Possible Guard-Break Bug

Slade

[14] Master
I've noticed on two separate occasions what appears to be a bug: a player can have his guard broken but retain a flashing-red health bar after the break.

I'm not sure what causes this, whether it's a bug, or if it's just a UI bug (i.e. the character's guard damage resets to zero but the life bar continues flashing as if it didn't).

Has anyone else had this happen? I've only seen it in streams; one was a pre-release match (Grøh breaking Zas's guard) and the other post-release (Azwel breaking Grøh's). If you have, any ideas what might have caused it? It'd be good to figure this out before the next major balance patch of it is indeed a bug.
 
I've noticed on two separate occasions what appears to be a bug: a player can have his guard broken but retain a flashing-red health bar after the break.

I'm not sure what causes this, whether it's a bug, or if it's just a UI bug (i.e. the character's guard damage resets to zero but the life bar continues flashing as if it didn't).

Has anyone else had this happen? I've only seen it in streams; one was a pre-release match (Grøh breaking Zas's guard) and the other post-release (Azwel breaking Grøh's). If you have, any ideas what might have caused it? It'd be good to figure this out before the next major balance patch of it is indeed a bug.
Interesting. I never seen something like that happened before. I will head into the lab and try to see if i can make it happen with Azwel against Grøh. I'll see if I can find something.
 
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After spending an hour in the lab, I did all sorts of possibilities to see if I can get the flashing red life bar after the guard break and got nothing. I tried with Azwel x Grøh, Yoshimitsu x Mitsurugi and Grøh x Zas. Nothing. Based on Slade's post, this occurred during an offline match only. Perhaps it really is a bug that only happens in rare occasions and needs to be further checked or it is a UI bug that failed to read the Guard Damage Percentage has reset to 0%.
If the guard break has occurred and the life bar is still flashing red and you're able to break it a second time right away, is definitely a bug. However if you can't guard break it, then the guard damage has reset to 0% and is a error in the UI script.
 
I've seen it happen both online and off. I'll try to find if there's an archive of the stream where it happened.
 
Here it is happening in a pre-release build (10:31):


And in the final release:


(Full video here; happens around 18:40.)

In the pre-release version, the red blinking does not reset when the new round starts. In the release version, it does, but it's possible that isn't always the case.

It’s tough to tell if it’s just a UI bug because both players in the first video treated it as if it were a real red guard gauge. A single Grøh 66BB didn’t break, but it’s possible Jimbo’s guard had recovered just enough to survive it even if he had been stuck at 100% guard damage after the first break. You also can’t tell from the second video because the round ends pretty quickly.

As for possible causes, nothing in particular stands out. Soul Charge might be involved, or RE.
 
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Is it possible in the first video that after Grøh breaks Zas' guard with 66BB and immediately wins the round, is it possible that perhaps it takes a second for the Guard Damage Percentage to reset to 0%? Grøh's 66BB takes less than a second to preform both hits and I think just maybe the Guard Damage Percentage requires a second or perhaps 0.50 seconds to reset itself. And because Grøh's second attack landed immediately after the break, I think the Guard Damage doesn't begin to reset until the slow motion finishes and of course Grøh's second attack instantly ends the round under 0.50 seconds and thus prevented the Guard Damage Percentage from resetting. That's one possibility I can think of in that situation.

I could be wrong in many ways, maybe. Correct if i'm wrong or missing something.
 
Actually I went ahead and tried this in 2 players vs. I did exactly as they done in the first video and didn't get anything. Maybe I was wrong about Guard Damage Percentage and it instantly resets itself after the break happens. Still this is an interesting thing and I want to know if we can redo it again before any major patch.
 
I found something interesting during another test. With Grøh, I was doing 66A+B to quickly pick down Zas guard percentage. After breaking his guard around 3 or 4 times, the next time I started to rise up his Guard Damage Percentage, the life bar was not flashing yellow nor red, yet it still broke at some point. I repeat! The life bar was NOT flashing but Zas' Guard Damage Percentage was still raising. I think I found something else but I will keep testing before saying more.
 
Found yet another interesting yet strange thing. Maybe you knew about this, but this is new to me.

