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SG Game Design Discussion

RemiKz said:
LP bang is only throw invincible, MP bang is only hit invincible.

So, no reason to ever use LP Bang besides combos? It's the new MP Bang, how nice....
 
destruction_adv said:
I thought it was the other way around

It was changed in Squigly update.

The stagger on LP Bang isn't very helpful either since the opponent can shake out of it before peacock can even follow up on it due to the long recovery time, not to mention the opponent can still tech throws while staggered so you can't even do LP Bang > Grab > Lvl 3
 
RemiKz said:
It was changed in Squigly update.

The stagger on LP Bang isn't very helpful either since the opponent can shake out of it before peacock can even follow up on it due to the long recovery time

That's just flat out wrong. Even with maximum waggling to reduce stagger, stagger is still 65 frames long. (Unmashed stagger is 80 frames long)

The recovery on LP bang went up, but it didn't go up THAT much.

Go ahead and record the training dummy doing LP Bang linked into any light or medium normal. I'm betting you won't be able to mash out.
 
Oh yeah sure that'll work if you are like, right up against the other player. In that case, you might as well do something else.

EDIT: I'm speaking in terms of combos outside of LP Bang starter.
 
'Can't follow up' and 'doesn't get much damage from it when you hit it at tip range during a combo' are two pretty different things.
 
If you chain into with LP, MP, HP, LP Bang, you will most likely push the opponent for enough away to not be able to follow up on it is what I'm saying, partially due to the slow startup of her dash. The only times you are realistically going to combo off of it is at point blank range or if the opponent doesn't shake out of stagger.
 
(Off-Topic)
So, LP Bang into Lenny doesn't reduce recovery long enough to allow Peacock to combo without issue? Also, if LP Bang is really just throw invincible now, it is useless when defending; IAD as a guess vs throws will always be Peacock's best option as a throw reversal.
 
Keep in mind that in SDE, neither bang had invincibility that covered its first few startup frames, so they were worthless as reversals.

MP Bang is really useful now. LP Bang not so much but you can still combo after it in some situations.
 
Jason said:
Keep in mind that in SDE, neither bang had invincibility that covered its first few startup frames, so they were worthless as reversals.

MP Bang is really useful now. LP Bang not so much but you can still combo after it in some situations.

In SDE, LP/MP Bang have invincibility into the first active frame, iirc. It's Vanilla that you're thinking about. LP Bang is a decent reversal/AA in SDE.

At the very least, I guess LP Bang xx Lenny ender allows Peacock to DHC mid-screen into moves she normally wouldn't be able to, or go for a reset with Lenny sitting on top of the opponent. As a throw invincible only reversal for a character that can attack out of IAD and land a jump-in vs throws if she guesses correctly, it's useless.
 
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Iirc you can link s.MP after L.Bang even against best shake, which makes the range issue a non-issue, really.
xx Lenny actually reduces recovery thanks to hitstop .. I think .. but it's probably not going to change much.

And yeah it's not any useful as a reversal. You can use it as a decentish frametrap that beats tech attempts, though (s.LP (delay) xx L.Bang)
 
IsaVulpes said:
Iirc you can link s.MP after L.Bang even against best shake, which makes the range issue a non-issue, really.
xx Lenny actually reduces recovery thanks to hitstop .. I think .. but it's probably not going to change much.

And yeah it's not any useful as a reversal. You can use it as a decentish frametrap that beats tech attempts, though (s.LP (delay) xx L.Bang)

Eh, IAD j.lk still seems like a better option for the tech punish imo (also, not as risky if the bait fails). I can understand why you would change its invincibility from hit to throw (design choice) based on the stagger-on-hit buff, but in L Bang's case the hit box is so bad already that it didn't really seem necessary. Can somebody try mid-screen LP Bang xx Lenny DHC into Diamond Dynamo or something and see if it works, at least?
 
