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Rising Thunder [PC]

i'm sorry, but I feel like newplayers in fighting games are kinda being coddled into these games. When I was young I got my shit kicked in and since I either was borrowing a friend's game or was on an arcade cabinet, my time practicing was limited. So in the end I had to learn blocking and basic combo strings on the fly, it was hard and most times i got pissed off when I didn't get a move i wanted or something. Sigh... idk, I feel like SF2 is like the 101 class of Fighting Games and Rising Thunder is like a 6th grade hour long lesson. It's limiting and it doesn't full show new players the things that a fighter has to make the player choose on moves and setups. The cooldown on specials is just... dumb and wrong... "why can't I do a dp now? oh I'm still in cooldown..." It forces the players to go slow, to wait for the cooldown to end. Other mechanics in the game are kinda pointless... if Rising Thunder is meant to be a beginners guide on fighters, then why does it have a burst? Rising Thunder has similar structure of SF and SF doesn't have any bursts. It had Alpha counters but that's for defense on block strings.

At first I was kinda like yeah Rising Thunder might be a cool thing. And now, I kinda want it to fade away and tell newplayers to pick up a SNES and slap in Street Fighter 2, that or TMNT Tourny Fighter (basically the same game as SF2)

now that I think about it, why in the shit am I making videos about this game? I:(
 
I'm very torn right now as to how strong bursts are. I think it's a given that bursts can be strong, but I don't think that necessarily means that they are always strong as it really depends on how much damage they avoid.
Nope.
Do they avoid death? Then they're just as strong as any other burst, since they give you another touch to live through when you didn't have one before.
 
Being honest, Rising thunder, for what i've seen, is not ONLY trying to "make getting into fighting games easier", or something like that.

Here is my opinion:

Rising Thunder is being designed to be an e-sport, they are making this thinking in gathering MOBA players, and the more common pc gamer that exists today. And that explains a lot of the design choices that this game has.

Special moves are just one button and they have cooldown - This is common in mobas, mmorpgs, and a lot genres, what that means? that you just need to have a resource, and "choose" to use it.

You can't see the enemy resources - Again, another thing that is normal in this games, mobas, mmorpgs, FPS even, where the strategic part of the game is: "His DP is in cooldown now, so i can do a jump in and be safe" and not: "now i got the hard knock down, let me try this mix up, i hope he doesn't DP or use any specific thing"

And now, the thing that is more "polemic" - a lot of stuff that is present in SF4, tight links, "FADC", how this can gather to the audience that they seem to target? I can't explain very well with words, but one thing, i used to play league of legends a lot (i still play, but not as much, the only reason that i still like that game is called "Vi"), and i used to follow and watch a lot of high level matches, and while those games are very simple and easy to play, they normally have some things that pro players do that are very hard by the average or below average player, things that recquire Execution, like Lee Sin ward shenanigans, perfect kiting, and stuff like that, i imagine that the tight links and high execution stuff in this game, is basically this, they are trying to keep some complicated stuff, while being "easy", so people can see the bigger picture and try to improve.

This game is aiming to get tons of thousands of players, that won't bother to buy a joystick. This game is trying to make EVO reach the levels of LCS or anything like that. Will that happen? Honestly, probably not, but nothing is impossible.

Now, am i defending this game? No, i am not!

I haven't played, i don't know if it is good, or bad, if it is going to be sucessful or not, and honestly, i am just curious about this game, but not actually hyped, but i can see what this game is trying to do, if it is good, if it is bad, i don't really know.

One thing is certain, fighting game players will certainly be able to break this game in half more easily than the average league/dota/starcraft player.
 
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What characters have these one-frame links and super tight combos?
 
After playing decent chels that use burst, I think I agree with mike. They send the opponent to the other side of the screen and they're totally unpunishable. I don't think bursts are universally better though, characters like crow can't even function without meter. I really hope they combine the bars, and maybe even combine the super bar with the kinetic bar.

The game barely has footsies. I've been playing a lot of it over the last few days and the footsies are just terrible because the walk speed is so slow. There are so many useless normals. With talos in neutral I end up spending all my time fishing for f+H the whole time because that's the only normal that has any range, and all his other normals are super stubby. I think he might have the lowest walkspeed in the game, but it's bad for all the characters. I don't understand why they made it this way.

Supers are poorly implemented, the super flash doesnt actually freeze anything and you can block post flash(?) If you're in the air and the super you land before the super animation ends. It needs to have startup before the flash not after. I don't know what seth is thinking.

Another baffling thing is that Throws don't kill. Why? I hope it's an oversight.

So much of the design just seems thrown at the wall, some of it is interesting but other stuff just feels so token.

