Proposing a soft ban on giants

Classic Fighting Games Tatsunoko VS Capcom
1

I haven’t been able to post much because I’ve been trying to get a scene built up here in Riverside, CA (hit me up if you want in) but one thing that most of us players here can agree on is a SOFT ban on giants.

A soft ban (for those who don’t know) is when we, as a community, decide that we would really rather you not use <whatever the thing is> in tournaments and such. It’s the opposite of a hard ban, which is when your flat out not aloud to use that character/strategy. So with a soft ban, if you pick a giant, we’ll just kindly ask you not to and get annoyed if you do. With a hard ban, we kick your ass out for choosing one.

Why a soft ban and not a hard ban? Why giants, a why even have this discussion anyways? Good questions, let me explain.

First off, nothing broke my heart more than watching the EVO stream and hearing the crowd boo whenever a giant was picked. Sure, they watched the match up intently at first, but when they saw how boring that match up is they boo’ed. I hated that. This game is not a boring game to watch, and giants ruin that.

However, it was a nice redemption to hear how hyped the crowd got when the “real” TVC matches showed how intense and wild can get later in the tournament. So all ready, we know that people like to watch this game and find top level play exciting. The interest is there. After EVO, people probably became very interested in this game and the scene looks ready to blow up.

Unfortunately, the giants seem to be cock-blocking us here.

So, why a soft ban?

First off, the giants are not all that good. They can be easily beat by a few characters pretty handily. They smash others though. So they make it a very match-up based game more so than it should be. Also, the giant player has the advantage in counter picking. If you lose to a giant, then counter pick with Zero and Blade and win, they’ll just counter pick you with their secondaries. Unless you only want to main Zero/Blade just in case this match up shows up, you’ll always be at a disadvantage. Giants will make this game devolve into Zero/Blade vs Zero/Blade just because of people being worried about a giant match up.

Secondly, they’re boring to watch. Yeah, at first people say “WTF is that? Holy crap!” But then it quickly goes into “Hurry up and end this slow boring match.” TVC is a fast and exciting game. This is why we all got into it. We want to show people how crazy and intense this game is, and giants just put people to sleep and turn them off to TVC. If all I had ever seen of TVC were a bunch of giant matches, I’d think TVC was more of a turtle-fest than SSF4. That’s just discounting the “real” game that we’ve all fell in love with.

This game has alot going for it. Yes, the fact that it’s a Wii exclusive really hurts our scene, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take this game to the next level of tournament play.

It’s more balanced than almost any other game out there. Just look at the EVO top 8. We had more character representation than almost any other game.

It’s also very fast and fun to watch. It’s not MVC2 fast, but I think that’s a good thing for getting new players involved, because you can actually follow and understand a match without ever having played it.

It’s also got a huge amount of depth. The amount of options this game has for any given situation in staggering. You won’t see the same “crouching jab, crouching jab, crouching medium canceled into a special” over and over with TVC.

It’s easy to play. Any idiot can practice for a few hours and pull off a bread and butter combo. There are not arbitrary timing requirements involved with getting simple combos to work in TVC. However, they still require some degree of familiarity to pull off. Easy entry, difficult mastery, which is what arcade fighting games are all about.

We just need to get our act together as a community and do what is best for our scene to grow, because we already have an uphill battle to climb. We, as a community need to stand up for our game and show the world what we’re all about.

The giants just have to go.

2

i’ve been against the giants from day one. any characters that render 95% of the game’s combos and moves useless needs a ban IMO. you are very right about saying they aren’t fun to watch. they’re even less fun to play against.

3

Any anti-giant proposition is going to fail. The reason behind it is stupid.

  1. “Giant matches aren’t fun.” You can’t dictate a ban based on what’s fun and what’s not. It’s not rational and it’s not logical since boredom and fun are both subjective and arbitrary concepts. Lots of games have boring match-ups anyways.

  2. They aren’t blatantly overpowered compared to the rest of the cast. They are not like Akuma of the Street Fighter 2 Turbo series where he is multiple levels above the rest of the cast. Normally, this is the only valid reason to ban a character to begin with, and the Giants do not fit this criteria.