LP Bang xx Lenny DHC into Diamond Dynamo causes the bomb to go off on Cerebella at the very end. You can, however, do LP Bang xx Lenny DHC into Showstopper and have the bomb go off on the opponent while avoiding Cerebella.
 
I'm loving the pace of experimentation that is happening right now, so I thought I'd add my thoughts to the mix.

I would like to see more experiments that influence the game happening around combos, rather than tweak the length and composition of optimized damage combos. Undizzy shortened the length of optimized combos, but undizzy decay prevented long combo -> reset -> long combo, encouraging shorter combos without affecting the feasibility or damage output of long combos.

I think the game could offer players options to express how much they value meter. Currently, meter scaling in combos is the same as damage scaling, so players cannot prioritize one over the other. And the way to minimize your opponent's meter gain from your combos is to reset often, which also gets you lots of damage and meter. Unless you throw them, in which case you get less damage and meter relative to the meter you give your opponent, so yeah.

I propose an experiment to further encourage shorter combos with meter incentives. Add a meter gain multiplier, similar to tension pulse in Guilty Gear, but with a specific set of design goals:
- players can influence both their own meter gain and their opponent's
- actions have qualitatively different benefits
- the player can reason about the system from a description of the rules(like the IPS)
- longer/more repetitive combos yield diminishing returns or penalties
- meter management adds strategic depth, not just incidental complexity

Here's a rough idea of a system I would like to see tried. Of course, numbers are NOT TESTED and would need tweaking.

Players have a Dramatic Acclaim stat along with Dramatic Tension. It adds a multiplier to all the meter they gain from their own offensive actions. At 0 acclaim, players gain 1x normal meter, and at 100 acclaim, they gain 2.5x or 3x the normal amount of meter. When a player starts a combo, they gain 5 to 10 points of potential acclaim for each unique finisher. When they end their combo, their potential acclaim gets added to their actual acclaim. However, repeating a tracked moves hinders acclaim gain. After the first repeat, the player no longer gains potential acclaim, after the second, they lose their potential acclaim for that combo, and for each subsequent repeat they lose 5 to 10 points of their current acclaim.

Throws, which already scale combos to 50%, thus yielding less damage and less meter, would be used to deny your opponent meter. Players who get thrown do not gain meter from the follow-up combo (until some repetition occurs), and they lose a portion of their acclaim, 10 points minimum plus one third/one half the difference in acclaim between defender and aggressor, so that large disparities in acclaim can be reversed.

Ending a combo with a knockdown would put the defender in a temporary state of meter cooldown, during which meter gain is cut accross the board by 50 to 100%, depending on the type of knockdown used, for somewhere between 3 and 6 seconds, depending on the direction of their ground tech. Of course, this benefit will also be reduced by long combos, possibly tied to the amount of stun cleared by a tech roll. Being in hitstun or blockstun makes the cooldown timer slow down by a factor of 3 or 5, so the aggressor gets an appreciable bonus for good okizeme, but the defender can get out of cooldown reasonably quickly by regaining the initiative.

Finally, correctly blocking a high or low gives the defender 2 points of acclaim. Not enough to shift the focus away from offense, but a little reward for good defense. This would also make the cycle of deal damage -> gain meter -> deny meter match up with the cycle of attack -> block -> throw.

Of course, all aspects of this system are open to change and in need of testing. But flexibility is one of the system's best merits compared to combo limiting systems. For example, it would make no sense to punish long combos by giving the opponent life back, or by reducing combo damage to 0. But you can stop meter gain entirely, take away acclaim, and even put the aggressor into meter cooldown in exchange for an extra 2k damage. Is that worth it? If it wins the round, of course! If it kills one character, maybe. How much do you need the meter?

If properly tuned (which again, these numbers are not), it could add a lot to the game.
- Players can express how important meter is for their game plan
- Shorter combos have a tangible reward.
- Mixups and resets have a stronger valuation component, making reads more meaningful.
- Combos can still be creative, but with strings attached.
- You can add special incentives for cool, underused stuff, like instant max acclaim for using a Level 5.

