An Attempt To Bring People Back Into SG That May/May Not Work But Hey We Tried

[Slap]

Back to Skullgirls?

 

[SonicFox]

Dekillschool

 

[dMags]

may or may not be worth noting that SG is getting a Japanese Arcade release too after the DLC characters are complete ( at least according to the SG General FAQ ), along with PS4 and Vita port.

I know a lot of people in the past have complained that not enough people play SG, but a japanese arcade release could mean much more attention at EVO and international tournaments, just another reason to get into the game now.

 

[Yaya]

Demo Reel

 

[Broseidon Rex]

Things to note:

• Show have every character has an "ABC launch, air stuff, land, abc special super combo". Even with a simple combo, they can start doing stuff. Don't need to know all the fancy combos, just enough to get you going
• Dizzy Bar: Demonstrate a long ass combo in Vanilla that is no longer possible thanks to the magic green bar.
• All team ratios are viable: Link to match videos of triples/duos/solos beating different team sizes.
• Show different styles of play: People know keepaway peacock, but what about rush down? This could show the freedom in character play style
• Clarify title of the game: Seems stupid, but everyone assumes it's because all girl cast. Just make a short mention that story (if they even care) is about the one skullgirl. Also Big Band is not a girl.
• Developer listens to feedback: One example is (if I remember correctly), Bella being able to Excellabella into Ultimate Showstopper in Vanilla to guarantee a hit. Then show how current version prevents that and it's because people took notice.
• Future plans: Not sure how it'll help but mention stuff like the interact-able replays Mike wanted to implement, lobbies, two more characters remaining, and more balancing.
• Change in Hornet Bomber: Side by side comparison, for those who actually still remember.
• Mention to noted streams: Elky's, Who Yall Like, Rebel Up, show that this thing has some prescence and there are streams to see higher level play.

 

[Makross]

Just my 2 cents:

On character changes, only mention the changes that matter (hitboxes, new tools, re-scaling of damage, etc). Being too detailed on things like damage changes isn't worth the time and people coming back to SG won't remember/care anyway.

 

[Broseidon Rex]

Just my 2 cents:

On character changes, only mention the changes that matter (hitboxes, new tools, re-scaling of damage, etc). Being too detailed on things like damage changes isn't worth the time and people coming back to SG won't remember/care anyway.

A general thing to say would be how most of bella's normals got their damage reduced by a little. I don't think it's too specific.

 

[WarpedEcho]

I have a 360 Harddrive with vanilla on it. I could be persuaded to send it, maybe in exchange for a smooch or perhaps the address I'm sending it to

 

[Mike_Z]

What I mean is there is a lot of required knowledge to even get started with SG, this has particularly been a problem with getting people who already play other FGs to pick up Skullgirls.

ive had a couple of people in my local scene show concerns that teh game is really hard to pick up/lots to learn [snip] and have never had more than 1 hrs worth of interest per person.

The problem is that more of the systems in SG are transparent and pretty fully understood, so players tend to over-explain them because they assume that knowledge is "required to play". It isn't.
"Here is how IPS works" or "here is how PBGC or absolute guard works" is equivalent to "here's how to jump-install / impossible dust" or "here's how Flying Screen works with all the exceptions" or "here's how Vorpal really works", it's not something you need (or want!) to explain to a new player at all.

There is way LESS to explain about SG at a basic systems level than there is about BB, GG, UNiB, MvC2, KI, or even MvC3 - just try fully understanding how hitstun deterioration really works, it's way easier just to say "you can combo till you can't". That level of explanation is fine.

What I show new players, which takes about 10 minutes:
- You can pick 1-3 characters "like CvS2 x MvC2"; you can choose any move you want as an assist if you have assists.
- Everyone has at least LMH chains, there are superjumps and airdashes, here is how you call an assist.
- Specials, throws, supers, command throws; all easy inputs, all standard junk.
- You can DHC if you have a team, and that little light shows you when you have an assist to use.
- Pressing PP while blocking gives you a pushblock, but it won't always push them away if you do it during fast hits.
- If you do a long-enough combo that green bar will give them a burst.
- If you see colored hitsparks when being hit then you can burst by mashing; if you see those sparks when you were doing a combo then that combo was invalid.
and MAYBE
- There are no crouch-techs.

