Pocket Rumble Thread

[Mike_Z]

How did you get GGPO to send packets properly while using the steamAPI? Right now it looks like I'm going to have to modify GGPO to use Steam's p2p thing that uses steamID instead of IP address... which I'd really prefer not to do unless I have to.

You do have to, unfortunately. :^(
Modify GGPO to use SNetSocket_t and SNetListenSocket_t; just make a #define GGPO_FOR_STEAM or whatever, have that defined in Steam builds of the lib, and pass around your sockets.
It's not all that huge a change, honestly, a couple of hours at worst. The more difficult part is establishing the connection and waiting.

Adding spectators, now THAT's a huge change. :^P

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

hey, another alpha build is out and I set some time aside to discuss it with you guys over the next few days. Here are the changes relevant to our previous discussions:

health is too low / 5A is too powerful

• 5A only cancels into itself (and specials like every other normal) instead of being able to cancel into any normal. Health is still 12, but with your punishes and jump-ins being 1 point less rounds last a lot longer

• all normals outside of 5A have decreased startup now, making the startup of a move less relevant when hanging out mid-range, it's more about range+priority vs dmg potential (backwards as that may be to most games, we still want that to be the core decision in the neutral game)

• meterless corner juggle dmg has been slightly calmed down on both characters

• normals now reset the chip vulnerability timer, making long reaching normals really good to confirm chip

crossups are weird Blazblue crossups

• It's now 3S style as @Mike_Z recommended. Hitstuns are a lot shorter on both crossup specific normals due to how much you are in their face when you land now

lows are useless with pre-jump giving low invuln

• low invuln on pre-jump is gone. prejump has decreased 1f

throw OS on wakeup is too good

• throws now have two checks (to make it impossible to meaty throw):

1. On the frame you input the throw, the enemy must be throwable
2. On frame 3, the enemy must be throwable and in range

• inputing a jump before or on the frame of an attempted throw will cause the enemy's 5B to whiff (I think this was true in the last build as well, but it's really relevant now with the new 0f check on throw)

• knockdown frames drastically reduced

too many accidental specials after a normal connects

• a system that starts executing your special non-visually and can be completely aborted a few frames in by letting go of the button has been implemented on cancels. This makes it both harder to do accidental special cancels and at the same time allowed us to lower the execution of frame-perfect cancels

no anchor point changes on jump moves

• this is one thing we really didn't do much about because we still want to avoid anchor point modification and landing frames if everyone is going to continue to have the same jump arc

• that being said, the startup on Naomi j.5B has been reduced so @worldjem tell me if you still are having issues with that move not reaching it's active frames

here are some other somewhat important details:

• now that the character swapping system is in, matches are best 3 out of 5

• Naomi requires 2 charges to do an EX now (so you can only store at max 2), but both moves are a lot more useful

• Naomi can now execute a throw while running

• Tenchi can spawn a fireball even if another fireball is on screen. The recovery on the move is slightly longer

• due to the invisible startup system on specials cancels, hitstuns in general are a lot smaller (it's so much easier to be frame-perfect with cancel timing now)

• buffer system priorities are now:

1. double-tap movement options
2. jumps
3. moves

• using these new priority systems, you can buffer a frame perfect Naomi hop to j.5A by just double-tapping 6, moving (and staying) at 9, and then holding A

• added shadow ticks behind frame data ticks on the frame data bar that linger until you execute another move

• your character's outline is white if you are invuln

• fireballs don't flicker anymore. We just aren't going to make things that have attackboxes flicker at all anymore

Production Update:
We are working on steamworks matchmaking and leaderboard systems, a nice training mode, and some pretty menus. Once these are complete, we plan on launching Early Access with just Tenchi/Naomi with ranked online, local versus, and training. We want to release a (somewhat) complete character each month after our early access launch, and launching without Parker (who we almost have ready to be tested) gives us a good headstart on trying to reach that goal. It takes a whole lot longer than a month to make characters, even at our resolution and our system mechanics, with just two of us here so we really need all that extra time to make this even remotely possible. Alpha backers will be getting builds a week or so earlier than the beta players each month with that month's new character and I'll be playing with all of them personally as we discuss what they want from Pocket Rumble moving forward (if they want to do that). If you want to continue staying updated on things right now, we still post weekly-ish updates on the Kickstarter page.


