**New mechanics, tools that are part of the beginning meta of Marvel Infinite.
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**Olaf’s notes on Marvel Infinite from UK playtesting
Standard **https://docs.google.com/document/d/16KLreX4v30LAESkprWXYy7OYMC0ZxeoDomPBvHxOfnw/edit
Mobile phone **https://docs.google.com/document/d/16KLreX4v30LAESkprWXYy7OYMC0ZxeoDomPBvHxOfnw/mobilebasic
**General notes from own research and hearings:
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**- Game is now 4 attack buttons. ** Light and heavy punch and light and heavy kick. Back to Marvel 2 with a designated heavy button as a launcher into aerial raves.
- No standard call in the middle of your neutral game assists. Instead there is a tag button and a stone surge button.
- Regular throws (like SFxT yooo Combofriend) now remove the red health from the opponent. Supposedly regular throws are harder to land in this game than they are in Marvel 3 though.
**- Free tag system allows you to press the tag button during any attack or move that doesn’t cause a cinematic to essentially allow anything to become an “assist”. **Initial looks at the game may make the neutral seem more “basic” or traditional, but that will change as people learn to use the free tag system with their attacks. Now instead of a character coming in with one preset move to assist you in neutral, the point character can now assist the resting character with virtually any move they have. Want to use Ghost Rider’s air chains to help create a long ranged overhead and clear a path for Zero to come in and do more overheads and fish low to open people up? You can do that. Want to use Dr.Strange’s bolts to snipe people into a stun and tag into Dante to teleport over and do a combo? You can do that. Wanna use Ryu’s DP to stuff Nemesis’ long buttons and clear a path for Gamora to tag in? You can do that.
This can also extend to supers. Can use Jedah’s buzzsaw super to lock someone down, then tag in the other character and let them get a free mix up after the block stun is over. You can even get really crazy like use the mind stone for infinite super meter, call a couple of Ultron’s assists, use his circular projectile to lock them down in block stun, tag in Morrigan, activate astral vision to shoot shit on the screen, then when Ultron is ready again tag back into Ultron and make him flood the screen with more shit.
Just these ideas alone will create a lot of stuff on the screen very regularly and this game will have a lot of happy birthdays due to that. The creativity with what you’ll be able to assist your resting character with is about limitless and because of that there will regularly be 3 or all 4 characters on the screen. How this is going to be balanced? Who knows, but that’s crack.
-Free tag system makes it so red health can’t be depleted on tag in. “Raw” tagging is much more safe and doesn’t lead to a red health loss. You can always re tag them back in to recover the red health again. The only way to lose your red health (and you apparently lose all of it) is by getting neutral/regular thrown.
- A character being tagged out that gets hit (similar to assists in Marvel 2 or 3) does not take the heavy damage they used to in those games. They take damage seemingly similar to what the point character takes. This again is done as the game is tailored so both characters will regularly be on the screen and open to attacks.
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- The Stone button allows you to use a Surge or V Skill like attack of the gem gem/stone that you chose. ** Each one has a different attack
Power Surge = Anti air type attack that wall bounces and creates knockdown.
Time Surge = A very quick, but somewhat lengthy to recover teleport.
Space Surge = Maneuver that pulls the opponent towards you. Also has points of armor if the opponent tries to attack you during the pull.
Reality Surge = A slow, homing fireball that dissipates after a certain time. Can tag in to your partner after throwing one to get 2 on screen.
Mind Surge = A command grab like capture move that puts the opponent in a stun state for combos. Damage scaling is pretty heavy.
Soul Surge = TBA. Heard that supposedly it is a passive effect that regenerates health over time, but no confirmation.
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- The Stone Storm/Infinity Storm is the ability to create a gem based activation/trigger mode that gives your characters access to new tools that aid them in neutral, pressure and combos.** These are more standardized from the Marvel Super Heroes ones as they don’t change characters’ individual special moves into new things, but they can effect the properties of their moves depending on which surge is used. Pressing the tag and stone surge buttons together creates the storm.
Power Infinity Storm = Adds damage and hitstun to all moves. All attacks to tend to shake the screen/create heavy hit stop on hit. Also negates pushblock allowing rushdown or grappler characters to stay in and improve the offense of more defensive characters.
Time Infinity Storm = Makes it so all attacks including specials have little or no recovery. This makes activation supers like Zero’s Sogenmu and Morrigan’s Astral Vision really cheap as you can just spam their fireballs at a level that surpasses the speed they could even in XF. Morrigan can shoot fireballs to the point where the fireballs are inside of each other coming towards you. How this works with other characters could get pretty scary. Allows rapid fire chains of normals so you can do things like A groove style HPxN. Definitely one of the most dangerous sounding stones especially when combined with a surge that lets you get in for free.
