UMvC3 version 2013: The feedback thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
1001

My primary concern at the moment is that assist viability is too consolidated among a select group of characters. The balance of a game like UMvC3 is badly hurt when characters with poor point abilities also have poor support abilities, and such distinctions are relative to the cast as a whole. Many of the low and mid-tier characters are considered such because of both.

Another problem that stems from this is the scarcity of consistent anti-air assists that can deal with characters at normal jump height and above. Hidden Missiles, Jam Session, Log Trap, Peekaboo and Vajra are currently the only five pure AA assists (not ground-to-air GTFO ones like Rising Fang, Anti-Air Gamma Charge, and the like) that are practical and dependable within a match. Daggers of Denak lacks the tracking, Purification has sluggish startup and does not track, Seismic Hammer has the height but only covers a mediocre portion of the middle of the screen, Double Typhoon has horrible startup, etc. So it’s no wonder that players go to Dante, Strider, and Doom when you consider their other strengths.

1002

This has been the big issue with Cap teams. You’re pretty much forced to use 1 of these 5 characters, which isn’t exactly bad, but it dictates your 3rd choice heavily and you start to realize your limitations simply because Cap is so limited alone. Other characters suffer the same fate such as Iron Fist.

1003

As an addendum to my original post, I would change some of the assist options for characters. Nothing below will deal with changing the properties of existing assists, which I think should be done for many characters but I don’t understand the consequences enough to deal with all of them.

Amaterasu: replace Solar Flare H with Power Slash (many more durability points for assist version, stagger on hit on grounded opponents, soft knockdown on hit against air opponents)

Arthur: replace Heavenly Slash with Scattered Crossbow.

C. Viper: replace Thunder Knuckle H with Optic Blast

Chris Redfield: replace Grenade Toss L with Grenade Toss H (probably too powerful though)

Dante: replace Crystal with Tempest (probably a bad idea and an example of making the rich richer, but I want to see how this assist would affect zoning situations in the neutral game and Crystal has little use for most teams)

Hsien-Ko: replace Henkyo Ki M with Henkyo Ki H, replace Anki Hou M with Anki Hou M (Snowman)

Phoenix Wright: replace Paperwork with Maya Shield (Wright takes damage once shield is broken, Maya would have to have her own hurtbox)

Strider Hiryu: replace Ame-no-Murakumo with either Formation B or Formation C

Tron Bonne: replace Bonne Strike with Beacon Bomb M

Deadpool: replace diagonal Happy Trigger with horizontal Happy Trigger (as explained in this post, alter durability to avoid issues with projectile interaction)

Ghost Rider: replace Hellfire with Judgment Strike

Iron Fist: replace Dragon Touch with Wall of K’un L’un (make the assist armored like Gamma Charge)

Nova: replace Nova Strike with Energy Javelin

Rocket Raccoon: replace Claymore with Grab Bag

Shuma-Gorath: replace Mystic Stare L with Mystic Stare H.

Super-Skrull: replace Orbital Grudge with Orbital Grudge + Fatal Buster

If anyone has suggestions or corrections I’m all ears.

1004

What about the idea of being able to choose your THC as well as your assist (among THCs that are usable that is)

1005

This is a long post, but I hope you guys can give me adequate feedback. I’ll also be reposting this on the Sentinel forums, but they’ve been inactive as of lately. I’ve put it in a spoiler tag.

Spoiler

We all can agree that Sentinel can use some buffs, correct? I had some ideas on what to do with our beloved Wackbot and here’s some suggestions:

  • First and foremost, Hard Drive needs to be repaired such that it sucks in the opponent to guarantee the final spinning knockdown, or make sure it lands its hits more consistently so that the opponent doesn’t fall out so easily.

  • Next up, he could use a slight increase in health. Would it be better if Sentinel had 1 million health or more? 1 mil seems like the right spot so he can be played with slightly less caution and not let him die in a simple combo.

  • Then the third thing would be to speed up his flight mode. Sometimes it can be hard to link a j.:l: after a flight canceled j.:h: on a grounded or aerial opponent that’s not in an air combo. It would be nicer if he could land a j.:l: after a flight canceled j.:m: in the air, effectively changing his flight start up from 17 frames to 13-14 frames (14 would make it a 1 frame link for j.:l: after fly j. :m: ) It can also benefit his flight cancels for some of his important moves: cr. and st. :m:, cr. and st. :h: by making them slightly safer on block, since his block and hit frame data is horrendous. Not only would the frame data be sped up, but the movement in general could use a speed up, close to MvC2 levels.

  • Another problem that he has is dealing with opponents under him. A possible solution would be to make his air normals much faster (perhaps XF 1-2 speed, which averages at 15% speed). Another solution would be to extend the area of the hitboxes (hitspheres), especially those of air :l: and air :h:.