Lastly I'd like to personally thank @worldjem for being extremely detailed during the last build and I am looking forward to reading/watching your opinions on this new build. A lot of these changes were directly influenced by your posts here.

EDIT:
Oh yeah also you can continue blocking in a blockstring if you let go of back, you just can't hold an attack button

 

[No longer exist]

Still waiting for that beta...:C wanna play this

 

[Sydoh]

www.twitch.tv/worldjem

streaming and making notes.

 

[dead]

that's a lot of unnecessary rules for grabs that could be solved by just having it's own button.

 

[Yomabuddy]

To avoid meaty throws, you could also make it so that you are throw invulnerable for a few frames after knockdown, hitstun or blockstun. KOF and Guilty Gear do this and it works ok without those difficult to understand rules.

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

To avoid meaty throws, you could also make it so that you are throw invulnerable for a few frames after knockdown, hitstun or blockstun. KOF and Guilty Gear do this and it works ok without those difficult to understand rules.

UNIEL also does this and for the most part I like it.

Liking the sound of this build a lot more, can't wait to try the beta soon!

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

To avoid meaty throws, you could also make it so that you are throw invulnerable for a few frames after knockdown, hitstun or blockstun. KOF and Guilty Gear do this and it works ok without those difficult to understand rules.

That's what we are basically doing, but without having to explain all of these specific situations. When you input the throw they have to be throwable for the throw to come out is a lot more straightforward than trying to explain these frames where you have full control of your character like everything is back to normal except that you are completely throw invulnerable.

 

[Sydoh]

To avoid meaty throws, you could also make it so that you are throw invulnerable for a few frames after knockdown, hitstun or blockstun. KOF and Guilty Gear do this and it works ok without those difficult to understand rules.

I hate when games do this. Just make throw have startup and a whiff animation.

 

[skull person]

That's what we are basically doing, but without having to explain all of these specific situations. When you input the throw they have to be throwable for the throw to come out is a lot more straightforward than trying to explain these frames where you have full control of your character like everything is back to normal except that you are completely throw invulnerable.

I really think that

'On the frame you input the throw, the enemy must be throwable, and on the third frame, the enemy must be throwable and in range'

Is more complicated than,

'You are throw invincible for X frames after leaving hitstun/blockstun/wake up.'

I hate when games do this. Just make throw have startup and a whiff animation.

I like this one the best though, personally <3

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

'On the frame you input the throw, the enemy must be throwable, and on the third frame, the enemy must be throwable and in range'

that second rule is just the normal rule of a throw with startup, that isn't complicated. This can be explained without saying any of these rules at all anyway, you can just explain it as "make sure the enemy is throwable on the same frame you execute a throw."

 

[dead]

@PocketRumbleDev yall are really shooting yourselves in the foot by limiting yourself to 2 buttons.

 

[Verdant Brave]

@PocketRumbleDev yall are really shooting yourselves in the foot by limiting yourself to 2 buttons.

But that's the point. It's based on Neo Geo pocket games, and those things had only two buttons.

 

[skull person]

@PocketRumbleDev yall are really shooting yourselves in the foot by limiting yourself to 2 buttons.

Eh I don't really think two buttons is an issue.
I think that's cool.

You could make throw A + B any way unless that's used for X-Factor activation or something else.

 

[Sydoh]

A+B = char specific meter thing

Naomi = charge meter
Tenchi = use super fireball

I think ABC would be good because then you could do A+B = meter thing and B+C = throw
and you have another set of normals to work with and you now have light, medium, hard.

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

@PocketRumbleDev yall are really shooting yourselves in the foot by limiting yourself to 2 buttons.

We wouldn't add a button exclusively for more normals, we really want to keep the small amount of normals per character. A throw button or special move button or something along these lines is an entirely different story though (although we aren't pursuing anything like that right now, we'll be keeping the two button thing unless it's pretty unanimous with most players that they'd prefer a new button for certain systems).

You could make throw A + B any way unless that's used for X-Factor activation or something else.

A+B is a unique option (usually connected with meter) for each character, so we probably wouldn't do something along those lines. 6AB and 4AB kind of seems weird for throws when some characters like Naomi have 3AB and 1AB being EX moves and stuff. It doesn't overlap with any inputs now, but it would feel weird. If throws were going to go the two-button route, we'd add a throw button.