@Sotherius I don't know what you're talking about this game has the easiest combos of any game I've ever played, the combo system is nothing like street fighter. It's good to be critical but your opinion means nothing if you haven't even played the game.
 
just give him a promotion code and let him find out damn it. in the end it is all up the personal opinion on if he likes the game or not. In my eyes Rising Thunder suffers from the sickness of "Looking Flashy, but is mechanically shallow and flawed." sorta like Coke Zero, empty calories. Rising Thunder, empty gameplay. Wow, this last 24 hours i have just turned really bitter towards this game... Oh well don't care.
 
I'm a little more optimistic, I would say that there is a solid game there that is obscured by some poor design choices, and if they accept the communities feedback it will be a very good game, or at least a good tool for indoctrinating new players.

I'm pretty sure he can sign up for the alpha and get in within 24 hours.
 
if by 'the community' you mean a very, very select few people, then yeah.
most of that suggestions forum is trash, and even some top fgc people I saw streaming it were crying 'nerf this, buff this' day one.

also question, is that flippy slash Crow does a jumping... low?
 
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I had someone defend the overly long cinematic supers because "the game is about patience" and that "some of us can appreciate the hard work that has gone into making these cool animations."
 
@Grangach 2~4 pages ago a lot of people were talking about the presence of tight links. '-'

And my opinion is about what the game is trying to be in the "competitive scene", and not what the game is gameplay-wise, i don't need to play the game to see what they are trying in this aspect, and i was just showing how this was related to some gameplay aspects that a lot of people talked were present.
 
After playing decent chels that use burst, I think I agree with mike. They send the opponent to the other side of the screen and they're totally unpunishable.
Yes it's so funny to see those poor dauntless/talos/vlad finally land a hit to be sent to the other side of the screen :3
Those bursts are baitable though. I just don't think the technology is there yet. I could do it a few times against a Talos that picked it surprisingly. But overall I feel like I'm the only to use the burst mode online.

What I want to know is how do you beat Edge slide ? It's making me insane. Hopefully the cooldown is long.

Overall the pace of the game is really slow and you can just keep guarding all day against chars like Edge, because overhead/throws can be beaten on reaction with DP button lol. Talos players are really predictable and try to use the boot move, but this one being punishable doesn't work for them well. The only thing I have issues against is Crow, well ONE player, beat me on a series of bo3 in a row. I don't really understand his gameplan. The character deals a lot from jump-ins but that's all. Guarding high all day long and blocking low only on the wakeup if they are grounded. Seriously dp on a button make defense too stronk.

TL;DR: Chel super is ass, and that's the only flaw of the character lol
 
I think Crow is ass... at least the way I'm playing him. He has no really amazing anti-air, and if you pick burst over advance you now have no real combos. His strength is that he can be difficult to hit because his projectile remains active, and he's got an Ibuki style vortex that can be really difficult to deal with. I'm going to give him more time, but I'm kind of unimpressed with him.

I do need to put more time in though.
 
By "No amazing anti-air" you surely mean "He has no invincible DP". His projectile is a fantastic anti-air. So is diagonal j.M.

I rate crow in top 2 at least out of this current cast.
 
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Is there anything special I have to do to get an access code? Already verified my e-mail and have been waiting for days.
 
Played a bunch more today.

If it was just about the poorly executed Kinetic Meter mechanics, nonsensically hiding information from the player and being too much like SF4 I could see myself getting some enjoyment out of it despite its faults.

But the weak grounded normals, slow movement and giant crossup hitboxes just makes it extremely frustrating to play.
 
By "No amazing anti-air" you surely mean "He has no invincible DP". His projectile is a fantastic anti-air. So is diagonal j.M.

I rate crow in top 2 at least out of this current cast.

I've found that his projectile works, but it is too slow to often do on a read. You can also get some mileage out of 5M (I think)... but I still think he's prone to being jumped around.

And no, I don't mean 'no invincible DP'. My favorite anti-air in the game is Dauntless's 2H. On that note, I'm guessing Dauntless ends up pretty high. She feels strong as hell.

Edited to add:
Also, if burst is as strong as MikeZ believes it to be, how strong can Crow possibly be in the long term since he has to give up burst for virtually any meaningful combo?
 
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The burst meter only builds when you take damage. You actually build Kinetic Meter way faster with the other one selected.
 
I think it is like this:
You build one burst every 50% you start next round with up to 50% meter.
 
I can't figure out how it works exactly, because I have ended rounds with varying amounts of meter using Deflect. You always go back to 50% if over it after a round though it seems, so you should mostly always use a burst per round at least.
 