Going back again with Grøh and Zas. Okay when I broke Zas guard, instead of resetting as it should have done, it started flashing yellow after the Guard Break. Hell it was possible to break his guard while it was still flashing yellow with 66A+B.

Preforming the same test again but this time Kilik against Yoshimitsu. It happened again with Kilik's 5A+B Guard Break attack. It took 5 hits to get Yoshimitsu's life to flash yellow and one more for red. 7 attacks with Kilik's 5A+B broke Yoshimitsu's guard. However at some point it took less hits to reach flashing yellow and also, life bar didn't flash at all once percentage reach 90%. Also at some point I broke his guard and instead of going back to normal it was already flashing yellow.
 
Took a screenshot for you to see that life is flashing red but Guard Crush is at 0%. This is false. Despite life bar is flashing red, it will NOT break. Believe what the Guard Crush Percentage is showing there.
SoulcaliburVI 2018-11-09 22-50-04-222.jpg
 
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Guard Crush at 96% and life bar isn't flashing red when clearly it should. Took this screen cap before hit one more time and it broke the guard.
SoulcaliburVI 2018-11-09 23-00-41-687.jpg
 
Still preforming a few more test to be sure this doesn't happen at random and if we can call it a bug or not. Not sure if it can be exploited, too.
 
Okay... After spending an hour and a half or so doing a bunch of testing in the lab and also 2 players vs, I think I've found clues to understand better how this bug works and when it happens and how you can make it happen. Let's quickly sum it up from what I mention before.

After breaking Zas' guard around 3 or 4 times, the next time I started to rise up his Guard Damage Percentage, the life bar was not flashing yellow nor red. I assumed either Percentage stopped working or the attack was causing less damage. Guard Damage Percentage was still raising despite the life bar was not flashing. Life bar not flashing but Zas' Guard Damage Percentage was still raising and eventually broke. Also at some point when I broke his guard a few times, I noticed the life bar was flashing yellow instead of fully resetting. Was it because the attack was stronger? No. No matter how strong your final attack is before the Guard Crush, Guard Crush Percentage will always reset to 0% and start anew. So what caused it to reset to 0% but it was instead flashing yellow? We'll get to that in a moment but right now I wanted to point out it was possible to crush Zas' guard with Grøh's 66A+B attack with a yellow flashing life bar. Is it possible for such a thing? I wouldn't really know if it is possible with some characters and their attacks but I happened to do it with Grøh's 66A+B. I think that covers this part for now. On to the next test (This was done in a 2player vs match offline before I headed into the lab)

Preforming the same test again but this time Kilik against Yoshimitsu. It happened again with Kilik's 5A+B Guard Break attack. It took 5 hits to get Yoshimitsu's life to flash yellow and one more for red. 7 attacks with Kilik's 5A+B broke Yoshimitsu's guard. However at some point it took less hits to reach flashing yellow and also, life bar didn't flash at all once percentage reach 90%. Also at some point I broke his guard and instead of going back to normal it was already flashing yellow during this test. Now I noticed something during this test too and I will point it out once we sum it all up in a nutshell. (Also done in 2player vs offline)

So after those two tests, I went and headed to the lab to see if I can preform this again with the Guard Crush Percentage on screen to screen cap it.
Thankfully I was able to do so. You'll find 2 screenshots above this post. So blah blah I was able to repeat what I just did before in 2player vs mode in training mode but is still unclear to me how to actually trigger this bug as much as I would like.

Anyway onto the last bit. In the two screenshots I posted above, you can see that Zas' life bar is flashing red but Guard Crush is at 0%. This is false. His guard won't be crushed with your next guard break attack. What I don't know is if it will either REALLY reset or will it be yellow. This was more a 50-50 chance for it to happen. In the second screenshot, you can see Zas' Guard Crush is at 96% and life bar isn't flashing red when clearly it should. A UI error to be sure!

Okay let's move onto the "What caused it to reset to 0% but instead it was flashing yellow after a Guard Break?" part.
This is simple to understand but the true cause of this bug is a little though to pin-point but I will tell in details in case you want to test it yourself.
So how do you get your opponent's life bar to flash yellow or red after preforming a Guard Crush? This is the interesting part... it seems your own Guard Damage Percentage has something to do with this. If you want to get your opponent's life bar to flash yellow or red after preforming a Guard Crush, you would need to raise your own Guard Damage Percentage. In other words, get your own life bar to flash either red or yellow and then try to Guard Crush your opponent.