 

[dead]

We wouldn't add a button exclusively for more normals, we really want to keep the small amount of normals per character. A throw button or special move button or something along these lines is an entirely different story though (although we aren't pursuing anything like that right now, we'll be keeping the two button thing unless it's pretty unanimous with most players that they'd prefer a new button for certain systems.

4 normals per character isn't enough, it's going to make neutral very stunted. I would advise adding command normals or even better an additional normal button. There are 4 face buttons on every modern controller, as well as the a ton of legacy controllers including really ancient stuff like the vectrex. There's no reason to not use all of them, especially if you're jumping through hoops to make button combinations not overlap.

I understand that the neo geo pocket only had 2 buttons, but you should decide whether you want to re create an old game, or if you want to create a game that stands on it's own. 2 buttons is a genuinely nifty idea, but a game can't survive on niftyness alone.

 

[ManoxMano]

sooooooo how come Naomi can only have 2 EX moves now? Feels like an unwarranted nerf especially since she had a really tough time getting in on Tenchi in the previous build. Now she can't properly proceed to rampage Tenchi over if she is given the chance to, since forward EX doesn't knockdown, combos do less damage, and she has to back off more times if she wants to build meter (what tenchi wants). She has to do 90% more work then tenchi in neutral but doesn't get rewarded for getting in properly.

 

[Sydoh]

Here's what I got:

Game crashed earlier off stream when I was fiddling with
controllers.
I plugged in my PS4 cont. after starting the game when
my hitbox and Keyboard had selected sides
moved keyboard off from left, and when I moved the PS4 cont
to the right, the game crashed

+ A+B macro is a nice touch
+ New crossup feels good
+ New controller select and button config is cool
+ Faster startup on Naomi j.B lets you use it lower to the ground
+ New UI/hitboxes/information shown to players is nice

- 5A is too strong, so you nerf every other normal? Wat? How does that make startup less relevant? When is startup ever not relevant? Normals were already bad in neutral being outshined by the special moves available (fireball, antlers) and now you think that making them worse will even things out? There's no "decision" to be made between range/priority and damage. You just do whichever thing is most appropriate at the range you are currently standing.

- I don't think normals should extend the chip danger duration. The way it worked before was fine.
- Throw OS on OKI is still good and works. Can still meaty with 5B.
- can hold 6B or 4B and will throw tech all the time when opponent attempts to throw
- No cancel from 5A to other moves reduces combo damage by 1 point overall, but still doesn't negate it being the optimal starter because it cancels into itself and more hits = more damage
- Naomi 5B no longer links into itself, no more dash links :( makes her less fun
- j.B moves should have equal or more stun than j.A moves. It's really backwards that j.B moves tend to have less stun than j.A moves. In particular, Naomi j.B should have more stun to let you do a dash normal after landing instead of being forced to only do 5A buffer link. More fun-ness taken away.
- Tenchi's loopable corner safe jump is now even easier to time vs Naomi with the shorter knockdown time. you just hold it now. Vs Tenchi, the safejump gets beat by antler DP because you move behind them. It's still possible but you need to set it up with spacing and can't be point blank.
- vs Tenchi, now when I dodge a fireball, instead of getting a chance to get in, he can just throw another fireball.
- I think Naomi Rush A should be plus enough to give you a mixup to make it more useful as a combo ender since she is a rushdown character that wants to stay in
- allow Naomi 2A to slide under projectiles to help her get in easier
- There were times when I wanted to do a dash throw with Naomi, but I think how it should work is, while you're dashing, you won't get a throw, then once you let go of dash, you can throw out of the dash recovery.

= Naomi can still do half life from a jump-in and EX, but you need 2 charges to be able to do an EX. This is an OK nerf on its own, but with all the other direct and indirect nerfs, it helps compound Naomi's terrible-ness.
= Jump startup being hittable by lows is nice, but hard to say how much has actually changed because I haven't been able to fight people, but so far the window is really tiny, so it's hard to do it, but at least it's possible now.

Give moves different stun between hit/block per move
Give different damage for different moves
Give heavies equal or more stun than lights
Buff Naomi

Thanks

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

sooooooo how come Naomi can only have 2 EX moves now?

having to charge only once pretty much felt like you didn't have to try AT ALL to get meter. Limiting it to 2 also allows us to let the EX drop have a lot more corner juggle potential and in general we want to make those EX's stronger thus she needed this change. We'll probably be buffing them further, we just wanted to get feedback from people on the matchup right now before we crank up the EX stuff.

