Soul Calibur 6: Technical Gameplay discussion

Age_of_Truth

Age_of_Truth

[12] Conqueror
It seems like there isn't a suitable place to discuss general gameplay findings yet, so here we are.

Soulcalibur France Hayate's introductory video:


Post general technical SCVI information garnered from watching gameplay videos or trying out early access builds in this thread.

For character specifics, please use the character threads that are cropping up as each is announced.

Trace_afj and Frayhua have made dedicated threads for the new Reversal Edge and Lethal Hit mechanics:
https://8wayrun.com/threads/reversal-edge-mechanic-master-post-by-trace_afj.19744/
https://8wayrun.com/threads/lethal-hits-in-scvi.19841/
 
As mentioned in the SCVI discussion thread, Silent Joel and I got to try the 6-character build at Bandai Namco HQ London.

Others including Ketchup and Mustard and History Behind the Warrior were also present:

We intended to to a podcast about our findings over the weekend but failed spectacularly, so here is a brief rundown of what we gathered...

Movement feels mostly like SCV to me, Joel felt it's more like SCII. 8 way run seems very fast and very strong.

In general it felt as if you didn't get punished as much for moving as in SCV, so in that sense it's like a return to what people liked about SCII. In general I think the game will be initially popular with people who liked SCII.

Tracking feels toned down, which adds to the feeling of movement being buffed. Some verticals still have significant hitboxes to one side though, so you will still need to learn which direction to step, especially if you're against a wall. I remember at least twice seeing vertical unblockables make contact when the opponent had stepped halfway around, or even behind the opponent on one occasion.

Meter stuff was hard to test - there is no training mode yet and meter is fairly slow to build relative to the amount of damage you deal. Critical Edge seem similar to SCV - punishable but not super punishable; they might be a bit slower too but we didn't really test this seriously. They don't seem to have invincible frames. I think you are better off using Soul Charge to interrupt at heavy disadvantage, as this seems much quicker.

Soul Charge is +0 on block and slight advantage on hit (tested using Xianghua vs Sophitia). Against a wall, the attacking player doesn't get forced back, so you do get a point blank mixup, which will be important for short range characters.

Apologies but it was difficult to test timing and buffering properties. The monitors were big and gorgeous but had significant lag. The controllers were wired weirdly and I couldn't get used to the controls so I had to try stick. Incidentally I will probably learn stick in this game, not least because of the possible arthritis I was getting holding down-back in Street Fighter V.

Buffering generally seemed ok and lenient. The timing for the Reversal Edge QTE is not very intuitive. We often got a different result to what we were trying to do. I think the input window is actually very early.

RE generally seems kind of fun and possibly not that useful in the long run, but also not useless. It is very steppable, and even if you use it correctly, you guarantee nothing more than a 50/50 mixup.

Just Frame timing seems very easy. I think you can basically mash. I don't know if the SCIV shortcuts still work but my impression was they don't. (To be specific - in SCIV you could map buttons to A+B+K or whatever and mash all of these to effectivwely guarantee a B input, for example, on every frame, thus guaranteeing a Just Input. In SCV they removed this by requiring any given B input to be released before another could be registered. I didn't properly test if this applies in the current SCVI build.)

Jump attacks are invincible to lows but i think can still be thrown until airborne, like in SCV. (In SCIV you could be hit by lows until you actually began your Tech Jump, which would depend on the move animation, whereas in SCV you were invulnerable to lows simply by inputting 7_8_9 A_B_K, even if your character remained technically on the ground for other purposes.)

GI window is very lenient. Apparently it doesn't actually give that much advantage though. It seemed quite a lot to me but sorry I did not test it.

RE gives different followups for different characters, so there is an additional layer of mindgames. E.g. Xianghua's RE A had a low follow up, while Groh's RE K seemed stronger than other characters'.

Visually SCVI is really nice, it feels really big and chunky like Tekken.

Here's a more technical discussion by Digital Foundry:

The whole sound / graphics/ camera motion made it feel how brand new arcades used to feel to me in the 90s. Actually playing the game was tremendously fun with no obvious flaws or issues at this time.

[[Someone in the comments pointed out that Xianghua sparkles after I missed a low grab here at 1:50 - does anyone know what this is? Glitch, mechanic, random graphical flourish?]]
Nvm apparently it's a glistening water effect.

My only (very minor) criticism of the game at this point was that it does feel a bit vanilla, nothing "new". I think Joel put it better by saying that it's quite safe - the new RE mechanic isn't as bold as SCV BE / CE or SCIV CF. But I'm hoping the increased power coming from Soul Charge buffs will make it more interesting at high level.

In general the direction of SCVI development feels like an excellent balance between being guided by community feedback over the past number of years (e.g. SCII popularity and movement, wanting to see old characters and movesets) and building a modern, beautiful and competitively-balanced game. I'm very much looking forward to new videos, character announcements and worldwide playable preview builds to see what they reveal to us next.
 
