Interesting to note as far as TOs spending money: The PS3 doesn’t have gamesharing for anything bought after Nov 17th. So that option just flew out the window. Now you can share the content once and if your system goes under you ha e to deactivate the other console to get it back. Messy. Not worth it. Just consider hamesharing dead.
All-right, so with the current info of Gems announced, we have learned the following:
[LIST]
[]Gem order must be set up before reaching the character select screen
[]Each character (seemingly) has thee gem preset sets.
[]Most of the gems are similar in effect, but simply have different activation conditions or more powerful but with scaled conditions (I.e. block 5/10/15, +10/20/30% defence).
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Based on this, I think gems canbe workable in a tournament setting. I’m not saying they should be, but it is possible. I would like to present these possibilities for consideration:
[LIST=1]
[]Tournament Directors agree on three preset gem sets from the base package, and add them to every character for tournament use. While this would save time for everyone involved, this would push the meta-game in a certain direction somewhat.
[]TD agree on the three sets as above, but per character. This would heavily push the metagame in a certain direction, but at the same time would make the characters feel more unique than the above.
[]Ban them outright. At this point, if we want this game to be taken seriously in the FGC, this seems like the ideal solution. What I fear, however, is that the game companies may not look favourably upon their community for this. This could be worrying for big tournaments like Evo.
[/LIST]
Now for all but the third solution to work, characters would be required to gain the same benefits from the same gems - knowing Trollno as we do I fear he will try and push forward his lulgems by saying that certain characters of different types recieve +X% from using certain gem types (i.e. speedy characters with speed, grapplers with defence gems, etc.)
Thoughts?
I like this idea. It would save a lot of time. Plus, there would be no discussion or worries which gems are allowed to select, overpowered or anything else. If these preset pack of gems are adapted, balanced out and have certain advantages/disadvantages, this could spice up a lot of matches.
Capcom showed that you set gems like you set premade teams in MVC3.
AKA it takes a very long time. So as far as tournaments go it looks like no gems, empty slots only, final destination.
well what i think is most realistic route that TO will do is eliminate the usage of DLC gems. Why only Target DLC Gems? i’ll provide some explanation.
-By getting rid of the DLC Gems outright, it creates a more “leveled” playing field for most players.
-It does away with any additional cost in the long run.
-It also gives players less stress on what Gems are going to be used in the Meta Game as only a handful of Gems are going to be used anyways, DLC Gems in themselves would be used more often then the Standard Gems Thus Creating the Necessity in having them available in the first place.
We Can have Gems…just the Gems everyone has access to.
Thats my thoughts on the matter.
That could be a problem. If we asked people providing consoles to set their gems to tourney standard or -I’ll have to check if it’s possible- but if one had ‘tourney official’ saves and then transferred that save onto the machine, loading that save onto tourney consoles. If said save was host-able online, then it would be easy to download tourney saves onto all consoles.
Otherwise yes, that could be a problem. Can’t say I’d mind gem-less matches, though - the activation effect looks like a bunch of skittles paid them $8.95 to spend the evening with them, if you know what I mean.
Completely agreeable, matter settled.
gems are just a crutch for the less-competent players. “I can’t block so I’ll use this gem” “I can’t do cool combos so I’ll just get a damage boost gem”. “Rolento and Dhalsim are really laming out my Hugo. SPEED GEM!”
I can see why they have the gem system; cuz online connections will probably be the same average-low quality latency as SSF4. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as mvc3. There’s been enough times with me where I’ve “teched that shit” or “blocked that shit” but the outcome showed otherwise. The gem system might be the only thing that’ll make online playable, depending on how much capcom will or won’t invest into the netcode. gems should be some online-only business like they did with H&H (though part of me wishes that could be used offline despite me being an avid hater of that garbage game).
And to any serious players who thinks gems could add depth to the game, shame on you.
One last thing. If Capcom intended us to take gems seriously, they wouldn’t bother with requiring any of them to get unlocked.
I think you’re being a bit close minded; like a poster above said, it would be wise to play the game with gems and see what the system is all about before making up your mind about them.
I’ve seen the announced gem list and I’m not impressed. The fact that some gems (probably a lot) require unlocking leaves me even less impressed. The lack of impression makes me feel like I can trust my intuition with this one (whereas x-factor in Marvel I was optimistic about, before realizing how stupid it actually was.)
