What's going on at Capcom?

Hecatom · June 14, 2017, 3:59am

I was with Capcom San Fran’s graphic design and social media team since October 2016 and was let go on happy terms about 3 weeks ago, I have no ill will against the company and wish everyone there nothing but the best. The main game I was attached to was Marvel vs Capcom Infinite for most of my time there. I wasn’t given an NDA to sign or anything like that cause I was an intern and really not given anything important that can’t get out. Ala I can’t tell you anything about which characters will be in the game until maybe about 4 days to a week before they’re officially unveiled. But what I can do is shed some light on the development of the game and tell you why some of you guys are saying the game is ugly, I just want to clear misconceptions about the game and give some clarity. I’m only wishing for the best for Marvel vs Capcom Infinite
First off I need to clear up some comments about our situation, a lot of rumors going around that they were horrendously understaffed and had pretty bad working conditions. We were pretty understaffed in our department is all I can comment on, I would not say we were a skeleton crew but we really could have used maybe 10 or so more guys around. It caused a lot of communication and organization issues but not enough that I’d call it hellish, definitely annoying though. Morale was low with some people cause they took some comments on the art design a little personally when it really wasn’t their fault. I mean how would you feel if you were told to make a painting, then told by the same person to make it look stupid and you have 30 minutes to make it, then once you’re done everyone says it looks bad and you should feel bad when you had no control over your own art.
So why does this game look so bad? Or more specifically why some characters look bad? Its a combination of multiple things but there are two main points: We were told to make the Capcom side look unappealing and the release schedule had us really strapped for time. Yeah thats right, someone at Disney specifically told the art department and the advertising department to make the Capcom side look “ugly” so the Marvel side would look better. Even in terms of story they wanted the Capcom characters to be very irrelevant so the Marvel team gets most of the spotlight. I can tell you this right now that you will see a lot of Capcom characters losing in battle or just taking a back seat so a Marvel character can do their job for them. I can somewhat confirm one thing with you guys right now is that Ryu does not do anything in the story mode. A few designs from the Capcom side of the characters were outsourced but even then every mock up was sent back and told to make them look either “less pretty and more realistic.” or “more like a cartoon character.” All I really did was stuff for advertisement but some stuff I did was edited by someone else so the Capcom characters were less prominent.
Some of you probably already noticed it, just compare Chun Li to Captain Marvel or Dante to Iron Man or Dr. Strange. The game is acting like a form of advertisement for Disney’s MCU, so those characters are being made to look more appealing than the rest. There is one exception, it was specifically stated to give Mega Man characters spotlight and special treatment. This confused me for a while but a co-worker pointed out later that Disney is producing a Mega Man game and TV show coming out this year so it all made sense to me.
So the short of it is that a lot of characters look bad because Disney had specific orders to make Marvel and Mega Man characters look way more appealing and get way more screen time than Capcom characters. I do want to add though a lot of this for me is hearsay, some stuff is not what I’ve been told but what I’ve heard others talking about. It may not be 100% accurate but I wanted to give a general idea, I’ve avoided talking about anything too specific because it might be wrong.
Thanks for listening for a minute, I just really wanted to clear up some of the negativity surrounding this game, or more accurately give you guys some clarity on why things are how they are. Please don’t be too harsh on the art team, they doing what they can with what they’re working with, they’re just victims in the crossfire here. But by all means be unhappy with how some of the characters look, I agree that Dante, Ryu, and Chun Li look pretty bad, but direct your distaste at the right people.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions that I can, but do not ask me about gameplay, design decisions, or which characters will be in the game. I will tell you right now I was given nothing about any of those aspects and I’m pretty bad at fighting games so I can’t tell you anything deep about the game.

