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