We really need some definite info on the DLC gems. I honestly wouldn’t mind the system if it weren’t for them to fuck the competitive scene up.
If they aren’t banned, someone will have pull a Damdai when he used HDR Akuma and make the most broken combination of gems and blow through everyone with it.
use the gems that give more life/defense on Akuma-esque characters (they would be broken if they had average life) or more power on characters that are hard to block
With a kick to the gems.
No one wants to ban Pandora because it’s shit anyway
Regarding Seth Killian: Silver Rain 007 is correct. Seth’s job is two-fold; he goes to bat for us, then whatever is decided in the end he comes back and hypes it to us. Basically, he’s on our side in the early stages of the game’s development by offering the advice of a real fighting game expert, someone with real experience who knows the community. Capcom uses his expertise to know what to expect in regard to us and avoid any obvious game-ruining mechanics*. After that, once details are solidified, he is there to serve as the pitchman to make us want to buy the game. He’s never going to talk down on a mechanic, he’s not going to admit a character sucks (at least not in the early to middle part of the product’s life-cycle), and so on. He has done a great deal for the genre and we owe him our thanks, but the very nature of his job means you cannot 100% trust what he says is absolutely true relative to our needs and concerns; his paycheck requires him to put a positive spin on just about anything related to a Capcom product, and downplay flaws whenever forced to comment on them. He is a Capcom employee and will favor the Capcom official line.
He’s still our friend, but he’s our friend who has ‘Gone to Washington’ and is now ‘playing politics.’ He’ll be honest and nice when he can be, but you just have to understand that his job will sometimes require him to be the PR/Marketing/Spin guy for the people putting food on his table (e.g. Capcom).
*: Note gems are not ‘obviously ruining’ in this context. I’m talking about a theoretical like Ono proposing “What if we added my Blanka Toy as a DLC character who cost $50 and his jab is 3 frame, full-screen, unblockable, and does 100% damage?” Seth’s there to slap that down and say “No, people will flip out and rightly so. Don’t do it.” It’s an exaggerated example, but you get my point.
Getting back on topic: My reservations are the same ones that have already been mentioned; time consumption. This adds a whole extra layer. Tournament organizers would have to have you install your gem selections ahead of time if that route is used, or else each match spends an extra X seconds (let’s assume it’s 5 seconds per gem you want, this seems reasonable)… it adds up in a hurry. We already have tournaments forced to cut some events short because the venue owner is getting ready to kick them out, we don’t want more time-wasters.
The only way I’d see this working is if gems on the select screen optionally came in pre-made packs. E.g. a ‘Well Rounded Pack’ with the 10% to various stat gems, a ‘Defense Pack’ with the auto-guard/tech gems, etc.; ones that you can select the entire set in just a few moments (the same time it takes to pick your character), and fill obvious pre-defined roles. I could live with this.
Otherwise, I would not want to see them drag event flow down and the most simple solution would be to say “no gems.” Whether they turn out to be a good mechanic for casual play or not is wholly separate from this concern, and I’m fine with them existing in that format.
I’m sorry but IMO if you ever complained about Smash banning items and are ok with Gems being completely banned before the game even comes out you are a massive Hypocrite. I’m not saying that banning or not banning the gems is a good or bad thing, maybe it needed to be done but not before the game even comes out to be played.
After my first rage moment I want to belive that this adds some form of depth. But I just can’t.
For now I’ll say ban DLC gems.
Because let’s face it guys. From the name alone this will attract a TON of new players. Players who at this moment might not even know about what the game holds except that “There’s this game coming with Street Fighter and Tekken chars!”
Some of these players might get interested in delving deeper into the game, and they will use Gems to their full potentional.
I’d imagine these guys getting salty when they arrive at a tourny/EVO and they find out that they can’t use Gems.
I know some of you are thinking: “Well FUCK them then!” but tourny organizers shouldn’t worry about alienating some of the players just because they happen to like one of the game systems.
I have to respond to this as a former Smash player.