Does that sounds interesting?
 
It does sound interesting, but I really don't think SG needs additional mechanics like that.
Would be really weird to balance for the characters, take a lot of work to implement in the first place, and imo there are simpler solutions to the 'problem'.

If I saw metergain (or the lack of "metergain-paths") as an issue, I'd just increase the meter on some normals you generally don't want to use in combos (eg Parasoul s.HK, Bella s.HP),
Which would give the offender the choice of going for Damage with a classic ender, keeping on pressure with resets, or going for meter via a fullscreen-push normal.
 
Hell, a lot of the crap in SG could be handled if Mike babu stopped being stubborn and just gave guts and different hp to characters.

I don't think people would be half as mad with Val/Invincible assists if they both got bopped because they have low life and shit guts (especially assists) and certain chars hurt "real good-like" and etc.
 
IsaVulpes said:
Fuck you with a rake, Austin. Guts makes no sense and balancing via health is horrible (/cough cough/ you see how well that works with Solos /cough cough/).
Don't even dare suggest this x[ A better solution to balance problems (not that I think there are (m)any, honestly) would be to just delete 8 characters :\
Guts is fine and balancing with health is the same as balancing with other resources.

No one does the same damage, no one has the same mobility, everyone doesn't build the same meter per combo, not every person on the cast have a dp, no one weighs the same, everyone is a different height, so why does everyone share the same health?

EDIT:Hell, I'd even give you that guts is a little wonky, but so is IPS nowadays.
 
Balancing with hp I think should only be the case for certain circumstances. For example, if a character by the very nature of their move set is more "high risk high reward" than balancing with damage is ok I guess. For example if X character is going to spend the whole match trying to figure out how to get in on Y character, than yeah a hit should do a lot of damage.

Still though, it shouldn't be really game breaking damage because than I think it makes things feel a bit too lucky, gambling everything on one moment. I also think that you can also kinda sorta get the same thing by giving X character reset or okizeme options for additional pressure once they get into a good spot.

Guts is just awful, "unclear design" and has no justification IMO.
 
Squire Grooktook said:
Balancing with hp I think should only be the case for certain circumstances. For example, if a character by the very nature of their move set is more "high risk high reward" than balancing with damage is ok I guess. For example if X character is going to spend the whole match trying to figure out how to get in on Y character, than yeah a hit should do a lot of damage.

Still though, it shouldn't be really game breaking damage because than I think it makes things feel a bit too lucky, gambling everything on one moment. I also think that you can also kinda sorta get the same thing by giving X character reset or okizeme options for additional pressure once they get into a good spot.

Guts is just awful, "unclear design" and has no justification IMO.
I never said the damage should be near game breaking, nor am I saying you said I did.

What I am saying is "man if Filia and Cerebella are going to do the same damage shouldn't Cerebella have a few tools?"

And I am agreed with on that point, the problem is that some people don't think that hp balancing is one of those tools, and some do.

I mean, like I said earlier, if we're gonna balance by meter gain per combo, the strength of a certain stray hit, and even going so far as arbitrarily allowing one of a special per combo (air hairball), why is hp such a taboo.

I mean, isn't Cerebella v alot of matchups already that type?

How is she going to get in relatively safely? (enough that messing up one mixup won't get her killed in response)

Armor is already a risk reward system.
 
iLoli said:
And I am agreed with on that point, the problem is that some people don't think that hp balancing is one of those tools, and some do.

My thinking is that health does not constitute a tool because it isn't something used proactively. Your health is a hurdle for your opponent to clear.

If we say that Filia vs Parasoul is a 5-5 matchup and that both characters have the same health, to me it means that both characters have proactive tools (attack and movement options) that are equal in strength, and on average they do the same amount of damage as one another, loosely speaking.

