Just curious of how high the learning curve is for this game, as I find it to be the most interesting looking fighter after SSFIV. I’m still extremely far from being a competent FG player, so I’m just looking for fighters to put my time into so I can start genuinely improving and have fun doing it. I appreciate any feedback.
Edit: And how is the Online scene for this game?
If you’ve never played a 3D fighter before then it’s like climbing a goddamn mountain. It’s like learning how to play fighters all over again.
Can’t say what the scene is like but the online is really, really good.
From my time with it, the engine itself is not that complicated, and a lot of things, like D+1 interrupts aren’t that hard to grasp if you’re familiar with abusing frame data.
The problem is that you have all of these unique characters, and all of these unique strings. All in various combinations of High/Mid/Low, and limb-specific in some cases. It’s a lot to take in if you want to understand matchups and play competitively. I feel it’s kind of the same problem that keeps people from jumping into Tekken, or really, any game where you’re not familiar with the roster. It’s not complicated, but there’s a lot of stuff.
In terms of competitive play, the complexity is in layers. First layer is basic VF, you can play literally with 6 moves, P, low P, forward P, low K, grab, and your bnb, which I will consider 1 move haha.
2nd layer you are using a lot of your character’s moves and learning your frame traps and maybe breaking throws finally instead of always trying to duck or low P
3rd layer you are using fuzzy guard and using maximized combos that make use of open/closed stance and character weights
The idea of VF and complexity comes from the fact that a lot of people try to learn about the 2nd and 3rd layer stuff, bypassing the first layer and can’t establish their own offense and defense. So it seems hard. Personally, I don’t get much practice but I can go to play with people with my low level game and still have fun.
Online play, i’m not sure but when i tried it was hard to find people. You should check virtuafighter.com and see if there are any lobbies or in person meet ups in ur area.
VF isn’t beyond anybody’s understanding. when you connect with an attack, or do a 5P, you’ll have frame advantage, so you attack again. if your move gets blocked (unless it was a 5P or certain unique cases) and you’re at a disadvantage, you make a defensive decision, like blocking or evading. so, what your best subsequent options are depends on how your or the opponent’s previous attack made contact (CH > normal hit > guard). evading does throw a bit of a monkey wrench into that structure because it’s a set length and there’s no blockstun, but similar ideas still apply.
later on, you’ll learn to integrate multiple things into an OS (mostly defensively) to defend against a wider number of options. throw breaking while blocking is an easy one, but fuzzy guarding and cancelling a failed evade into a dash (then into a guard) are more difficult and not easily relatable to stuff other fighting games. learning matchups and specific things will happen naturally with time. i find that VF is a largely rule-based game, so reading the wiki on VFDC should help you decide if you like the concepts in the game.
there are usually people in ranked, but player match is dead, unfortunately.
The game isn’t that hard. @Gaijinblaze hit most of it on the head. A lot of the difficulties come in how complex scenarios can get, with stance sides and understanding homing attacks and such. To sum up how to play, you’re also playing like 3 games of Rock / Paper / Scissors at the same time, so understanding how to best use your option selects and read your opponent. The difficulty is more in playing it well rather than playing it at all.
One thing I’m going to say - at least execution isn’t a barrier in this game. Some require some heavier execution (e.g. Akira), but generally speaking, the input buffer is so fucking long on most attacks, you can just tap your sequences and then watch them come out. No need to be as timing precise as Tekken, for example. There are harder combos with every character of course… I mean, I use Pai and some of her combos are REALLY hard - but her basic BnB: K > P,P,B+P,K - Ain’t that hard at all.
The usual I hear is that it’s problematic exactly IF you have played other 3d fighters previously because some basic things operate quite differently from the other ones.
Just did the tutorial and I can see that this game is going to be insanely difficult to get profecient, but hell if Jeane 'ain’t a ton of fun.
I’ll keep all of that in mind as I continue playing Gaijin. Thanks.
A lot of stuff was already covered here, but I want to add one more.
Defense and movement is extremely important. If you learn nothing else, learn how to block and evade attacks. VF classifies attacks in many ways; not only do you have your high/mid/low attacks, but you also have EX high/mid/lows. You also have to consider the direction an attack is coming from, and the attacks are categorized into types beyond just punch and kick. For example, a move might parry a high kick, but it won’t stop a high kick that uses both feet (e.g. a dropkick).
IMO, I think learning to defend is more important than maximizing combo damage simply because most combos deal decent damage. Each round is 45 seconds and the default is best 3 out of 5; it’s set up that way because two good combos can end a round quickly. That’s why much time should be spent on learning to avoid attacks.
A bunch of us play the game on PS3 in private rooms. You could also go to virtuafighter.com and find some people to play there. My PSN is mmking9999 if you want to add me. I’m not on very often though as my PS3 is broken and I’m using my brother’s. If you want to play, just PM me or ask in the PlayStation thread in General Discussion where all the other VF5 players are.
Also, check out my [Fashion Show thread](VF5 FS - The FS stands for Fashion Show if you need costume ideas for your character. cough