Because this isn’t about a particular OP move or character. Its about an option that can be toggled on or off.
The problem isn’t whether the assist gems are cheap. The problem is that they turn the game into a boring pile of shit.
Just gonna leave this here. This was a match I played in with a friend online yesterday night. Look how much meter we had to work through until we could finally hit him with a non-counterhit. Imagine if he decided to sit there and not press buttons with full bar, or if he had actually blocked half of these attacks normally so it didn’t cost him meter. How does Capcom expect us to hit people???
[media=youtube]G96RoKi6FYE[/media]
obviously nobody here remembers the alpha easy mode and most didn’t play ssfiv:3d
the fact that it eats meter is a boon.
Offline and Online player. The gap is separated since one uses gems and the other doesn’t or limits them.
Most online players use them.
But the gems actually further divides the playerbase from online to offline players.
I prefer a set standard for online and offline players so that the online players can relate more to the online players. If that made any sense whatsoever.
This isnt completely relevant to the topic, but yesterday iplaywinner streamed a small SFxT tourney using gems. It was definitely more hype than any other tourney. I dont know what their rule was on assist gems but I’m assuming that they were banned as nobody used them (there were only 5 people but stick with me here).
Most importantly, the gem selection on the character select screen went fast for the people that had their gem number codes written down. The commentators and the players had more fun with the gems, and there was only one timeout I believe.
My point is, the gems need to be in the competitive scene. i know right now we tried to make the game hype with 2v2 tourneys, and yeah maybe EVO 2v2 will be pretty hype, but this game got dropped in 1v1 way, wayyyyyy too fast. The gems add a whole new strategy, more damage and more meter. The game is definitely more hype with gems. I can see with button check timing that 2v2 should be gemless, but 1v1 should make a comeback with the new tourney gem feature. If you dont know what gems to use just use the preset gems or the gems that the last person used.
Back on topic though. These gems arent leaving the online scene. But we have to get real here: online is basically practice mode. Points arent real. I’m not trying to be a dick and say “get over it.” But it’s there, and we can guess capcom isnt going to do anything about it.
So when we talk about online mode, just remember it’s not the best place for real competition, it’s more for the learning aspect of the game. These gems may seem lame and unfair, but they’ll help you to improve your mixup game once you figure out which auto gem they’re using. Not trying to defend their concept, just trying to get people to move forward and stop getting mindfucked by the gems.
For example that dude posted the video of him and his friend vs that autoblock ibuki, and yeah, that shit sucks, but you guys should have taken notice that he had that gem and started to mix in throws instead of just continuing with block strings that werent doing anything. I know the point of the video was to show how many easily blockable hits it took to finally drain his meter and get a hit, but still it seemed pretty weak to me for whatever reason. Probably because the bobs pressure was so weak that the ibuki just seemed to be trolling. Just my opinion though.
^ Thing is that the auto blocks, if they weren’t there, disabled him to open up that Ibuki. Why would the player bother to learn to block properly if the gem does it for him? The entire idea Capcom had that these assist gems would help out new players, end up getting abused (in a way).
Was bodied by someone because they ate none of my crossups or tick throws with Poison/Hugo.
Seriously, they were basically ‘glowing’ the entire match while the game played defense for them, all at the trivial expense of miniscule meter.
Not to mention, they only had 2000 or so BP. That was my last match in SFxT 
never going back.
Oh, and one more thing…
http://images.drownedinsound.com/resized_images/560x315/82744.jpeg?rendered
FUCK YOU TWO!!
The point is that throws are weak in this game. We have a hard enough time throwing people without autoblock. If throws were incredibly strong, then maybe (MAYBE) I could learn to live with autoblock. But it stands that some characters have slow walk speeds and slow normals, and rely on their high-low mixups and frame traps. There is nothing to frame trap with autoblock, and throws are much easier to tech when they’re much more telegraphed.
Plus, let’s say you manage to land a throw… that’s 130 damage or so, plus the situation is very likely to be reset.
The point remains that if you have a life lead, 40 seconds on the clock, and full meter, more than half the cast can’t hit you. I will block forever. Very, very occasionally, I will try to tech a throw or jab you (and if I hit you, I will push you back out). If you do an unsafe move that gets autoblocked, I will punish you and build the bar back. If you manage to land a throw on me, you will not be in a great position to do more damage that isn’t covered by autoblock. Then I will backdash and run away.
