael needed.
Kilik/Xiba
The introduction of remembrance colors Xiba tremendously and its about him turning around lousy situations. It has a purpose of countering the opponent's offense. It also multitasks where as monument and the other stance both countered different things and you had to guess yourself.
Meter!
Meter is this really cool thing that allows you to change a property of a move for the better (most of the time) and opens up new possibilities that your character can do to exact offense and get your win.
1) Initiating a GI war had large risk for potentially no reward.
2) GI had two hit levels so you had to guess what kind of attack your opponent was even going to do.
3) GI only had large strength when you could react to something. (Amy 66A)
4. GI was only +20.
So as a defensive mechanic it did not really adhere to the definition of defense too closely. It was then changed to take up a half bar of meter, works on all hit levels, and buffed to +27.
Those changes make GI the game changers they wanted to be, it also makes you weary of own meter and your opponents and adds another level of thinking to layer in. +27 also gives you A LOT of room to play with post GI attacks to mess up your opponent's rhythm and get your free damage. You don't even need to worry about what kind of attack your opponent will do! Again, everything now has a more distinct value to it in the economy of risk/reward. This change was for the better.
Now get out there and enjoy the game we have.
This thread was made to talk about common opinions that are posted on the forums from general threads and soul arenas. I want to offer a reasoning on why things are what they are in SCV as opposed to SCIV and even the earlier iterations.
Moveset Streamlining
Movesets as a whole were reduced but this is something we have all been aware of forever now. Why did this happen? Well not to punish devoted players or to screw with people, the overall system of Calibur changed and the moveset needed to be tweaked to reflect that. This is nothing new and happens every game, just happens to be a drastic change in SCV's case.
Barring forward step, moving is now -20 on all fronts. Movement now has a significant risk to it as opposed to the step G mechanic that has been with the series. This change in of itself makes characters that can contain movement very strong, throwing SC4 versions of the current roster would not work as the weak will get weaker and strong will get stronger. So changes to the moveset were needed just to make the mechanic sound. Speed of moves and reward on run counter and normal hit had to be assessed. So lets start with the reduction of moves available at neutral with no movement involved.
The past system had no movement buffer needed to do attacks like a 22B, 11K, 33A, etc but given the movement change that was no longer the case and a 10 frame step was added to moves like this while 66 and 44 moves remained the same. In order to make these moves attractive to use, they needed very strong effects. Moves like these would be incredibly stupid if we could use them from neutral willy-nilly.
Ezio 22K
Tira 22B
Pat 11K
Nightmare 22A
Algol 22A, 11K, 22B
Omega 22K, 11B
Sieg 22A
Raph 22B, 33KB 22A
Mitsu 22A, 33K, 22B, 11B
and many many others....
This also devalues other moves these characters can do from neutral without movement. Without the movement requirement to certain attacks, Mitsu's issues with safe mid step killers and lack of easy to access TC moves would be gone. Omega would constantly have a decent ranged, very fast, safe mid step killing kick to keep people in check and Raphael would be a nightmare to approach. Pat's 1K would also be much less attractive to use, etc etc etc. The movement change forces you to use your moveset fully and weigh the pros and cons of everything you do. Characters were much easier to diversify now despite the added prerequisites to do particular actions and removal of certain moves...which leads me to.
Quantity of moves=/=Depth of the game
This is probably one of if not the biggest comment concerning SCV is that the smaller movelists chokes the variety and creativity characters have. In terms of efficiency and clear vision on what a character is designed to do this is FALSE. You do not need 3 moves that all do essentially the same thing. Let me go over a few characters and explain.
The Gutting and Alteration of Stances
Mitsurugi
SCIV Rugi: Rushdown mix up character
What was removed: Relic stance. (while cool, everything was unsafe, couldn't move well or block, but decent pressure)
SCV Rugi result: Very safe poking adept character with access to immediate 50/50s if all else fails.