5A is too strong, so you nerf every other normal?

uhhhhh what? We buffed every normal IMMENSELY. I don't think we nerfed any normals other than the fact we lowered hitstuns all around. What are you referring to specifically? What I was saying earlier was that the fast startup of 5A is less relevant now because everyone has normals that go exponentially further that are only 1 or 2 frames slower than 5A. This was not the case in 0.2.0.

There's no "decision" to be made between range/priority and damage. You just do whichever thing is most appropriate at the range you are currently standing.

you always have the option to use your various movement options to get closer and up your potential dmg instead of doing the move "appropriate" for your range (outside of 5A range), especially if they are blocking expecting your "appropriate" move. What do you mean specifically?

I don't think normals should extend the chip danger duration. The way it worked before was fine.

why would normals resetting chip danger be bad?

Can still meaty with 5B.

if you are attempting to execute a throw now, you are not being even remotely meaty with the 5B. What do you mean exactly?

j.B moves should have equal or more stun than j.A moves.

you're right, that is awkward. We went overboard on lowering the hitstun of crossup moves. We'll fix this for Naomi (this isn't the case for Tenchi).

Tenchi's loopable corner safe jump is now even easier to time vs Naomi with the shorter knockdown time.

we don't want anything intentionally hard to time, this is on the negative list because it's a loopable safe jump and not because it's easy to time, right?

vs Tenchi, now when I dodge a fireball, instead of getting a chance to get in, he can just throw another fireball.

It's not hard to dodge fireballs at far ranges at all and it's now even easier to punish mid-range fireballs because of the increased recovery. I don't think losing the "only one fireball on screen at a time" rule buffed Tenchi too much, it just removed a rule that makes the game feel unresponsive with specials occasionally to people less familiar with fighting games.

I think Naomi Rush A should be plus enough to give you a mixup to make it more useful as a combo ender since she is a rushdown character that wants to stay in

we'll do something about that.

Give moves different stun between hit/block per move

Why? Matchup memorization is reduced pretty drastically keeping these values the same, and we use other systems (knockdown) to make things unsafe on block.

Give different damage for different moves

if heavies are way more useful than lights to just throw out in most cases, why would they need to do more dmg on top of that?

Give heavies equal or more stun than lights

ok.

Buff Naomi

ok.

 

[Sydoh]

uhhhhh what? We buffed every normal IMMENSELY. I don't think we nerfed any normals other than the fact we lowered hitstuns all around. What are you referring to specifically? What I was saying earlier was that the fast startup of 5A is less relevant now because everyone has normals that go exponentially further that are only 1 or 2 frames slower than 5A. This was not the case in 0.2.0.

I misread and thought "decreased startup" meant "increased startup". derp. Sorry. Even so, 5A is still your optimal starter because it does more hits.

you always have the option to use your various movement options to get closer and up your potential dmg instead of doing the move "appropriate" for your range (outside of 5A range), especially if they are blocking expecting your "appropriate" move. What do you mean specifically?

I just don't see how you think there's a decision to be made. It's not like times where, after you get the hit, you have to decide whether you want to go for knockdown or full damage. In this case, the choice is between immediate damage reward with potentially sacrificing position, or smaller damage reward for better position and potential future damage greater than the immediate reward (i.e. resets/oki). In Neutral you are spacing moves in order to get an advantage, then move in for pressure to further limit their options and try to get a hit. This is why having several neutral tools that do almost exactly the same thing is redundant and doesn't make good use of the few amount of buttons you have. If a character is able to zone, then they technically are already at advantage in neutral just by being able to zone and force the opponent to beat this check and only need to change playstyles once the check is beaten.

why would normals resetting chip danger be bad?

Because normals don't cause chip themselves, so it seems odd that they would extend chip danger duration. It was simple and easy to keep track of before: if you block 2 specials within X frames, you take 1 damage. Now, characters don't have as much luxury to find an opening to get out of pressure, a situation where they are already at high risk of getting hit, and can end up being forced to take damage just from trying to get out, where before they might have been able to get out if they were able to wait a bit longer for that opening.
I think the way chip damage was handled was fine before and didn't need to change.
Why did you change it to begin with?

if you are attempting to execute a throw now, you are not being even remotely meaty with the 5B. What do you mean exactly?

