What about if X-Factor stays the same in it’s current form, but it deactivates as soon as you kill one of your opponents characters?
This means that if you catch your opponent with a bad assist call you can still use X-factor for a Happy Birthday, and if you are down to your last character, you can still use lvl 3 X-factor to chip/kill one character, but you don’t get the whole blow through someones entire team with level 3. It would still be a comeback mechanic, but not some huuuge retarded boost. Would mean that you would use it a little smarter I guess.
This method would also allow you to take out threats in your opponents team with lvl 1 and 2 X-factor, but you would see less derp shit like Wolvie killing the point character, and then 50/50 killing the second character and basically winning the game.
A flaw to the whole “losing a character is only a third of your health” argument is that by losing that character, you’re also losing a lot of options on assists and DHCs. You don’t lose the ability to throw fireballs in SF because Ryu loses a third of his health.
And that’s why XFactor is in this game in the first place: to counter-act this negative slippery slope. XFactor gets stronger as you have fewer characters so that if you have fewer characters, you lose assists and DHCs but you still get something back.
I feel like XFactor being much better on some characters than others is a much bigger problem than XFactor itself, which is actually a good game design mechanic that simply needs some numerical tweaking (due to it possibly overcompensating for the slippery slope mentioned above).
In fact I’m still unconvinced that XFactor is too strong because despite its strength, nobody ever tries to lose characters so that they have access to XFactor Level 3 before their opponents do, which suggests that having assists and DHCs is more valuable than XFactor Level 3; there still is somewhat of a negative slippery slope. The only problem I see with XFactor is that some characters benefit more than others.
This is what I’ve been thinking forever now. We’ve had plenty of videos detailing that 100% combos without Xfactor are possible. Since the discovery of the DHC glitch killing a character off from the outset is entirely possible. If you step back and look at the entirety of the game you’ll see that X-factor has basically kept damage consistent from the start of the match to the end.
As far as XF1 Wolvie killing a character, name a tournament viable character that can’t.
It’s not that he can kill a char with xfl1, its that he can kill a char with xfl1 and have 50% of the bar left.
Arguments vs xf have nothing to do with how strong it is compared to having actual characters, and everything to do with getting something for doing nothing. The mentality xf encourages is, ‘I’m going to play out my characters and have a chance of winning that way, and then if the first two die, then I’m going to use xfl3 with whoever and have a chance of winning that way’, even though the player doesn’t deserve to have that chance because of the mistakes they made. On top of that, xf makes it so the work they have to put in is even less, since they can kill with very basic combos, basically removing the entire aspect of being ‘clutch’ in the execution of a come back.
The whole point of xf was to counteract the situation in mvc2 where you’d get double snapped or killed quickly + guard broken and be down to 1 character. They took out guard breaks, and allowed players to jump or be somewhere other than point blank at the start of the match. Both of these things helped alleviate the occurrence of those kind of situations. But things like that still happen in mvc3, mostly because of other things they ADDED in mvc3. For example, assists take a ridiculous amount of additional damage, much more than mvc2. And you can’t call your assist for 5 seconds after your last character dies. I don’t see why they don’t just adjust things like these, which would eliminate the need to have xf in the first place.
When comparing this game to 2, even without xfactor, coming back is waaaaaaaaaaay easier because of the ease of converting random hits into damage, universally high damage, and long combos that build a ton of meter and kill or come close to it. I mean compare Psylocke with Tron. Psylocke can do how much damage by herself? Like 40% maybe? Just launch magic series into dp xx super. Meanwhile Tron can do a 5 minute long combo that builds a ton of bar and then blow all her supers at the end and sometimes kill a character just off that. And she doesn’t have to land a low short to do it – she can hit a j.C into drill from pretty much anywhere, or a jump S from anywhere, and convert it into the same combo no matter where she is on the screen. Note that these characters are considered to be of the same type in their respective games. Mvc3 is anime as fuck like that, so easy to convert shit into damage, why do you need xfactor? Wesker can gunshot you from across the screen into the same damn bnb he always does, sent can do anything into j.S, etc. The combo system of the game, plus the meter you get for being hit (which is a fuckton btw) is plenty to mount a comeback on. If you need more, you just want something you don’t deserve.