Ivy
Ivy is a character who changes drastically with every new iteration and she morphs to reflect the system she is in. A drastic system change demanded a drastic Ivy overhaul, she just now happens to be a lot simpler. Ivy in SCIV was also incredibly stupid. So the developers had to change a dynamic character to thrive in a completely new system with movement changes and just guard. Ivy then had her stances gutted as A) We are cutting down on useless moves and B) She was near broken. This was the product we got.
Siegfried
Stances were a prominent part of Sieg's movelist in four so instead of taking that away, he was given moves that had a clear, strong purpose. Base hold now had a clear and consistent purpose in repelling horizontals. Chief Hold A+B was removed because Chief Hold B did the same thing post 3B hit and it became a stance about getting damage and covering your ass on a miscalculation (getting it blocked.) Reverse Side Hold is clearly now about an immediate 50/50 and Side Hold can be used to backstep punish really unsafe moves or to play with interrupts on a blocked entry. Siegfried has a clear purpose in life now. to whiff
Raphael
Shadow Evade Beta was cool and had really good moves but it was the most impractical thing in the world to access, just having one shadow evade with the good stuff is what Raphael needed.
Kilik/Xiba
The introduction of remembrance colors Xiba tremendously and its about him turning around lousy situations. It has a purpose of countering the opponent's offense. It also multitasks where as monument and the other stance both countered different things and you had to guess yourself.
The Meter System
This feature I think has been gradually getting more and more accepted as time goes on but hear is my rationalization. This goes back to giving particular moves a set value. Lets go back our buddy Mitsurugi and his famous 2KB. Just Ukemi was removed from SCIV so know Mitsurugi has a unseeable step killing low that knocked down on normal hit and could not be just ukemied. Pretty bad situation. Having an easy to use tool like that without any cost can drastically color how a character is played and how a match is going to go...if only we had some sort of finite resource that could keep really really good moves in the game but at a cost...
Meter!
Meter is this really cool thing that allows you to change a property of a move for the better (most of the time) and opens up new possibilities that your character can do to exact offense and get your win.
Meter Management and the Change of Guard Impact
Our meter mechanic can be used to enhance moves or access a critical edge but it can also be used to guard impact. The GI change has left a lot of people sour but there are reasons for this.
1) Initiating a GI war had large risk for potentially no reward.
2) GI had two hit levels so you had to guess what kind of attack your opponent was even going to do.
3) GI only had large strength when you could react to something. (Amy 66A)
4. GI was only +20.
So as a defensive mechanic it did not really adhere to the definition of defense too closely. It was then changed to take up a half bar of meter, works on all hit levels, and buffed to +27.
Those changes make GI the game changers they wanted to be, it also makes you weary of own meter and your opponents and adds another level of thinking to layer in. +27 also gives you A LOT of room to play with post GI attacks to mess up your opponent's rhythm and get your free damage. You don't even need to worry about what kind of attack your opponent will do! Again, everything now has a more distinct value to it in the economy of risk/reward. This change was for the better.
Just Guard
With the removal of meterless GI we were given an additional method for defense. Just guard enables all characters to hurt any other character with the adequate read. Removing JG would revert back to problems we had in SCIV. Ivy would be dominant (assuming her SCIV iteration made the cut for V), Kilik's Asura dance would be back in business, and Amy would still ran rampant. Just guard is able to keep these characters in check if they were in SCV. So rather than the JG mechanic cripple the offense prevalent in SCIV characters needed to change some more. Just guard can be argued to be tweaked but the fact is that it levels the playing field considerably.
This game is too easy now because I can just pick up and play.
This one is not as common as the others but I still see comments like this once in awhile. SCV and SC in general is: Easy to learn, hard to master. People who say this are not winning against top level players who compete offline to test their skill. Characters all have more distinct purposes but that does NOT mean they are strictly choked to their role of zoner or mix ups or whatever. This game is very malleable given the plethora of applicable mechanics. If a fighting game is easy to pick up that should be a plus as it gets people into it easier.
Now get out there and enjoy the game we have.