Exactly what I said. When I streamed a few days ago I was testing to see if the OS was still possible, and it is. If you time it right, 5B can meaty the opponent if they try to jump out.

we don't want anything intentionally hard to time, this is on the negative list because it's a loopable safe jump and not because it's easy to time, right?

Regardless of your efforts, there will always be things that end up being difficult to do. I'm not sure how good the loopable safe jump really is, because once you block it the first time, they can't do it again. It's only loopable on hit, in the corner, and with the knockdown. It was something fun for Tenchi to have and it kind of sucks that it was taken away prematurely, but now that it ONLY works on Naomi, it creates more character imbalance. I'd rather it just stay in and be possible on both characters. Something like Parker's roll might be able to dodge it? which I think would be fine.

It's not hard to dodge fireballs at far ranges at all and it's now even easier to punish mid-range fireballs because of the increased recovery. I don't think losing the "only one fireball on screen at a time" rule buffed Tenchi too much, it just removed a rule that makes the game feel unresponsive with specials occasionally to people less familiar with fighting games.

I'll have to test this out more to find out how much changed, but the fireball game is always a guessing game and it's not always easy to dodge them. The fact that Tenchi is no longer limited by the amount of fireballs on screen tells me that you can no longer take advantage of that limit to force him to use non-fireball moves to deal with your approach, however the increased recovery on fireball may have made up for this.

Why? Matchup memorization is reduced pretty drastically keeping these values the same, and we use other systems (knockdown) to make things unsafe on block.

Stun values are not a major factor in terms of dealing with any given matchup. Matchups are based off the tools those characters can use and how each character can use their tools to deal with another character's tools. You can make these better or worse, in some cases, by giving a move more or less blockstun or hitstun, but the stun value alone does not determine how a matchup is played.
Insisting on having stun be the same for hit and block limits your ability to balance the game. Like in the example I mentioned before in stream chat with Naomi: Maybe her Rush A move is fine being minus on block so that she can't just chip you to death with blockstun and force you to DP, but it's definitely NOT fine being minus on hit for a rushdown character like her. If hit had more hitstun, only, then it'd be a more useful combo ender that allows her to stay in.

if heavies are way more useful than lights to just throw out in most cases, why would they need to do more dmg on top of that?

There is a risk/reward mixture that you're not using for your characters' moves because of this insistence on making everything do the same damage.
Using Tenchi as an example, heavies can be given more damage with their current range, but also more recovery. Normally, you want to use your heavies to do the most damage, but it's risky because you can get punished easier for it. Lights are faster, and safer, so it makes sense that they would give less damage.

This is all completely backwards and upside-down in Pocket Rumble because everything does the same damage and most normals seem to be safe on block anyway. You don't ever really want to use a heavy, in Pocket Rumble, but in some cases you need to for that given situation and would otherwise not use it.


_____________
One other thing: For the button config, can you make it so that you can choose what button you want to be your "Confirm" and "Cancel" buttons or make them be A = confirm, B = cancel? My hitbox is reading Circle as the confirm button because PR thinks my hitbox is a super nintendo controller.

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

The SNES controller shows up when it's a generic controller the game doesn't recognize. I can add official support for hitboxes with your help, I'll DM you the details on Twitter or something. The reason B isn't reject universally is because that would be completely backwards with our default controls for PS4/360 controllers.

As for everything else, thanks for clarifying. There are just a few followup questions I have but I'll have to write them out later because I'm pretty busy today.

 

[Sydoh]

You can also PM me on Skullheart. Just click my name and click "Start a conversation".

I'll be streaming more PR later today, so if you can drop by, I found a way to re-create a crash that happens at controller select.

 

[North888]

The immediate feedback and discussion here about game priciples, balance, and design makes this easily one of my favorite threads to read. Glad at least a few devs can take a bit of harsh criticism and come back with honest answers :D

 

[Waasiq]

One button throws are cool, hope you get meaty OS stuff sorted out, whether that's with the method you got now or what UNIEL does or whatever.

 

[dead]

One button throws are always going to lead to option selects even if you make all sorts of special wakeup rules.

