I think you misunderstood his post. He’s saying that the “You don’t have to play X much to get good at it” argument has been run before (with Chun Li in 3rd strike).
He also says that Marvel 3 will eventually get closer to Marvel 2 status where good players have team setups that simply shit all over the easy stuff. Not in terms of raw damage (which everyone can do), but in terms of controlling the match.
Note that “easy” in this case isn’t referring to execution, but rather how thought out a gameplan is. Your basic mixup of “ground grab vs air grab” Isn’t nearly as good as
I don’t play MVC3 I don’t like it very much. All I was saying is that its one of the easiest fighters to get into and NOBODY should complain that the the game is too hard.
Plus I don’t think this guy is trying to be the worlds best or win evo. You just have to play sometimes if you want to be ok. Will you be the best? No. But will you learn enough to enjoy the game? Yes. Plus Im pretty sure the OP is an online warrior.
You’ll get stomped if you think you’re good and not practice at all. As long as you don’t drop the game and practice occasionally you should be fine. I’m saying this because I have school and a job and maintaining balance between playing marvel and other games is pretty difficult.
No need to tear the guys heads off, there are a lot of situations where fighting games in general are noob unfriendly. Doesnt really matter what the game is - sure MvC3 has easier mechanics than some other fighters, but that doesnt mean it’s noob friendly by any means - fighting games in general are not (except maybe smash, but even smash had a high enough skill cap that good players dominated lower ones - we trained my friends to play smash with us and it still took a couple months for them to be able to hang).
Not to mention, even though MvC has some friendlier mechanics, it also has some complexities that other games don’t have, such as creating good team synergy. It’s a huge difference if you are going against a very well made team where the opponent is nearly immaculate with the 3 characters, compared to a poorly made team where your immaculate with 3 characters, and many newer players to the series won’t be able to distinguish both the problem in the team and the proper characters that would fix the problem. And even if they can distinguish the problems and characters they need, there is no guarantee those characters will fit their play style.
Imagine if you were new to fighting games and just picked up UMvC3 and trying to get good playing on your own? It would not be good times. Hell, there was times I havent played for a couple weeks and there was an obvious step up in competition where you gota step it up to be able to hang.
My best advice to the OP for ANY fighting game: Find a RL friend to learn with you, or try to find someone you have a good internet connection with as a training partner. If you play with each other reguarly you will push each other to the limits and force yourselves to get better and close up the skill gap a bit. After awhile you will actually be able to at least hang with most opponents, even if you can’t win.
That’s kind of what I mean. Fighting games are almost as bad as RTS’s in the sense that you have to keep up with competition, or you will need to put in a lot more work to get to a competitive point again.
Anyone planning to be an occasional gamer especially one that plays multiple games at the same time will definitely get stomped when playing against a more professional one its a simple fact.
a few months back, after a total of 5hrs learning the game with (hulk, x-23, vergil) I played against someone who knows average combos with (hawkeye, strange, firebrand). Heck I started off winning cause of my “approach” to the game then I just lost 10 games in a roll, (same teams the entire time) till I adjusted to his team and started making the match more even but I’d still loose like 3/4x’s.
I didn’t get mad or anything lol it was fun. The whole point is to have fun, if you want to get good at any fighting game then you’ll have to spend time on it if not don’t fret over it, I play some people whom can smash me easily with top tier chars, but if they use mid tier like myself I’d give them a run for their money.
It took me about 2 month of playing 3-4x a week 2-3+hrs each time (starting from no fighting game experience, and with someone giving me tips) on MvC2 and Tekken 5 to be “average” meaning I can at least take out 1 char in mvc2 against a pro player using MSP, while I only use mid tier chars, and in Tekken 5 to at least not get 3-0 as long as the other player doesn’t underestimate me.
Which is why I rarely use top tier chars, I just play who I want. I’m not planning to make a living out of this game and be the top, soo whats the point using/learning chars I don’t want to use, and I like to be a bit different.
(what annoys me most is when Top players using top tier teams smashing people whom are obviously not in their league and using mid/low tier chars.)
I think it depends a lot on your mains. It’s no secret that some characters are much more forgiving to newbies. Basic teleport zoning and basic ABCS, BBC super combos can take you a long way with Wesker, but if you want to play as Morrigan you’ll need to spend serious time just figuring out how to move her around the screen. I guess the disparity can be frustrating to some players. I’m just basing this from personal experience, though. I noticed that the people in my friends list who are still playing the game are the ones who happened to main top-tier characters from the get-go. The players maining mid-tiers already quit.
