Flaws of MvC2 and what Capcom should learn

To mods: I realize there is a suggestion thread, but I felt this would be appropriate to make it’s own thread. If someone wants me to move this to the suggestion thread, feel free to let me know and I’ll move it.

First off, I’ve been a marvel 2 player for over 10 years. I played mvc1 before mvc2, and I followed street figheter before Shoryuken was even around (Migs’ message board). When I heard mvc3 was announced, I texted all of my friends 8AM in the morning out of excitement lol.

Anyway, I wanted to point out some of the current mechanics in mvc2 that can easily be addressed to balance mvc3. I obviously do’nt know how the mechanics of MvC3 are going to play out, but here are “general” flaws of MvC2 that Capcom should at least consider.

EDIT - To clarify, these are just general suggestions to improve MvC fighting engine. This isn’t a “how to balance MvC2 post.” Obviously if Capcom really wanted to balance MvC2, they’d nerf the top tier characters. Rather these are suggestions of new types of attack tools to give to other characters. Most of the problems low tier characters have is 90% of a persons attacks are nullified if a person blocks low. Does that mean giving everyone an air-dash to fix this problem? Heck no - that’d make the game dumb. My suggestions below are tools low-tiers or middle tiers might rather than seeing someone dash low or jump in high. maybe they can have an assist that hits high or low, or maybe characters can have normal moves that have built in overheads (thus an alternative means of attacking high, an alternative to triangle jumping). See below for more details.

-Mobility - Airdashes/double jumps/ etc. This is the hardest one to balance. You obviously don’t want every character to have an airdash, so maybe there are other ways to add high/low mixups to characters. Maybe have it so overheads can be combod if hit? This will allow characters to feel different, so one can have lots of overhead attacks while others may have triangle jumps. I know Ryu has f.mp, ken has f.mk, and Sakura has a f.mk that force the player to block hit (and hit twice). All of these are great overheads, but they can’t be combo’d in MvC2 (unless you have an assist helping you). Thus Ryu throwing out an overhead isn’t worth the risk because it’s not a hard-hitting move. Maybe mvc3 can have people who have overheads that can be combo’d? If Ryu did a standing overhead move that combod into a launcher or super, that would be a great alternative to triangle jumping. Characters should have more than 1 overhead.

-AAA - Assists - All AAA assits need to be good in a different ways. Cyclops/Capcom/Psylock are good examples of this being on the right track, but Ken/Jin/Megaman/Spidey/Ryu/etc. are crappy AAA?s due to lack of invincibility frames and they don?t really add anything to the group to the extent cyc/capcom/psy can. Each assist needs to be good in order to have a more defined role. I.E., some should set up combos (Psylocke), clear more AAA area (Capcom), be a mix of the two (Cyclops). Rogue AAA assist and Spidey AAA assist are great (set-up combo assists), but they have no invincibility frames, thus Psylock is the preferred choice of the two. I’m not sure how much of you play World of Warcraft, but all characters are capable of tanking effectively. Each are good but in their own different way (AoE taking, single target taking, bleed tanking, disease tanking, thunderclap debuff tanking, etc). There should be different types of AAA’s and each AAA should have a different role based on your team.

-Throws - Throws should be more universal. Some characters have throws that are clearly better than others. From best throw to worst throws in the game, Charlie’s rh throw gives you a free combo, Magneto throws give you free combos in the corner, Spiral/Gambit/Captain Commando throws can be mashed for extra damage, Storm’s throw can only be tech hitted when she initially grabs you (and cannot be tech’d when she physically throws you up), Iceman and Magneto throws “freeze” opponents, while cables rh throw cannot be combod after at throw. While all the above are cool, all of the above throws are great quirks of throws, characters who have “basic” throws lieke Cable or Ryu are screwed. Throws should be similar to my point about AAA assists, each should have some type of unique attribute (i.e.: Mashable, free combo, "freeze opponent) or defaulted to be “basic” like Cable or Ryu.

-Fireballs v. beams - Someone mentioned this in another thread, but Fireballs v. beams need to have advantages versus another. Currently beams are dominating the game. Fireballs should have low startup while beams should have higher priority but higher startup. This argument is the same as Dragon punches/Shoryukens versus Beam AAA’s (i.e. Captaim Corridor assist). Both need trade offs. Ken AAA is on the right track/ because it’s 100% invincible, but it’s hard to protect him when he recovers. Capcom’s corridor assist is great cause it covers a wide area and he recovers fast cause he doesn’t have to “phsyically” jump up there (this Capcom assist can almost be called twice as much as Ken’s AAA). Beam AAA’s need to be balanced when compared to Dragon-punch AAA’s. Fireballs should also have slower distance speed traveled to set up attack patterns and force the player to block (see below - projectile assists too). Fireballs should have high startup and slow projectile speed, while beams have high startup and high projectile speed.

