CvS2: Ratio Mode vs. Single Match Mode

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
121

Smoke you missed my point. It’s got nothing to do with Sagat’s or Blanka’s ratios. The point is that if you have Sagat/Blanka/Cammy and you go up against Vega/Iori/Rolento and your Sagat/Blanka barely beat Vega and your Cammy has to go up against Iori/Rolento by herself and you actually win that fight, you’ll think you know matchups and you beat that player and you came back and all that shit when really the matchups and character advantages won that fight for you. Vega is countercharacter to both Sagat and Blanka (even though Sagat and Blanka can definately win that fight if they know the matchup - but most people don’t). Then Cammy comes up and she’s countercharacter to the whole team (Vega, Rolento and Iori) so she takes down the whole rest of the team. But the fact is you learned next to nothing about the tough matchups. What players likes James are sick of is the game playing itself out in this fashion without anyone getting the chance to actually learn how to win against everyone with their character. Instead, the smartest strategy is to just round out your team so that between your three characters, you have a counter for pretty much anything your opponent could throw at you. The point is that if you only had Sagat and your opponent picked Vega, you would be forced to learn that match since you don’t have Cammy at the end of your team to save you from dealing with anything but what your character choices take care of themselves.

And yeah, no matter what, tournaments are going to make people just countercharacter back and forth until someone wins, but this is more about casual play than anything else. In casual play, you pick your character and you have to beat your opponent no matter who he picks. This means for example in ST if you pick O.Sagat, people will start picking Dhalsim and Balrog to try and get through your O.Sagat, and you have to know those matchups really well in order to win and stay on the machine. On the other hand, if those players only know how to play Dhalsim as a counter to O.Sagat, they’re gonna lose the next game after they beat you so this forces them to play characters they can use against the whole cast too if they expect to stay on the machine. And of course this will help you in tournaments because you will know how to deal with countercharacters.

James and i like this approach to development far more than the way-too-chaotic CvS2 with its bullshit 10 second rounds where characters get finished off, and the turtling to reduce the amount of life the opponent gets back for the next round, and the lucky supers that almost-dead characters land on fresh ones (especially in K-Groove).

122

I hear you,

I guess I read too much into your Sagat/Blanka point. But I did understand your main point about all that countercharacter crap and how people just don’t learn matchups very well anymore in CvS2.

Good stuff

123

It’s actually a LOT more simple than I think I let on. My main reasonings for ST and MvC2 being so similar mainly comes from speed and damage and knowledge.

  1. SPEED -
    Both MvC2 and ST are fast and frenetic. Why? Because offense is so powerful in these games. I’ve watched lots of tournaments and NO GAME is more fun to watch than ST and MvC2, because something is always happening. Many CvS2 replays bore me, but ST and MvC2 make me excited and laugh. The games are both fast and furious, and they don’t invite lulls. Turtle in ST and Ryu will fireball you to death. The standard method of turtling doesn’t even exist in MvC2 (turtling in MvC2, if I’m not mistaken, involves more Jumping around and zoning, which still is more active than your typical sit-there-and-do-nothing turtle).

  2. DAMAGE -
    Damage is a huge factor. It allows proper punishing of mistakes. If Ryu throws a Fireball and a Cammy predicts it, he’s dead. If a person calls out an Assist in a bad spot, and Cable has 3 levels of Meter, the Assist is dead. Both games can have rounds that last, literally, 10 seconds and yet also have rounds that last the entire timer. But the fact that the potential for instant death is there makes the game good.

I remember Dave Sirlin saying, long ago, that (and I may misquote him here, apologies if I do) he liked Alpha 2’s Cutsom Combos because they were the only way you could punish someone for a big mistake. And in good fighting games, you should be FORCED to play Perfect. You SHOULD be severely punished for mistakes. In Super Turbo and MvC2, mistakes could cost you the game easily (not even through damage, necessarily. Sometimes through mmentum alone). But games like CvS2 are too low damage. If Ryu misses an Uppercut, what can you do? Most of the time, your character can do little more than Crouching forward into a weak-ass Special Move.

“What about Level 3’s? What about Custom Combos?!?” Of course these questions come up regarding CvS2, but let’s think about this. The Ratio system creates a “Don’t waste it” mentality which really messes this whole thing up. Let’s say I’m A-Groove Benimaru. I’m the second to last character on my team (Chun Li is my next character) and my opponent is N-Groove Ryu with a Ratio 2 Sagat after him. If Ryu misses a DP and he has, say 1/4 of his life left, and I’m A-Groove Benimaru with half of my life, am I gonna use my Custom Combo on him? Definitely not. Why? Because I need to save the meter for Chun Li. I need to save it so she can fight Sagat’s Low Jumps and anti-air Customs. And I have half of my life, anyhow. I can drain Ryu down to almost nothing, and even if Ryu makes a come-back, it’s okay. Because he’ll still be mostly drained and my Chun should be able to finish him off. There just isn’t the urgency.

Super Turbo, if you had ther Super, you finished him off. Even in Alpha 3, you’d blow a whole meter at times because you NEEDED to win the round, and you don’t want to risk a comeback. Because if you don’t kill him now, and he makes a come-back, guess what? You’ve lost the whole round. No one has “done their job” that happens so much in CvS2. And in MvC2, there IS no other Round to speak of. And killing an AAA can (and almost always WILL) drastically change the dynamic of the match. So there’s no point saving the Meter or anything. Use it! Kill the enemy!

So what happens is that players are forced to play better. CvS2 allows for a lot of “Oops! Oh well.” More so than MvC2 and ST, because of their damage levels.

  1. KNOWLEDGE -
    You really gotta know your stuff. I spoke with Viscant once, and said to him: “So how do you fight <cahracter> well?” And his response was, “Well, depends on who his AAA is. If it’s Captain Commando, you have to attack from above the enemy. If it’s Psylocke, you have to attack more from the front. If it’s… etc.” and he went on and on. Match-ups are much more tight in this game and knowing who does what and how is important.

Likewise with ST. The game is so knowledge-base that it makes it hard for newbies to get into the game. You have to know that Zangief’s Standing Jab is the best way to stop Balrog’s low Rushing Punch. It’ll help greatly to know that Cammy’s Jumping Straight up Strong from the right distance will beat a wake-up Sagat Tiger Uppercut. Stuff like that.

Granted, in games like CvS2, it’ll help to know these things as well, but as this thread has already stated, Ratio system really hurts that factor.

So in the end, the reason why I think MvC2 is the closest thing to ST since, well, ST is because of the speed and the style of gameplay. Both are quick, both need to be played perfectly (because punishment is too painful), and both need very strong knowledge (for example, I still don’t know how to escape a Cable + Storm corner trap that involves Storm’s Tornado Columns and Cable’s Grenade thing). The only main difference is that MvC2, BY FAR, involves much more need for finger dexterity. But otherwise, they are really similar.

Of course, I expect tons of people to disagree. So if anyone wants to disagree, feel free. :slight_smile:

  • James
124

Very good points, thanks for the response:D

I finally understand your signature, i put away the vs series just to figure that shit out:eek:

125

so…

when you put the code in the game… you select what the default is, right. So if you pick single mode, then everytime you put coins in to play it will always be single mode and the only way to change it would be to reset the EEPROMS. Am I right???

126

Holy shit this is old!! lol

127

did anyone actually confirm if the Japanese CvS2 code “YAMAOOUT” works (a friend of mine owns the Japanese board)?