The reason people banned items outright when Brawl hit the scene was because they knew that after 10 years of playing Melee without items that it just lends itself a lot better to tournament play.
items in smash are too random in the way that they appear to lend themselves to competitive play IMO.
can brawlers use items? can you customize health and damage in the middle of an AE tourney. i rest my case.
This is the last thing I will say about this in this thread so it doesn’t go on longer then it needs to. You know I used to think this too but I’ve since changed my mind on it. I started playing Tetris and puzzle games like that, that people do play competitively (not even counting item Tetris) plus I played Samurai Showdown 2 more often which has food that pops up randomly (as far as I can tell anyway) and heals your characters and stuff. So the whole random thing just doesn’t hold water with me anymore.
The problem right now is not “gems are gonna be broken or not”, it’s "how are we gonna handle exclusive and dlc gems?"
So if people want to ban them right now, that’s not because they think they’re gonna be broken…that’s because they foresee a lot of headaches for TOs to make sure every console has all the gems.
Honestly, I hope they get banned, but only because of how capcom is handling them. If I’m gonna put time in this game I don’t want capcom to milk me with a new gem-pack every few months. I never bought costume packs cause, of course, they didn’t affect or add anything to the game and I never felt like they were worth the price.
Also, right now, the gem system doesn’t sound very fun to me…if there were only around 15 gems and 3 slots character, that would be ok…but over 45 gems and 5 slots per character sounds more like a Role Playing Fighting Game and that’s why I still think they’re gonna be more a feature for casual gamers.
Ban the DLC gems- because no tourney sponsor should have to fork out extra cash to include them on 40 systems.
Only ban regular gems if there isn’t a quick pick option, or the ability to select your gem makeup during the loading screen.
Though, it is really sad that we’re thinking of stripping away a layer of this game’s depth just so we can save time.
By far the wisest post on this thread.
Yah but when it was first announced everyone was crying mad hard before we even had the details…
just think about that shit when the game comes out. Most likely, the answer will be BAN THEM. But I won’t vote on it.
I think we should wait and see because I want to see how exactly is this suppose to work.
i don’t really like the gems. I mean you can put all speed boosts on someone and apparently you have one that makes you turn invisible.
If they don’t ban them. We can have the 5 basic gems for tournaments and you can only choose 3 and ONLY 3.
I prefer Sven’s more honest answer that?
That makes sense, but it makes even more sense to segregate the gems to their own modes/menus/filters instead of having them corrupt the entire game. There’s a difference between not designing something for the competitive crowd, and simply designing something that intentionally alienates folks who want a more vanilla experience. Besides, if there will be DLC exclusive gems, then it’s clearly just a cheap method to monetize fighting game fans instead of being a truly inspired, productive element of the game.
I say ban them.
I think the problem stems from ANY of them being DLC and the splintering of the players that it creates. This game had enough modes as is. I’ve been fine with the concept of Pandora as it still requires some skill and your gonna have to have some trap ideas in mind to whack your opponent within the time. I’m fine with the cross rush as it lasts a short time and requires a full bar. But giving cheap defensive abilities via gems seems like a real cop out to the scrubs. This was looking like an offensive game and that had me excited. I’ll bet you dime to donuts most low skill people will use defensive gems to turtle as much as possible. If they wanna throw it in that’s fine. DLC power ups… Capcom shareholders gotta eat I guess 
But please just give us the option of a “GEM less” lobby. Considering Capcom’s shit track record respecting their customers wishes i doubt they’ll do it so it’ll be up to us to form groups of “GEM free” fighters.
Regardless of DLC/tourney implementation, I feel like having a system where you can pick and choose specific attributes is boring and will lead to the best choice being found out very quickly. It adds nothing to (if not hurting) the balance of the game and is really just an add-on for casuals. The thing about choices in other FGs, whether they be supers, grooves or arcanas, is that you are giving up one thing by choosing another. If the gem system is just increasing damage or health or other power-ups then that’s just boring. If you have to include negative attributes then they might have well as just made grooves instead of confusing everyone with gems.