Quick note, zoners take a LONG time to develop, more so than any archetype in the game, and it is pretty hard to tell what will be good on day 1 compared to what will be good later on. Also, without a working build, it's incredibly difficult to tell what will be good and what won't be.
Yeah, and I'm saving her for later as far as developement goes. I guess I should lay off messing with it till I get a working build up.
We are fighting game players on a fighting game forum. There's no need to be so vague about how blocked bursts work. Just say whether they're punishable and if so, how.
My bad, I will attempt to fix that. I had intended for it to be that you can't block until you land. I will go and fix the wording to be more clear, sorry.
How does Helma have moves that help her make reads? The concept of making reads can go from command grabs, anti air grabs, punishable but damaging pokes, and so on and so forth. I'm not really getting to know anything about the character other than what I would read in the game manual, and if you're looking for character design feedback, you have to be a little more in depth than that.
How does Abraham have a decent mixup? What tools does he have aside from his command grab that lead to said decent mixup? Why are his normals slow?
The other bios do go in a little deeper but tend to still have similar levels of vagueness.
Yes, I know this is an issue. The problem is that I DON'T have a working model up yet. I'm working on that, and as such cannot speak on exact specifics. However, as I have been working for quite some time now on the specifics of Helma's movelist and stats and all that, I can update it to be more specific. I will also attempt to make everything more clear.
Unfortunately, however, everyone past the first 6 are up in the air. As stated, they are the ones we're guaranteeing to get into the game. Everyone after that is a character we want to put in or have interesting ideas for, but aren't necessary to the overall plot of the game. Since it is a fighting game, however, and plot comes second, we're working hard to design these characters and try to get the more interesting and fun ones in. So basically I probably won't be able to get anymore specific on them at this time. I will try to, however, to make things more clear.
Considering button strength alters the direction/placement of Sarria's fireball and spike specials rather than something more insignificant like travel speed, I'd say L/M/EX versions of them is perhaps a poor choice. And only having the heavy version of dragon cost meter would feel rather out of place. On the other hand, I think the limiter is fine. Peacock has a similar limiter on her bombs; only 1 bombs of each version and 2 on-screen bombs at the same time are allowed.
Peacock was someone I actually took the general idea from. And in the case of it bieng L/M/EX, I would change their Heavy version to go in line with it being EX. Given what the Dragon does, it may take more effort to balance them down the road wen I get to them. Part of me wanted to make the Dragons her Supers, but that wouldn't match up very well, unless I cut it down to 2 Dragons, but then-
Yeah, lot more thought needs to go into her. I'll keep her the way she is for now and rethink move lists when it comes time to work on her.
And if her gimmick button is for recovering Exhaustion, I can get behind the mechanic a little bit more, since it implies taking small gaps in combos/zoning to manually lower it will be a thing she will want to attempt to do/her opponent want to attempt to punish. Rather than just being stuck with her zoning tools locked away for however long every once in awhile.
Yeah, the idea is two fold. First, Sarria will zone with her projectiles to keep her opponent away, but then be forced in to avoid Exhaustion. Secondly, that Sarria has to mix in normals into her combos in order to avoid Exhaustion mid-combo, which builds it up the fastest compared to zoning in neutral. This creates a need not only to zone the opponent out, but also bring them in during combos or using her tools so she can get damage out of combos while still ending combos or offenses with the opponent away from her. It's a resource balancing game. I like to think it takes inspiration in many regards from Mike's Undizzy System, which works similar. Repeat attacks and longer combos build it up quickly, so you have to reset or go back to neutral to let it drop so you can keep on the offense. Obvious difference is that Exhaustion is her own mechanic that builds as she uses projectiles as opposed to building the opponents, and that you can't use the Exhaustion Mechanic to burst bait XD.
