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Personal Analysis of Solo, Duo and Trio

WaterMystic277

WaterMystic277

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Squigly Cerebella
One of Skullgirls' unique features is in it's team and ratio system, allowing full freedom to a player's experience to either micromanage a team or stick with a single character.
I've just thought about this since I was watching EVO videos because why not? And obviously, I noticed duos and trios being used far more, if not exclusively.
So here's some drabble about that.


It's so secret that duos and trios are much preferred over solo characters, being that they can cover each other's weakness in honestly, a very minor penalty on health and damage, which may ultimately not matter if you can manage your health well and know combos.
Even as a solo player myself, I can see the appeal and it seems the solo is just here to have a learning curve to team management, just allowing you to learn one at a time.

Even more so, duos are valued over trios, because of much more health damage and is generally reserved for higher-level players that can afford it. I've rarely seen my friends take on trios unless they were either high level players, preferred trios or we were just doing random trios for shits and giggles.

Duos seem to be that perfect match of assists (if the right combination.) and health/damage distribution and are much less of a hassle to manage then a trio. I'm honestly a little disappointed since this kind of defeats the purpose of the system int he first place, being duos are the much more effective setup to deal with other players, however this complaining is probably because I'm a solo player and haven't bothered to really learn another character in conjunction with my main. Personally, it sometimes feels that a solo isn't a viable option what so ever and it also feels like solo players are excluded unless they specifically pick up a character that's been proven to hold their own in solo, such as Fortune.

Ugh this turned into solo complaining, sorry.
I'll try to duo this week to see if I can put anymore thought into this, although Valentine is my short notice duo partner so we'll see how that goes.
 
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Val/Squig seems to be a common experiment for people transitioning from solo Squig. Be warned: Their synergy is piss poor, and you have to know the ins and outs of both characters if you want to reap any measure of success from them.
 
RetroStation said:
Val/Squig seems to be a common experiment for people transitioning from solo Squig. Be warned: Their synergy is piss poor, and you have to know the ins and outs of both characters if you want to reap any measure of success from them.
Yeah I figure, they don't support each other very well, I have found Big Band and Squigly to be REALLY good though.
 
BB/Squig is good.
Then again, I'm starting to think BB is gonna end up good with everyone. His synergy with Val is scary.
 
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RetroStation said:
BB/Squig is good.
Then again, I'm starting to think BB is gonna end up good with everyone. His synergy with Val is scary.
Everyone wants to get with the Big Band.
 
Duos seem to be that perfect match of assists (if the right combination.) and health/damage distribution and are much less of a hassle to manage then a trio.

Consider trios:
  • Healing is amazing; heal two characters at the same time.
  • Generally better character-to-character matchup coverage.
  • While there's two assists to choose from, the extra tools generally make your life easier, not more of a hassle.
 
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hlvn said:
Consider trios:
  • Healing is amazing; heal two characters at the same time.
  • Generally better character-to-character matchup coverage.
  • While there's two assists to choose from, the extra tools generally make your life easier, not more of a hassle.
Ah thank you.
Although the obvious cons are that they go down a lot easier but again, it's hard to take down something with two assists.
 
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Here's why I stick with Solo.

It feels like with Duos and Trios you have to be much more oppressive. If you let your opponent breath for a second as a trio, you lose a character or two. You can be slightly more lax as a duo, but you still have to be super vigilant. That's too much active work. As a solo, I have to play calm and relaxed. I'm really good at that. On offense my options are always available, and on defense it's the same. There's never a point where half of my game dies, so my mind is always in "Cerebella" mode. Under pressure, all I have to do is wait for one single moment to open up and then at least a third to a half of their game is dead. As a solo I don't have to worry about incoming mixups, and I don't have to worry about anything other than getting that one hit. If my opponent is too oppressive, there are options I can use (lvl 3, devil horns, other stuff) to scare them off. If they scared and hesitate or back off for an instant they get overwhelmed and lose the match.

I don't know about everyone else, but I really like playing solo against a team, and the difference in ways you have to play the game. I'm allowed to play the game I'm best at. I'm telling you, playing Solo Cerebella is the best I can possibly be at the game.
 
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Zidiane said:
Here's why I stick with Solo.

It feels like with Duos and Trios you have to be much more oppressive. If you let your opponent breath for a second as a trio, you lose a character or two.

Generally true, but there are some very flexible team archetypes that can adapt very well defensively and make it a nightmare to get in on them. Val/DP/X, Peacock/X/Travel, and Para/X/Travel come to mind.

