From the latest reports, chained lights are either punishable or more likely not a true blockstring anymore in the GamesCom build.
And yes, medium and heavy normals do recoverable chip damage (grey damage) in SFV (you cannot however, die from Chip damage unless it’s from a super or V-Trigger).
EDIT: Just remembered something, SFV also has a “blocked sweep” animation. In fact, I believe most heavy normals have a unique recovery animation on block.
I honestly had no idea. Haven’t been checking the detailed systems of SFV because SF4 soured me on the series. I’ve been plugging those design choices for 3-4 years now. Not gonna lie. Feeling super vindicated right now.
this?
I dunno man the pressure strings seemed too safe to me. I don’t like that. Only unblocked hits should be safe.
Which is why you are not a game designer.
In SF, the advantage off of some blocked attacks are used to set up you’re offense. This became even more important starting with A3 where they introduced counter hits. For example, V-ken can do c.lp (blocked), b+rh (counterhit), hit confirm into super/dp. Another example, cvs2 chun, she does c.lp (blocked), slight delay c.lp (counterhit), link into c.mp xx super. The counterhit in the first example freezes the screen for a split second for you to get the comfirm (similar to what SFV does now with the extended hit reel animation). The second example gives you more frame advantage to make the link easier into the hit confirm, which works the same in A3 when going from a light/medium attack. Making blocked attacks disadvantaged would be the worst design decision they could make.
This screed on the importance of hit-confirms is pointless because, if you had bothered to read the thread, you would know that the current discussion is specifically about how to discourage players from hit-confirming all day. I want players to make reads and commit to them, not set up safe offense and option-select away as much risk as possible.
Links are an interesting thing in their own way. It’s strange to see their necessity sort of creeping up into commonplace. They’ve always sort of been around, but it was usually something more reserved for certain characters. Light to heavy links was always more of an SNK thing, and it’s been around over there for a long time. Then SFIV sort of came along and made links the new hot thing on Fighter Street. Links have always been there, but a lot of the time didn’t even get used even at the highest tier of play. Why? Well, let’s be real here, input in older games is way harder, the games play WAY faster, block pause, hit pause – all much shorter. Input leniency? Not a thing. The fact is, as games get easier on their input buffer and now even allow normals to come out even if pressed too early, the linking concept of games is only going to increase.
Links are used heftily in SFIV by design, of course. However, it’s used more prominently because of these reasons:
I’m an Ibuki main in 3S, so I found it funny how the designers for SFIV, when porting her to that game, sort of looked at her frame data and saw the possibilities. The fact of the matter is, it is “technically” possible or very damn close to do a lot of the silly links that you see SFIV Ibuki do in 3S. Her oh-so-obnoxious far jab into s.MK? That is one frame of hitstun away from being possible in SF3, and, on a stun combo where hitstun is increased by 1 frame, is possible. You can even link from her far jab into her LK-MK target combo and confirm off of it, but it’s very tight, and only works on Hugo or other large characters. MP link into MK? Possible as well, but again, due to pushback, only works on Hugo or other large framed characters.
Even Yun’s c.MP in Third Strike is self-linkable, but NO ONE ever used it for that tiny damage increase, because the risk of screwing up was too high. Because there was a gap, blocked links aren’t true blockstrings in older fighters most of the time. In a game with a parry system, that is a pretty big risk.
There are a lot of damage optimizing links you don’t see being utilized in older fighters, and it’s precisely because it is not worth the risk. They are not easy to do, they are usually very specific, and quite frankly, with lack of invincible reversals, you were better off using that frame advantage as a frame bait. The links you see used are the practical ones, the ones where the advantage or worth of them is clear and evident. They are/were too risky to go for a lot of the time. Now things are different, inputs are easier, the games universally all pause for longer periods of time, cancel windows are longer – everything is infinitely easier now. Links are far easier as a result, and generally much safer as well, and a lot of the time, sort of a “why not” sort of option for confirming for damage while also doubling as a block string. I hate the concept personally, but it’s becoming a thing. I miss pushback on block…
Personally, I like links, and aside from some nice practical ones you should get to know for your character, I much prefer them to be something reserved for the knowledgeable player. However, with how inputs are in say SFV and Rising Thunder (Bait Thunder), I’m not sure if you should really think of links as the “harder” option. For some people, it’s easier to slowly hit buttons as opposed to chain them together quickly. It also gives players more time to understand what is going on. The risk to links is fading with how many games are shying away from defensive mechanics, so you can utilize them well as blockstrings and hitconfirm options. Pushback is so little, that they all work almost completely in either scenario, so again, why not just do it? Hit-confirming in these link heavy games don’t exist. It’s a sad reality, but as links increase, the skill of hit-confirming fades into the background. The most valued skill in my favorite fighter, is now something you get for free… sniff I’m so upset right now.