 

[ManoxMano]

Played the new version for a bit today, here's my take on it:
-Tenchi can get a full bar of meter REALLY fast now. This is honestly pretty bad because super fireball can punish almost all of the moves right now from a difficulty level of free to might-need-a-read. And it's 4 damage to boot. I suggest reverting to how his fireball originally worked because I didn't see a flaw in it whatsoever. Maybe keep the new lag on the fireball, but tbh it didn't change my gameplan that much.
-Tenchi's fireball needs to have different blockstun and hitstun. If you ever block a fireball, you basically lost all footing to getting closer
-I think Naomi needs another way of getting in. As it is Tenchi can sorta play super campy, put out safe pokes and Anti-air super free with A+B fireball or flash kick. Only thing she has in neutral aside from dash jump is grabbing a mis-spaced antler rush. I suggest df.A (Rush Punch) being able to go through fireballs
-The lag from dash>block on Naomi is clunky, and dash is usually the only way to get close enough to start oki is she gets something in the middle of the screen. I think if this was to be removed this would make her closer to being the explosive character she should be.
-Naomi's Rush B (Machine gun punch) might need tweaking. As it is it's really easy for someone to fall out midscreen and it means people can get away really easy. It's also pretty easy to run away after hitstun because it isn't very long. Maybe it should be like this so it's more of a corner-only option? If so what if Rush A could knockdown? Trade off less damage for oki.

Won't comment on frame data things or combos/safe jumps because if it's combos I suck with execution type things anyways. If I could grind for a good amount of time maybe it won't feel as hard

3/5 is kind of exhausting. I wouldn't want to do a Grand Finals set of this. The counterpick idea is neat but I'd prefer it if the game was just balanced to have at-worst 6-4 matchups.

 

[Spoony Gosling]

It's not hard to dodge fireballs at far ranges at all and it's now even easier to punish mid-range fireballs because of the increased recovery. I don't think losing the "only one fireball on screen at a time" rule buffed Tenchi too much, it just removed a rule that makes the game feel unresponsive with specials occasionally to people less familiar with fighting games.

The purpose of "Only one fireball on screen" isn't just to nerf fireball users. It encourages the fireballee to be more active in mid range, since there's an extra specific advantage to actively avoiding fireballs. It's particularly important for slow fireballs, since if you're doing late neutral jumps or slides on reaction to slow fireballs they can leave you at frame disadvantage (depending on game/character), but with the limitation, it means at least they have to wait to do another fireball, which creates another, different situation both characters need to be aware of. It also gives the fireballer a reason to get closer to the corner since they lose that disadvantage in that situation.

It's not necessary to keep fireball characters at a reasonable power level, Remy didn't have it in 3s, and he sucked, but it's not pointless.

 

[Mike_Z]

that second rule is just the normal rule of a throw with startup, that isn't complicated. This can be explained without saying any of these rules at all anyway, you can just explain it as "make sure the enemy is throwable on the same frame you execute a throw."

Nay! Because you can walk out of range, so that is not the entire ruleset.

HOWEVER, just to silence everyone, CvS2's normal throws and VSav's command grabs work like Pocket Rumble's current rules:
Throws require the enemy to be in range and throwable to start up. However, they have more than 1f of startup, so it is possible for the enemy to be out of range or unthrowable by the time it reaches the active frame, and thus the throw can be triggered to begin but still eventually whiff.
Example of a normal throw whiff in CvS2:

One button throws are always going to lead to option selects even if you make all sorts of special wakeup rules.

This is 100% true. You cannot eliminate OS's as long as one input can either produce a throw or a normal, rather than always producing a throw that might whiff.
It is also true of 2-button throws with respect to throw-techs, though, unless you do what SG does and forbid them during OS'able situations.

The purpose of "Only one fireball on screen"
[snip]
It's not necessary to keep fireball characters at a reasonable power level, Remy didn't have it in 3s, and he sucked, but it's not pointless.

Remy's fireball game sucked because parries existed. If parries did not exist, he would super amazingly good - in large part due to the multi-fireballs.
(BTW, multi-fireballs with Remy is a bug, not a feature. They INTENDED him to be limited, but implemented it wrong. :^)

The counterpick idea is neat but I'd prefer it if the game was just balanced to have at-worst 6-4 matchups.