These are some of his biggest problems that should be addressed. The following list is simply buffs that can increase his effectiveness on point.

  • It would be nice if he had the ability to have chip damage for air normals. Meaning if he gets you pinned down in the corner (which usually only happens after a kill), he could get some of his old stomp pressure from MvC2. Frank West has chip normals, why can’t Sent have them?

  • Give utility to Standing Rocket Punch :m: and : h: along with their air variants. Why not give those moves a wall bounce (for air :m: and st. :m: versions of Rocket Punch), while giving air and ground :h: Rocket Punch a hard knockdown effect?

  • On the topic of Rocket Punch, why not also change the :l: version of Rocket Punch into a soft knockdown; The grounded version of it can stay exactly as is, so he doesn’t get an easy mode Hyper Sentinel Force, but the air one will get the soft knockdown to guarantee Hard Drive hitting the opponent, even after a long combo, since a short TAC after a semi-long combo from a teammate will always flip them out before the super, resulting in Sentinel dying.

  • Make Rocket Punch flight cancellable. Meaning he can get assist-less and meterless pickups after throws of all kinds, granted that the combos themselves probably won’t be very long, but at least he can get something that does not requre meter.

  • Increase the untechable time of his air throws. This is done to help him get any followup or remain neutral after a successful air grab, especially at double jump height and above.

  • Allow Hard Drive ignore advancing guard. (It will keep its frame disadvantage -5 and recovery until grounded, to prevent him from getting air thrown every time he tries one to escape pressure and not get him killed for his defense).

  • Restore Hyper Armor status in st. :s:. (Note: This is mainly to aid GCYoshi with landing raw S on the opponent). It was his only response to Zero’s Pizza cutter and Morrigan j.:s:, but now it’s gone. :sad:

  • Remove the “invisible wall” that occurs whenever you throw/air throw/command throw :m: or :h: the opponent across the screen and are unable to dash up for a combo.

These things are merely for a nice bonus but would not really be necessary.

  • Give 1 hit of armor to Drones assist.

  • Sentinel Force L and M versions do not go away if Sentinel is hit on point.

  • Increase the minimum damage scaling of his normals and specials to 15% (up from 10%)

  • Decrease the hitstun scaling of st. S and both his st. and air :m:

1006

@CosmicSpiral
Ah, my endless rants on assists have converted at least one person! I posted a whole list of ideas a while back, and a few of yours are similar. The concept of an Energy Javelin assist gives me nightmares, but I suppose it couldn’t get TOO broken.

After getting into Arc Systems games, I realized how badly this game needs a burst mechanic. Make it cost X-Factor, and you always get one level lower than what you normally would have, with XF1 just being the burst. That way, anyone who gets bopped with an infinite has some kind of way out. Plus, that’s about the fairest indirect nerf that someone as good as Dante could have without making him mid-tier.

1007

Remove the knock back that morrigan does to herself from air soul fist and lower soul fist durability by 1 point, so that she actually needs to stop filling the screen with crap to gain space from her opponent and lowering her durability would make it a little easier for some characters to get by, so the strategy and character is still effective without it being as air tight

1008

I agree that Sentinel’s Hard Drive should be fixed so that you don’t drop out of it and that his health should go back up a bit. I do however think that he should either fly a bit faster OR have better hitbox coverage below/behind him, not both. When suggesting buffs/nerfs it’s easy to list dozens of things that seem like “small improvements”, but when you put them all together you’ve created a monster. I’ll admit I’m not a great player by any means but I just think it’s important to be cautious so you don’t just end up replacing one set of S-tier characters with another.

1009

-Hold start to pause.
-Custom assists.
-Only make small adjustments to high and top tier characters.
-Vanilla Wolverine, Wesker, Magneto, Phoenix, and Pre-patch Sentinel.
-Add ‘Slow and Zoom’ from TVC into Viewtiful Joe’s moveset. (Though being that he’s better than what most people think maybe he doesn’t need a lvl 3.)
-Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel), Groot, Yellow Jacket, Falcon (he’s pretty boring though), Black Cat, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Nick Fury or Coulson.
-Chuck Greene, Alex, Whoever advertises what’s coming out for Capcom.
-More colors and alts.

1010

Everything except “Hold start to pause” has to be some sort of joke.

1011

@Co-Jones , RE: Sentinel

Spoiler

  • "Hard Drive needs to be repaired"
    Yes

  • 1 million health
    Yes

  • Then the third thing would be to speed up his flight mode.
    Yes

  • extend the area of the hitboxes (hitspheres), especially those of air :l: and air :h:.**
    Maybe too much with an already faster flight mode (assuming he also travels faster)**

  • It would be nice if he had the ability to have chip damage for air normals. Meaning if he gets you pinned down in the corner (which usually only happens after a kill), he could get some of his old stomp pressure from MvC2. Frank West has chip normals, why can’t Sent have them?
    Maybe? Depends on how it is handled.