LMAO, if this is true, is fucking glorious.

flicky · June 14, 2017, 4:14am

Which posts? I replied to you, then you posted a picture of Fry, what would I have to say about that? Hecatom doesn’t want to admit the truth, he knows particle effects are a more likely cause of lag and poor framerates in games, and if that was an actual development problem Capcom were having that’s how the devs would fix it. The demo has anti aliasing disabled for this very reason. A few shady mug shots doesn’t prove the game has bad graphics, they are literally just cherry picked in unfortunate poses and lighting, Chris looking remarkably like Rocky Balboa. All mouth and no action, you’d think if you could definitively bring a discussion to a close and actually prove your point you would do it, rather just be a smart arse. But like he said, Stupid Retarded Kids, he’s in the right place.

amrraed · June 14, 2017, 4:31am

I think they didn’t have enough budget to make the GFx any good because all of their money went into making Arcade mode. LMAO

Now that we have Arcade and story mode on deck, what can ever go wrong ?

Hawkingbird · June 14, 2017, 4:33am

Did you skip DMC4?

Asura’s Wrath isn’t even comparable to God’s Hand. They are not the same type of game. Asura’s Wrath is interactive anime. You’ll need to be specific when it comes to RE and Bionic Commando.

Missing_Person · June 14, 2017, 5:28am

flicky:

Missing_Person:

flicky:

cherry picking

You ignored 80% of my posts to focus on one thing that is rather irrelevant, the accused someone else of cherry picking.

Stop.

Which posts? I replied to you, then you posted a picture of Fry, what would I have to say about that? Hecatom doesn’t want to admit the truth, he knows particle effects are a more likely cause of lag and poor framerates in games, and if that was an actual development problem Capcom were having that’s how the devs would fix it. The demo has anti aliasing disabled for this very reason. A few shady mug shots doesn’t prove the game has bad graphics, they are literally just cherry picked in unfortunate poses and lighting, Chris looking remarkably like Rocky Balboa. All mouth and no action, you’d think if you could definitively bring a discussion to a close and actually prove your point you would do it, rather just be a smart arse. But like he said, Stupid Retarded Kids, he’s in the right place.

You misrepresented that post. I meant that you ignored 80% of the content in my posts to focus on the only thing you felt you could attack.

You cherry picked.

KingSlender · June 14, 2017, 5:37am

They really are going to make people buy the cool Spencer costume again.

Daemos · June 14, 2017, 6:55am

Hecatom:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MvC3/comments/6h2vt3/former_capcom_intern_here_i_can_explain_why/

I was with Capcom San Fran’s graphic design and social media team since October 2016 and was let go on happy terms about 3 weeks ago, I have no ill will against the company and wish everyone there nothing but the best. The main game I was attached to was Marvel vs Capcom Infinite for most of my time there. I wasn’t given an NDA to sign or anything like that cause I was an intern and really not given anything important that can’t get out. Ala I can’t tell you anything about which characters will be in the game until maybe about 4 days to a week before they’re officially unveiled. But what I can do is shed some light on the development of the game and tell you why some of you guys are saying the game is ugly, I just want to clear misconceptions about the game and give some clarity. I’m only wishing for the best for Marvel vs Capcom Infinite
First off I need to clear up some comments about our situation, a lot of rumors going around that they were horrendously understaffed and had pretty bad working conditions. We were pretty understaffed in our department is all I can comment on, I would not say we were a skeleton crew but we really could have used maybe 10 or so more guys around. It caused a lot of communication and organization issues but not enough that I’d call it hellish, definitely annoying though. Morale was low with some people cause they took some comments on the art design a little personally when it really wasn’t their fault. I mean how would you feel if you were told to make a painting, then told by the same person to make it look stupid and you have 30 minutes to make it, then once you’re done everyone says it looks bad and you should feel bad when you had no control over your own art.
So why does this game look so bad? Or more specifically why some characters look bad? Its a combination of multiple things but there are two main points: We were told to make the Capcom side look unappealing and the release schedule had us really strapped for time. Yeah thats right, someone at Disney specifically told the art department and the advertising department to make the Capcom side look “ugly” so the Marvel side would look better. Even in terms of story they wanted the Capcom characters to be very irrelevant so the Marvel team gets most of the spotlight. I can tell you this right now that you will see a lot of Capcom characters losing in battle or just taking a back seat so a Marvel character can do their job for them. I can somewhat confirm one thing with you guys right now is that Ryu does not do anything in the story mode. A few designs from the Capcom side of the characters were outsourced but even then every mock up was sent back and told to make them look either “less pretty and more realistic.” or “more like a cartoon character.” All I really did was stuff for advertisement but some stuff I did was edited by someone else so the Capcom characters were less prominent.
Some of you probably already noticed it, just compare Chun Li to Captain Marvel or Dante to Iron Man or Dr. Strange. The game is acting like a form of advertisement for Disney’s MCU, so those characters are being made to look more appealing than the rest. There is one exception, it was specifically stated to give Mega Man characters spotlight and special treatment. This confused me for a while but a co-worker pointed out later that Disney is producing a Mega Man game and TV show coming out this year so it all made sense to me.
So the short of it is that a lot of characters look bad because Disney had specific orders to make Marvel and Mega Man characters look way more appealing and get way more screen time than Capcom characters. I do want to add though a lot of this for me is hearsay, some stuff is not what I’ve been told but what I’ve heard others talking about. It may not be 100% accurate but I wanted to give a general idea, I’ve avoided talking about anything too specific because it might be wrong.
Thanks for listening for a minute, I just really wanted to clear up some of the negativity surrounding this game, or more accurately give you guys some clarity on why things are how they are. Please don’t be too harsh on the art team, they doing what they can with what they’re working with, they’re just victims in the crossfire here. But by all means be unhappy with how some of the characters look, I agree that Dante, Ryu, and Chun Li look pretty bad, but direct your distaste at the right people.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions that I can, but do not ask me about gameplay, design decisions, or which characters will be in the game. I will tell you right now I was given nothing about any of those aspects and I’m pretty bad at fighting games so I can’t tell you anything deep about the game.