I like the game but one of my biggest problems with it is how weak the normals are when it comes to footsies, they need more range. Also maybe it's just me but my anti air normals like to trade far more than I'm used to compared to other games.

Jumping is very powerful in this game which doesn't seem right for the type of game it is. Sometimes I just can't scare the opponent enough to keep them on the ground like I can in SF.

I also don't like the fact that my opponents meter is hidden from me. I don't know who thought that was a good idea.

I probably just need more practice.
 
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Normals don't need more range, walk speed should be higher.

If you gave things like Crow 5H or Chel 2H more range, the characters would be ridiculous.
 
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I think the "weak normals" depends on the character. Talos has a dope armored kick. Dauntless is nothing but awesome normals. Crow has solid mediums, and huge (though slow) heavies. I won't speak to the other three as I haven't played them much.

I also think jumping is less powerful than most other fighters. Seriously, vs most characters, jumping is free damage for your opponent.
 
@Grangach 2~4 pages ago a lot of people were talking about the presence of tight links. '-'

And my opinion is about what the game is trying to be in the "competitive scene", and not what the game is gameplay-wise, i don't need to play the game to see what they are trying in this aspect, and i was just showing how this was related to some gameplay aspects that a lot of people talked were present.

Okay but you're claiming things like there's tight links when there are none, anyone that claims otherwise is very wrong. What the game is trying to be is intertwined with what it is, I don't know why you would form an opinion without trying it yourself.

I think the "weak normals" depends on the character. Talos has a dope armored kick. Dauntless is nothing but awesome normals. Crow has solid mediums, and huge (though slow) heavies. I won't speak to the other three as I haven't played them much.

I also think jumping is less powerful than most other fighters. Seriously, vs most characters, jumping is free damage for your opponent.

Talos has a highly punishable armored kick which is his only starter in the neutral and requires the player to gamble on whether the opponent will press a button. His other normals are terrible.



Oh has anyone noticed that trades don't show you what normals people used? I think it's a problem mike went over in his panel.
 
Maybe I just need an Elena like character in the game then. I find my ground normals to be lacking poke wise (but maybe it is based on movement speed like you said) and my anti airs trade a lot which usually just makes the opponent want to jump around like wild. Doesn't feel as ground based as street fighter but maybe that's what they were going for. It is a different game and I can't expect things to be the same, I just need far more practice or maybe I should jump on the Chel bandwagon.
 
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Cooldown on specials is very interesting. I haven't played the game, but that alone seems very interesting and dynamic. I like that. Everything else though from everyone makes me not want to even try the game:

Limited walk speed is fail. SG has this to and I still think it's fail there as well (and every other game where walk speed is slow and you are forced to resort to dashing or uber defensive turtling)
Limited range on normals/super stubby normals is also fail in my mind. Much like slow walkspeed.
Burst is fail. I hate burst mechanics personally.. Except for SG burst mechanics. Though even SG burst mechanics don't completely agree with my point of view.

One button reversals could be good if designed well imho. Unfortunately it seems that they aren't designed well in this game.

But tbqh, the biggest problem on paper for me in this game is the stubby normals that people are talking about. Unfortunately it seems that fighting game designers think that stubby normals promote infighting (which they do to a certain extent) but stubby normals also promote a bunch of running and doing nothing but running and jockeying for position... Which can become super boring. Luckily SG with its stubby normals had the wisdom to make those normals cancelable on wiff. Which makes SG a much more active game than if that weren't possible. But still, fighting games generally have a golden ratio as far as length of moves to length of screen to overall time of move to movement speed in said game. Few games really find the golden ratio. I feel like SG has it... Where air normals are concerned. It seems like this rising thunder game needs to find its golden ratio. Having both slow mobility and stubby normals doesn't seem to make a game good, on paper at least.
 
Okay but you're claiming things like there's tight links when there are none, anyone that claims otherwise is very wrong. What the game is trying to be is intertwined with what it is, I don't know why you would form an opinion without trying it yourself.

If you could tell me how to do (optional jumpin) 5H xx 8 > j.H > 5H xx A > C consistently with Vlad, I might play Vlad. Might. EDIT 2: Even though it does less damage than omitting the rocket haha. Still an important link for non jetpack combos.

EDIT: I actually like the specials much more than I thought I would. I wish DPs had more cooldown though and I wish DPs were not Kinetic Advanceable.

@Dime_x The normals aren't stubby, in fact there are some incredibly big normals, it is just that the walking speed and discrepancies between characters makes footsies a bit of a non thing it seems.

Most footsie buttons seem to be heavies and they seem to be really slow.
 