  3. Most people who do not want giants are people who do not come prepared to face one. Some say it’s a counter-pick kind of thing and it arguably is, but each character has some sort of effective tactic against giants. Might as well propose a soft-ban on Captain Commando Assist in MvC2, because you can’t get near the guy’s sentinel with the captain corridors. Suck it up, and learn. I’ve seen every character managing to pull off something clever against a giant.

It’s good you said soft-ban, because if it were hard-ban you’d be further down in the wrong. By your definition of what a soft-ban is, Giants are already soft-banned, since some people dislike them.

Face it, they are part of the game, and there’s no valid or compelling reason to ban them. You’re just basing all this on biased preferences of what you envision the game to be.

4

I’m personally against banning anything that’s not unquestionably broken. Those characters add variety to the game, and why should I lessen somebody’s enjoyment of the game if he likes to choose a giant character?

Some matchups suck in fighting games. Fighting giants with certain teams sucks. Deal with it.

5

I think they are. Not in an offensive way but when it comes to defense. You can’t combo them. It is ridiculous that you cant actually use your characters in any normal fashion against them. It turns into a runaway/spam game.

I main Joe, Tek, Ken and Saki. I certainly come prepared. I know how to fight the giants, I just don’t think its either fun nor fair.

There is nothing wrong with giant-hating. It’s just as valid as giant-loving. They change the game drastically and many people think its bullshit. The fact that you had to use an MvC2 comparison says something. That game is horrible unbalanced. TvC is pretty well balanced but the giants really mess everything up.

All of that being said, I know there will never be a ban against them. While I do think the game would be better without them, I’ve learned to deal. If I lose to a giant I don’t really care. To be honest, I have little respect for a giant win.

6

Um, you certainly can combo the giants. 2 quick examples: Jun’s 421 move into whatever, and j.C xx super for anyone that has an air super or air level 3 (Blade j.C xx crash interlude)

and you do have to fight them differently, is that bad? Not every matchup is going to be fought the same.

7

I know there are a few combos that work against them. Surely you understand what I meant…

I don’t think fighting every matchup the same is necessary. I don’t mind fighting certain characters differently but with the giants its just too much.

8

Anyone here watch MMA fighting? I don’t unless my friends are but I know a fair bit about it. There are weight classes. A featherweight isn’t going to go up against a heavyweight very often. Why? Because its not fair and the fights aren’t fun to watch.

9

That’s a horrible analogy.

What are you proposing? That PTX-40A vs Tekkaman is not fair because PTX weights a couple of tons more?

Giants are balanced so that two characters are the equivalent to one giant. Giant vs normal characters battles can go either way. It’s not as one-sided as having two fighters of separate weight divisions go at it. Hell, either fighter can still win anyways.

You claim they are overpowered because you can’t combo them and they force you to change your game tactics. FYI, they can be combo’d, just not in the way you’d traditionally do. Comboing against giants is the BEST way to ensure one of your supers is going to work. For example:

Ryu’s crouching C into Shoryuken super, or Tekkaman’s jumping C into his Crash Intrude.

Also, if a character that you must adapt to is considered cheap, then technically almost all of the roster is cheap.

“I main Joe, Tek, Ken and Saki. I certainly come prepared. I know how to fight the giants, I just don’t think its either fun nor fair.”

You’d later realize that no game is 100% fun all the way through. Once again, fun is arbitrary and your lack of experience makes you think it’s unfair.

I think you don’t have much idea of what you’re talking about. You just started up this game, played some online ranked matches, lost to a couple of giants and begin to think they are cheap.

If I thought like you, I’d think Tekkaman Blade, Tekkaman assist, Saki, Viewtiful Joe/Ippatsuman team should be banned from tourney play.

10

Either you’re very sarcastic or a bit blinded by internet arguing. It all comes down to super-armor, not the actual weight of these fictional characters. A lightweight will have a hard time beating a heavyweight because their bodys’ builds are so different. It is an accurate analogy. There are official rules barring these people from fighting each other because it disrupts the even playing field the organization would like to create for its fights. Perhaps analogies are a bit too abstract for internet conversation.

You’re way off base dude. I started playing this game the week it came out in Japan. All points I’ve made are valid. We can have differing opinions on this without resorting to wrongfully attacking each other’s level of skill and experience. And I think people are allowed to act upon what they find fun or not.

Huh?