My point is, I want to play the game as is, without any conditional gem activation to worry about. I don’t want to feel like the only way to beat somebody while they have auto-block enabled is by going for throws; especially if I’m playing a zoning-out style. And I don’t want to just end up waiting on a gem to deactivate (like x-factor) before feeling like I can do anything again.
Don’t Kid yourself - this is damage control, not gem promotion. As much as most of us would LIKE to play gem-less, TOs have sponsorship and such to worry about. Also, undoubtedly Ono would hold back some decent kind of mechanic or remake because of how we react to gems - heavens knows why.
In relation to the save transfer on my last post, I imagine it going like this for PS3 tourneys:
a)Pre-tourney(after tourney announcement): Each console used adds a new console(not psn) account/uses one without a personal SFxT save
b)Pre-Tourney (announcement):TO release official places to get the saves from, hopefully with the file including all default unlocked characters (exc. DLC) and each set to ‘official’ gem settings on quick-load
c)Pre-Tourney: Each PS owner using the PS for the event transfers the save via the process (for example) here: http://www.ps3hax.net/showthread.php?t=5927 Because it would be put on an alternate account, it shouldn’t overwrite the user’s own save.
d)In-tourney: If all systems are OK, it should just be a case of selecting
I see three main areas this could fall down:
- If the SFxT saves are copy-protected, they may* not transfer.
- If the TOs cannot actually access the consoles prior to the tournaments
- If the save uploaded is ‘incorrect’, as it were, that may cause problems, or if the saves host stops hosting it.
As much as my ideas are supported, I suspect we will be faced with a case of No gems/Poison only/Training stage. But again, once the game is actually out, all shall be revealed. Also, does anyone know what games were announced for EVO?
I doubt a no gems tourney would work, Ono specifically stated that the game was balanced AROUND these gems, and that he wanted them used in tournaments. This means there could very well be characters who were gimped in certain ways specifically so players would be encouraged to use gems.
ie. a character who is very fast and does high damage but has godawful health and defense and dies in like one combo. So you’d maybe want health and defense gems, or gems that soak up damage, or maybe gems that make them even faster/stronger so you can try to just kill the opponent ASAP before they kill you. But wait, if you don’t use gems at the tourney, the character is now probably garbage and useless.
I also don’t know why people say stuff like “We can play the game without gems, the way it was meant to be”. No, that’s not how it was meant to be, the game was balanced around the gems, Ono himself said so. If the DLC stuff bugs you, that’s fine and understandale, but wanting to play without ANY gems period is silly; it means you’re not playing the game it was meant to be played. People bitch about X-Factor, but no one bans that from tournies and says “let’s play MvC3 the way it was meant to be”.
You seem to be knew to the forums (at least, your join date indicates so), so allow me to welcome you to the SRK community. While I’m still relatively new myself, I’m sure you can speak to some of the more senior members for guidance, if need be.
As for a line-by-line as to why I disagree with your post:
[list]
[*] Ono also stated that having a ‘villain’ in arcade edition would unite the community. It changed nothing. People didn’t cheer for Daigo when Poongko was brushing his teeth with him in EVO 2011 AE, and this was not because of loltwins. While yes, some people disliked Daigo because of Yun, the reactions in EVO 2010 to Daigo doing well were the same - because Daigo was, and still is, a genuinely good player and people expected him to do well. Poongko lights the dance floors because firstly, he is THE Seth vortex and one of the funnest to watch, but also because of character loyalty. This wasn’t a ‘uniting of fans against the villains’ - this was creating a divide between rookies and vets, and changing it to those who embraced their new-er dive-kicking gods, and those who wanted a balanced game where, not surprisingly, the “Protagonists” and “Antagonists” of the community were still formed back in super. Not because of tiers, but because of skill. Incidentally, Microsoft’s Kinect was supposed to revolutionise gaming but, surprise surprise, it failed. Just because a designer says their intentions are X, does not mean that X is guaranteed - it is more likely, but Y, Z or even A are possible depending on how it all fits together. Funnily enough, the glue used for post-it-notes was originally supposed to be the world’s strongest glue.
[*]With regards to the gimping design, would Capcom/Ono really stoop that low in order to shoehorn gems in? If so, then I don’t think it deserves half the support it has now (shoutouts to the Poison forums) and it is genuinely bad design. Why? Because gems become less of a choice i.e. “Do I use Ultra 1 to boost my ground game or use U2 to give me a more damaging anti-air?” and more of a problem. As in “What gems do I add to make my character genuinely not die?” because there will be a definitive, logical answer as to which gems to choose, as opposed to a choice where the practically any gem combination could work with a reasonable, as opposed to impossible, amount of effort. In any case, even with defence gems (as per your example), the majority of their activation effects require some form of damage, chip or otherwise - in most cases, by the time the gems would be useful, the player would have lost so much life they might as well have used a balanced character in the first place.