If we say that Filia vs Cerebella is a 5-5 matchup, but Bella had more health than Filia, then it means that Filia is clearing higher hurdles than Bella. My expectations are calibrated from Filia vs Parasoul, so seeing Filia dish out more damage feels like she's just being more effective and Bella isn't dealing with her.

So giving a character more life doesn't stand out in my mind as giving her a tool.
 
Swap said:
My thinking is that health does not constitute a tool because it isn't something used proactively. Your health is a hurdle for your opponent to clear.

If we say that Filia vs Parasoul is a 5-5 matchup and that both characters have the same health, to me it means that both characters have proactive tools (attack and movement options) that are equal in strength, and on average they do the same amount of damage as one another, loosely speaking.

If we say that Filia vs Cerebella is a 5-5 matchup, but Bella had more health than Filia, then it means that Filia is clearing higher hurdles than Bella. My expectations are calibrated from Filia vs Parasoul, so seeing Filia dish out more damage feels like she's just being more effective and Bella isn't dealing with her.

So giving a character more life doesn't stand out in my mind as giving her a tool.
Damage values are added into a matchup chart.

Let's say that Zangief had the same health as....................Nah.

Let's say that everyone had the same health and stun in SF4.

How much harder would it be playing Zangief, how much easier would it be playing seth or Makoto?

I mean, Cerebella already uses her life as a tool with armor, she would just have more of it, along with Pw.
 
The reason why hp balancing sucks is that it as a tool for balancing, assumes that certain characters are better than others... Or have better tools... Which in itself infers bad balancing to begin with.

Which i generally agree with.


But that doesnt necessarily mean that i dont see the positives that hp balancing can give after the fact... In some cases. But do i really want a 1000 hp painwhee (cause shes a "fast" pixie) going up against a 1200 hp bella (cause shes a slow grappler?)

Not really.
 
Dime_x said:
Te reason why hp balancing sucks is that it as atol for balancing assumes that certain characters are better than others... Or have better tools... Which in itself infers bad balancing to begin with.
But health IS a tool.

I never understood why people don't think it is.

Meter is a tool, time is a tool, but health isn't?
 
iLoli said:
Meter is a tool, time is a tool, but health isn't?
Not for balancing, no it shouldnt be.

Meter as a balancing agent has static considerations. How much meter should any character get for an optimized combo? They should all get about the same. So what do we have to do to make it so that every character makes about the same meter...

Right now i dont like meter gain in sg and think that it is very flawed.

But i dont believe that to be a compelling reason to throw another flawed mechanic in on top of it further convoluting things.
 
Dime_x said:
Not for balancing, no it shouldnt be.

Meter as a balancing agent has static considerations. How much meter should any character get for an optimized combo? They should all get about the same. So what do we have to do to make it so that every character makes about the same meter...

Right now i dont like meter gain in sg and think that it is very flawed.

But i dont believe that to be a compelling reason to throw another flawed mechanic in on top of it further convoluting things.
Wut, why should all characters gain the same amount of meter for an optimized combo?

What if guile built the same meter as he used to, what if everyone built the same meter?

Some moves and supers are just better than others, you can't really fight that.
 
Health as a balancing tool is stupid because the theory behind it is "Oh, this character doesn't have as good options especially in the neutral game, I know, I'll just increase their health so that they can afford to make more bad guesses than other characters", when in reality what happens is that you have a character that is still SIGNIFICANTLY outclassed by other characters but just takes slightly longer to die, because the other characters have better neutral game can just keep it in the neutral to shit on the higher-health characters.

The best way I've seen this sort of "Character doesn't have too many options, compensate somewhere else" balancing work, is Takuma in KoF13. It's not that he has more health, but his combos are at least twice as efficient as other characters, doing at least 50% for one meter spent. That way, getting in is actually rewarded. Pro-active tools.
 
So.....Killing easier is a tool, but being harder to kill isn't.

This is getting silly.

