why does jumping need to be punished so much? Jumping is pretty terrible as a movement option outside of a few very specific situations when you don't have airblock or any other kind of jumping options. I'll get into this more when the jumping beats lows section comes up I guess.
Not true, from someone trying to cross you up you can combo anti-air to DP for 3 points not in the corner, and when you include meter that goes up to an insane 5 points. Jumping against Tenchi is very scary, and it's scary against Naomi as well (did you know you link her 2Bs into each other?). You get more for juggling in Pocket Rumble than you do for most ground combos, and that is the game working as intended. Juggling was designed to be crazy in Pocket Rumble because crossups are so easy to do and to make those high dmg value jump-in's more dangerous to attempt. That being said, jumps as a result are a lot scarier and less worth it for every other jump situation in the game (especially because no air options), so that's just one reason why we gave it the buff of low invuln, which doesn't apply really for jumping over projectiles and oki setups.
Lack of air block and air options doesn't mean jumping is bad. I already said why Jumps are good and need some sort of reliable check and you clearly ignored me.
Yes, I found out about Naomi's 2B AA combo before writing my latest suggestion post. The point is, you can only get 3-4 damage from AA Antlers from very specific situations. Otherwise you will more commonly hit 2 Damage (although naomi can hit 3 midscreen, but she can only get max 3 damage regardless of situation).
In any case, this is still less average damage than ground combos. Tenchi can get a whopping 8 damage from a full combo off a jump-in with super, so it's still better to be in the air than on the ground.
Crossups are actually not that easy to do or easy to confirm from because Tenchi's j.B is very narrow horizontally, so you need a very specific range to jump from, and Naomi's j.B has less stun than her j.A, making it harder to confirm from, and all crossups sacrifice position and damage due to the defender getting pushed away from the attacker.
You mentioned that you can do Anti-Air DP to hit someone trying to cross up, but that crossups are easy to do and flip your direction. So which is it? Are they good because they're "easy to do" and flip your input or are they bad because you can get AA DP'd into a higher damage combo than normal (for an Anti-Air)?
Either way, I don't know why you think having a 50/50 would be bad in a game you're trying to have a focus on reads.
I don't think I'd mind people jumping all over the place in a game that has no air-block or double jump or anything, that's pretty interesting, especially with how scary our juggles are!
Your juggles aren't scary. You get the most damage off jump-ins, you take the least damage from being in the air, and you can negate lows entirely for jumping.
How in the world are you not seeing that jumps are too good?
Why would you find it
interesting to reduce your game to one tactic?
I still don't agree. If you neutral jump in someone's face instead of crossup, you should get more for your combo, since that is such an obvious thing to block (if they have the ability to block) and DP (controls will not be swapped once character crosses).
Again, I have been ignored.
Giving less reward for crossup will enable players not to have to think as much about taking the crossup, because they know the reward is less than a normal jump-in. In a game like Pocket Rumble, I think crossups deserve the incentive to actually use crossups as a mixup tool without having to sacrifice position and damage.
I thought you wanted this game to be smart and based on reads, not dumb and based on option selects.
Pocket Rumble doesn't need to dumb itself down with the amount of options someone has, just make those options as easy as possible to execute.
What the hell does this even mean? You want to make crossups easy to execute, but you don't?
If anything, you've dumbed down Pocket Rumble yourself with these changes in the Alpha (some of which might have existed before the alpha).
Are you sure about this? getting the 4 hits (at least with Tenchi) is super impractical. ... Those 4 hit combos just straight up don't happen except for when you bait a DP.
Very sure. It's not impractical at all when you're both trying to be in each other's faces. And jump-ins will let you do 5A > 5A pretty much every time, meaning Tenchi can do 5 hits off his jump-in which is almost half life. Things like punishing forward antlers are the exception, not the rule, and you would rather punish forward antlers, specifically, with a throw for better positioning because you can't get as much damage off a normal combo.
The problem is that the way you have it now, players aren't going to care about doing ground pokes. You get the most damage off a jump-in, and you take the least damage while in the air, and you also can't be hit by lows when you jump. The only time you would stop jumping is to bait an AA or because you're already in their face (even then, you'll want to jump to dodge the throw/low mixup), otherwise, there is no reason not to jump. You can make lows have the best frame data in the game and it won't matter because they will never hit people jumping (and they also yield less reward than standing normals even if they hit!). If you really want to make lows useful, just allow them cancel into B moves (any) and to hit people out of jump startup, ESPECIALLY upback.
About the numbers: 2B 1-hit combo takes 12 to kill, but so does every other move in the game so why would you use 2B instead of 5B or fireball or spaced forward antlers, or j.A? With my suggestion 5A needs 30 1-hit combos and 2B needs 10 hits. If you get hit by sweep 10 times, I think you deserve to lose that round (which is completely impossible if jumps beat lows).