The BNB combos are kinda easy, but creating set-ups and mixups require actual experience in fighting games (IE. Not noob friendly). I’ve played bums that picked up UMVC3 and it was clearly their first game and I played decent players who been fighting games for years.
Bums play very linear. They know the combos (some got great, creative combos), however, their ability to mix-up, do set-ups and AVOID set-ups is lacking. I tell the players here all the time “If you learn how to open people up with ease, you would be unstoppable in this shit.” However, they not learning any set-ups or being unpredictable. They too busy in the training room practicing combos.
The more seasoned players (even if its only for 3 years) have set-ups, mixups, they know how to block, and when you hit them with a set-up once, they never fall for it again (at least in the same set). They know how to use the training room. They practice combos in ANY situation and they practice mix-ups and set ups. Also, most experienced players know how to block, which is imperative in this game.
In closing, this game is noob friendly, but in order to beat good players, you need an old school mindset.
I think the main reason people think this game is noob friendly is because combo’s aren’t hard to do. Alot of players have this expectancy that for some reason’s combos need to take lots of practicing in order to execute. This is the same reason everyone will call SFXT noob friendly within 2 weeks. Actually playing the game well is a lot harder than people make it out to be. For instance being able to identify a mixup or pressure situation and handle it correctly without never having ever seen it before because you know the character’s potential and similiar setups. Being able to see when to pressure/mixup/ avoid situations without being run over and being able to do it instantly is where skill really takes hold. I see a lot of players cap out on skill level because they don’t identify patterns either at all or fast enough and get constantly run over. Then they don’t understand why they lost and just blame game as being to noobish.
Let’s take hulk + sentinal situation as an example. So the idea is they through out high priority armor move with slow assist behind to setup assist and then assist setup pressure. Well I know that that hulk move is punishable, i know its hyper armor doesn’t kick in immediatly, and I also know sentinal drones disappear if you hit him. Because of these reasons I’m going to do 1 of two things. Either stay far away because then if he tries this I can crouching punshing hulk and drones will go right over my head, or use crouching punish into a move to hit sentinal in the back. Or I am going to stay close to Hulk to force him to use other moves since you can hit him out of starting that move up. Now I also have to come to conclusions of what not to do. for instance I can easily see that being in the corner against this is very bad so if I end up there I’m looking for an escape route not trying to punish. I also know that advancing guard actually leaves me in block stun longer and diminishes my chances to punish so I’m not going to do that unless I am in the corner.
These are all things I can figure out from this setup pretty much right away and can implement immediately. Some one new to the game might have a hard time identify the weak and strong points of this setup, but its nothing new in UMvC3 since its very similar to alot of sentinal pressure from vanilla.
There are several mechanics that are in theory very noob friendly in X-Factor, TACs and most BnBs. That said the proper application of these mechanics requires, due to the incredibly unforgiving nature of mistakes in this game, at the very a decent amount of experience which more or less is the exact opposite of a noob. Also the throwing in this game is about as brutal as it gets in fighting games.
I agree with this. After all, combos are just muscle memory. Sure, you want to make sure that you know the right combo to do for any character or situation, and you want to make sure you maximize your damage/meter gain with the tools you have available, but for the most part it’s just repetition and memorization.
The real strategy comes from reading your opponent’s actions and plans of attack, and making sure you can counteract them. Having multiple options and tricky setups for situations where your opponent is most vulnerable (wakeup after knockdown, incoming character, superjumping character, etc.) allows you to keep your opponent off guard and keeps your offense from becoming one dimensional. Games like this boil down to making the right decision with very little time to react, and being able to consider a lot of different options while you’re doing it. Along with that goes the knowledge of the risk that goes along with each action, and the ability to decide when you should take a gamble.
The hardest aspects for newcomers to fighting games are amplified by UMvC3 systems. Snadmonkey and Nobus3r1 ver. 2.0 hit it right on the head, that combo execution is probably the easiest part of the game and to be honest, if it was any higher in terms of difficulty, then I doubt the game would be as popular. There’s a reason why execution heavy characters aren’t used that much and it’s not because they aren’t good. Also, the sheer amount of knowledge you need to have about every character and team combo is pretty crazy in order to be competitive.
UMvC3 has probably the lowest margin of error of any fighting game out there as there can be some unbelievably wild swings in a single match that can make it hard for a new comer to see everything that is going on or even understand why they lost. Most games don’t have the wild swings that Marvel has simply because of all the mechanics (XF, TAC, Happy Birthdays, multi-mixup block strings that you legit have to guess and can’t react to) and i would say most matches are determined by one mistake someone makes as opposed to most FG’s where it’s usually a battle of multiple mini-swings.