I have no idea if "you SHOULD counterpick X char with Y char" is actually the intended design for PR, but if it is, I strongly suggest it shouldn't be.
Reason being, if hard counterpicks exist that require the other player to significantly outplay you to win, then most sets - 2/3, 3/5, 5/7 etc - will be decided by who wins the first game and gets to counterpick more times. That's bad.
Design for balanced matches.

 

[Waasiq]

Yeah, by 'getting OSes sorted out' I mostly mean the very problematic ones, like a meaty throw OS that beats tons of options. PR is in a scary spot with this since its heavy attacks are universally safe on block (though I guess they give the least damage).

I just think one button throws are interesting and with most games are tending away from them I'm glad there's still some attempts to use them.

 

[Cagar]

After first getting hyped for Pocket Rumble by watching the developer's own videos about it, then getting very annoyed by watching @worldjem 's feedback & gameplay videos, then getting VERY annoyed by reading this thread and the way feedback is given and handled.
(also, @Mike_Z )

First of all, the attitude of "it's new" or "it's not like in this other game" from a developer standpoint is completely astounding and wrong. Accusing the @PocketRumbleDev for "trying to be an unique snowflake :^P" is something beyond my understanding, when that is exactly why new games are made and why we have fighting games in the first place.
I don't understand how Mike_Z as a lead developer himself is doing it.
Not Every Element In Your New Game Has To Be Like In Some Other Game Before, unless there's a good justification for it.

Let's have an example.

You guys said that the cross-ups don't work like in 3s in Pocket Rumble, and somehow automatically imply that 3s does it "right". The developer of Pocket Rumble explained why the cross-ups in his game push the enemy away instead of sucking in; cross-ups are not only harder to block, but also harder to anti-air. They are HARDER to prevent than a normal, frontal jump-in, and therefore, the reward for landing it shouldn't be as big as a normal, frontal jump-in.
The devs of pocket rumble explained this well in his video. It seems like a smart design choice and common sense in terms of risk vs. reward, yet you guys here still say that "no, do it like in 3s!"

The thing is, in 3s there is a very simple universal option select that makes cross-ups and frontal jump-ins equally easy to prevent, thus justificating making them also equally damaging and harmful position-wise.
Cross ups are no "trickery" in 3s. They're the same as landing a frontal attack in terms of preventing it from happening, so OBVIOUSLY the reward for cross-ups has been buffed symmetrically. Adding to this, 3s forward dashes are insanely good (almost like teleports) for a big part of the cast, allowing players to dash under an ambiguous jump-in (=a really high jump in 3s) that might be a cross-up with ease.
TL;DR Cross-ups are not only garbage in 3s, but the dynamics of them are completely different because of the option select. (You just tap towards)
This option-select or dynamic doesn't exist in BlazBlue.
It doesn't exist in Guilty Gear.
It doesn't exist, as far as I know, in any of the arcsys games.
It doesn't exist in SF4 either, which is why cross-ups are less rewarding in that game too.
It CERTAINLY doesn't exist in Pocket Rumble.

So, let me ask you. Why do you, Mike_Z and worldjem, think that this cross-up balancing (sucking in) is handled "WRONG" in these games, when the ease of landing them and the general usefulness of them is completely different?
You are blindly replicating another game (3s) without giving it a proper thought, because of?

(And no, a random specific cool-looking Urien combo isn't very relevant to this :P )

I'd like to get into more subjects too, but let's handle this first.
I'd also like to add on top of all of this something that the developers can't say, but I can. Based on the footage I've seen, worldjem SUCKS at Pocket Rumble, so taking balance feedback from him makes as much sense as taking balance feedback from beginners in other fighting games.

Jumps beating lows is another subject I'd like to discuss too.

I think as a developer you're making a grand mistake by giving the alpha access to very limited people, who apparently happen to also be very biased and ignorant towards your design choices, and start to "argue" against you instead of critically thinking about each game as they are, and why they are that way. Games differ in different aspects because they're different, not because some game is inherently "right". Get that through your thick skull, skullheart.
Yurgh.

 

[Cagar]

Also, here's how the option select works, and why frontal & cross-ups are almost as easily prevented in 3s, and the reason why they're also equally harmful.
Cross-up is easily prevented by tapping and holding forward. No "guessing" or any sort of trickery. The exact same works for frontal jump-in.
They're essentially the same, so the reward is essentially the same too.
Only the "tap forward and hold" on the moment of attack (the first example) is already enough. The tapping backwards is shown as a theoretical example.
Let's also add to the mix that the hitstun from a succesful cross-up normal in 3s is absolutely tiny.