People already struggle to get hits in this game, compared to other games. What happens when the vast majority of the hits you DO land just get swallowed up in the game for a negligible cost?? How is that at all good for the longevity of SFxT?
BTW, I think the base gems (minus auto-anything) are quite interesting and serve to add a unique layer of strategy that is non-trivial. As an example, the Bob player I played with had 3 particular damage gems that would all trigger if he landed a certain BnB; this BnB was otherwise not optimal for damage, but was set up to have the right number of normals/specials. He then knocked you down and was in your face with like 40% damage increase for 15 seconds. If he touches you again, he basically wins. That’s an example of an interesting use of gems. If they can be picked fast in tournaments (a big if…) then I’m all for them being part of the game. These pay-to-win DLC gems HAVE to go, though. I thought autoblock was too cheap even at 1 bar!
@ Infil
I’ve played him before. Definitely wasn’t fun…
(auto-block guy in posted vid)
/Mango
Truer words have never been spoken on the subject. It’s getting downright ridiculous and killing both the longevity and foreseeable viability of competitive play.
Semi-off-topic: I have a feeling many top players won’t be playing with the auto gems, except the trolls and otherwise very defensive players. I think they’ll be hopping on the pandora gem train in the next few weeks/months. I can’t decide which is cheaper, honestly, though the pandora gems obviously require more risk and skill, they also carry a far greater reward (900+damage).
[media=youtube]AYHZVxEIkLk[/media]
But if you guys wanna write up a petition to get an online ranked system that negates auto-gems at a certain level of BP or something, I’m down to sign. Until then I suggest creating a gem setup that is strong.
As far as risk/reward, there are a few points. First of all, how much damage did autoblock save the person in that video I posted? When played optimally, how much damage do you think it would save on average? I’d say a full bar of 6 autoblocks (even just using the 1/2 bar 1-slot gem) saves 1000 damage on average, easy.
Secondly, people are generally much more willing to accept something “broken” if they have to assume some risk to do it. With pandora, you need to be at 25% health to even do it, and you’ll need a specific gem setup which is basically tailored to that situation and nothing else. And THEN you need a realistic way to land it… either blocking a fierce DP and punishing, or a specific combo that hasn’t scaled, or whatever else. And if you don’t do it properly, you instantly lose. This is much easier to swallow, even though it’s a 900 damage combo.
To summarize, one instance requires strong game knowledge, situation recognition, and substantial risk to use. The other actually makes up for your lack of game knowledge and carries no risk at all.
(This all said, that pandora combo you showed was pretty cool)
Agreed.
Competitive play? Of course it’s competitive, it’s a fighting game.
The sad thing is, a large part of the people using these auto gems are not new to fighters, they are players with skill abusing a poorly thought out decision who are just all for the wins or trolling.
Yeah pandora is very situational cause half of the times you get comboed to death before having red health. Apart from that you need the 30% gem boost and 40% gauge reduction to be effective especially if u combo into it.
I have a suggestion. If Capcom turns out to be dead set on the idea of keeping assist gems broken, why not offer other assist gems that are equally as broken, but favor higher level play.
Examples
[LIST]
[]All attacks gain one additional frame of block stun
[]All attacks gain one additional frame of hit stun
[]Length of jump duration reduced by 10 frames
[]10th (or some other number) hit in a block string (within a certain duration) made unblockable regardless of opponent’s gem loadout. (More or less giving your opponent a guard crush bar)
[*]Enable your team mate to come in for an assist 3 (or some other number) times per round, or an unlimited number of time per round, but at a meter cost.
[/LIST]
Still though, I don’t there is a whole lot more broken than auto-blocking in a fighting game, so if it must stay, perhaps restrict it to 2-3 activations per round?
Obviously alot of those things I listed would be stoooooopid broken for alot of reasons, but hey, just some neat ideas to offer competition against auto-block should Capcom ignore their entire fanbase.
Fought a few people today who used the special ed assist gems. Pretty much unplayable. I was thinking about making a thread that lists people who use the 1/4 and up cross block assist gems. That way people can know whether or not the person in their lobby uses them, so they can quit the lobby if they don’t feel like fighting that crap. Not sure if it’s thread worthy or not.
Speed gems already reduce jump duration, it’s one of the reasons they are so good.
In addition to making jumps harder to react to, they give you safe jump options where you previously had none.
Oh good, so there will be gem specific combos now…?