These are the possibilities that can happen when you Guard Crush your opponent while have a red or yellow flashing life bar.
Note, assume your opponent's Guard Crush Percentage is at 0% when doing this to get a clear idea:
1 - Opponent's Guard Crush Percentage may fully reset to 0% without problem.
2 - Opponent's Guard Crush Percentage may be rising but you can't tell due to his life bar isn't flashing, but you can clearly see the Guard Crush Percentage is raising in training mode as you attack.
3 - Is possible to break the opponent's Guard Crush while he has a yellow flashing life bar. I didn't mention this before, but in fact, the opponent's Guard Crush Percentage is around 80 to 99% and it isn't flashing red. Clearly a UI error, yes? When at 50% it starts flashing yellow and red when it reaches 80% and beyond.
4 - After preforming a Guard Crush on the opponent, it is possible his life bar will flash either yellow or red. Yellow appeared to happen more often and red only occurred 2 or 3 times during these tests. Once the opponent has his guard crushed, Guard Crush Percentage returns to 0% but this has proven to be false during my testing. Guard Crush Percentage showed it was at 0% but opponent's life bar was flashing red and my next Guard Break attack instantly broke his guard again. Afterwards it started flashing yellow and percentage once again was at 0%.

Reminder these 4 possibilities only worked during my testing when my own life bar was flashing red or yellow. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared to happen if your life bar was normal. Oh and another thing that I didn't mention and now is good time before you think of testing this yourself. The chances of these 4 possibilities occurring seem to be more likely if you have a filled Soul Meter. During my final tests, I tried to repeat the steps I did before but without Soul Meter and it didn't happen at all. Having either 1 or 2 maxed out Soul Meter seems to also have a important role here. Chances of the 4 possibilities were quite higher with maxed out meter. (Your meter, not the opponent's.)

Despite all these tests, I can't really control the opponent's life bar to flash red whenever I preform the Guard Crush on him. It happens at random and sometimes your Guard Break attacks seem to do at least 5% more damage to their Guard Damage Percentage. I believe whenever your own Guard Damage Percentage is high, you start to do more damage to your Opponent's Guard Damage Percentage but the number ain't always the same and is unpredictable. Can you call this a bug? Without a doubt we can call the UI and error. What are your thoughts on this? I say this should be addressed or explained in further details to understand it better.
 
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Quick update.
While all this seems to happen at random. Even after preforming a Guard Crush and the opponent's life bar is flashing red, this is a false UI error as the next heavy/Guard Break attack does NOT break his guard. In fact, Guard Crush Percentage has indeed reset 0% and is once again raising with each attack despite the life bar is flashing red. However I can't be too sure as I think Guard Crush Percentage doesn't fully reset at times as sometimes it takes lesser hits to Guard Crush the opponent with the same move.
 
Definitely sounds like a bug. It’s a pretty bad one, too. Thinking you’re about to be guard broken when you’re not or vice versa can easily lose you the round. Thanks for all the time and effort you spent investigating this. Hopefully the devs will notice.
 
wow. Not even a month and this game has quite a few potentially game breaking bugs. This better not be sc3 all over again

Honestly I feel this is worse. Not only that, they fixed almost all of the game's issues with 3AE. I don't see this team fixing everything(char balance aside) and not making things worse.
 
Found this in the SCV 1.02 patch notes:
Fixed character's guard burst damage not recovering between rounds. Characters that were affected: Voldo, Astaroth, Raphael, Tira, Algol, Z.W.E.I., Patroklos, α Patroklos, Xiba, and Ezio.

Might be the same bug in 6.
 
Experienced this bug by accident against the cpu the other day. I broke their guard, inserted by combo, only the life bar was still flashing red. I could not break it again with easy as I assume it actually reset. the match was over a few seconds after that so I'll never know for sure if it reset to 0 or not.

Even if the bug is just visual, it can still lead people to make different decisions based on that red flash and for that reason it's broken and needs to be fixed.
 
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