Making everything unsafe on block is a wonderful way to discourage players from mounting any kind of offense whatsoever, and if you want to see what that game looks like, I suggest you look at some Brawl. Hint, it’s not pretty.
So if you attack with anything and you get blocked, you lose life.
If you do the smart thing and block until the opponent attacks first, you also lose life.
This sounds like the worst game ever.
But that makes no sense. Essentially what your saying is you want a game where the only two options are block and dp aka making reads. SF offense is way more elegant and skilled than that at higher levels. The examples I described are ways for you to push your offense and bait your opponent into a bad situation. Even SF4 to a way lesser degree followed this formula. It’s the essence of SF. Is there any SF game that you even like to play? They all employ what I just described. If you want a game where you’re guessing the majority of the time go play DOA.
Just to correct a couple of things you posted. Links have always been a staple in SF. They’ve only become the new buzzword because of the influx of new players with SF4. Go back and read the forums before sf4 and you’ll see no one ever complained about links.
Also lots of people use the yun c.strong link because it’s easy to see if it hits and gives you option select parry c.strong if blocked. In a lot of the old games, if it linked on hit then it would work as a true block string. In cvs2 try to dp through sakuras c.lp, s.fierece. If timed correctly, you can’t reversal through. Same with ryu c.strong, c.lk in st.
Oh, I never said they weren’t common in SF, they just weren’t a universally used thing between 100% of the cast – I mean, most every character has links of some sort, but the usefulness varies. The whole c.LP into a HP link has been around for a lot longer than people like to believe, but it was always sort of attached to a normal typically carrying a lot of pushback or very unsafe if not canceled (Hah, or sometimes not at all. Garou, Garou). Medium to lights in the vein you mention and Yang/Yun’s c.MP into s.LK for example are just really good hit-confirm options. Links get around, but they always seemed quicker and less silly before, more like a quick 1-2, a jab to open them up, then comes the right. SFIV and games being inspired by it, have really sort of baked this concept of everything being a linkable move. Which I don’t like, because it usually means a lot of hit stun as a result, which has more impact on the gameplay than just links.
There’s also something really frustrating about being hit on the ground for a very long period of time in such a way where your character looks to be near 100% back to neutral, then you get hit by another jab into MK into Tsumuji into silliness. It feels weird in it’s own way, but that’s just a personally gripe of mine with link aesthetics in SFIV at least. This was less jarring in sprite games where animations were only so many frames, so it was very easy to see you were still in hitstun. In-fact, I think that might be entirely why it caught people’s attention so much in SFIV – it looks wrong. I mean, I have issues with the BnB link strings, and everything linking into something, but the appearance of it is what made it so jarring, at least for me. Hey, I guess appearance does matter.
I may have over-sold no one using Yun’s c.MP link, but, I do still stand by the notion that it is not really used for it’s linking property and more for it’s advantage, outside of those rare non-GeneiJin Yuns. It is a true block string if done correctly though, so it’s certainly a nice pressure option, but easy red parry material. Now imagine all c.MP normals are like that and that’s SFIV. The medium buttons in SF have always sort of been the pressure buttons, filled with high advantage and often times linking options, with a little less pushback than heavies, to allow walk-in pressure. The button dynamics persist.