I do agree for the most part though. I played solo painwheel for ages, and found that the stamina difference really does give you more opportunities to make reads. You have the luxury of taking more hits than a duo or trio, so once you've paid for some knowledge of your opponent by "spending" half a lifebar, you can turn momentum around in an extremely heavy-handed way.

I still don't think it's ideal, but it's something people really overlook in the rush to get control of offensive pacing in a match and then get happy-birthday'd by a reversal or mash.
 
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The game is still relatively young, but with regular combos being shortened in this latest iteration I think that the end-game will revolve mostly around double-snap instant kills.

With that in mind I think that in the endgame trio > solo > duo. Solos are immune to double-snaps, but they also do not benefit from the fact that assists set up double-snaps really well. Trios have some resilience because they need to be double-snapped twice before they are gimped, and they can use assists to set up double-snaps and improve their neutral. Duos have the worst of both worlds where they are vulnerable to double-snaps while at the same time being not that great at setting them up.
 
ukyo_rulz said:
The game is still relatively young, but with regular combos being shortened in this latest iteration I think that the end-game will revolve mostly around double-snap instant kills.
Double snaps aren't so common that they'd dominate the metagame. They don't happen too often, even less often so when the assist caller knows how to keep the pressure up without endangering themselves and their assist at the same time.
 
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Yeah, the thing about trios vs any other ratio is you can lose a character in literally one bad guess, which is why you never want the core of your team to be the first two characters imo. Solo is still the worst option overall imo because you have a character who has major issues in one area with no way to cover it, has no options for healing red life and no support in general.

I think that once alpha counters and pbgc baits are used more, and players learn how to abuse a characters weakest areas (always resetting Bella in the air and forcing cross-up/hit/grab mix-ups, for example, or just zoning her out in general), we'll see serious players drop solo for a duo at least.
 
Zidiane said:
Double snaps aren't so common that they'd dominate the metagame.

They weren't very common in the infancy of MVC2 either. Same for TAC infinites and other one-touch kills in UMVC3. Now it's all about the insta-kills for both those games. SG may never get to that point because the community is so small, but I believe that if it had as big a community as UMVC3 plugging away at it and advancing the tech we'd be in the era of double-snaps in about a year. Two years tops.

View619 said:
Yeah, the thing about trios vs any other ratio is you can lose a character in literally one bad guess

Also true for duos if your opponent is good at setting up double-snaps.
 
ukyo_rulz said:
Also true for duos if your opponent is good at setting up double-snaps.


Yeah, but in order to get a double-snap off, the defender has to call the assist. Trio vs solo/duo can lose the first character in either one full combo, or one combo -> reset -> short combo -> super scenario. I agree that double snaps are really important in SG, but the only influence that I think they'll have on the meta is dropping pressure in the corner to bait an assist call and try to capitalize off of that.

Remember, generally you can only land a double snap in the corner, and only if the opponent calls the assist. You can't force the call, like you can force a guess vs one reset or the damage from one combo.
 
the thing about double snaps though is that you cant really set them up. they are all about having the oppertunity in the first place (ie opp makes a bad assist call) which good players are going to give you a whole lot less since they will mostly only call assists when they can make them safe.

also i dont think ive ever seen an mvc3 match with a true double snap (snapping away the point while keeping the assist onscreen). most times you see two characters get killed its cos they either spent a shit ton of meter to do it or popped xfactor. i think in general its a lot easier to kill assists in marvel than it is in this game, partly because the damage is a lot higher in mvc3, i think the scaling is higher too. comboing 2 characters in that is way easier than it is in this too.
 
View619 said:
Yeah, but in order to get a double-snap off, the defender has to call the assist.

The defender is free to never call assists if he wants to not be vulnerable to double-snap, but then you effectively have no assists at all. Ergo I can effectively insta-kill your assists just by pushing you into the corner. If you actually call your assists, then I can literally insta-kill them. Either way you "lose a character" whenever you're cornered.

Evilweevle said:
also i dont think ive ever seen an mvc3 match with a true double snap (snapping away the point while keeping the assist onscreen).

I am talking about TAC combos and other one-touch-kills here (FoF loop, Sword loop, Lightning Loop). UMVC3 is quickly turning into a game revolving around performing insta-kills (Vergil, Zero, Viper, Doom, Strange, Spencer) and avoiding them (Morrigan). Characters with awesome tools, who would usually be top tier, are relagated to mid-tier simply because they lack the ability to insta-kill consistently (Wesker, Dante).
 