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Also, if burst is as strong as MikeZ believes it to be, how strong can Crow possibly be in the long term since he has to give up burst for virtually any meaningful combo?

Play better neutral. Because he can zone well with the projectile and turn that zoning into air reset->mixup or more charged projecitle zoning, or get a knockdown then do charged projectile pressure/mixups, burst gives him additional chances to return to neutral that is stacked in his favour. Edit: Also burst knocks them away fullscreen letting you do charged projectile neutral mixup of some kind. I mean come on that's pretty funny

Also, burst lets you not die if you get opened up (which more likely with him because of his lack of DP). Also, consider that if you have kinetic, and you use it in your combo. Your opponent bursts. You have used the resource, they have used their resource, and they take less damage. Using kinetic is depressing against someone who picks good spots to burst and avoids getting clean hit on the ground.
 
The game barely has footsies. I've been playing a lot of it over the last few days and the footsies are just terrible because the walk speed is so slow. There are so many useless normals.

So much this. And the end result: everyone jumps. Nonstop. Because crossup into combo is where the party's at. And the game encourages that behavior... while discouraging it with DPs to end all DPs? Because reasons.
---

Cooldown on specials is very interesting. I haven't played the game, but that alone seems very interesting and dynamic...

Limited walk speed is fail. SG has this to and I still think it's fail there as well

-The thing about the cooldown in this game is that with some characters, the cooldown is such that there may as well not be a cooldown, making it pointless- That, and characters recover to neutral WAY fast, further making a cooldown not that much of a problem. People pick on Chel, but she's a great example for this. Her fireballs go way fast, but she can fire another one just about before the previous one is off the screen (roughly). But then she recovers to neutral AND has the King of DPs on deck if you're trying to jump her fireballs.

-Then the dashing, while you may feel differently, the thing that makes the walkspeed/dashing thing work in SG is that you can cancel your dash into block/attack/jump/crouch-attack, etc.

In Rising Thunder, you have to wait for your dash/run to end for stuff to come out (if there are exceptions, I didn't notice. I also didn't try cancelling dash into specials/supers). So you have crappy walk speed and useless dashes: best friends forever.
 
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Is there anything special I have to do to get an access code? Already verified my e-mail and have been waiting for days.
They keep sending me codes I don't want, I'll PM you one.

-Then the dashing, while you may feel differently, the thing that makes the walkspeed/dashing thing work in SG is that you can cancel your dash into block/attack/jump/crouch-attack, etc.
I was gonna say this too. @Dime_x in SG/MvC2/GG/what-have-you-that-isn't-SF, dash is your walk, for lack of a better way to put that, because dashing doesn't restrict your actions.
 
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Everyone jumps

And what sucks is not only does it work a lot of the time, but it's also the only way to get any real damage.
 
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List of Dumb Things

  • KA reduce cooldowns. This means if you block a DP KADC, and you manage to successfully win the following neutral/disadvantageous exchange, you have to deal with another DP, Super or KADC attempt.
  • Super KADC and DP KADC are completely safe on block. The size of the DPs, along with their slower startup, means it's very hard to bait them out without completely giving up pressure on your opponent. This means the game focuses less on blocking and more on whether or not your opponent will DP or not.
  • Risk vs. Reward highly favours runaway. Due to how cooldowns function, how KA functions, and how good DPs are, there's very little incentive to play rushdown in this game. The lack of functional anti-airs means keeping someone in place in very difficult, and it all revolves back to baiting DPs vs. Not baiting DPs.
  • Chel's Fireball
  • Edge's frame data
  • Edge's frame data + GGPO rollback

List of Things I Learned

  • Game's still in alpha.

I hope they really change the risk vs. reward on DPs. It's pretty dumb as it is, and it's getting a bit hard to take the game seriously, and I normally give every game a fair shake. When blocking a DP is bad, I think it detracts too much from the game.
 
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Play better neutral. Because he can zone well with the projectile and turn that zoning into air reset->mixup or more charged projecitle zoning, or get a knockdown then do charged projectile pressure/mixups, burst gives him additional chances to return to neutral that is stacked in his favour. Edit: Also burst knocks them away fullscreen letting you do charged projectile neutral mixup of some kind. I mean come on that's pretty funny

Also, burst lets you not die if you get opened up (which more likely with him because of his lack of DP). Also, consider that if you have kinetic, and you use it in your combo. Your opponent bursts. You have used the resource, they have used their resource, and they take less damage. Using kinetic is depressing against someone who picks good spots to burst and avoids getting clean hit on the ground.

