PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Balance discussion and theory

It can make for some nice comebacks, which is interesting in the whole aspect of fun (and really, I do not think FFA will grow past that anyway), but I feel from a game standpoint the people who tied earned the right to win, not those who lost already.

Dealing with Raiden’s “unstoppable pressure” or w/e is very easy you just have to look past all the flashy swings and know what you can punish. just sit back block and grab or punish what i am going to tell you.

his neutral square string is super unsafe, especially the last hit, so just grab or hit him if a raiden throws that out there. eventually smarter raidens will mix it up by NOT throwing out the last hit of the square string, but you can punish that too, for now i haven’t really seen anybody do anything out of the norm so just block and punish.

if an idiot raiden does that half screen dash and you happen to block it, proceed to putting down that book you are reading so you can punish, because he’s so unsafe.

if he HITS you with that (you will do that semi crumple, the one that you SIT DOWN), just hold block, chances are if he’s a scrub raiden (doing that full screen dash on the ground indicates that he’s not that good of a player), he will try to hit you, just hold block he can’t combo into that. if he grabs, jump. point is you are safe if he hits you with the full screen dash ON THE GROUND. remember DO NOT try to get up and hit raiden, you WILL LOSE! he will beat you out, however if you hold block you will be fine (and remember PUNISH after he does square string).

if he does his full screen dash very low to the ground forget about it, he is safe because he cuts all the lag out when he touches the ground. so if you are hit you gave him 155 ap. if you block it he can keep up the pressure no problem, but again, watch out cuz if you block w/e he is going to do you can most likely punish it.

his dive kick is unsafe by a frame or two i suspect. online my friend tried to throw me right after blocking the dive kick, i could tech the throw. however OFFLINE i could not and his throw beat out mine. in other words dive kick is probably -1 or -2, regardless it is unsafe. just block and throw, if they try to roll they will also be thrown. i think you can also punish by hitting.

the only thing “unfair” about raiden is just what killey said, how easy it is for him to hit somebody with his lvl 1 guaranteed. its fudging ridiculous. his lvl 2 is also awesome, basically a better version of E. Cole, since he can get the the first 3 or 2 kills and then more after they respawn.

good luck. and guys it IS a fighting game, they’re going to be bad and good characters. we need more time to see how it plays out.

I’ve never seen Raiden pressure me in any significant way, but I cannot say I have fought a good Raiden.

I’d really like to see them give Jak back his Gravity Disrupter into level 1. Removing this really hurts Jak and makes G.D useless. At least change it so we can effectively combo after it with other moves.

Also, they should change Jak’s down throw so that it no longer gives the opponent 30ap. Why on earth does it do that?

i agree with the gravity disrupter, i don’t play jak so i wouldn’t know but i remember before the game came out they said it was specifically for him to combo into his lvl 1. and LOL wtf if it really does that yea…they need to update asap.

things that irk me about this game is little details like cole’s lvl 1 not working when the stage isn’t flat or raiden’s combo not working when he is going downhill on a slanted platform. things like that where u know they should fix in the next game whenever one is made.

I’m curious. Has anyone figured out some good stuff with Jak? His movement looks brilliant, and his zoning is pretty nice, but I cannot for the life of me build any meter. I totally want to play him, but he seems just too low-damage to be any good. And that’s a serious problem with a meh level 1 and a really amazing level 3.

He also has one of the best intros ever, and yet…so bad. Anyone care to prove me wrong? I’m hoping someone does.

I started using him yesterday and he’ll be my main for a while. I’ll be talking FFA 2v2 btw.
I actually find him pretty great at building meter. He lacks strong, AP Burst combos or the retardedness of people like Kratos, but he specializes in frequent short bursts. For instance, 3 blaster shots net you 30 AP (and sometimes you can toy with people by firing one or two shots, then fire three or such), jetboard combo (very strong) is 35, and Spin nets 30ish depending on the character. Doing these moves at the correct time will give you AP rather fast (Jetboard is rather safe, but save Spin as a punish only it is great for that, for instance).

Once you get the meter for his supers you’ll need to hit with them. My mindset is to try to build to level 3 but really try to catch people with Level 1 or do Level 2 if I get some knockdowns in the corner where it is strongest (similar to Ratchet’s lv1 there, almost guarenteed wakeup into it). Level 1 is indeed annoying because it seems to have been so much better right until release, but it can still be used effectively to punish rolls near you or dodge rolls above.

As for other shenanigans you are right: his mobility is amazing thanks to jetboard for horizontal and uppercut for vertical movement. Similar to Dante you should be able to avoid Supers you have no business attempting with others (kratos3, BDaddy 2, etc). This way even though you are less of a kill machine you should not be getting points off for dying.
Lastly, use his d.3 a lot a lot both ground and air. In air you can change direction and if charged has a huge blast radius, and on the ground it is roll cancelable and uncharged leads to solid AP combos. It even helps with air mobility since it pushes you back.