11

Again, this is why I say a soft ban. If you want to use them, fine go for it. All I’m saying is that this game has a strong possibility of dying after MVC3 and giants are going to be a huge reason why. If you really enjoy this game, and want to see it succeed, then a soft ban is not asking for too much. The giants aren’t very hard to deal with. That’s not the problem. The problem is that you now have a pro-level competitive fighting game tournament that has an occasional mini-game thrown in. A very boring mini-game to watch and play.

The giants, as per Capcom’s admission, were an experiment that failed. It was a nifty idea and it was fun at first, but in the end it just failed. This is probably why there won’t be any in MVC3. They’re probably only in this game because a designer more than likely was just a huge fan of Golden Lightan and wanted to find a way to put him in here.

The issue isn’t so much whether or not they should be banned. The issue is that the community needs to organize itself and figure out what to do about them, because top level players are already talking of abandoning this game. If the top players leave, this game won’t have much of a life afterwards.

It just seems like the only players defending the giants are giant players themselves. And it just seems like they don’t care much for the “real” TVC. That’s fine, pick your giants. In less than a year MVC3 will be out, everyone will be sick of these two stupid match ups and will exodus to that game. Then you will have no one to play Giant Fighter with.

You’re shooting your own damn feet.

12

You can’t propose a soft ban. You don’t vote on it or some shit. If you want a soft ban, start telling giant players that their char is scrubby or w/e and see if they stop.

13

No no no no no.

Giants are not a huge reason why this game is dying. Minority of the players of this game are giant players. It’s a relatively small group of players, and it’s an even smaller group of good players.

Let me elaborate on why I think this game is dying:

  • Wasn’t a massively popular title to begin with. I know it’s a commercial success with a reasonable fanbase, but if you compare this to the hype induced by SSF4 and MvC3, this game hardly compares.
  • Being a Wii exclusive hurts it a bit. Wii is not known for it’s hardcore playerbase like Xbox360 or PS3 is.
  • The fact that almost no one knows what Tatsunoko is. Say it if was Nintendo vs Capcom or something, it’d certainly attract more eyes.

Once again, more speculation without much reasoning. Giants were a massive success in the way they were implemented. You try putting two completely different characters in a roster of normal ones and see how it balances out. I’m quite surprised they didn’t turn downright overpowered.

They aren’t in MvC3 because it’s only reasonable not to include them there. If balancing one character against two is hard, imagine 3. MvC series was never really known for it’s balance and they are trying to take a more balanced approach with MvC3. Putting giants in adds another dimension to balance the game to. I’m a giant player in TvC and for the sake of the game, I do not support them being in MvC3.

Giants being in the game did not stop the top players like Marn from winning TvC at Evo 2010k. You can’t pit them as the sole reason they are quitting.

“real” TVC, no one to play TvC with. What the hell?

Blame MvC3 if this game dies, not some petty gameplay element of TvC. I’m doing what I can to keep this game alive anyways, but proposing soft bans on characters (which was a stupid idea to begin with, thanks urmother), is not going make the game any more successful than it is now.

14

Between that comment and the one about my lack of experience, I think its safe to say you’re doing quite a bit to what you can to hurt this game’s community, not help it. Its not stupid for people not to like certain aspects of the game. Just as much as you want us giant-haters to deal with it, you have to deal with us too. As I said before, I’ve learned to live with it but I don’t like it. I understand not everyone feels the same way.

15

If you propose that characters should start getting banned for being unpopular, then you obviously don’t think before you speak. The characters aren’t game-breaking and they’re not top-tier. Therefore: They’re not getting any kind of banned

So what if you can’t fight them like you want to Djjizzdrinky? Realtalk: No one gives a shit how you feel about two matchups in the game, the giants are in it so you better learn to play them or learn another game.

This game’s scene is not dying because of giants it’s because it wasn’t that popular to begin with. Most top-level players only tinkered around with it as an alt to one of the majors (SF4,SF3,MvC2,etc.). Keits and a few others rocked it but sometimes games just don’t last that long. Just enjoy it with a smaller community.

PS- Who asks for a soft-ban? Why ask us if you want to be passive aggressive to people who play giants?

16

Jesus Christ riding on a sybian! Does anyone here read previous posts or do they just start flaming shit immediately? I’ll go ahead and quote myself.

Is nobody allowed an opinion anymore? Good god.