Projectile assists - Slower projectile assists are better than fast projectiles. There are two types of slow projectiles. The first is slow start up, and the second is actually having a slow fireball. Gambit hp. kinetic card, and Magneto hp EM Disruptor are all examples of slow start-up projectiles; both are good because they can act as ghetto anti airs. Slow physical-projectiles are also good because it forces players to block when the threat of the projectile is on the screen. Guile lp sonic boom is a perfect example of a good slow projectile, or even Lou’s assist from MvC1; they force the opponent to block or change their attack pattern when these projectiles are on the screen. As such, slow projectiles like Sentinel drones, spiral sword assist, and sabertooth gun assist, are clearly superior to fast projectile assists like Iceman beam and Cyclops optic blast. Slow assists are better because it allows mixup options when the opponent is blocking. Based on the above, slow projectiles should be balanced versus fast hitting projectiles. Currently there’s no point in using a fast projectile assist because it doesn’t set up any combo.

-Overhead assists that hit high, or assists that hit low - This is a nice trick Capcom tried and I feel adds new flavor to a game. In MvC2, some characters had launcher assits that hit high, such as sentinel launcher, gambit launcher, wolverine had a c.hp assist that hit low. In MvC1, they had Devilot assist which was unblockable if hit. All of these are great ideas for different types of assists. I’m not sure if assists that have built in high/lows can be a balanced game, but I think it’s something to consider.

-Random character select at the character select screen.

-Get rid of garbage moves. Biggest example of this is Strider. I understand Capcom gave him all these junk moves for balance purposes (Ground QCF p, reverse wall climb, that weird satellite fireball), but it’s not fun when moves are added in the game if they are crappy.

-Grapplers need to be a threat. Grapplers need tools to get closer to opponents. Furthermore, the reward for grappling someone is nullified if they can just roll to the other side of the screen after being hit by one. Maybe Grapplers should have great AAA assists?

-Capcom characters generally suck. They don’t have the tools to be balanced to fight Marvel characters. This needs to be addressed. The only decent Capcom character in mvc2 is Captain Commando.

That’s all I could think of. As lame as it sounds, I’ve been waiting 10 years for this game so I felt compelled to add whatever I can to contribute to making this a great game!

-Cyrus

Charlie’s RH throw is rollable iirc.

I don’t have much to add but it’s nice to see a detailed, well-informed post by someone who actually understands the game. In before a whole bunch of idiotic suggestions I guess.

you can hit them before they touch the ground, even midscreen

I know, but I think they can roll before the launcher connects. I know cr.lk is guaranteed.

Oh, and my thing is: get rid of garbage/joke/redundant characters. The three shotos are fine separate but everyone else needs to go. Sakura, Dan…bye. Servebot, Roll: see ya. Anyone else that is likewise made to be underpowered should not be considered. Fill those slots with people that actually matter.

Or they could just, you know, not purposefully make characters underpowered and buff them up a bit instead.

Buff them up from what?

This is supposed to be a new game so its a clean slate. Besides Capcom and Marvel have huge libraries of fighters/characters, and you want those tripes? Come on, man.

I agree on some levels… fuck dan… yes he sux in a hilarious way and is fun to beat scrubs with sometimes… but seriously… real characters plz. With dan type you have to choose between making him more powerful than dan should be… or making him suck nutsack and wasting a character slot. i don’t want either. I do however want ken, ryu, akuma… and all of them to have varied tools… like in mvc2… (and yes… lets hope they are less underpowered or the opposition is less OP)

Roll is similar but not really the same. I think she could work if they made her health = to MM… and make her a bit more unique than just a crappier version of MM…

I should Falcon Punch you for saying that. I’d be more inclined to agree, though, if they import the TvC version of Roll into this game, that way, she’s not merely a rehash, and she’d actually have her own strategy aside from Mega Man.

I agree on Servbot ad Dan, but there are things you can do to make Sakura and Roll better. If Roll was closer to her TvC incarnation (Yea, I went there) rather than a loose MM clone she could at least bring something new to the table. OTG broom combos for the win.

As for Sakura, well, I can’t give any valid input on this, but c’mon. She fills the schoolgirl fetish quota for perverts, so that’s gotta be good for something! Plus at least she can fire her hadoukens diagonally unlike most of the other shotos…

the only problem with mvc2 was the fact that capcom seemed to not care about it much, they rushed it out to make money and just threw together every character that ever appeared. I just want them to take their time with mvc3 chars and make sure it doesnt become down to just 5 or 6 characters pwning the game, for aesthetic value when i watch the pros play

The undeniable truth that everyone has to come to terms with is that everything that people call depth in MvC2 was the result of glitches and oversights.