He can zone alright for sure, and I'm finding a few interesting things with him. S3 seems to allow you to pass through projectiles when properly timed (more testing required). 5h of course eats projectiles (though its use is limited). That said, I think his neutral starts a bit rough and has to shift into his favor. Edge can slide past your zoning. Dauntless can rush past it. Chel simply outzones you. I think Talos is in Crow's favor (but as with all grapplers, can spiral out of control if you fuck up). I won't speak for the Vlad MU because frankly, I've not played a good one.

He's an almost pure vortex character in the sense that once he gets a knockdown, he is terrifying... but he just doesn't have the tools to make him a consistent character. He's definitely better than I initially thought, and vs people with a competent neutral, he can be rough. The difference going to Crow from Dauntless is illuminating.

More on topic though, I'm still very, very torn on burst vs advance. Burst is undeniably strong. But advance fills fast and is more versatile. While it won't save you once you get hit, it allows you to take bigger risks, continue pressure, make shit safe, and so on. So given that you get advance back faster (a lot faster) than burst, there are legitimately times that having taken advance would have saved you over taking burst which is generally only going to save you once per round (possibly twice if you have half a bar at the end of the first round). I just think it is a lot less cut and dried than it is being made out to be, and I say that as a person that exclusively plays with burst.

This means the game focuses less on blocking and more on whether or not your opponent will DP or not.

First, I agree with you on Edge. I'm filing it under "git gud" for now, but jesus is everything that character does safe?

Anyway, to the quoted part, this is the single biggest flaw of the game. I really hope DPs take a small nerf because it's simply unfun. The amount of mileage you can get out of not blocking in this game is obscene.
 
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His 3rd special, (I prefer the LMH ABC notation for simplicity) actually has some invincibility. You can see this becuase he flashes gold briefly. It is a terrible reversal though, mostly only useful against grabs, anything with any active frames will catch you.

2H eats fireballs too and is a way better tool for it than 5H, it has a lot of active frames and is special cancelable when you absorb a fireball with it. It makes the Chel matchup a lot better than it otherwise could be.

The only matchups that I think are anything like bad for Crow are Edge and maybe perhaps Vlad.
 
His 3rd special, (I prefer the LMH ABC notation for simplicity) actually has some invincibility. You can see this becuase he flashes gold briefly. It is a terrible reversal though, mostly only useful against grabs, anything with any active frames will catch you.

2H eats fireballs too and is a way better tool for it than 5H, it has a lot of active frames and is special cancelable when you absorb a fireball with it. It makes the Chel matchup a lot better than it otherwise could be.

The only matchups that I think are anything like bad for Crow are Edge and maybe perhaps Vlad.

I'm not sure at all on Vlad tbh. Like I said, I've not fought a good one. I think Chel is a bad MU, but I'm still learning it and I haven't played many decent ones. Her step kick is hard as balls to counter. She out jabs us. Her reversal is scary as balls. Her damage is lovely, and her zoning is the best in the game. I think we beat Talos. I think it is even with Dauntless (our neutral is noticeably worse, but her tier B reversal lets our vortex do work). Like I said, I'm waiting to see how Edge plays out. I'm not really sure what can be punished just yet.
 
I don't think Crow's neutral is worse than Dauntless' at all. This matchup feels Crow favoured to me, just can't jump all day for free.Dauntless' reversals are pretty easy to account for during mixups/pressure as you said.

Chell feels fairly even, at long range 2H xx [A] ]6/5A[ is incredible, it goes through 2 fireballs and keeps going. The real problem in the matchup is her DP and her pressure which is quite good, yes, but she doesn't have much in the way of mixup other than throws during her pressure strings. I find C to be pretty useful in this matchup as well, Chell can't DP what Chell can't see. 5C is good around its max range here as well. One of the most nuanced matchups I've played so far.

Edge's A eats fireballs, is neutral(ish?) on block and builds charges to make his DP scary. His pokes are actually not great so you want to play the midrange game against him, I mostly have success with landing sweeps at neutral against him or baiting DP then going crossup happy. Matchup is pretty basic once you stop trying to force out halos as they are easily beaten on reaction in most situations.

That's how I'm feeling on those matchups anyway.

Mostly seems to about bait out the DP then leap frog all over the place. Hope they take some of the feedback in regards to the kinetic system and how DPs function in the system right now.
 
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"but she can fire another one just about before the previous one is off the screen (roughly). But then she recovers to neutral AND has the King of DPs on deck if you're trying to jump her fireballs."

Lel, it takes about 20 frames after the fireball to go offscreen for it to be able to throw it again. The thing about is that, like every other shoto ever, you can throw another one as soon as it dissipates.

I actually find her fireball way worse than, say, Ryu's, because it's not a true blockstring from her 2M and it may not even combo from it depending on the range.