So the ability to CAUSE damage is a good tool, but the ability to TAKE lots of it is terrible?

What is this shit?
 
iLoli said:
So.....Killing easier is a tool, but being harder to kill isn't.

Yes. Because x character can do this much damage from
These combo startersis quantifiable.

Whereas


This character will take this much damage trying to set themselves up


Is not.
 
Dime_x said:
Yes. Because x character can do this much damage from
These combo startersis quantifiable.

Whereas


This character will take this much damage trying to set themselves up


Is not.
wut.

You can't just say "the sky is blue, and so is the ground".

Give me an actual reason.

If a character has a shit neutral game but big damage, what is the difference between having a shit neutral game and being able to take more damage?
 
ClarenceMage said:
If a character has a shit neutral game but big damage, what is the difference between having a shit neutral game and being able to take more damage?

If a character has shit neutral but big damage, then if they win neutral they get huge reward.

If a character has shit neutral but average damage but more health, then their rewards are lower, giving the opponent more opportunities to send them back to neutral which is where the character sucks in the first place.
 
iLoli said:
No one does the same damage, no one has the same mobility, everyone doesn't build the same meter per combo, not every person on the cast have a dp, no one weighs the same, everyone is a different height, so why does everyone share the same health?
Okay, I'll list stuff that makes me not like health as a balance mechanic:

#1: It completely deletes 'universality'.
There are always char specific combos yes, but you can still choose universal combo paths that will do the same thing to every character.
With different healthbars, the very same combo may work on every character, but you still sometimes need 2, sometimes 3, sometimes 4 touches - depending on who you do it on. This is obscenely confusing in about all aspects ("This combo deals 33% life, except against Chars B and C where it does 44%") - you're used to it due to FG experience etc, but believe me, it *is* confusing.
To put it into a perspective you're not so used to looking at: Imagine every character had an invisible Mana Modifier which determined how much meter the opponent actually builds. So eg Modifier .9 means that a move which would usually build 100 Meter only builds 90. Now your very same combo which works the very same on differing characters sometimes builds 0.5, sometimes 0.8, and sometimes 2 bars - depending on who you do it on. This sounds pretty fucking confusing to me.

#2: HEALTH IS NOT A TOOL.
You can't use Health in the neutral for anything other than "I'll be allowed to do more stupid stuff". Mobility is a tool that you use. Metergain is not directly a tool, but gives you earlier access to Supers/DHCs/makes you a better Battery/etc = Tool. A DP is a Tool. You can't use health.
Character height and weight are stupid and I hate them to hell and back, that doesn't make Health better :^) At the very least, Height and Weight add something to the game in terms of versatility - differing combo paths open up, mixups change, approach angles need to be adjusted, etc. Health doesn't add anything for anyone.

#3: Extension to #2: Since it's not a tool, it doesn't actually solve any problems.
If you have a shitty Grappler and increase its health by 500%, it will still be a shitty Grappler. It will be S-Tier now, but it won't be fun to play either way - it hasn't gained anything other than switching risk/reward in your favour so you're allowed to run more bad guesses. The only way for health balancing to actually make a character feel good is if it had all the necessary tools to compete to begin with, but shitty risk/reward on them due to dying too fast. Which implies that they had too low life to begin with (= Were not a standard 1000 Health character, but a 850 HP one).
IF you really think that the tools of your character are sufficient and the risk/reward is just not good enough, increasing Damage Numbers work the exact same as increasing Health, except it doesn't run into the Issue #1 and still requires you to land a hit to get a benefit, rather than allowing you to get hit more often (= Plain better)

#4: It will affect all matchups (almost) equally.
This is not a problem for designing your game from the get-go with differing healthbars in mind, but one HECK of a problem for ever changing life.
Normal balance looks like this: Parasoul has a problem with Peacock? Buff Bike, which is one of her main Anti-Peacock tools that's not used much elseways. Peacock has a problem handling fast rushdown characters? Improve c.LK's hitbox, which won't really come into play in the v.Painwheel matchup, but shuts down IAD approaches. Cerebella has a problem with projectiles? Improve Reflect, so.. etc
Health balance looks like this: Cerebella has a 3-7 matchup against Peacock and a 5-5 matchup against Painwheel? Buff her health by 15% to make the Peacock matchup about even! Oh shit, the Painwheel matchup is 8-2 now. Uuuh.. improve Painwheel's life too, I guess?