Tenchi can't do half life without super, but 5 hits is still big in a game with 12 health. Naomi, however, can hit half life combos with relative ease with her max damage combo being 8 hits for 1 charge and it's really easy to get that charge (yet, you punish people trying to do crossups which you aren't always able to get).
Immediately the things I don't like are:
-dmg hike from 5B to 2A range (+7%) makes 5B raw feel pretty useless in comparison to 2A, exacerbated by the fact these ranges aren't as a severe a difference as, say, 2A to 5A
-Far Range Jump-In's require 2 more to kill than DP punishes, instead of just 1 with the old system
-almost every combo must end with 5B and antlercharge for max dmg, which is boring
-not a big enough difference from the old system
1. Why are you concerned about raw 5B being useless when your philosophy is "shorter range = more damage"?
Currently, 5B and 2A do the SAME damage with 2A having slightly less range than 5B. If you think raw 5B is useless when it does more damage than 2A, why would you think it's any more useful the way it is now in alpha?
5B has more range and is taller than 2A. It's meant to be a mid-range poke and neutral game tool to start some offense by leading into a quick knockdown, not necessarily to get good damage at max range.
2A on the other hand requires you to be closer, and if it can catch people jumping and cancel into B moves, then it is very useful when in range, but it won't ever hit anyone once they're already in the air and it does less damage than 5B. So, if you weren't ready to confirm into something, you'll only get that 1 point of damage as opposed to 5B's 2 damage. In the current alpha, 5B is infinitely more useful than 2A because it has more range, can catch more things, and does the same damage as 2A, so there's no reason to use 2A in alpha. Finally, why would you want two different moves to have almost the exact same use? Especially in a game with only 2 buttons, no less!
We kinda like the idea of having to use standing normals to catch people trying to jump mid-range, what's wrong with that?
Nothing, but it shouldn't be at the expense of making lows completely useless.
If we make lows catch jumps, aren't we just making longer reach low pokes kind of redundant when 5B exists?
No, because they are different moves with different purposes, different damage, and different ranges. 2B has the longest range, hits low, and knocks down, 5B is less range than that and hits mid, but it's taller and can cancel into a special for a bit of extra reward on block or hit, 2A lets you confirm into a combo. If 2A ends up overshadowing 5B as a mid-range poke, then why not just give 5B more damage or more range? Then you can make it more useful raw, but add damage scaling so it doesn't inflate the combo damage. Or give it a different use altogether (like when they were overheads)?
2. Why is far range jump-in needing more touches to kill (than before) bad? I thought the idea was "farther range = less damage"
3. Combos ALREADY must end in 5B > Antler charge for max damage because it is the most consistent special to cancel into to end a combo and it gives knockdown. With different values per move and damage scaling, you have a lot more control over the kind of reward each move can give and doing so will
actually make things more interesting. For example: Let's say antler charge does less damage than fireball. You then have to choose whether you want to go for the damage from fireball and reset to neutral or the knockdown from antler charge for less damage.
The current system doesn't allow for that kind of choice
at all because everything does the same damage, so you might as well just do the most optimal thing over and over again, which is very boring.
You need moves to be different in more ways than just range for there to be a meaningful decision to be made when selecting a move for a certain situation.
4. What I suggested was supposed to be a sort of compromise retaining your philosophy of "shorter range = higher damage" but it still changes the game a lot because there is more thought required to the moves you choose for a given situation based on more than simply "how far away are they from me?" and it doesn't seem like you really grasp these kinds of nuances.
I think it's also important to point out that once we have the "character swap after losing a round" in we are going back to 3/5 rounds, and in general ST-style short rounds are easier to keep track of, which we like, and it'll be nice when that swapping is in and we are seeing a lot more variety in the game on a constant basis (for both the players and people watching)
This might be true if the characters end up being balanced enough, but it will only be character variety. Under the current system, each character would just do their optimal thing because everything has the same damage.
It's also not exactly fun to have to have to pull off 4 or 5 full jump-in combos with only 1 health if you have a rough start to win a round. I'd rather just have more rounds instead lots of health with one or two rounds.
Firstly, 8 x 3 = 24 + 6 = 30
8 damage being the meterless full combo jump-in damage using the values I suggested, so it would not be 4 or 5 full jump-in combos, it'd be 3 and a BnB and/or some chip/stray hits. Less combos needed with meter usage, naturally.
Secondly, if someone is going to lose that badly, that they would be left with 1 HP and the opponent is at full health, he likely isn't going to be winning any individual rounds either with less health and lower damage, but he might get
lucky (key word, here). He will generally lose just as bad. If you have many chances in a single round there is a higher chance to come back, and you don't get all your work erased by the other person's health going back to full. The better player will come out on top more often if it's 2/3 with more health than 3/5 with less health because the latter is more
random.