But on the subject of xf in general, it hurts the game any way you slice it. Marvel is a slippery slope game. You lose characters, you lose options – that’s the whole point of the game. Coming back SHOULD be hard. XF creates a problem that no one really talks about – denying players the chance to make unbelievable comebacks. It’s going to be difficult for ‘evo moments’ like Justin coming back on Yipes with only cyclops to happen in this game, because every comeback in this game is going to involve xfactor in some way, and the more it’s involved, the less impressive it’s going to be. Someone could make the most difficult xfl3 comeback ever, but no one is going to give them credit, they’re just going to shake their head and roll their eyes. So even if someone has the skill to come back, they can never prove they have it, because xfactor spoils it. Can you even say to someone, ‘hey, good job coming back with level 3 xfactor’ and not sound sarcastic?
No, no one is going to be able to come back even close to as much as they could with xfactor, but that’s the point. Comebacks shouldn’t happen often, because they are fucking hard, and when they do happen, it’s something amazing that inspires players to pick up the game or at least bring their attention to the competitive scene. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
I think the problem is that fact that he has the ability to CKC with XF1 just from a regular grab, and still have enough XF remaining to force the opponent to deal with some bullshit charged XF mix up.
i was just reading in the tier list thread with the discussion about the strengths of a wolvie/phoenix team, particularly about how good wolvie is even with lv1 xfactor and thought of something.
a lot of people agree that lv3 xfactor is simply too much damage for one character (myself included), so how about altering xfactor so that it can only be activated after losing 1 character, as well as capping the damage at an xfactor 2 level (when you are down to a single character). no more lv1 xfactor wolvie BS killing 2 characters with ease, and no more crazy levels of damage that comes from xfactor 3.
if people were really against the idea of losing the ability to use xfactor with all 3 characters (to save a character dying from chip for example) then maybe a different alteration to xfactor, where by activating xfactor with all 3 characters alive will still net you the ability to withstand chip damage, health regen, but sacrifice the damage and speed boosts. Making a tactical descision, is your point character so important that you keep him alive by using your xfactor to negate chip, or sacrifice him so your other characters can obtain a damage boost later in the match?
The issue I see with some people’s X-Factor suggestions is that they’re making its use highly restricted or its properties highly variable. This is likely taking the mechanic down the path to being useless. IMO X-Factor as currently designed is in theory is a simple but deep mechanic. In practice however things are a little different as the damage boost conferred by X-Factor to almost every character at pretty much any level coupled with the how long even the level 1 version lasts kind of shit on that idea. If those two issues are addressed then I think it will be fine. And by ‘addressed’ I mean reduced. For the damage I think the choice is to have either the character specific damage boost OR the damage scaling minimum but not both. The reduction of duration is simple a question of how much.
In fact, I like this concept.
But, I think we should have 2 or 3 types…
an Offensive one: Activated anytime except during hitstun or blockstun, very much like it is on MvC3 but without xfactor guard cancel, and upgrades damage and speed (duration and extension os boosts is another topic).
a Defensive one: Can be activated during blockstun and hitstun (you could activate during someone else’s combo and block or something) and during standing or jumping states, but not ever when executing a move. Upgrades defense, makes you invulnerable to chip damage and regenerates life just like xfactor does today.
a Balanced One: Can be activated anytime MvC3 xfactor could, except during supers, this one would be tricky to develop, could increase meter building or give just speed bonus and life regeneration, dunno… something that not gives all offensive power the first one would give nor de defensive power the second one would…
It’s more that 1v3 is usually such an uphill battle that it might as well have just been mvc1 with two characters and an assist. It’s barely even worth the effort to learn how to play Captain Commando. Which happens unless you make assists terrible, or don’t give good assists to bad characters.
X-factor is pretty strong right now, assists mostly not so much. Since everyone always cries about how you should buff weak things instead of nerfing what’s strong, buff assists.
And then make x-factor less boring. Cause damn, even if most of the ideas people come up with to fix it are dumb, at least they’re interesting.