#5: It is fucking easy to keep the same.
Ideally, every character would have the same overall mobility, the same tools against everything, the same health, the same damage. Now, that'll happen if you have a roster of one character. As soon as you add characters, and try to add versatility, you have to go down the "Give him more of this, take some of that" path. One char will lose a bit of mobility and gain a projectile to fight at long range. Another character will lose the DP special move and gain better hitboxes on its normals to keep the opponent away.
How do you keep damage the same when people have varying tools which they hit with at differing times? Even if you kept all frame data and damage on all normals universal, one guy would deal more damage due to hitting for 1000 damage in Fireballs at a range where the opponent can't do anything, and another will get bonus damage from being able to combo out of his unique special move, and whatnot. Damage will always fluctuate, there's no way around it. Health.. doesn't. So why force it to?
Changing Tools adds Versatility. Changing Tools has the 'issue' of also changing Damage between characters, which you try to balance out. The only thing that doesn't fluctuate at all and is in perfect balance at no cost of versatility is Health; why the crap would you want to rip that apart?

And then there's the visual aspect of two same looking healthbars (eg both exactly at 50%) actually representing different numbers, the everlasting problem on whether you should go by %age or net health to determine which character is in the lead (Eg Char A has 1000HP total and is at 50% - 500; CharB has 2000HP total and is at 40% - 800, which char is in the lifelead?), the aspect of player feelings on the damage vs health debate (Fighting a high damage character = Being on edge, scared as fuck of getting hit ;; Fighting a high life character = Being bored to death, getting frustrated that nothing moves the life bar), and probably more I'm forgetting.

E: I'll not talk about Guts because that's a completely busted mechanic only there to add 'hype'. What a fucking shit.
 
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To add to the previous points, most of which I agree with...

- In a game where pokes don't do much damage, extra health is often irrelevant - For example, in MDE an 'average' combo is about 60-80% of your opponent's health. If Bella was suddenly given 10% or 20% more health, she'd still die in two touches in an equal ratio match. She'd be able to tank more stray hits during neutral but most games of SG are not decided by stray pokes during neutral unless your name is Peacock, they're decided by hit-confirms. For a non-SG example, the difference in health between Zero and Spencer in MvC3 is usually irrelevant because either character can kill the other one in one touch for one meter (Zero maybe needs to use two).

- Extra health is BORING. You add nothing interesting to a character by giving them a chunk of extra health, you just make up for the fact that their tools suck by giving them more chances to use their shitty tools, which ultimately results in an unsatisfying character.
 
Health is an abhorrent balancing tool that should never be used. It almost never works anyways cause the low stamina characters with superior options ends up the better character anyway. Moreover it is a lazy way to balance.
 
I'll put it in two ways.

Way 1:
If health totals had any say in how good or bad a character is, Thor and Phoenix would be balanced.

Way 2:
How much health would it take to make Thor as good as Phoenix (who dies in 1 magic series from any character off any starter)?
 
I would like to take this opportunity to state that:
1. I like that everyone has the same health
2. I dislike that everyone has vastly different weights

Also, since this is the "game design discussion" thread, what are your thoughts on mashing for damage? Mashing to get out of stagger? Personally I hate any and all mashing mechanics with a vengeance.
 
I hate mashing mechanics and i seriously hate different weight classes... Especially when we know that objects fall at the same rate given the same aerodynamics... Which in this case is no aerodynamics.
 
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