Also, low life comebacks are hype as fuck, where have you been?
The option select does exist, and I kinda wish it didn't, but the throw whiff just felt really bad being on forward/back B, and we can't have 2 button throws. The good thing is that at least you won't get as much dmg potential as if just let them jump and then AA like you mentioned, and it also is super easy to put yourself back in neutral if you see it coming and you can straight up beat it with a DP on prediction because DPs have throw invuln.
because every other variation of throw felt weird with 2 buttons. You can increase your dmg output by waiting to do proper AA (even outside of the corner for some characters). You say the defender doesn't have a way to completely turnover momentum, but DP does that just fine, even if it is pretty risky?
Why can't throw be A+B? I don't see anything wrong with 5A+B being throw.
You could have things like Naomi's charge be 2A+B and Tenchi's super can be 3A+B (why not give him a kick super on 1A+B too?). Or why not have a 3rd button?
After going over the DP moves, they do give you enough time to do oki, but that doesn't mean the OS isn't bad or shouldn't be dealt with. There should be a correct, safe block option as well as a risky reversal option. The 6H OS is basically an unblockable.
However, I do think that having the low attackbox out is still better than doing nothing, especially if you are in the corner when people are afraid of safe-jumps. If you never did meaty lows people have absolutely no reason to not just block high when they want to wake up and block.
Except, that's the problem. It doesn't matter how much you meaty your low, jump will beat it every time.
Your options are jump and block high because jumping beats lows. Why would you block low when you have something that will get you out for free? Why would you
go low, when your mid will give you the same damage as your low? The 6B OS covers this entirely.
If the OS problem becomes too severe we can alleviate it by making the startup on standB a frame or two slower with generally lower attackboxes to make it so that a standB from a whiffed throw (in situations where the throw could have connected) never connects with the person, or something along these lines. If that makes standB useless, as a last resort, we can bring back whiff throw animations, but this time they'll only exist in ranges where the throw would have connected (like Samurai Shodown V Special).
Having throw whiffs will eliminate the option select entirely and I don't know why you guys don't do it. Please don't make some weird wonky "Throw-whiff-only" attributes to a move when you can just give it a throw whiff.
Throw whiffs will get rid of the option select, but it doesn't make lows any more useful because jump still beats it.
Well, another big reason why we wanted low invuln was so that the frame data can be just objectively better on low normals in comparison to standing normals, and it makes our normals more diverse and interesting that way.
It sounds like instead of completely removing that system that we should just buff 2B? 2B is one dmg max, so it would be interesting to have the same startup as 5A, but still have that long recovery if someone predicted it (or something along these lines, basically it seems that we can maybe go crazier with low normals than we thought we could).
No, you don't get it.
It REEEEEEEEEEEEALLY doesn't. At all. It's the exact opposite actually. Know why? Because they can't hit anything. Buffing 2B will do nothing because lows can't hit anything. You jump and it removes those moves from play and makes it less interesting, less diverse, and more one-dimensional.
Even if 2B was the same frame data as 5A and even let you combo out of it (which is essentially what 2A is), it would still be less useful than going for AAs and mids because jump will 100% avoid it entirely.
but won't that happen pretty much no matter what unless we make jump moves have ridiculously short startup? I like the idea of some moves being more vulnerable to DPs because they change your anchor point, but at the same time I kind of don't like that only some moves are going to change the jump arc and the amount it changes is so fuzzy and weird. Does that feel annoying enough to massively increase the complexity of jump moves? Like, if we wanted to explain this to somebody who wants to know all the variables contained within a move, we'd have to make a brand new parameter for our moves table that says ANCHOR POINT CHANGE and yeah that just sounds like a huge mess for little benefit.
Still, I do kinda like variable anchor points... So I'm not sure, we'll see.
I don't know what you're talking about with "Variable Anchor Points" I'm just saying allow it to pass the floor while a move is in its animation. Or like, make the anchor point when you're in the air higher to allow moves to be active closer to the ground?
I'm not savvy on anchor points. I just know that it's possible to allow the anchor point to pass through the floor to allow moves to land later.
I basically just want to be able to do jump-ins deeper without having the floor canceling the animation.
because the things we wanted to be punishable already knocked down or already were special cancelable.
Not sure what you mean here. Does that mean that everything that doesn't knock down is supposed to be safe?
If that's the case, then why is Naomi's 3A (Rush punch) punishable on hit?
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PLEASE reconsider your stance per my advice. I really want pocket rumble to be good and not be a 1v1 version of Marvel 3.
Thank you