17

Hi Fabulocity, its good to see an opinions about this stuff. You were in Riverside? You should come and play with us folks over at Dreamlabs on Tuesday, or we should organize something with the TvC group over there. I’m sure we’re willing to help out with your community over there. Come out to LevelUP on Wed too if possible! We’d always like some more people to represent TvC!

Anyhow, about your proposal and a slight explanation on EVO:

It hurts to see people boo the game, but ironically, it was the people from the TvC crowd who were booing. The public just kind of went along with it. Another reason was the pools. One pool had a low amount of notable players, with majority (RFlush, Marn, JWong, Keits, KBeast, etc.) in the others. That said, a good giant user wasn’t going to run into much problems with the competition in that pool, as probably the majority couldn’t adapt effectively against a giant specialist.

Keep in mind though those Giant users beat out everyone in the pool, and they should be given respect since they were able to stand in the top 8. Regardless of how it looked, getting to the top 8 is still a difficult achievement. The fact that they were the only 2 in the top 8 should be something to be noted.

I agree that Gaint matchups need to be modified to be more ‘entertaining’ to fight/watch, but this is hopefully for TvC2, a game to be possibly made way down in the future.

But with that said, I have to disagree on a soft-ban. I can’t agree that the ‘real’ TvC doesn’t require Giants. Giants create a different type of fight making players rethink their strategy. Basic strategies that were effective against characters their size mean nothing against a Giant, and I believe the dynamics change. TvC in itself is an experiment, since things like Barqoue, Megacrash, and Giants are new to the system.

For entertainment value, the majority of Giant players I’ve seen haven’t really shown anything cool to watch. I too had this opinion until I saw/played GCYoshi and realized that even Giants can throw something interesting (Lightan though… requires a whole different playstyle, but then again, he isn’t practical to begin with). As a counter point, I saw RFlush take on GCYoshi for an EVO match and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

I think the whole reason behind the Giant-hating is the feeling of helplessness when fighting them. It sucks when starting a combo to only get swatted out of it. And upon realizing most of your tactics aren’t working, most likely you’ll end up sticking to a zoning strategy. For people who like to get in and fight, this really irritates them. This is purely opinion. Zoning is a solid strategy, but it is possible to get in and fight them. I haven’t been able to come up with a solid infighting strategy yet with my characters, but something is there, I don’t think it’s been discovered yet.

For the record, I don’t main Giants. I like playing G. Lightan, but I suck at him and get eaten alive everytime I play. Playing PTX confuses me.

And for fighting against them: I’ve beaten Giants using a team of Roll/Cash, and was able to finish off a PTX with a Turbo Roll Sweep. I watched a Roll/Alex team take down a PTX with Roll taking out about 70% of damage before she died and Alex doing cleanup. And that one was during a tournament. Hell, in another tourney I witnessed a Polimar finish off a PTX. Those were interesting to watch.

As for the complaint against Giants, I haven’t been able to find any in my area. ll.nd is the only person I know to use PTX, and he stopped using it. Everyone I play up use normal size characters, (except Veiwtiful Joe and Roll, but those are different).

There are valid reasons for hating/liking Giants. But they are in the game, and they should be used. It sucks to say that TvC will die out, but then again, the majority of us knew it was an uphill battle to begin with. The public has no idea what Tatsunoko is, a lot of hatred/complaints that its on the Wii, and a prejudice that TvC isn’t MvC2.something are the main contributors to why TvC has a hard enough time establishing a community. Seeing Giants play an uninteresting matchup is agreeable, but it doesn’t hold enough weight to be a significant factor as to why TvC faces extinction.

No matter what, all of us are on this board to discuss the game, get better, and hopefully get more people into the scene. If we have less than a year till MvC3, why not continue what we’re doing and continue to build up the community in our own ways? As long as it contributes, just try things your own way for your community and see how it works out.

Hopefully my thoughts make sense on the matter.

18

“Bu bu bu it’s the super armor!”

yeah, which is why Gold War Machine and Mecha Zangief got banned in their respective games (MvC1/2) huh?

learn to deal. hell, its even easier to combo giants than to combo GWM.

19

waaaay ahead of you.

i love this game to death but it’s most voiced players can be a bit much…

20

I really don’t see the point of this thread. A soft ban basically sounds like, “let’s discourage people from using giants.” Which is basically happening on its own from the sounds of it, and a real ban is just out of the question.