  • Give utility to Standing Rocket Punch :m: and : h: wall bounce // hard knockdown effect?
    Disagree. The game has enough special state-causing moves as it is.

  • :l: version of Air Rocket Punch into a soft knockdown
    Brings back the long Sentinel TAC-combos. It’s GREAT for me, but I’m pretty sure capcom took that out on purpose.

  • Make Rocket Punch flight cancellable.
    Nooooooo. Rocket Punch has to be punishable in some way or people would be shooting it out willy-nilly.

  • Increase the untechable time of his air throws.
    Yeah. it sucks getting a good air grab (not like Sentinel OSs with anything, all throws are meant to throw) and not being able to otg them because you were “too high”, which is actually not high at all…

  • Allow Hard Drive ignore advancing guard.
    Already does ignore advancing guard. However the defender will ALWAYS get stuck in the pushblock animation and that’s what allows him to stay in front of sentinel. There’s no way to change this, I believe.

  • Restore Hyper Armor status in st. :s:.
    His armor sucks as it is, so why the fuck not. I agree.

  • Remove the “invisible wall” that occurs whenever you throw/air throw/command throw :m: or :h:
    God yes…

These things are merely for a nice bonus but would not really be necessary.

  • Give 1 hit of armor to Drones assist.
    No

  • Sentinel Force L and M versions do not go away if Sentinel is hit on point.
    No

  • Increase the minimum damage scaling of his normals and specials to 15% (up from 10%)
    Already does damage

  • Decrease the hitstun scaling of st. S and both his st. and air :m:
    Not sure I understand.

There, gave my opinion on it. I agree with about half of it.Sentinel should never be as good as a point character as you’re fully suggesting because of how good Drones and Plasma Storm are as an assist and DHC. IMO.
Also, this would all be an great buff to MAGNETO because he’d no longer have to carry around a worthless hunk of metal just for the assist.

1012

That 1 hit of armor on the assist idea made me very sad.

1013

If Drones never go away while he’s out as an assist would automatically make it the dumbest assist in the game. (This does not include Vanilla assists)

1014

@Kanta-Kun Re:Re:Sentinel

-The Soft Knockdown on Rocket Punch :l: (air version) would really just be used to allow for Hard Drive to combo properly or to delay the super cancel to let them be at the appropriate height.

  • The Chip damage would ideally be handled at 10% the moves original damage because 30% like regular chip would be way too much.

  • The hitstun scaling really isn’t noted whenever he does a normal combo. This is usually noticed whenever you do a combo off a ground throw, or when you do a slightly extended combo beginner before the first launcher like in this video: [details=Spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlBYHZSVGyk[/details]

The video also shows an example where the increased air normal speed/decreased flight start up would be useful at the beginning of the video.

1015

it’s not about what it would ideally be only used for. it still opens up the possibility of the long air rocket punch TAC combos coming back because it gives you the ability to link normals after it, which is what they removed from vanilla to this game.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDuKe3TKmw0

That’s 250k post TAC, and i thought people were trying to get rid of those for the possible update.

1016

TAC infinites and damaging TAC combos are two entirely different things.

1017

people were complaining about doom’s options post-tac.

1018

Re:Sentinel’s Godlike TAC vid: Hmm, I guess that’s why. I guess they could increase the hitstun of Rocket Punch ever so slightly. Without having a way to play test it, the ideal way would be to have it allow you to connect Hard Drive, but not allow long TAC combos, only 1 Rocket Punch and still barely link something.

It’s really difficult to tweak it though.

1019

And people mostly complained because Doom also had amazing conversions off throws, the best assist utility in the game, and could turn around the game with one footdive. The discovery of his TAC infinite and its relative ease made the post-TAC combos irrelevant. No one would cry foul if a few characters got extended TAC combos that didn’t guarantee death when properly executed.

1020

Extended TACs are not good by design. When all 3 forms of TAC reward you with that, there’s not really a mind game over the immediate reason to pick 1 of the 3 options. You are given a pure 33% guess to stop a free TOD which is better than most resets. At least with most resets there’s a reactable solution or a safer option, with TAC’s you aren’t given ques to give you a mind game to wrap around. TAC’s need to focus on immediate perks (gain/steal meter) and the free tag with little extension or only give 1 option that awards extensions possibilities and buff down TAC since 1 stock of meter is irrelevant over the extension.

Just because there’s a risk to drop your combo doesn’t justify the rewards we get in TACs. There needs to be coherent ques, scenario specific reasons to pick a certain TAC, etc… 66% pure random resets are a very bad concept.