Offense completely dominates defense in Marvel, which is slightly counter-intuitive to most fighting games as most people preach that you need solid blocking first. Sure, if you never block, you’ll lose but once you start facing people who know how to mix you up (and block on average), blocking takes a back seat to learning how to dodge and space properly which comes from a lot of practice (more so than getting down BnB combos.) I would argue that if you are blocking more than your opponent in Marvel at the lower intermediate to advanced levels, chances are you’ve already lost as you’ll get opened up eventually if your opponent has an effective pressure strategy. Usually, if you are solid at blocking, you may not always win, but you can at least stand a chance. Due to a combination of the fast pace and the objective of Marvel to make it so you actually can’t block effectively, you’re better off learning how to rush down effectively. This can be really hard for rookies as putting together a cohesive, safe offense is really difficult in Marvel (hell, really any game) since you need to construct it around a team and not one character. I mean we are talking frames worth of precision here in the most chaotic game out there and for a lot of people that’s not exactly easy unless you’ve been doing it for a long time. I would argue the main reason why people choose certain characters (i.e. Wolvie over X-23) is that you can put together an unbelievably effective offense that takes lower execution (therefore making it more reliable) in the heat of moment. I wish I had learned that before creating my team as I need to figure out a new strategy.
2.5) If you look at all top teams (hell the vast majority of players in general), they almost all have a heavy slant towards offense. You can even see how much worse a defensive strategy is in what isn’t used, the invincible alpha counters. Technically, a character with Jill (Somersault Assist) backing them up with meter should be someone you’d want to rush against very cautiously as it would take just one alpha counter and bam, full combo. I don’t think I’ve seen a single person use alpha counter in a match ever [well, no one uses Jill either but things like that should technically increase her viability along with other characters] unless it’s simply to avoid getting chipped out by a super or an accident.
Saying someone is lazy because they don’t practice is a little naive because most people have obligations outside of FGs unless you’re a pro player. If you have to go to work or are in grad school (like me) you can only devote so much time to the lab. Much like grinding in MMORPGs, sometimes you simply just don’t have the time to work up to a level where you can compete with the people who are pouring more time into the game. Sure, I’m not going to win majors or probably ever make it out of pools (at least currently) but that has nothing to do with how much I practice in terms of absolute hours (for reference, I wake up early before class every day to practice my stuff and see if I can make it better). It has to do with the fact that other people can devote more time than I can no matter what I do unless I don’t care about the fact I need a certain GPA to stay in school.
If you want to make Marvel actually noob friendly, I would recommend the following:
Get rid of TACs completely or make it that you need to spend a one meter to execute and there can be no added benefits ( even no meter gain from a combo until you touch the ground). Sure a noob can use them, but ultimately a better player will be able to abuse them even more and it creates combos that are just plain stupid in terms of damage. Also, the risk/reward for them is so slanted towards the aggressor that it has better odds than vanilla Derpserker Slash w/ Tatsu technically.
Decrease damage and make the game more reset oriented. That way, instead of watching the MGS4 / DBZ equivalent of a FG, you’d have to open someone up multiple times to kill them. Also, that way people can try more creative strategies (newbie-ish strategies?) since you don’t have to be so afraid of being touched once. Also, having higher health would actually mean something.
Better Assists. I feel like the vast majority of assist in this game are kinda worthless as you only really see a couple used over and over again. How about replacing Dorm’s Liberation assist with the Unwelcome mat? That way, more characters would be viable to put on teams. I don’t understand why the first update agenda item for Ultimate wasn’t what assists need to be changed since they were useless. They felt that Frank needed a unique assist since they couldn’t come up with a third, why not do that for some of the vanilla cast as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I love UMvC3 despite my objections with some stuff, put to say this game is newb friendly is askew in my opinion. Imagine trying to do the combos or setups in this game if the inputs weren’t as easy as they are or the timing as lenient? You’d probably see even less creativity in terms of team composition as no one but the most executionally gifted would be able to use more than a small section of the cast.
the biggest problem for me and my friends, comming from sf4 was the damage or lack of hp part , you die so fast that its hard to learn any thing or even understand whats going on , and the xfactor makes it even harder to understand, so we put it on low the first days but now when everyone has become better we bumped it up to normal. Funny part is i think i like the game better on very low dmg,
that’s not entirely true… new players have the advantage of already having an established metagame to analyze and learn from. the advantage that pioneers have is mostly just familiarity and comfort.