LMAO, if this is true, is fucking glorious.

I don’t want Bison anywhere NEAR this train wreck omg.

Although really, Thor and Thanos are both fugly. So it’s not that big of a disparity.

FDream · June 14, 2017, 7:16am

Look the moment crapcom released sf5 after usf4 in it’s rushed state with less features than it’s predecessor just so they could make their fiscal year rapport is when i lost all respect for them.

How dare you release a game in this state but charge 30 bucks per season pass that comes with maintenance up the ass that leads nowhere. Online matches that take forever to load or connect. No region lock at all.

Just a major step back from the sf4 infrastructure.

Now you present a game at e3 no less that makes the flagship characters of your franchise look like meth addicts but the marvel ones looked super polished.

I’m just going to vote with my wallet next year crapcom. Hope they go bankrupt.

po_pimpus · June 14, 2017, 7:52am

Don’t you dare even jokingly suggest that I would spend a single peso on anything Capcpom.

I’m thoroughly insulted and disgusted by that notion.

C.Viper_Fan · June 14, 2017, 8:00am

Everything cacpcom this and past decade has been a rushed mess, but the fact that infinite with SO MANY reused assets + first DLC batch is going to have less characters than vanilla MVC3 without DLC and with everything made from scrath is embarrassing.

Doesn’t help that the game looks like a mobile game and is busted crap.

Korbidon · June 14, 2017, 8:13am

I kinda feel bad for Capcom. MvCI looks amazingly shit and then the DBZ game comes and blows it out the water.

FatalSeabass · June 14, 2017, 8:22am

That’s what they get for growing complacent. Maybe it will force them to up their work as opposed to running the FGC with an iron fist. Because let’s face. Regardless of how much of a catastrophe SF5 is, Capcom is leading the pack. Arcsys, the game that personally should be ahead of everyone because of how amazing Xrd is, decided that enough is enough. DBZ about to be nuts.

Pertho · June 14, 2017, 9:03am

Arc Sys put danger time in XRD. Literally the reason why some of my local guys refuse to play.

ArcSys does dumbfuckery too; just not an entire game of dumbfuckery.

DevilJin_01 · June 14, 2017, 9:09am

Basically. You just have to read a quick glance of the Xrd thread on SRK to see that there is similar complaining and whining about the mechanics and the tiers as there is for SFV.

If Guilty Gear was theoretically on top, it wouldn’t be everyone kissing and hugging and loving how beautiful it is for anime to be on top. There are people where something as simple as Danger Time or the removal of FRC’s can take them away from something as glorious as Guilty Gear.

