Come to think of it. Many have said that they see no reason why. Capcom should have added the Gem system. That they should simply remove it since the game. Was better off with out it.
In my opinion this point of view ultimately came from. How Capcom chose to reveal the game. One mechanic at a time over 5 or so months. Giving few hints as to the true nature of the game. In that period of time between E3 and TGS.
Simply put playing the game and watching videos of it for months. With out the gem system, Pandora, or even all of the tag mechanics. Created and strengthened an incorrect perception of the game. Then revealing the Gem system over four/five months. After the first playable build was shown. Destroyed everything people thought they knew about the game. Shattering that perception and leaving them with. A game that was quite different from what they had expected. You could see it on there faces. Shock, confusion, and anger. People even felt betrayed by this reveal.
With that said these game mechanics where planned, and are core to SFxT. As well as central to the story. Which is to say Pandora and Gems where part of there plan. But the truth is we would have view this game much differently. If Capcom had revealed this months ago. People would not have been as shocked or angry. But doing this would have had no effect on the tournament, competitive, and DLC concerns. It simply would have prevented the creation of a false perception. Which Capcom is now feeling the backlash from.
It could be argued that Capcom chose to do things this way. So they could gain a great deal of base line gameplay data. Before adding the Gem system. Allowing them to better balance the game, or at the very least get a feel for. How the game works in the hands of many players. Before adding the Gems system which can alter stats. In fact this would be more logical then. Trying to balance the entire game at once. But it is safe to say many would have preferred it. If they at least had made a press release about the Gem system. Those many months ago. Since it did blind side many.
My favorite game designer of all time is Mark Rosewater. Mark is the head designer of Magic: The Gathering, but before his game design career he was a stand-up comic and a sitcom writer, and he gave me this tidbit of game design wisdom. He explained how when a really, really good set of Magic comes out, they are faced with the conundrum of how to follow it up. He said based on his stand-up days, if you have a difficult act to follow, it’s not a good idea to do the same act only better. The reason is that the audience is going to judge you based on the previous act, and unless you do ALL the same things the previous act did perfectly and then some, people are going to notice and not enjoy your show.
The alternative, he says, is to do something different. Throw the audience for a loop with an off-the-wall style so that people won’t know how to compare you to the previous act. You may not be considered as good an act as the previous one, but people won’t judge you as a strictly worse version of the previous act.
Now, I don’t think that SFxT will be a strictly worse version of SF4, but SF4 is an extremely difficult act to follow. And when you break it down, almost all the features in SFxT exist in a similar form in SF4. Team cancels? That’s just a variant of FADC. Chargeable EX moves that you can dash out of? Also similar to Focus Attacks. Chain combos? Target combos. Pandora Mode? Ultra Combos. A lot of the supposedly “new” features have pretty much the same function as existing features. It doesn’t help either that the art direction in SFxT is pretty much identical to SF4. On top of all that, any flaw that existed in SF4 cannot be allowed to exist in SFxT; it has to do everything SF4 did only better, and more, or it’s going to be poorly received.
This is why I feel the Gem System is important. It puts SFxT on the map. Look at how much controversy it’s started, and we don’t even know what all the gems do. SFxT isn’t “just another one of those dime-a-dozen fighting games.” It’s unique now.
I read that article about how this gem system thing could present a problem for Tournament Operators, and agreed with a lot of the stuff in it, especially about the uncertainty about which gems will be available because of the exclusive gems that you get fore Pre-Ordering the Special Edition. Initially, I just thought the only reasonable solution that would be reached would be to simply find a default set of gems… But then I got to thinking.
Street Fighter and Tekken are arguably the most popular fighting game series in the world. SF is the 2D King, Tekken is the 3D King. These two franchises have always been main events in tournaments. Would it be reasonable of us to think that Capcom could really make a game as big as this NOT tourney viable? Capcom hasn’t shown any hesitation to change its last major installment (SF 4, and now I guess MvC 3) in a way to at least TRY to make it more tourney viable. I really don’t believe Capcom is going to do anything too radical to turn hardcore players away from a crossover of the two most popular series in our genre. Its simply too big of a project to allow to fail, especially for something as silly as not letting a certain feature be optional. I think Ono will eventually go back on saying that the gem system will be required, this game is simply too big too allow it to just fall into the casual fans lap. Harada and Ono are both going to try to one up themselves with these crossovers, if SF x Tekken turns out to be a bust its just going to look really bad for Capcom’s whole crew. I’m not worried about this gem system thing, we still have 4 whole months until this is released, lets just wait and see what happens until then.
In that case Capcom truly did throw there audience for a loop. More so by doing this. They where able to get more people. To talk about SFxT as well as follow its progress.