[] With regards to X-factor. As I’m sure you’re aware, X-factor could not be turned off and required pressing three buttons at the same time. My feelings about Ultimate Marvel 3 aside, in a game as fast-paced as it avoiding those three buttons with disqualification as a penalty for doing so would have been incredibly hard, if not silly, to implement. Furthermore, X-factor only requires those three buttons. No pre-game choices, no re-tooling it or setting its three colours to get the right effect, but it’s an unchanging press of three buttons. Incidentally, people don’t complain about X-factor for anywhere near the same reasons - people are worried about gems because of the time sink required to set them up at tournaments. X-factor is a silly mechanic because it rewards the player for getting stomped on, having an easy to use final character and just running your Bread-and-butter combos all day after landing some kind of set-up.
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The main problem lies in the fact that the mechanics don’t truly change the mechanics - they simply encourage certain behaviours. X-factor encourages using mixup characters and learning bread and butter combos, because in X-factor they will do more damage. Gems do roughly the same thing, but on a lesser scale and with many more styles encouraged. If I don’t pick gem X, I will still be able to play my game-style, I will just do it better. If I didn’t pick, say, K groove in CVS2, I would genuinely lose just defence and, if my defence is good enough, a free level 3 super. I don’t just use my style better, I change it to match my options.
It should also be noted that if people cannot spend the time to set up gems, they won’t, simple as. If Capcom/Ono wanted to make gems fast and see tournament play, they’d be best to increase the number of sample slots to 9 and provide all of the cast with 6 shared gem sets, each with a specific type of playstyle in mind, in order to make selection of each gem-set quick and easy. For example, 1 defence, 1 attack and 1 speed gem could be a balanced set, while 2 attack and 1 speed could be a vortex or mixup set, or 2 defence and one attack could make a grappler set. Heck, why not just include 3 sets for default and add some of the DLC gems (which I can guarantee will not see tournament play) in unlockable gem sets?
It would also make it easier to gauge character strength based on the logistics if the metagame had six mainstays.
As a wise man could have said, “A table cannot stand if even one leg is gimped, no matter how good the other three are.”
pretty much, even though this conversion had evolved into talking about the mechanics, i would like to further elaborate on what you were talking about.
the guys post earlier said something on the lines of the characters being nerfed(in one way or another) to help support the “need” of gems. however, like Capcom fighters in the past, this is not the case. he used Lili in a example you know~high damage potential, combofiend, and low health to boot. They made her that way because thats how she was ment to be, a glass cannon, you can “justify” your reason in picking a certain gem set because she has low health…however you can’t say they made her this way because she was ment to use gems. This is interesting because this is the kind thing developers had intended to do, make people think about different ways to use the same character, however i can go on about that in the Gem thread.
Gems are a important part of SFxTK, that much is true, however like pandora and crossassults before them, they were not in the games infancy, thus is one of the main reasons people are against the idea of Gems, where as for the most part X-Factor was always apart of MVC3. Had Gems and the other sub-systems been there from the start, then we would be in our current situation atm, however dlc gem may still be a problem. well i said my two cents~
I think they should be banned, we have enough elements in this game, gems is just adding frosting to the already awesome cake.
Gems were TACKED ON. Its fucking obvious that the characters can function well without having to have a 10% damage boost. Ono doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about when it comes to fighting games. I fail to see how a buff for like 10-20 secs would make a character worthwhile. IT DIDN’T IN MVC3. Ono himself is a fucking jackass who has no idea how to design games and this system proves it. Why is it necessary for a character to have a buff for 20 secs? This system isn’t ground breaking, it isn’t new. It was clearly added at the last minute along with pandora becuase they wanted casual fans to eat that shit up and buy the game becuase it has a bunch of pretty lights. THE EFFECTS THEM SELVES AND THIER ACTIVATION CONDITIONS SHOULD EASILY TELL YOU THAT ONO KNOWS SHIT AND IS JUST BULLSHITTING. Did they make a running gem? A shorthop gem? A rolling gem? An Airthrow gem? You know, something that actually has something to do with the mechanics? Something that makes my ryu differant from yours? Nope, doesn’t make my ryu much differant than yours. Just means i get to be fast for all of 10 seconds. Hell, i am waiting to see if Ono releases the actual videos for people selecting gems. Knowing him it’d be barebones and the worst decision possible. I am tired of capcom. I am tired of ono. I am tired of all the bullshit that surrounds this company. If gems are not convient in the SLIGHTEST they should simply be banned. I’d rather not support the game, and i know a lot of people do, so i am not going to get into that. This is to save this community the headache, save them the frustration, save them the time. Just fuck dignity. If these shits aren’t convenient to YOU, BAN THEM. Its not as though they are an important feature. Ono knows it, i know it, the rest of you should know it, rather than listen to every word this fucktard says. Thats all PR BULLSHIT.