If you have people leaving for less dumbfuckery in a smaller game and have people still sticking around for the full dumbfuckery in the BIG game, the world will only change so much.

po_pimpus · June 14, 2017, 9:16am

Only thing BIG about Capcpom games is the massive fuckups they manage to pull off.

FatalSeabass · June 14, 2017, 9:25am

I’m not saying Arcsys is perfect, but compared to Capcom’s track record, it’s practically immaculate. I’m not a fan of Danger Time either. If they were to remove it from the game, it wouldn’t change anything. However, if I told you that Danger Time was polarizing to the point where it affected the game on a consistent basis when I played or watched competitive tournaments, that would be a flat out lie. I just finished playing Rev 2 with 3 other guys for like 3 hours. Danger time came up maybe 3 times?

I’m just saying that as a whole, Arcsys/Guilty Gear has been the number one complete package for me as a fighting game fan as of recent memory and I wish they had gotten more of that praise.

oodk · June 14, 2017, 11:12am

Chun Li turn White.

ArtVandelay · June 14, 2017, 11:29am

I don’t think there’s anything better on the horizon even if Capcom realized that their fighting game ship is sinking.

In fact I don’t think there’s anyone left working at Capcom who knows how to design and make a fighting game.
Why would they outsource their shit to Dimps and the American branch of Capcom, if the brass would give a fuck about the quality of their fighting games?

The crap we’re seeing doesn’t look like it was made by a well-paid Japanese dude/dudess that went to college to study design or art for 3 or 4 years.
Heck even people at Capcom that did, like Bengus, don’t give a fuck anymore.

Magegg · June 14, 2017, 11:49am

I think because of the repetition of characters and not-quite-improved graphics, a lot of casual gamers are going to see it as too similar to MvC3 and they will probably decide to skip it. Specially if the new exciting characters are reserved for DLC; that’ll scare away some people, who aren’t quite into spending twice just to be able to play a character they’re interested in.

Saandro · June 14, 2017, 11:51am

flicky:

I ask the following questions:

Do you know the date that this build comes from?

Do you know how old or new the assets are contained in this build?

Do you know what methods they implemented into the demo to ensure a steady gameplay demo experience?

If the answer is no to all three then I’m not surprised. Often companies during development will have performance issues; frame rates, slowdown, that sort of thing. To prevent these things from showing and in order to provide a smooth experience, they will cut back on things like anti aliasing or shaders to allow the gameplay to be as stable as possible while the graphics sit on the side line until they optimise the game and can balance everything out. Complaining about the graphics on this demo is nonsensical. Look at the Rocket Raccoon and Dante part specifically, look at how many individual hairs and whiskers Rocket Raccoon has, they’re all jaggied because there’s minimal anti aliasing, and Dante looks like ass beause some of the effects in his specials cover the entire screen. All of this is relevant to making sure that the demo plays as smoothly as possible; plays, not looks.

Personaly I think the game looks stunning, I love all the colours and particle effects, and I forgive the fact that the models look sloppy in the demo. I’m expecting a downgrade in graphics because to me it looks like they’ve aimed too high and that they couldn’t at this time have both smoothing filters and steady frame rates at the same time for the demo. For a proper look at the graphics, go into HUD adjustment in options and hold triangle, you can see clearly the lack of anti aliasing especially on Ryu’s model. The graphics aren’t bad, they’re incomplete, so stop raging so much like this is actually the finished product.

From my experience, at an event like E3, companies usually show things that look much better than the final game. See: Dark Souls 2, anything Ubisoft etc. This is the first time I hear companies downgrade graphics because of performance issues. The game comes out in 3 months anyway. What we see now is what we will get.

OT: I think Capcom just doesn’t give a crap about certain franchises anymore. MvC being one of them. Feels like a super rushed product, made with an insanely low budget and reusing a ton of assets. Game doesn’t even have character artwork. Have you guys seen the character select screen? https://twitter.com/HiFightTH/status/874683069780836352 Just terrible. It’s a low budget product, made to earn a quick buck via the Marvel name and DLC. That audience reaction to the E3 trailer was painful to watch.