“Sentinel unblockable adds a whole new strategy to the game!” Yes, but that does not mean it was intentional. They would not intentionally make an attack that if it hits on the last few frames before the opponents enters a blocking state, that the attack will be unblockable.

I’d even go so far to say that AHVBx3 and Unfly Mode are unintentional. Unfly used to be a normal thing, then they took it away from everybody. Everybody except Sentinel. Probably a mistake, much like the unblockable. Look at AHVB. It’s the only beam attack where the attacker drops to the ground instead of continuing their jump. You think you couldn’t do Air Shinkuu Hadoken x3 if Ryu dropped to the ground afterwards, thus cancelling his recovery time?

These are mistakes. If you want to put a positive spin on it, you can call it serendipity, because it did make the game very complex. However, these things that defined how MvC2 played are not going to be their first thoughts on how MvC3 will play. What the majority wants is a fun game, a competitive game, and to see their favorite characters. If MvC3 doesn’t have guard breaks, is that the end of the world? Does that make it infinitely inferior not only to MvC2 but to every fighting game ever?

No.

Take MvC3 for what it is: a new game. Take a long time to think about the differences between MvC1 and MvC2, and tell me how things should have been left the same.

Yeah except MvC1 was a fun yet ultimately trash game while MvC2 is a legitimate contender for ‘best fighting game ever.’ In terms of having an entirely complete, elegant universal system that lacks any unnecessary game-damaging gimmicks and then placing a bunch of interesting characters that play really uniquely into that system I think its only competition is Hyper Fighting.

@booda

if we played mahvel 2 like the intended we would have gotten bored like 9.8 years ago… serious… 1,2,3,4 xx super… for every character practically… the game went where it did b/c the system was a bit loose… its still fun to make and watch combo vids for 10 years later b/c the system was a bit loose…

I like that… and I hope 3 is similar…

btw many more characters beyond sent have unfly in mahvel 2… you just need to know how to get it…

ryu would NOT be as good as cable if he could 3xshinku… shinku simply does less dmg and its hit box is like 1/10th of the screen tall… cables mashed beam takes up like 80% of the screen…

AHVB is also not utterly instant in recovery… its actually punishable… by only a few moves in a few situations yes… but its not purely untouchable…

but anyways if they removed all of what you call “mistakes” the game would be lame as hell…

I can’t believe I actually agree with most of these.

See, now that’s a good argument. That’s the kind of stuff Capcom needs to hear. It really harkens back to MvC’s origins. X-Men: Children of the Atom lauded what it called “Create Your Own Combo,” and all the other games are derivatives of that engine. The goal is to keep it loose without it becoming degenerate. There still has to be strategy, it still has to be a fun experience.

Well, I could pick this apart, but the point I was trying to make is that Capcom seemed to intentionally make super jumps continue so players couldn’t cancel them to create such combos, but for some reason they didn’t with Cable. Was that intentional, or did they just drop the ball because they were trying to rush one final Marvel game out before their license was up?

I don’t agree with that at all. You’d still have crazy rushdown, you’d still have DLC as a method of switching characters instead of just for combos, you’d still have dash over Psylocke. Are those all lame tactics that nobody uses?

I agree on taking out Dan

but only if you put Sean in his place

Pick apart what? shink-hadoken DOES LESS DAMAGE AND HAS A MUCH SMALLER HITBOX… it would fucking rock if ryu could 3x shinku… but it wouldn’t make him cable. That’s all I really said bout it… (though i could have also mentioned that shinku only travels the first 1/2 of the screen instantly… with a nano delay (at time long enough to block) when shooting at something full screen. ahvb on the other hand… travels the full length of screen pretty much instantly on startup.

u don’t need to defend ryu vs cable to me… im one of the only people to post info in the mvc2 ryu forums in years… and I hate cable… all of that aside… I’m just saying how it is.

The sj thing… all sj. DO continue UNLESS you do a move that causes you to halt in the air. like ahvb… and it has to be that way… imagine trying to sj and shoot a projectile… but instead of stopping in the air and shooting it… yer dude continues to fly up to the top of the screen as he shoots… worthless…

Those tacs you mention… are something that work with what you refer to as “mistakes” to raise the game another level… taking part of that away and going “look at the tacs you can still use” would just make it a piece of crap. Yea you can reset w/out infinites… but if you inf into a reset… oh look awesomeness of both worlds…

Whoa, why is this thread so good?

pretty much sums it up lol. now that they have the license again im really hoping for a quality product from capcom here. i wanna stay level headed but its hard not to get excited imagining the possibilities