Wishlist Items (long post)
1) Continued Long-Term Support: To keep player retention past the first couple of months, set aside some budget for service/balance patches.
This gives assurance for players to invest time into the game knowing that the developers will have their back to produce and support a respectable game. The game play meta will change over the years and it would be nice to have balance patches reflect long-term and later discoveries. I also recognize if there is too small a competitive pool it is difficult to gather sufficient data to base balance on, so lets keep players competing.
We know its impossible to have a perfectly bug-free and well balanced game on launch. SC5’s limited patches up to 1.03 was not satisfactory.
2) No pay-to-win CAS items or loot box: Versus mode should never have CAS parts that give increased stats. Also loot boxes are distasteful.
3) CAS options: Recolors of the existing 1p/2p outfits should have more than ~8 different colour slots. The outfits are more complex and I’m thinking at least 15-20 different colour slots to customize the existing outfits.
4) Better Telemetry: Maybe there can be some sort of data gathered after each match that could help the player analyze where their strengths and weaknesses are. Some examples would be showing:
• % of grabs broken
• How long was guard held
• How often you were being counterhit for attempting movement
• How often you were being counterhit for attempting to attack
• Guard meter damage dealt to opponent
• JF success rate
• How long you were stunned / juggled with no control over your character
• How many times you were struck by a successful Lethal Hit
It shouldn’t be like the hokey SF4 grades at the end of the match (offense / defense / technique).
Or you could have a specific record data menu like in Smash where it shows character specific statistics and milestones.
5) Nostalgia Content: Classic iconic outfits + music should eventually be available. Looks good for DLC bundles.
3P costumes could be community voted as an iconic costume VS based on new concept art.
6) Joining online party match: When joining a party lobby with an in-progress match, there should be some way to determine how far along the match will be.
Is this possible without lagging the in-progress match ?
Just show: stage select / round 2 / round 4.. etc rather than “in progress”
7) Raphael: Assuming our signature fencer and SC2 standout is returning, please consider the following (not balance complaints, but character specific mechanics that would be compelling to play):
i) This was one of Raphael’s slickest animations. Bring back his SC3 214B / SC4 44B attack throw animation (“cranial scraper”) that was sadly missing from SC5.
ii) Bring back multiple evades. This was his coolest feature in SC2 and it was sadly missing in SC4 and SC5. Being able to dodge a sequence of moves gives immense satisfaction to the player. Maybe combine SC2’s high-mid (B+K) and mid-low (A+K) guessing with SC3’s ability to chain multiple evades together in order to dodge a string of attacks. It was in the SC4 trailer but never made the game.
iii) Raphael’s Cantarella Needles 2_8B+K need to track more aggressively to their side at the range of his 6B+K or else it will continue to be underused. His 2_8B+K series have been in SC3 to SC5 and still feel buggy (when used at anything beyond 2A range) . It’s a cool looking move but it feels so cumbersome and unreliable that it gives a negative experience.
Here’s a GIF which shows the the SC4 version that attacks ~60° from the GREEN center line (this will hit steppers only if they are at grab range) which I’ve used RED to represent. I propose that the tracking angle gets expanded to be up ~30° to catch movement further away than grab range which is in BLUE.
April 2018 Edit:
Maybe it'll be more reliable if 2_8B+K functions like Algol's 4B+K in that it does nothing EXCEPT if the opponent sidesteps / runs off axis??
8) Maxi: Assuming the elvis + bruce lee nunchaku expert is returning, please consider the following (not balance complaints, but character specific mechanics that would be compelling to play):
i) More emphasis on stance looping / mixup to put pressure on opponent (throw off their timing for RE / GI). SC5 had the weakest loop options (you could only stance loop forward, backwards, and the side step loops predictably revert to forward loop).
Can we get a 3rd stationary stance loop and a 4th stance loop while 8WR in the 2_8 direction??
ii) Maxi should be rewarded for looping (especially if the opponent is sitting back holding guard). Maybe each success stance-shift during a loop would:
• add a cumulative ~5% damage / guard meter damage on the attack or
• each stance shift would add a bit to Maxi’s soul gauge
iii) Maxi’s aGI animation (SC5’s B+K during stances) maybe could be improved to (instead of a repel) end up as a parry looking like this GIF:
iv) Maybe an auto-evade animation like this GIF would be pretty rewarding to pull off against kicks/punches.
9) New Movesets/Weapons:
• A Spiked Ball Flail is a really cool weapon especially when paired with a Shield. For Honor's Conquerer seems to be a very unique character that would fit in the SC universe.
• a Jitte / Sai would have a pretty unique upclose moveset that has different ways to wield/handle the weapon (like Zwei's crossguard sword) with an emphasis on aGI. However, the weapon has very little cutting power since traditionally it wasa designed for more piercing thrusts. Then again Talim had special bladed tonfas.
• 3-Section Staff is featured in a lot of martial arts movies and visually it would be a very impressive inclusion. Might be a way to bring back Xiba/Li Long even.
• Since Okubo's twitter is achilles_Okubo, would we see an Achilles inspired moveset for a new character (or Patroklos 2.0) ? I'd imagine Brad Pitt's portrayal in Troy would be a good starting point. If there was pressure to include a gay character, imo a Spartan soldier would make a pretty convincing candidate.
10) Out of Place Characters: Characters like Algol or Necrid belong more in street fighter or franchises like mortal combat and feel way out of place in an environment like the Soul Calibur universe. They don't have any signature weapons and instead manifest random weapons that are move specific. I'm sure there are a couple of people who will campaign hard for them, but – for a limited roster on release – I have my doubts if they take the spot of a more fitting character.
