I know I said I wouldn't, but PHASE wrote a lot of things and I just want to respond.
I have to admit, you guys are educating me a bit.
So you guys pretty much do your own thing with this game, I assume. It's not really how the game was meant to be played? Or there wouldn't be a Customize Mode and a Special Skills Mode or any of that.
...there's not a move I can do that no one hasn't seen before. I also realize that I'm the only one who sees anything wrong with that. But I still try to get someone to say "Oh sh!t" once in a while...and actually, to answer your question, although i've found a lot of useful things in the Yun thread, a lot of my behaviors are not there. I'm still learning, so maybe some day in the future I will list them.
I'm sure you know it, but MMA stands for Mixed Martial Art. Some fighters do stay true to their discipline, but most fighters mix...And the thing I'm sure you learn from any competition is that there is always someone better... or more broke.
I always thought that all the NCs should have caps. So people can't mash something that would be considered an infinite. If you hit A repeatedly, for instance, a certain amount of times, in eventually caps with a finisher frame, forcing the potential spammer to do something else, and punishing them if they don't. They created the whole Soul Gauge to punish you for defending too much, why not vice-versa.
One other point; I'm no expert at RPG games, I never even heard of EVE, but I thought RPG stood for "Role Playing Game". If I'm using a CAS, my CAS is a rouge variable.
I cut out some of the fat from your post, trying to leave the relevant parts of it.
1) Special versus/CAS is for shits and giggles man. I don't think anybody in their right mind will play Special VS, and then realize that it is as competitive as normal SC. It's incredibly unbalanced (we played about ten hours of it after it came out, trying to find some way it could possibly be in a tournament...only to realize that it's pretty much "put on the best gear and win, flat out.") IT IS FUN, please don't misunderstand that, but it's not fun in competitive fun, the reason for this site's existence. It's dumb fun, the kind of fun you get drunk and mess around with.
2) Getting someone to say "oh shit!" isn't the same as having a mixup nobody's seen. It's a certain style, an unpredictable style, but a good player knows your "unpredictable" becomes predictable because you do it all the time. And, quite frankly, you have to repeat it all the time; that's what tournaments are about. Practice through repetition. There's better and worse; being "unpredictable," being "new," being "flashy," none of it counts in a competition. There's a winner and a loser; basing your skill on something like "unpredictability" or "surprise factor" is just asking to get flamed. Luckily, I haven't done that; I flamed you for name calling and being an asshole. Looks like your tune's changed, thank you.
And please, contribute your tactics to the Yun forum. Unless you think it's some sort of silver bullet, it only helps you to share it. Other people will try it, tell you what they think of it. Or, they'll tell you they already tried it, and you shouldn't waste your time, or they'll say you already have really good Yun habits, you'll get feedback, you can provide your own, you will help the community grow. Any little bit of information is fine. I got flamed for posting something I thought was new and interesting, everyone was like "well, it's not anything new, and we knew about this already, and GTFO please." And I almost left; someone PMed me saying "that thread's filled with the old guard, the elite idiots. Thanks for sharing; I didn't know about it."
It's that PM that made me stay and just keep sharing.
3) I thought I said MMA stood for Mixed Martial Art. And what you say is true; the same is true about movesets in fighting games. In MMA, I guess that they mix and match movesets, which in my opinion, somewhat taints the competition. (It's a shaky example, take all my opinions with a grain of salt.) To me, it'd be more interesting if each fighter was restricted to a specific moveset, just like a fighting game. Then, you get the same dynamics here; does everyone do Judo because every throw is designed to break bones and debilitate your opponent? Is everyone doing Aikido because it's the best? Matchups, mirror matches, all the FG terms then enter their world. And, difference in skill will make up for it. A skilled Judo master has to deal with a skilled Aikido master differently, a skilled Karate master differently, etc. etc. (again, don't know all the arts...=P) That's what I was trying to get at. And, as you mentioned, in competition, everyone always goes for the best. The fact that MMA mixes and matches moves means that, optimally, you'll have the "hybrid MMA optimal" moveset for all the characters. Is that good, or bad? IMO, that's bad...
4) NCs do have caps. The skill of the opposing player. If someone is spamming AA, I'm gonna fucking block it first time/second time, duck it third time, CH it fourth time, GI it fifth time, step it 6th time, bait it 7th time...That's the "punishing." Failing to adapt is death.
And, if someone plays one character very exclusively, let's say a Hilde, for a hot topic example. If a Hilde player only uses the doom combo to win, then it's easy to beat them. Step the parts of it, out range it, learn its properties, and defeat them. But what if they're really good? What if they wait for the perfect opportunity to use it, and it's the one move they learn really well to defeat people? Who has more skill, the person perfecting one move, or the person trying to counter it? Why penalize the person who has mastered one tool to a perfection, repeating it over and over, while one person takes every failed opportunity of the man with one tool, and tries to find ways to counter it? If the person with one tool adapts it to his needs, then he deserves a win just as the next guy. If someone spams AA, but adapting it to every situation that's thrown at him, and wins only with that move, nobody here in the competitive scene will question his wins. (I think.) Adaptation is the name of the game, and almost every good player learns this first thing; if it doesn't work, don't do it again. Unless, of course, that's part of the adaptation. You can adapt one tool for many uses, or adapt many tools for one optimal goal. Of course, as is my practice, I adapt all my tools for any situation, which is why I believe I'm a pretty good player.
5) As I said, I think an SC RPG, in the vein of Tales games, would be an interesting game. EVE, as a game, is fundamentally different. It is an MMORPG, but not like WoW with as much optimization. It's literally, a game of infinite possibilities. And that's what makes it unlike any fighting game ever; adaptation is impossible; you will rarely, if ever, see the same thing twice in your opponent. Reading him is impossible; you don't know his script, what he could possibly do. You have to act all on your own, everything is really in your own hands.
(Long time players of EVE may glare at me angrily. I am also a long time player of EVE, and I'm simplifying this for the sake of argument.)
Also, glad to have a civil conversation finally. I instigate, but I also discuss. And I do my damnest to scare away assholes. Glad you stuck around, gives everything you said before more meaning. Just, watch who you pick on. =P