There are indeed ideas here we have seen before. In one form or another from Capcom and Namco. In the end love it or hate it. The Gem system is something that stands out. As well this game has been receiving. More coverage on mainstream sites. Since the start of the Gem controversy. Which is something you can be certain Capcom is happy about.
So now Capcom has are attention. I would imagine they will not rush to release the first built. That allows us to use this system. Since everyone is ready to pounce on them. The moment they show any sign’s of weakness. When it comes to the choices they make next with this game.
True even when there where. Still a number of series. You could consider to be in direct competition. With the Tekken series. It still sold well and grew in popularity.
It would be hard to imagine. Capcom truly making this into a horrific game (but some would say they already have). It is not to say it could not happen. Every developer makes a big mistake now and then (many are betting that Capcom’s mistake will be gem DLC). Capcom is not an exception. But all we can do is wait for them to make the next move. Still it is safe to say they would prefer it if the game was. Used in tournaments and gems where not banned. So it will be interesting to see what they come up with. To address the very valid concerns people have. About using this game in a more competitive setting.
Still based on what we have seen, and comments from. Known/unknown members of the community. Who where able to try the game, and enjoyed it. The most base aspects of SFxT. At least seem to be enjoyable. So it will be interesting to see. How the gem system interacts. With what we currently consider to be SFxT gameplay. From the most recent events.
Personally, I feel that the article on the front page was premature and sensationalist. And the vibe that I don’t like is that Capcom, who’s been sending representatives to Evo and making beta versions of their games playable at these tournaments, is somehow dedicated to undermining tournaments and making it impossible for SFxT to be used in a tournament. People act as if that was Capcom’s exact goal in creating the Gem System.
I don’t buy that theory. What’s more, I nor anyone I have heard knows enough about the Gem System to make a credible conclusion that it will be difficult or impossible to host an SFxT tournament. Some gems might get banned, all gems might get banned, or maybe nothing will get banned. We don’t know yet because we know next to nothing.
I also don’t like that there is a hint of entitlement from the anti-gem crowd. A lot of people think that theirs is the only money available, and if Capcom doesn’t cater specifically to their personal feelings the game will make no money. This is not true, and the theory that “if enough” people turn against Capcom that the people will get what they want is poorly held together by the vain belief that everyone agrees with them. When, in fact, they don’t.
I don’t think you get it.
You know when you watch a BYOC tourney, a good chunk of time is spent setting up buttons and then doing a button check within the game?
This is something Capcom almost never gets right (Please take note of the word almost) do you know just how easy it would be to have a button config screen where you simply move down a list and push each button you want to assign, and then have an in-menu button check before pressing start to confirm?
Do you know how much time it would save in Tournaments?
Well, Capcom still isn’t doing it.
The competition and players at a tournament are not what Capcom cares about, what they care about is the free publicity they get from the community.
Not to mention Ono doesn’t have the first idea about competitive play and nobody who works with him has the knowledge (Or balls) to tell him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Putting your faith in this system is in no way rational.
Also please look at the PC Release of SSFIV AE, a small group of people on Capcom Unity got the DRM removed, when Capcom’s scared of bad press, they don’t often go the Bioware approach, they actually fix things sometimes.
Silly idea I thought up recently, but I think you guys might’ve discussed it:
One way tournies like EVO could hold matches of this game is to have 2 consoles and TVs set up. One player on one console another player at another.
The game could allow you to save your Gem setups on it’s online server and access it from the game menu by entering a password or such.
Kind of a month late, but I like this discussion too, so I made two interfaces. You guys can tell me the one you like the best, or if you have other ideas.
Interface 1: http://i.imgur.com/ReW9S.jpg
After all characters are selected, you are sent to a gem selection screen. All gems will be available for selection in a single screen. On the top you can see the icons of the gems you selected, 3 for the first character and 3 for the second. When you move over the gems, the description can be seen below.
Quick selects go into R2/L2 or something. If you pick a gem for the first character and select the same gem again, it’ll be selected for your second characters - this is to make selection faster if you want to use the same setup for both characters.
Interface 2: http://i.imgur.com/Jno3g.jpg
Here you pick your gems after selecting each character. I really like your idea of having the gems under categories, so maybe each page on my example can hold gems of a certain type.
My favorite interface is the first one, with all the gems in a single screen. I think both can be equally fast on selection, as players will memorize their places in time, but having it all on a single screen just looks better to me.
imo they should make that when you select your 3 gems, they should be global to both of your characters, that way you would need to choose them wisely, since you have to take in consideration your team as a whole plus their individual wakness and strong points
Wow. Listening to Ono talk about fighting games in that way made me angry. Like, legitimately angry.
I happen to think the SFIV series is actually a very good competitive fighting game, unlike alot of vocal people on this site. But hearing Ono talk like that leads me to believe that SFIV was only good *in spite *of the guy. Jeez.