But yes, links have always been a thing, and always will be. In my journey leading up to SFV, I’ve been going back and playing any and all fighters I can find, and links are in every game I’ve touched. They’ve just never been as universal as SFIV’s for instance. Rising Thunder’s at least seem to be more of a character by character thing.
God, it’s really hard to really define what it is in words, all I can say is SFIV did links wrong. Rising Thunder’s seem less invasive to me, but still feel a bit artificial because it follows SFIV’s slow pace with long hitstun and block stun periods. Just feels weird.
I totally get what you’re saying and I agree. SF4’s issue was less pushback on normals when compared to every other SF game.
But I would also make blocking unsafe via chip damage from normals (real chip damage ala-SF2). If this doesn’t work well enough, I’ll add that system I talked about where inaction is punished with lost meter (and eventually lost life). In fact as much as possible I would get rid of anything safe. Everything would be massively risky. You’re just going to have to make a read and commit to it.
My new motto, which I just made up right now, is “In the realm of fighting games, safe is the opposite of fun”.
Yeah. Why would you be rewarded for getting blocked? You failed to land a hit.
Blocking may be smart or not smart depending on the game. In UMVC3 blocking is a pretty awful tactic. What I want is a game where only hits are smart. Everything else is punished.
Ask yourself if UMVC3 got more or less hype after players started to focus on safety over offense. Chris G started the trend with his MorriDoom innovation but nowadays it’s all about hanging back until you can make your point character safe via assists and then blitzing with mix-ups into hit-confirms for a few seconds before hanging back again.
Actually I would also like to make blocking bad.
You got a hit -> good
You are doing nothing -> bad
You blocked an attack -> bad
Your attack was blocked -> worse
You were hit -> worst
I don’t care about making an “elegant” or “skilled” game. I mean if it ends up that way great but if not I don’t mind. My goal is to make the game fun, and my idea is that fun comes from risk (see my new motto above).
SSF2T and Hyper Fighting. Also I liked Alpha 3 but mostly because I thought doing Karin V-combos was fun. I didn’t really enjoy the actual game.
I am actually planning to get into this game because I went to the DoA Festival event and liked what I saw very much. Still a beginner at this point but I am having tons of fun with the title.
That’s good, because the game you’ve been describing this whole time is DOA. SF will never be that. Just look at how the DOA games have been shunned to the point where they’ve made changes to the system to give more moves frame advantage. But yea, DOA is definitely your game.
I never said I wanted SF to be that. I said that’s how I would design a game if I wanted to get rid of hit-confirms, and @d3v was the one who told me SFV was going in that direction. Now obviously that’s great for me if it’s true, but from my perspective it seems like the two of you are presenting vastly different pictures of what SFV plays like.
EDIT:
Here’s a Combofiend quote from… er… that other site:
Of course he was talking about option-selects here but the philosophy is the same.
As a Skullgirls player, I am no stranger to liking and playing games that have small communities. I like what I like and I play what I want.
There are conflicting reports concerning chaining lights and linking from lights in the most recent SFV build. BUT, based on history and how SF generally works, I’m more inclined to believe the game still behaves similar to what’s present in the beta, except maybe confirming off of lights for some characters may have been removed. A good example of how the game plays based on the beta is a mix between SF3 and CvS style hit confirms. Where you can hit confirm into super off of a single hit (SF3) or link multiple normals into each other (CvS). What combofiend was getting at it is the elimination of invincible moves that you can make safe by fadc. This was a huge complaint from lower level players in SF4. So if you’re looking for a game where hit confirms matter less and moves are negative on block SFV will not be the game for you.
Confirming lights into mediums is gone from all characters as of the Gamescom build, even Cammy and Birdie (who had some in the E3 and beta builds).
Also, chained lights are no longer a true blockstring in the same build.
Chained lights not being a true blockstring is unnecessary.
Agreed; hell, plenty of people hate heavier buttons not being true blockstrings!
I don’t know how Ukyo always manage to start his posts with stuff that you could agree or at least understand why he thinks that way just to throw it away with fucking nonsense.
I start with the simplest version of my ideas and then extrapolate to more complex stuff. People agree with me up till the discussion is over their heads and at that point their brains suffer a segmentation fault.