Space Infinity Storm = Has been early regarded as the most dangerous/OP/broken storm. Whether that is true remains to be seen, but there’s some good traits to it that gives it a shot. The Space Storm gives you the ability to place the opponent in a literal box. This is beyond even what’s seen in other games like Skullgirls or KI where you can shorten the corner. This literally puts the opponent in a box where they can only move seemingly inches forward in any direction and barely jump in the air. The most OP thing about this storm is that it also shuts off the opponent’s ability to use the tag system until it is over. Doing things like hitting someone with Morrigan’s harmonious spear and then locking them into the box to drain their meter with soul fist combos is a very likely strat.
NOTE: Apparently using cinematic supers temporarily removes the box and you can tag during that point.
Reality Storm = Gives you the ability to control the elements. LP’s let you shoot out little wind bolts. HP shoots a huge flame on the screen that cuts off the ceiling and does a lot of block stun. Can use this to trap the opponent in block stun for a later mix up, or place it above their head so they can’t use the air to run away. LK shoots out ice that covers the whole floor. Freezes opponent on hit, but they can shake out of the freeze. HK creates a big Captain Corridor like vertical beam.
Mind Storm = Pretty straightforward but potentially very strong. On activation it gives you a bar of meter every seemingly 2 or 3 seconds. Potentially strong with anyone that has a good lockdown super, activation super or a strong level 3. Anyone who has an invincible super will likely be extremely strong with this storm mixed in with tags for safety. **
Soul Storm = TBA, but the rumor is it revives your dead character. How much health they get back and if this is true remains to be seen.
- Counter Switch now gives you the ability to break/burst out of combos in Marvel. ** You simple hold down the tag button for a second or 2 while getting hit to make this work. After Marvel was too cheap to get a combo breaker it is finally here. The only thing is it doesn’t really work like a standard burst where it pushes the opponent away with an explosion and the worst happening is a read to block/evade the explosion and punish. This is quite more volatile compared to a traditional burst. Essentially when you use a counter switch all it really seems to do is let you tag in a character while you’re getting comboed. Which means you basically don’t really have anything going for you other than the character you just swithced into to control to save your other character. Which that character being tagged out is vulnerable for the typical 3 or so seconds and is nothing more than a helpless character. Finding the right time to counter switch will be very important because of you do it wrong your other character can take damage or you can get HBD’d.
There are TWO types of counter switches
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Hit/Combo Counter Switch. ** Hold the tag button down as you’re getting hit or in a combo to switch out into another character.
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Block Counter Switch.** Hold the tag button down as you’re blocking an attack or attacks. Creates a crossover counter style tag in after blocking.
- Short hop/aerial direction control. During a super jump you can hold left or right to change where you are in the air. Which means every character has some way of altering how they move in the air. If you immediately press forward or back during a super jump’s start up you can do a KOF style short hop. If you press a normal during this you can set up some pretty crazy cross ups and box type movement.
- Flight now requires pressing 2 kicks after the motion to perform. Similar to MVC2.
- Certain characters have down down for DP. These characters AFAIK include Captain America, Dante and Morrigan. Ryu and Dr.Strange have DP motions for their DP specific moves. This is HARD wired and can’t be changed in options.
- Advancing guard/pushblock reflect/possible push block guard cancel. Advancing guard generally creates a bit less block stun than in Marvel 3. You can now do a just push block or gold push block to reflect projectiles. Beams, thin gun projectiles like Chris’ magnum and super based projectiles seem to be unable to be reflected. Gold push block seems to negate all chip damage from projectiles while regular pushblock does take chip, but very minimal. If you do a gold push block against an attack it supposedly pushes the opponent twice as far away while not pushing you anywhere at all. Giving you a good way to push the opponent off while not pushing yourself into a corner.
**- Unblockable Protection/Auto blocking. ** The game wants to allow you to do cheap things, but it doesn’t want to give you quite the room to just faceroll into mix ups like in Marvel 3. You can no longer chain an overhead attack and a low assist on the same frame and get a true unblockable. That now triggers a block stun and stops the unblockable. Can still create a small gap to create a hard to blockable. Can no longer create nearly unblockable mix ups with super/THC style lockdowns. Supers and multi hitting attacks force an auto block until the block stun ends. Luckily since there is no early frame chicken blocking you basically get a free mix up once the block stun ends.
- No more just frame chicken blocking. You can no longer chicken block on frame one to escape attacks and overheads. Jumping forces you to be unable to block for the first few frames until you hit a certain point in the air. This is why the auto blocking during attacks, specials and supers is in so this doesn’t get out of hand. It’s just once you’re out of block stun you’re forced to guess block on the ground as taking to the air means you most likely can get hit by even a standard mid hitting attack if you decide to chicken block.
This combined with not being able to chicken block low attacks (which most likely is still in from 3) means being locked down with an attack that has long block stun will be very scary in this game in its own way.