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I'm personally liking what we know about the mechanics so far, assuming all this stays the same these would be the adjustments to play we would make:

  • Learn to GI since how good it is now and to forget about how to JG and option select JG.
  • Throws are not a hard answer for the main defence mechanics anymore and break attacks/waiting for whiff will be.
  • Relearn the best post GI mix up since it appears the window of a free attack you can do if they dont GI seems smaller.
  • Adjust to the new throw and throw break inputs.
Ofc there is alot of things to learn again such as character combo optimals, punishment, best use of meter and MUs - not only the throws but each characters RE options to determine what the safest option is.
 
2 questions:

Will we see more attack cancels, considering how delaying an attack would nullify mistimed GI and RE?

Also, will break attacks universally all leave the blocker at minus frames ?
 
Astaroth from SC2 had this super delayable B hold~G cancel into 2B+K (wasn’t that the input for the shovel trip in SC2?) cheap trick.

Damn I miss the elongated normal cancel windows.
 
All the cancels will be effective and then converting into a on reaction whiff punish/step if they GI/RE.

They also HAVE to move out the way of UBs this time (I found in SC5 I was lazy and went for JG because I could) I understand still it's not gonna mean we are gonna see characters letting rip their UB attacks in top 8 tourneys but a half way UB cancel into throws could be more effective.

Wondering myself how + we are when using the universal GB attacks. Hoping to be able to carry on offense.
 
What I find interesting is that the "defensive" moves give the most meter.
GI gives about 25% of meter on success.
Same with RE which gives around 25% meter on successfully initiating the QTE + the meter gain from any success follow up (B follow up gives almost 25% meter too).

It's interesting because it encourages good defence that will lead to the best offence utilizing Soul Charge and CE.

I believe this detail will have a big impact on the high levels of play and how players are going to perform at that level.

P.S. and lets not forget that both GI and RE consume guard gauge on fail attempt.

Edit:
I was reviewing some gameplay videos and found inconsistency in GI meter gain

At 2:32 you can see Groh gain way much meter for successful GI than Nightmare..

Thats weird. Can anyone explain why ?
 
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Aziz said:
GI gives about 25% of meter on success.
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It does not. Or at least usually does not. I've seen it do it once or twice, but the majority of the time it gives no meter. Maybe the meter is for the old perfect GI timing.
 
JayShadow said:
It does not. Or at least usually does not. I've seen it do it once or twice, but the majority of the time it gives no meter. Maybe the meter is for the old perfect GI timing.
Click to expand...

Yeah I just edited my post mentioning this.
It is weird as there is nothing visually different when you gain meter for successful GI
 
Aziz said:
Yeah I just edited my post mentioning this.
It is weird as there is nothing visually different when you gain meter for successful GI
Click to expand...
Yeah, I thought it was maybe the knockdown GI that did it, but then I saw one that didn't give meter.
 
The timed GI thing is the only reasoning I can think of for giving meter on some successful GI and not others.
That's gonna prove even stronger for GI on a string getting what looks like a sizable amount of meter aswell.
 
It would be terribly bad if the new GI gave as much +frames as SCV's. In SCV, as long as the opponent couldn't return the GI, Insert combo here. This was balanced because it costs meter. I'm hoping the new GI is more like the older GI where you don't get enough +frames to get anything, or maybe just a low damage poke like i12 or i13.

I seriously doubt anyone knows ANY frame data yet though.
 
damn-I-Suck said:
It would be terribly bad if the new GI gave as much +frames as SCV's. In SCV, as long as the opponent couldn't return the GI, Insert combo here. This was balanced because it costs meter. I'm hoping the new GI is more like the older GI where you don't get enough +frames to get anything, or maybe just a low damage poke like i12 or i13.

I seriously doubt anyone knows ANY frame data yet though.
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It's definitely not as much as SC5 based on what @Age_of_Truth found but yeah exact frames are unfortunately not known yet.
 
AndyrooSC said:
It's definitely not as much as SC5 based on what @Age_of_Truth found but yeah exact frames are unfortunately not known yet.
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I wouldn't say definitely. It seemed low but the simplicity of the current GI game means delaying was the only mixup, hence we delayed a lot. ~27 frames or whatever it was didn't seem that much either in SCV, but because the active GI window is so big now, you have to delay a lot to punish a whiffed re-GI.
 
What its worrying me is the fact that people have said that CE's can be GI' ed, but everytime someones parries an attack and punish with a CE, the CE seems guaranteed and is not GI' ed back lol
 
Brut4L said:
What its worrying me is the fact that people have said that CE's can be GI' ed, but everytime someones parries an attack and punish with a CE, the CE seems guaranteed and is not GI' ed back lol
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it's possible that CE's are fast enough that the other player can't retaliate with a GI, post GI. All other moves might be too slow to retaliate. Who knows I'm just guessing.
 
damn-I-Suck said:
it's possible that CE's are fast enough that the other player can't retaliate with a GI, post GI. All other moves might be too slow to retaliate. Who knows I'm just guessing.
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I think that once the CE closeup starts, you can't re-gi, unlike SCV. We didn't test it for certain though.

I don't think CE are so fast in this game, and possibly have no invincible frames. Soul Charge seems like the better option for interrupting at disadvantage (which I also feel is a nice change)
 
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