Xfactor can’t be deactivated.
You don’t have to look through hundreds of menus to find your set up.
Everything is ready from the get go. Its not becuase its unbalanced, its becuase its out of convenience, which is the conversation here.
Instead of replying to an obvious trolling alt, you guys should really just spam the report button instead.
I think outright banning gems in January when EVO isn’t until late July/August is sort of cowardly. There are plenty of other semi-major tournaments between SFxT’s release date and EVO, so I at least want to see how Gems work in a tournament setting before deciding on what’ll go down in Vegas.
It’s not the balance aspect, it’s how it negatively affects tournaments.
I’ve reported you for negativity against a supporter of Capcom and SFxTekken.
No big tournament organiser is going to ban gems period. Ono and Capcom are by no means perfect, but people are deluded if they think that the people making this game have not put some consideration into tournament play around Gems, that they or Seth killian are not in some way reviewing feedback as they go along. As plenty of people have said already, this is a core mechanic (one that has not just been thrown in) and will therefore not be dropped at the most hardcore level. We are talking about (arguably) the 2 most played fighting games on the planet in a mash up. It will surely draw interest from both camps and new players with alot of players interested in competitive play alone and the strategy available from gems will see it as SF X T light without them.
The debate to a certain extent is mute anyway. Has anyone even seen the final versus select screen, how it works and what the options are, or whether there is a tournament mode build into the game? Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but I can envisage the following:
- Pick character 1, then select Gems for that character
- Pick character 2, then select Gems for that character
- button check on character select page (ala SF3OE)
- play game best of 3 or 5
- Can change characters or Gems once per set
Now, I’m sure people will say, “but what about the gem selection itself…wont’ that take time?” I say no it won’t and here is why - no decent player in their right mind is going to go to a tournament not knowing who their team is and what gems they use. Very few people are going to sit and think about what gems to use for 10 minutes analysing the pros and cons, just as they don’t with assists in UMVC3. “There are at least 50 gems I here you say (or more with DLC)”, but people will know what works for them and which gems they need to go to straight away on the list. People are over complicating it to think that there will be some deep choices being made before each match. It will be as simple as remembering something like - attack gem 4, defence gem 7, speed gem 1. To make sure you keep things ticking along, tournamant directors (or Capcom in game), should have an option or rule to set a character and gem select timer (a bit like a shot clock)…don’t make your choice in time…random choice coming up…or even better, no gems at all for the one trying to troll or having a breakdown over which gems to use - people would make quick direct choices then, knowing the other player will have an advantage and 10 or 20% here and there at the top level matters! Only thing I would put a boundary on right now is only allow the default gems. My only criticism of the gem system so far is the DLC stuff. It’s a blatant attempt to make money beyond the game and feed off the online warriors need to get any advantage so they can to maintain their win %.
As for Gems themselves quickly, they will change the eb and flow of matches. Are you just going to sit there and waste 20 seconds when you have attack gems activated, or not attack when you can build meter quicker or have a distinct advantage through a speed boost. Gems have been designed to promote attack or counter attack…both of which end up with a direction on offence - something Ono got slammed for in SF4 with it’s down back culture. You can’t tell me you will see your character light up with a boost and do nothing! As for the defence boost gems, I don’t see anything too negative here either - it will help keep attack heavy characters with low health around longer, or give people more reason to take risks on offence knowing they can recover or get punished less.
Lastly, there will be no need to ban assist gems either. No good player will use these because of the penalties associated (gauge and damage reductions at top level will hurt badly against good players maxing out attack, gauge and speed gems…which is the way I see most choices being made anyway), plus it’s a dead give away as to what your weaknesses are if you choose throw tech for example.
All the preset stuff is like UMVC3 presets for a quick start at home, nothing to do with tournament play, otherwise every registration would need to tell organisers in advance what they want and that’s just impractical.