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ukyo_rulz said:
They weren't very common in the infancy of MVC2 either.
Alls I'm saying is that to get a double snap your opponent has to fuck up really hard with their back to the corner (excluding key characters who can Double Snap midscreen). It's not that Double Snaps aren't explored right now, I see someone do it every time they get a chance. It's just those chances are few and far between.
ukyo_rulz said:
The defender is free to never call assists if he wants to not be vulnerable to double-snap, but then you effectively have no assists at all. Ergo I can effectively insta-kill your assists just by pushing you into the corner. If you actually call your assists, then I can literally insta-kill them. Either way you "lose a character" whenever you're cornered.
The person with the assist can do plenty of things to keep their assist safe. They can call their assist at non-stupid times. If under pressure, they can Alpha counter instead of risking a happy birthday. They can under pressure PBGC into something instead of risking a Happy Birthday. They can have setups that prevent the opponent from being able to do anything about the assist they called. The attacker really doesn't have to leave their assist's ass in the wind, at least not at the same time as the point character's ass is in the wind.
 
Zidiane said:
Alls I'm saying is that to get a double snap your opponent has to fuck up really hard with their back to the corner

This likewise mimics the evolution of double-snaps in MVC2. You did them when you got the opportunity, usually when the opponent's assist is left behind when you kill him or when you hit two characters with Storm's assist. Now Storm and Mags base large amounts of their pressure on putting the fear of double-snap into the opponent.

Zidiane said:
(excluding key characters who can Double Snap midscreen). It's not that Double Snaps aren't explored right now, I see someone do it every time they get a chance. It's just those chances are few and far between.

That's because people only opportunistically do double-snaps right now. They don't actively set up situations where the opponent is put into a choice where they can either leave themselves open to double-snap or are forced to eat infinite pressure. If this game ever matures, people will look to do that because putting your opponent into the corner and pressuring them is something you already want to do anyway.

46503807.jpg
 
ukyo_rulz said:
This likewise mimics the evolution of double-snaps in MVC2. You did them when you got the opportunity, usually when the opponent's assist is left behind when you kill him or when you hit two characters with Storm's assist. Now Storm and Mags base large amounts of their pressure on putting the fear of double-snap into the opponent.
I don't know much about MVC2, but can't you do double snaps midscreen? I never played the game, but if I'm right, that's very different from SG.

That's because people only opportunistically do double-snaps right now. They don't actively set up situations where the opponent is put into a choice where they can either leave themselves open to double-snap or are forced to eat infinite pressure. If this game ever matures, people will look to do that because putting your opponent into the corner and pressuring them is something you already want to do anyway.
The defensive options in this game are really strong. PBGC, Alpha Counter (even allowed off of burst baits), Absolute Guard (or whatever it's called). You don't have to eat infinite pressure, cause that doesn't exist. As a solo character, I can tell you that you can get out of pressure without being forced to rely on your assist at every moment. And on a team, pbgc into an invincible move cancelled into super cancelled into safe DHC and there is no more pressure. There is no "infinite pressure" in this game, especially when you are on a team.
 
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Yeah, infinite pressure doesn't exist in SG. What does exist is the majority of the player base doesn't know how to pbgc, alpha counter, absolute guard. Granted, they mash super but that's not always the best option. But, it's really that the majority of players don't know how to defend.
 
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Yeah. As the game evolves, I would bet money on seeing LESS Double Snaps rather than so many it dominates player team size ratios.
 
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Mid screen double snaps are either insanely hard or not possible, depends on the characters. Though fortune's head on bnb can take any combination of characters to the corner so she can get a double snap from a lot of places on screen.

But yea solo is awful and honestly you are willingly not playing a huge part of the game, which is actually fun. And it makes life easier.
 
I'll agree with solo is awful FOR you ala Khaos

But I can't say 'solo is awful' because I don't get why 'solo is awful'

in b4 essay
 
Camail said:
But yea solo is awful and honestly you are willingly not playing a huge part of the game, which is actually fun. And it makes life easier.
It's really a matter of preferences. Some people, in life, prefer a small group of core friends, and others prefer dozens. It's really a matter of preferance. I enjoy one character probably more than you enjoy all of yours.
gllt said:
I'll agree with solo is awful FOR you ala Khaos

But I can't say 'solo is awful' because I don't get why 'solo is awful'
It really comes down to whether or not the character you chose to rock solo has the options she needs to be able to survive without a team. Cereblla and Fortune are characters I don't think anyone would argue aren't capable of soloing.
 