Although this is just wishful thinking, to be honest I’m still disappointed that x-factor is pretty much universal (every character gets speed and damage). I would have much preferred each character having like an additional hyper that can only be used once per match as their x-factor (and it could be XFC’ed into) - they would still all be powerup hypers but they would be unique to each character: Ryu could go E.Ryu and get new moves; Iron Man busts out the Hulkbuster armor; Wesker goes Ouroboros; etc. Aside from damage or speed increases they could have access to new moves as well… would be way more interesting but I wouldn’t expect Capcom to actually put the work in to make that happen given how rushed this game was.
I think tweaking the lower-tier characters (the obvious ones, i.e. Hsien-Ko, Arthur) should take more priority so a greater variety of the cast can compete with each other. For example:
Hsien-Ko:
• Speed and damage boost, possibly equal to her current Lv.1 or 2 XF.
• Pendulum is once again cancelable via S
• Reduced hitstun detioration
• Reduce the recovery on her teledash. Thing looks like it’s over when it isn’t.
Other (unlikely) changes could include giving Chuukadan bombs a hitbox, making Gong reflect more excluding beams, slightly increased horizontal range on s.:s:, etc. But the ones I listed above seem more necessary, even if just the speed and damage boosts were implemented. She has the right tools to be at least a solid mid-tier, but their mechanics are all half-baked here.
Shuma:
• What i feel to be the most important: no more posing after hypers and throws. Seriously, it’s funny for about two times, then it gets irritating because you can’t follow up or reposition yourself.
• More priority on Mystic Smash. It loses to pretty much everything, and it’s his only other way of getting in (which he needs to do)
• Less recovery on j.:s: and Mystic Ray.
• Small damage boost
• Mobility buff, somehow. Maybe an 8-way airdash so he can tri-jump or a teleport with set distances like Wekser’s so people don’t complain about “free Chaos Dimension unblockables.”
Some characters have a high learning curve and are hard to handle, yet they are rewarding if given the practice time. Some characters, like the ones I listed, are not hard to learn with a satisfying payoff. They’re frustrating to use with little payoff; shadows of what they could be. And that’s what I feel is bad balance.
I know this isn’t directed at me, but I do have to agree that XF level 1 can be problematic in situations like this one. I’m inclined to advocate that we wait and see, though, before making an judgments. As my post indicated, I do see XF as a comeback mechanic, and so XF level 1 being a strong metagame option doesn’t really jive with me.
I’m not sure I agree with this. The whole idea of XF is to create an even slope–not a negative one, where losing characters make you even more crippled, and not a positive one, where it was beneficial to lose characters, but one that is neutral, just like other fighters. In Street Fighter, you don’t lose the ability to do certain moves after you lose certain amounts of health. This mechanic though, is inherent in MvC, so how do we counteract it to make things neutral? By adding a separate mechanic like XF.
It’d be one thing if XF level 3 was SO STRONG that people would purposely call out assists to have them die so as not to be subject to a mixup and have easy access to XF level 3. As it stands, people NEVER do this (probably because it’s a terrible strategy) which suggests that having your assists alive is better than having XF level 3. This suggests that EVEN WITH XF, MvC3 has an inherent negative slippery slope. Sure, the player put in a position to use XF level 3 made mistakes that resulted in this position, but if he makes the comeback, even with XF level 3, it suggests that his opponent then also made mistakes that resulted in the comeback happening. XF level 3 isn’t an auto-win by any means, and the fact that people aren’t purposely trying to access it is indicative of this.
The only conclusion I can come up with here is that XF was NOT put into place to counteract the situations you mentioned in MvC2 (taking out guard breaks and allowing players to be in other places at the start were put into place to counteract these situations). XF was instead put into place to counteract something else: the negative slippery slope, which is good game design because slippery slopes are generally not ideal.
Sure, comebacks aren’t as difficult as they were in MvC2, and XF makes them easier. But XF doesn’t make purposely losing 2 characters and then XF level 3 to mount a huge comeback a dominant strategy. Thus, I don’t see the problem. I’m not sure why easier comeback are inherently bad unless they end up REWARDING bad play MORE THAN good play, but XF doesn’t do that because clearly people would rather have 3 characters alive than XF level 3. Your point that comebacks are easier in MvC3 than MvC2 doesn’t seem very relevant; why does this matter, if going for XF level 3 comebacks is still not a powerful strategy in the metagame?
