After watching for some time I started noticing some nice changes… Reduced hitstop. Nerfed Grab range / TRM mixups. Seems like there are a lot less gatlings for blocked overheads, and you now have to spend meter to get damage off overheads, at least for most characters. Hakumen’s counter is now an actual hit that can be baited. Arakune’s curse time is halved. I like it. Now just give me more blockstun and nerf 5A anti-airs and I will be happy.
The new music (remixed music) is good for the most part, though the character select theme doesn’t match the game at all. Sounds like generic bgm for a random fantasy RPG town. Jin’s / Makoto’s remixes are great.
The game is looking good… Shouldn’t have taken them like 4-5 years to understand general concepts of how overhead / grab range/ rewards work, but I guess it’s better than never. :V
Blake/others: will the music be released in some form? I haven’t heard any of it yet but I’m pretty sure I’ll want it lol
Also, I think I’m actually going to try playing Mai anchor now. There were some posts on FB about this and I’ve seen some Japanese guys do it, and the more I think about it…Mai with resources really doesn’t let the other guy do anything, and her neutral game/buttons can keep other anchors from getting to their damage regardless of her bar situation.
Not sure if I’ll be at the tournament Saturday. I’ll have to get there somehow from Kenansville…so I could meet someone coming from the east in like Goldsboro or something, or possibly have my brother take me actually but he already has to do a lot of driving for the weekend.
Did they nerf grab range and TRM? If so, that was probably a bad move. Throws are already weak as a mix up in that game, at least in terms of actually nailing someone with one. Granted, I stayed absent from the scene for a while, so I may have missed some sort of awesome TRM tech that made it too strong, but I was always of the opinion the game needed more ways of encouraging offense, not less. And I really don’t like the nerfed gatling routes for Ragna’s 6B for similar reasons, but other changes may make this not so bad, so I’ll delay judgement on that.
More blockstun will probably never happen, as it would go against the core design philosophy for the game (focus on footsie/tachimawari as opposed to guaranteed setups and continuous unchallenged offense). There’s a lot left to be uncovered before anyone can clearly say the game is good, so crossing my fingers. Pretty sure we’ll get an OST release as well, the bits I’ve heard are…interesting? Need more high quality direct feeds.
Mai anchor works, she’s best with meter it seems. Top characters definitely have ways around her neutral game, though.
OD so far doesn’t look very dumb, but it’s early, so that could change. It really doesn’t last very long unless you’ve already lost a lot of life, and using it takes away your Burst. Mostly though, it looks like the players in vids don’t know how to use it properly yet, so again, all subject to change.
OD is actually pretty interesting (looking at the way people are using it). Really similar to AH1 bursts. And even if it did end up being dumb,
you still have to expend an entire Burst guage in order to use it. So you’re still sacrificing something.
Extend’s grabs weren’t that bad. The tech time is good imo. The only thing that’s really bad about them is the startup (7 frames I think).
TRM in BBCP is worse due to the grab range nerf (people can no longer go for 2A~cancel into TRM mixups). I guess not everyone is happy with the nerf… But I dunno, I could never really agree with the TRM mechanic. There’s really no need for it when you think about it. Grabs/throws have done what they’re supposed to do in FG’s for all these years… We really didn’t need a mechanic to help us land them. I’m pretty sure the main goal of TRM was to stop grab mash / barrier OS (which was a great idea), but it also ended up being an aid for mixups as well… which wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
But games with good pressure can still focus on spacing…
When I think about it, the TRM mechanic is actually really important when it comes to actually connecting throws in BB. While this is more a consequence of the game’s design as opposed to something intentional, it still stands as being an important way to make throws more effective. Consider that throws in BB have a 13 frame break window (!!!) and give you a visual indication to being thrown. You can input a break up to 3 frames early without going into TRM, so you have 16 frames total. Compare this to GG, where the break window is 2 frames and you get NO indication whatsoever of the throw, outside of any telegraph coming from your opponent. While throws are really rewarding when they connect in BB, I see way more throws get broken when attempted, as opposed to successful throws. Given how weak most high/low mixup is in BB and the general lack of strong oki for most characters, and I say anything that aids mixups is a good thing, even if it’s unintentional. Disagreeing with it on principle is one thing, but in the actual reality of the game, I feel like its presence was beneficial. It’s too bad that grab range was shortened, but the fact that this weakens TRM just makes it even worse, IMO.
As far as games with good pressure being focused on spacing, I think ALL good fighters are at least somewhat focused on spacing. The issue is more that BB in general is TOO focused on spacing because by design the game discourages most forms of advantageous offense. Lack of blockstun and frametraps, slow speed making most high/low mixups ineffective, awkward wakeup game due to the 3D-style tech system, these all combine to make an offensive player’s nightmare. There are still effective offensive characters in the game, mostly due to the more unique character designs allowing for some cheating of the system, but the ‘standard’ BB character (Ragna being the best example) is hard-pressed to maintain any real offense and is mostly reliant on making a lot of reads and relying on perceived momentum to keep up offense.
On behalf the Tierless Heroes’ Staff I’d like to wish everyone a good Thanksgiving! Thanks to all of you who have supported and continue to support TH and WNB by competing, helping, and even donating always trying to help out so that we could have a good time. We started out small and have turned out to be the one of the best competitive fighting game scenes where players, rivals, and friends come to battle it out for supremacy…without any of you TH and WNB wouldnt be here…thank you so much for the past 11 months of awesome hype matches, comebacks, funny moments, rage quits, money matches, salty runbacks, and great tourneys we all have been part of…here is to more of that to come in the future!
Jon if you or frank can just get another car we are all straight. Me and Tal got rooms so all we need is another car. Lu taking his car now so we need another one for the people that recently said they were coming.
Either way, whether TRM is bad or not, it looks like grabs work very well in BB:CP (going by Japanese vids / streams). I’m thinking they must have reduced the tech time or something… which makes sense.
Also maybe Ragna can maintain pressure easier now in this version… his dead spike travels half screen I think now. :V
People are still messing around with the new stuff in the game, so we won’t see the “true face” of it for a while, I think. lol @ new Dead Spike, it functions more like Gun Flame now, except it has a dash cancel instead of a FRC. Of course, most reports are saying it’s not advantageous unless blocked from far away, so can’t really use it like you used to.
Also i’ll be running the entire thing on Challonge after Nathan considered the need for more data in the seed system before continually using it. I’ve spoke to a few people who i’m going to consult with on brackets for a few tournaments but for the majority of it all it should be alright. There’s just a few games i’m unsure of.
getting kinda worried about NEC hotel right now, would anyone have spare room/floor space if needed? I wouldn’t know until Friday if I needed it though, and would only be for Fri/Sat, leaving late Sun night. (VF will be long over by then)
Something interesting. So apparently, if you activate Overdrive during Mugen, it freezes the time on it and you get infinite meter. Once Overdrive ends, Mugen continues as normal? Seems like a gimmick at first, but I already saw it being used in a match here: [media=youtube]PzoywmNge6Y[/media]
They all freeze time I believe. But yeah, OD in general looks legit. Gives more of a reason to use your burst for offense, more so than BB’s gold bursts in the past. Should see Amane’s OD… 20% of your health bar gone just by blocking attacks (and you can’t barrier it for more than 2-3 seconds). :V
Also BB casuals at KDP tomorrow anyone? If i can even go… I’ll probably be late if anything). All this BB:CP makes me wanna play now.