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Some people play solo because they don't learn characters as quickly as they feel they should. Also, in my case, I want to develop a thorough understanding of a character and focus on committing their tools to memory before building my team, especially when the team has different mobility options between them. Lately, I've caught myself trying to airdash with Squigly, thinking she was Val. Or trying to do Squig specials/supers with Val.

There's also that bit where I didn't want to add to the team unless I had a good grasp of them because I wanted a character, not cannon fodder or a meter-gaining meatshield for Squig.
 
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I remember a while back, I was confused at all the solo hate and stuff like 'solo is bad for you', since I just played with fortune headless, I thought it was fine. But man, now that I have Cerebella on assist, the fun has been doubled and it's a lot less 'stressful' playing online. I probably lose more since I can barely do anything with Bella, but the fights are alot more interesting. So if you're playing just for fun like I do, then teams are something to definitely look into even if you think you won't like playing any other characters(I was stubborn).

I will always respect a good solo though, they get work done.
 
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Ok well that analogy is really bad zid and I honestly have no idea what use there is in you assuming you enjoy bella more than I enjoy my characters, but that's neither here nor there.

I will never suggest that someone play solo in this game. As far as preference goes, you can do whatever you want I can't stop anyone from playing solo, but if we are going to reduce the solo vs teams talk to preference then meh. That's boring, there's nothing to talk about if you don't set any universal criteria.
 
I've been told my analogies are bad. It's weird, cause they make sense to me. You suggested that teams are a really fun part of the game. But for me, I have less fun that way. In that sense, it's like how someone has less fun in a larger group than they would in a smaller group, even if the larger group offers more opportunities for activities. Does that not connect?

I again mentioned preferences cause you mentioned fun. Fun is subjective, not objective. That's the overall point I was making. "huge part of the game" I would also argue is subjective. There is a huge part of playing solo that you can't enjoy while playing on a team (talked about above). And universal criteria, I don't know what you mean. Do you mean we should set the criteria for fun?

(also, just to let people know, I have experimented with teams. You can watch me play teams regularly every week at Game Underground. Bella is still most fun by herself.)
 
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Its not bad because it fails to illuminate a surface feature of friendship and a feature of fighting games, its bad because it doesn't do anything else and doesn't provide any power for your argument. You get the same rhetorical influence from just saying "it all comes down to preference", I could say more but that is seriously getting off topic, though if you want me to explain some details of using analogy in argument you can pm me, which is not some sort of subtle insult, just sayin.

With that out of the way, nah of course I'm not saying we have a criteria for fun, by me saying I don't want to leave it all to preference I implicitly remove that option. Though I would disagree that solo fortune is viable, at least not on beta.
 
Camail said:
Its not bad because it fails to illuminate a surface feature of friendship and a feature of fighting games, its bad because it doesn't do anything else and doesn't provide any power for your argument. You get the same rhetorical influence from just saying "it all comes down to preference", I could say more but that is seriously getting off topic, though if you want me to explain some details of using analogy in argument you can pm me, which is not some sort of subtle insult, just sayin.

With that out of the way, nah of course I'm not saying we have a criteria for fun, by me saying I don't want to leave it all to preference I implicitly remove that option. Though I would disagree that solo fortune is viable, at least not on beta.

Yeah sorry, I'm not a fighting game player on any decent level, so I'm pretty much bullshitting a lot out of my ass.
This topic may or may not be a flowery and proised way of saying buff solos
I'm also sorta out of the groove, last time I checked, which was vanilla Skullgirls, Fortune was super viable as a solo.
 
She has been getting nerfed throughout mde and encore, and there are a few headless nerfs in beta that hurt her. Namely the fact that opponents who hit the head don't reset the head cooldown. It is to the point where I think you have to try waaaaay harder than you had to.
 
gllt said:
But I can't say 'solo is awful' because I don't get why 'solo is awful'

I don't think it's ideal, but I'm willing to admit that I get decimated by some solos.

If the character has a working reversal special (and/or armor), good 50/50's, good reversal super(s), good movement, disjointed hitboxes or throws that help mitigate the pressure enemy assists would otherwise provide, and absolutely crazy combo damage, I think they're a solid candidate.

Bella has all of these. Fortune has all of these. Painwheel has most of these. All three of those are characters that at some point or another were played by good players that demonstrated how effective solo play can be.