Hope this helps. I plan to make a Jak topic with more detail this evening since I do not see one

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i know i played a lvl 999 jak online and he set me up for guaranteed lvl 1 kill. i don’t remember how exactly but it was like 1-2 hits, he sat me down (similar to raiden’s set ups) and walked up to me and used it, i couldn’t roll or do anything about so it seemed. maybe he jumped and charged that red laser hit me with it, once he got to the ground it cuts the lag and walked up to me and used it? idk try it.

there is so much misinformation in this thread it is painful reading through all of it. I think I am going to sit down and write a marathon post covering like everything that’s been said. this is so frustrating.

long story short: you probably don’t know what you’re talking about. play the game more, it’s more balanced than you think. use your head.

I will certainly test. Only red laser and sidesquare make people sit down so it should not be hard to test.

Looking forward to it. The more I play the more I agree that characters are better than people initially give them credit for. The thing is though it might be more balanced than the topic gives credit for in a strict competitive sense, in crazy scrub ffa with non-skilled players it is justified but hey, Party game.

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That is exactly what I was looking for. I couldn’t find much labbing him in day1, but I knew the collective powers of the internet had some good things to say. Me or my roommate will definitely pick him up.

Great idea. I think 2v2 is Jak’s best match setting because he can safely build with blasters if partner is controlling close range, his mobility makes him die less and does not necessarily need to score the most himself, his 1 and 2 are much easier to hit/hitting just one or two people with them is much more respectable, or you can safely build to level 3 and get 4 kills to seal the deal while partner works with better, smaller supers.

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That’s the kind of talk Shuma/Arthur players give us when we tell them he sucks ass. Counterpoint us if you think we’re wrong, because you’re not giving us anything here.

I actually really enjoy OT in it’s current state. It is a completely different game. You can conceivably win OT without picking up a single kill… whereas regular FFA you will never see anyone win with a score of 0.

Since pre-OT scores carry over, the two who finished 3rd and 4th usually have no chance of winning, but have double the control over the outcome of the match as you do. With double AP gain and only a minute to play, you’ll see Lv1s fired off all over the place, and the game becomes about survival and denial than about scoring kills yourself.

I might be biased because I have yet to lose an FFA that has gone into OT and Radec is an OT beast lol.

Well, I’ve played the game nonstop since it came out, and I can agree with a point here: from what it looks like, now that I’ve been corrected on Jak merits, it seems the majority of this cast is really balanced. Right now, there’s a ton of characters who have Ap burst combos available to them, and the ones who don’t have excellent movement, control, or footsies. As for some going higher or lower, I feel that, as far as general capabilities are concerned, a few characters seem slightly stronger all-around (I’m thinking Kratos and Raiden), and a few seem slightly weaker all-around (I’m thinking Fortesque). However, they’re all totally usable, and some of them can support characters really well in 2v2, and find a niche there. It looks like less of a linear tier list and more like pokemon, where doubles and singles are flooded by very different combinations.

Patch notes for 1.02. Sackboy nerfs incoming:
[LIST]
[]A new item, Medusa’s Gaze, has been added to the game
[
]View Invites has been added to the Party Bar Menu
[]Voice chat icon added to loading screens
[
]AI logic enhancements
[]Network performance improvements
[
]Issue where players were stuck with a different character than the one picked has been addressed
[]Issue with matchmaking in regards to player skill has been addressed
[
]Overall improvements to network connectivity
[]Sackboy changes
[
]Level 1 Super - Increase cost from 100 to 150 AP
[]Level 2 Super - Increase cost from 325 to 400 AP
[
]Level 3 Super - Increase cost from 600 to 750 AP
[]Jam Session (Neutral Triangle) - Reduced AP generation from 25 down to 10 AP
[
]Cakeinator (Neutral Circle) - Reduced AP generation from 25 down to 20 AP
[/LIST]

I…really don’t think those Sackboy changes are going to do much.

At all.

In fact it seems to me they’re just going to make the game’s situation worse. But we’ll see.

Why would they make it worse for the game as a whole they are straight nerfs. I still think Sackboy is going to be strong but that is not a problem in my mind, I think the problem was how little Sackboy had to do for some of the best supers in the game. Now at least he has to build as much as the average character for said best supers.

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Not only does he have to build more meter, the two moves every Sackboy would whore out now build much less meter, so overall it’s going to take him MUCH longer to get to that level 3 if he goes for it at all. His gameplan doesn’t change because all of his moves still have the same properties, but he’s not going to be the rape train anymore since he won’t be getting his level 3 damn near instantly.

Fix tracking on Sir Dan SP2. Reduce the time it takes to net kills on SP3.

I love it. It forces Sackboy players to learn to utilize forward2 and down3 properly, which is a lot more entertaining to play against/watch than jamspam.