tribaL
[09] Warrior
EDIT: read the rest of the thread before making posts about things that have already been discussed at length
i think there is an underlying problem with sc. before i begin i do want to address something:
i am not whining. the vast majority of the sc community is, for lack of a better word, a group of whiners. i do not fall into this category by making this thread. i think that, overall, team soul did an excellent job with this game. it's the first iteration that truly feels... even. the character balance achieved in this game is far better than anything else they've released. yea, the game is "slower", but it's not bad and i'm certainly not insisting that it is.
then what's the problem?
the characters are... boring. not in a aesthetic "oh this character looks lame," but in how everyone plays the characters. it seems as though that the character's options have been stripped-down in this iteration. there are moves that are bad, moves that are ok, and moves that are great, of which every character possesses. the problem therein lies that everyone tends to focus on these "great" moves. in turn, everyone tends to play the characters essentially the same way. at that point the only differentiation comes in overall utilization and defense.
now, you may be thinking "well, all fighters are like this," and that's true to a point, but there's something that sc fundamentally lacks compared to most fighters: movement. sc, for having 8wr and stepping in all it's glory, is actually quite stiff. look at tekken... characters can be played the same way, but there are movement options that some players can utilize while other people cannot (or they simply don't know they exist); lightdashing, wavedashing, hayashida stepping, haha stepping, crouch dash cancel, backdash cancel (i'm not using the conventions as most sc players may not know what these terms are). by having these options, people can ultimately play the game very differently, and effectively, while still using a slightly varying movelist from what another person may use. that's just one example, but i'll refrain from using other games as i feel i've already made a pretty good example.
surprisingly there aren't too many of these options in sc. yea, soph has double angel step, and characters like voldo and yoshi have other options that they can use, but very seldom are they ever really used all that much. why? simply because it's not necessary. a person can effectively use voldo/yoshi/soph without referring to any of these deeper options and still win. what it comes down to is essentially whether the opponent knows how to deal with those option effectively enough to force the opponent to use those other options (which very rarely happens).
so, in the end, what makes for a truly interesting match, for both the players and anyone watching, is defense. while that is impressive, it comes off as boring, because most people aren't that apt to focus on defense when an offense is so damned effective. it makes for a very small learning curve in remaining competitive.
why this came up?
i actually played against some truly great competition recently. people who really knew the ins-and-outs of this game with several characters. the sad part is that it was the first time i actually felt "challenged". i'm certainly not saying i'm this amazing player that never loses (i win more than i lose by far, but that's really not saying much and i'm not chest-beating over it), but i am at a level when i know someone is really good at the game and they beat me mentally rather than just "oh, yea, they beat me, whatever." but i digress, the opponents i played against had a solid defense, and it made for a good game but, in the end, i couldn't help but feel as though "wow, the game is actually pretty shallow."
oh, and this isn't a call for flaming, simply discuss. that's it and that's all, so refrain from the shit comments.
i think there is an underlying problem with sc. before i begin i do want to address something:
i am not whining. the vast majority of the sc community is, for lack of a better word, a group of whiners. i do not fall into this category by making this thread. i think that, overall, team soul did an excellent job with this game. it's the first iteration that truly feels... even. the character balance achieved in this game is far better than anything else they've released. yea, the game is "slower", but it's not bad and i'm certainly not insisting that it is.
then what's the problem?
the characters are... boring. not in a aesthetic "oh this character looks lame," but in how everyone plays the characters. it seems as though that the character's options have been stripped-down in this iteration. there are moves that are bad, moves that are ok, and moves that are great, of which every character possesses. the problem therein lies that everyone tends to focus on these "great" moves. in turn, everyone tends to play the characters essentially the same way. at that point the only differentiation comes in overall utilization and defense.
now, you may be thinking "well, all fighters are like this," and that's true to a point, but there's something that sc fundamentally lacks compared to most fighters: movement. sc, for having 8wr and stepping in all it's glory, is actually quite stiff. look at tekken... characters can be played the same way, but there are movement options that some players can utilize while other people cannot (or they simply don't know they exist); lightdashing, wavedashing, hayashida stepping, haha stepping, crouch dash cancel, backdash cancel (i'm not using the conventions as most sc players may not know what these terms are). by having these options, people can ultimately play the game very differently, and effectively, while still using a slightly varying movelist from what another person may use. that's just one example, but i'll refrain from using other games as i feel i've already made a pretty good example.
surprisingly there aren't too many of these options in sc. yea, soph has double angel step, and characters like voldo and yoshi have other options that they can use, but very seldom are they ever really used all that much. why? simply because it's not necessary. a person can effectively use voldo/yoshi/soph without referring to any of these deeper options and still win. what it comes down to is essentially whether the opponent knows how to deal with those option effectively enough to force the opponent to use those other options (which very rarely happens).
so, in the end, what makes for a truly interesting match, for both the players and anyone watching, is defense. while that is impressive, it comes off as boring, because most people aren't that apt to focus on defense when an offense is so damned effective. it makes for a very small learning curve in remaining competitive.
why this came up?
i actually played against some truly great competition recently. people who really knew the ins-and-outs of this game with several characters. the sad part is that it was the first time i actually felt "challenged". i'm certainly not saying i'm this amazing player that never loses (i win more than i lose by far, but that's really not saying much and i'm not chest-beating over it), but i am at a level when i know someone is really good at the game and they beat me mentally rather than just "oh, yea, they beat me, whatever." but i digress, the opponents i played against had a solid defense, and it made for a good game but, in the end, i couldn't help but feel as though "wow, the game is actually pretty shallow."
oh, and this isn't a call for flaming, simply discuss. that's it and that's all, so refrain from the shit comments.