TL;DR: Shin-ATProof and Outlaw_Spike are brave men with the longest/thickest of genitals because solo nurse sounds like suicide to me.
 
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hlvn said:
I don't think it's ideal, but I'm willing to admit that I get decimated by some solos.

If the character has a working reversal special (and/or armor), good 50/50's, good reversal super(s), good movement, disjointed hitboxes or throws that help mitigate the pressure enemy assists would otherwise provide, and absolutely crazy combo damage, I think they're a solid candidate.

Bella has all of these. Fortune has all of these. Painwheel has most of these. All three of those are characters that at some point or another were played by good players that demonstrated how effective solo play can be.

TL;DR: Shin-ATProof and Outlaw_Spike are brave men with the longest/thickest of genitals because solo nurse sounds like suicide to me.

Sounds like you need to tag them properly.
 
ukyo_rulz said:
They weren't very common in the infancy of MVC2 either. Same for TAC infinites and other one-touch kills in UMVC3. Now it's all about the insta-kills for both those games. SG may never get to that point because the community is so small, but I believe that if it had as big a community as UMVC3 plugging away at it and advancing the tech we'd be in the era of double-snaps in about a year. Two years tops.



Also true for duos if your opponent is good at setting up double-snaps.
The difference with MvC2 is, I think, the ease of actually landing a snap on 2 characters. In MvC2, snapping randomly is pretty effective and after hitting an assist they lie around for ages so it is not too difficult to actually land the snap.

In SG, you have to make a BAD assist call then your opponent has to combo into the snap in position that they can confirm into their infinite. I feel it is just far more difficult to land in that situation in SG. Doublesnaps are really powerful. when they happen, being a low opponent meter building sure kill in a game that is focussed around either non-sure kills or heavy meter using, building for the opponent sure kills otherwise.

I think the current order is pretty strongly trio > duo > solo. Though duos are completely fine if the pair have a large amount of versatility.

I think trios just offer the best of all worlds in the game, they are the most resillent overall and built correctly, they should function perfectly fine down 1 member. They have the most available uses meter, in fact, just tools overall. Options everywhere and probably a great assist for at least 2 of the characters. It really just allows you the most versatility and, even better, consistency. You have less situations where a bad matchup is just going to kill you, you have 3 characters for a 1 on 1 matchup scenario and you have more tools to avoid any situation that your opponent tries to force on you. As well as having more lives, so more time to adapt and more flexibility in changing up your own approach to a game.
 
The effectiveness of the solo honestly really shines when it cuts down a team member from the opponent duo/trio team. The solo will always maintain a steady effectiveness value from the beginning to the end while the duo/trio will feel a "sting" that hinders their overall effectiveness once a single team member dies.

The ideal situation (outside of double-snaps) for the solo is force the "1 vs 1" fight against the last remaining team member who has the inferior damage/health value without any assist backing them up.

Solo is an uphill battle that require the player to have some good patience for the key hit confirms. Oh also snapbacks are your friend.
 
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Camail said:
I'm not saying we have a criteria for fun, by me saying I don't want to leave it all to preference I implicitly remove that option. Though I would disagree that solo fortune is viable, at least not on beta.
So you want to remove solo? Or am I misreading? And I haven't played a good Fortune in the Beta (or any Fortune) so I can't really speak on her chances anymore. But she was already really good, and I've heard KhaosMuffins say these nerfs weren't that bad. Worse case scenario, maybe instead of being in top 8 at Evo this year she'll be top 16 material.
 
The game was designed with the intent that Solo, Duo, and Trio were close to as even powered as possible. Not that solos were for beginners or whatever.

So if it is definitely trio>duo>solo then any ideas on how to even the playing field? Some ideas...

1. Trios will lock out assists the least (the current 90f), duos more (120f?), and solos by far the most (180?).

2. Health of duo or trio won't recover against solos, duos recover health slightly faster when facing a trio, while trios recover health slightly slower when facing a duo.

I think it would be very hard to do, but the game would definitely be better if it was really solo=duo=trio or at least close to it.
 
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The game would be terrible as a team game if solos equaled trios.

There woul literally be no reason to play trio or duo if solos actually were completely equal to duos and trios.

Trios are the hardest team to play well by benefit of the most to learn to play them effectively. 3 times the amount of bnbs, situational combos, matchups, resets etc etc etc

If solos equaled trios i would drop teams instantly. Why make myself work hard for no benefit? Doesnt make any sense to me.
 
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