@Yomabudd_y I will go into detail now about Helma, as she's the one I can talk the most indepth about. Tyrus himself has at least one extra overhead planned in his normals in addition to the universal overhead. He has the command grab, yes, but also a wide-hitting special move with low and mid variants. His arms are massive, bulky, and heavy metal arms that look like they belong on a construction machine, so he has more weight to him. I said Decent Mixup there at that point due, honestly, to me not thinking of other things to say about him. Now that we're farther down the path, I can expand on what he's going to be like without saying fluff, and I appologize for that.
As stated, Helma has a followup mechanic. By pressing "Gimmick Button," as Armageddon11 put it, she can follow certain normals and specials with a secondary attack. For example, her standing B is her thrusting her knee up and forward quickly. By pressing D after that, she will blast fire out of the thrower in her knee, blasting the foe (the exact specifics of whether this move launches, wall bounces, or just sends them across the screen I can't acertain to yet, It's one of the things I'm currently building into her and trying to get right with the rest of her moves.) For now, it simply acts as a higher altitude launcher that gives the target some backwards velocity as well. The idea is to build it so she can use these followups in her combos to create combo paths out of the same point, allowing her a lot of flexibility and requiring the opponent to keep track of which move is coming up next so they don't get hit and eat the rest of the combo. As far as "Reads" goes, she has a few things:
- Z-Motion+ABC: She has what's essentially an non-invincible DP that causes her to do a backflip and cover a large amount of air in fire. The disjointed hitboxes on the fire, however, make it good for catching opponents, and the move itself comes out quickly. Alternatively, there's a slightly slower variant (B) that covers less air space, but has more verticality to it. (B) also deals more damage but is more punishable and makes Helma linger in the air. Lastsly, the (C) version gives her backwards momentum and has the fire effect linger in the air until she finishes the short backflip. On hit, it can be linked into her dive kick. Additionally, on hit from either causes the opponent to drop straight towards the ground, again supporting the link from the Dive Kick and also setting her up in an advantageous position. The fires also counter projectiles, which is something most of her other moves don't.
- QCF+ABC: She has a Hit-Grab special. She launches herself at a low angle a decent amount forwards and on hit grabs the opponent and blasts off of them, throwing them back at a low altitude (can get wall bounce). Pressing the special with A, B, or C will alter the distance and angle. A launchers her low the farthest distance and has noticeable startup. A also gives her some projectile invincibility, similar to Zangief's Lariat (to an extent), B has less startup than A but lacks as much distance or the invincibilty. B and C come out very quickly. C launches at a higher angle but has the shortest distance. It's very similar to I-No's AA read with the String. And if you get caught and commit to it too early or want to cancel the launch on hit, you can press D to cancel the move at any point up to a frame or two after hit to have Helma switch into doing an axe kick and putting the opponent on the ground in front of you. Alternatively, you can use it to cancel the move before you commit to it and get punished, though the move still does have obvious recovery and is, on whiff, more punishable due to recoery than the Hit-Grab is on block due to Hit-Grabs slight upward velocity and counting as Helma being in air. Additionally, you can use this in the air and Helma will do the move as a Divekick. It doesn't have any altering trajectories between ABC, but it still has the hit-grab and you can cancel most of her air normals into it as well. The Axe Kick followup with the Dive Kick version causes Helma to be put in a state similar to Bursting in the air; Helma cannot guard or attack, causing players to need to commit behind either the Dive or Follow up.
- QCF+ABC: A quick kick with large stun behind it. Doesn't have varying versions between ABC, but unlike her normals, it can cause an extended stun state and has good priority. Can be followed up as well, causing a quick flame blast with some kick to it. Doesn't knock down, though. It exists to serve more as a reset point, since you can delay followup attacks by holding D and then releasing. You can chain the followup to this into her D normals if you haven't used them in the combo yet. This is again to further emphasis early use of it or as a reset point in a similar way to Beowulf's Pipebomb in that you can delay it to get a second hit or reset.
I hope that goes a ways towards explaining her, yes? I hope to be able to do this will the whole cast as I work on them. God it took forever to write this. I will update the OP then with more details at a later time, seeing as how I must be off to work now.