I can’t agree with this sentiment, that the whole point of the game is that when you lose characters, you lose options. Evidently, neither can the game designers, since they felt obligated to give you more options in order to compensate for your lost options. Negative slippery slopes are bad; this is actually accepted in game design, and not some random shit I’m making up.
Coming back still is hard. And plus, there’s all sorts of degrees with comebacks. Yeah sure, a one character comeback in MvC3 with level 3 XFactor will be less impressive than a one character comeback in MvC2. But what about a one character comeback with a character that only has a pixel of health left? What about a one character comeback when that character is some assist character that doesn’t do too well by themselves (I don’t know, let’s say Haggar)? Are you saying that these comebacks suddenly would be worthless because of the existence of XF? I would certainly disagree. Even 1 character XFactor comebacks without these stipulations would still be impressive to watch because even though they have XFactor they’re STILL clearly not favored to win, and not even close. I personally am still hyped for XF level 3 comebacks, because they’re still exciting, and they’re still hard to do - if they weren’t, then everyone would go for them.
There’s no point in comparing them to 1 character MvC2 comebacks though, and I agree - an MvC2 comeback with the same character and same health would be more impressive than an MvC3 equivalent, but why does that comparison even matter, except for nostalgia’s sake? MvC3 won’t have a Justin coming back on Yipes because MvC3 is a different game than MvC2, and taking away XF won’t change that. That’s not to say it won’t have its own MvC3-flavored comebacks which are also mad hype either, though. I don’t find MvC2 to be an acceptable standard of comparison between the two games; why should we try to make MvC3 a game that it is not?
In Street Fighter you do lose options, it’s called being pushed into the corner. Have you ever played a fighting game before?
People DO let characters die in this game instead of working hard to save them. It happens more and more, people will just play a character out when they are low on health, which is usually a ‘risky’ strategy, but since they have xfl3 to fall back in, it’s a win/win situation. You obviously don’t watch the game very closely if you aren’t aware of that. The argument of ‘well, people don’t just let go of the controller and let their first 2 characters die and then bust out xfl3’ has got to be one of the stupider things I’ve read on this forum. Just because xf doesn’t turn the game into a clown show doesn’t mean that it doesn’t turn it into a joke. If you seriously believe what you’re saying, you’re either trolling or have bad taste. Probably both.
Well your conclusion is wrong because Seth said that exact thing.
Chess is bad? RTSes are bad? Quake is bad? Damn didn’t know that. lol
No, it isn’t. If you think that’s hard, then you have some ridiculously low standards.
true enough. In MvC2 people would DHC their characters out to save them from dying… no fully invincible overhead raw tag to fall back on in that game either. In MvC3 even if a character has only pixels left, unless that character is a key assist people will usually just play them out unless they are really worried about the mixup on their tagging in character.
yeah being able to guard cancel into a combo where your moves all do 200% damage is not very gdlk at all. killing people in 3 or 4 mashed out hits, also stupid as all hell.
You know we all hate X-Factor, and there are a million ways to change it, but I think a very simple way to alter it, without making things too complicated would be the following: **Keep X-Factor the same except once a player KOs a character with X-Factor, X-Factor runs out. That way it can be used as a potential game changer, but not a constant comeback bullshit tool. **The fact that with XF3 you can destroy an entire team in 15 seconds with one character is enough evidence it’s broken.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if that were to happen, there’d be no point in using anything but XF1 as soon as you got a decent hitconfirm combo going to kill the first character out (and maybe happy birthdays, but they’re rare anyways) in order to immediately put your opponent’s team at a disadvantage. It’s not a fix, it’s just making X-factor absolutely one-note.
you could also wait for xfactor 3, then combo till almost kill, then snapback, then combo another char till almost kill, snapback, then combo the third one to kill and chip the other two with supers as they enter the screen FTW