And then you get into "Which character do you like? Painwheel can fly and has armor, Fortune can take off her head, etc" and done.
Hell, Third Strike's juggle system was explained for many years as "you have 6 juggle points and most moves use one" with a mile-long list of exceptions like "this move takes off 3 points" or "this move can juggle anyway". Turns out that's not at all how it works, but the basic "you have six juggle points and there are exceptions" was enough of a description for people to mostly "get it".

You can explain SG as if it is any other fighting game, at the same approximate hand-wavy level that is as far as it's possible to dive with most games.
I think THAT is a worthwhile goal for people wanting to get new players into SG.

 

[WarpedEcho]

Very reasonable explanations about entry level things for new players

That's all fine and good but I'm more concerned with showing people that might still be interested that have played the game early on in the past and left it because they didn't like what they saw. Things to address are

bomber changes

no more "movies" for combos

general damage you can get off an "easy" combo (I feel like 5-6k is a reasonable number to say)

character health totals (people may forget solo vs duo vs trio health numbers and the damage interactions depending on the matchup)

Major character changes for combos and neutral (headless nerfs, nom loops removed, filia airball limits, pw's fly cancels off buer, thresher, nails, cat heads lvl 2 and new dash, bella air throw conversion, peacock SoID and 2 bomb change, idk about val or parasoul someone pls let me know)

introduction of new characters and comparison to other characters (big band to juggernaut, q, etc again please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Advanced mechanics like PBGC and Absolute Guard are cool to introduce, but still not as important to show off. The speeding up of the game is also a good thing to show off, and a side by side comparison of vanilla and encore I think would be good for this. This is the stuff I would be worried about.

 

[Age]

hand wavy sg intro

That works for people picking up the game and playing other new players.

Getting from trying out sg to surviving a set with someone in the steam group requires a pretty big jump in understanding. There are a bunch of gatekeeper strats that an intermediate level sg player can use to basically make a new player helpless.

If they don't know about resets, some players will just stop blocking while being combo'd and assume they were killed with 1 long touch of death.

If they don't understand pushblocks or pbgc they can be put into endless chipping blockstrings.

I'm not sure why but there are also people who will fall for the same burst bait ad infinitum presumeably because they don't realise that pressing buttons can be bad.

 

[Spencer]

On my view, the problem is QM. It seems like the first place you want to go to start fighting... but it isn't. Not by a mile. The regular advice is "go to a beginner's lobby and friend anyone of equal skill level".

There is no QM skill based seeding (nor should there be... we're a tiny community), so a new player has an equal chance to bump into Sage as they do another new player (and given that the "regulars" are generally pretty decent... I'd say a newer player probably has a better chance of bumping into a good player than a bad one).

I also think that some fighters give you the illusion of chance. SFIV is slow enough that you can get a few good licks off on a player that you never really have a chance of beating. SG dispels those illusions by combos that appear infinite via fast resets... despite this, I think SG is the easiest, most transparent fighter I've ever played. Not nearly the amount of unblockables, kara-stuffs, wtf-OS, weird combo things (it took me fucking ages to figure out that light chains aren't special cancelable in sfiv...), and on.

There are probably some valid criticisms of SG that a 5 minute chat with your local FGC would tell you, but anyone saying it is too complicated is fucking crazy. You'll spend more time trying to learn Ken's fucking 1 frame bnb than you would understanding SG fundamentals.

 

[Dime]

I personally feel like sg is one of the easiest fighting games ive ever played, and spencers post explains why, almost perfectly.

But there's also the fact that the dev has designed the game to be easy from an executional standpoint. After that it is all accrued knowledge and playtime to get decent enough. Which cannot be said for most other fighters where there is some executional hurdle or esoteric strategies that need to be understood to stand a chance.

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

So this is a project people are still interested in doing?

 

[Kit Ballard]

If I still had my recording software for my Xblox, I can easily delete the update file and have it plain, then record the same combo with the patch downloaded, and mesh the 2 videos together. An easy idea, non-the-less.

 

[fenster]

So this is a project people are still interested in doing?

I think so, but I think maybe we should focus on collecting our character info on Skullheart from the Too much Moderation discussion first. It's a bit easier to do first, and you know, probably a good idea to organize and clean ourselves before trying to bring others in.

 

[Vadsamoht]

Skarmand is working on some of that stuff at the moment. If you want to help with that stuff I guess ask him?