See the inputs at the bottom right; it's a tap in either left or right. Both beat the cross-up.
Just tapping however is already strong enough technique, and what you should use to cover both options easily

So, again, why are you guys using 3s cross-up reward as the "correct way" of doing it, when this mechanic is not in other games?
I'm pretty sure this doesn't exist in Skullgirls either.
It's WRONG in terms of difficulty/risk vs. reward, in my opinion.

 

[Waasiq]

About the whole "special snowflake" thing since you said its beyond your understanding:

Our goal, however, is to reduce the level of execution and memorization to the minimum necessary to retain all the core 2D fighter mechanics and gameplay elements.
This creates a level playing field for experienced players to focus on strategy and reading their opponents, and simultaneously opens up the genre to new players who may have found other similar games overwhelming. Genre veterans will be able to pick up and play without having to study move lists, and inexperienced players will be learning the strategic fundamentals of 2D fighters at a faster pace.

To me, and I know to a few other people, this sounded like they wanted to make a "beginner's fighting game." Something that followed most genre conventions and made them more accessible. At the time, what game would you have suggested to people who wanted to get into fighting games? Skullgirls has a lot of conveniences but is a pretty rough game to get into. ST teaches fundamentals but has a lot of tough execution stuff for beginners and some horrid matchups. Divekick teaches importance of spacing and how to learn matchups but ignores tons of other stuff about fighting games.

You can get into a discussion about "whether crowdfunding backers have any real entitlement about the final product" but whether or not they do, I don't think it's unreasonable for backers to see something in the campaign and be disappointed when the project goes in a different direction. Probably the more important discussion is about what are "core 2D fighter mechanics" or "strategic fundamentals" and whether PR is approaching those properly, since it's what they initially promised to keep.

And to clarify, I'm not saying that PR's pitch was disingenuous either, since they never claimed to be a bridge to other fighting games. But I assume a lot of its backers, especially the ones you'll find here who already play more complex fighting games, were (not unresonably) assuming it would fill that role. There was no mention of something like, "While we are influenced by previous 2D fighters, we have a few ideas of ways to make PR unique/a few ideas of where to break convention to make PR better overall." It sounded like it'd be pretty by the books.

To me personally, I guess I'm okay with PR being some weird, convention-breaking fighting game, probably because I backed at a low tier and since the niche of "beginner's fighting game" is being tackled by Rising Thunder and Fantasy Strike.

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

Hey, can't make a huge write-up right now because all my time is going into the getting the Early Access build ready, but I felt it necessary to clear the air a bit after the @Cagar posts above.

I want to make it SUPER clear that I don't believe there can be feedback that can inevitably be detrimental to the game just by being discussed. What we tend to do with each piece of feedback here is discuss it internally (after asking for clarification if it's not exactly clear why something is good or bad), decide if it's worth implementing to test, and then just start playing with the change for a bit and seeing how we feel about it. We don't EVER put something in just because everybody else wants it at this stage because there are so few people playing it in the first place.

I can't speak for the other games you mention, but here is the step-by-step reasons why we specifically made the crossup change:

1. Got feedback here about it, mechanical reasons not very convincing to change it, made that response video explaining why.
2. Multiple people still don't like it, 'game feel' is brought up, we decide to implement it in-engine because it's clearly a controversial topic.
3. Does make the game feel a whole lot better when it comes to crossups (probably only because most games do it this way) and it reduces execution of really deep crossup combos, thus we start to think about ways to keep this change while making the game ultimately MORE balanced as a result

Our solution was to significantly reduce knockdown frames to make oki setups way more rare. This worked as a good buff for Naomi (who desperately needed it) because she has a lot of oki setups even with the reduced frames, so now she could get more rewards off of the setups that are unique to her playstyle. This change also worked out well for us because now we could keep Tenchi's really good zoning options because we crippled his oki (mid and short range) game pretty significantly. In other words, with this change:

• The game feels better
• close-range fast characters got buffed (which was needed)
• System mechanics inherently favor zoners less, thus allowing us to keep existing zoning options crazy strong (as a result from the above point: making a wrong read once as a zoner = really really bad situation)

All the other changes that we made that address an issue discussed here had a similar process (except for throw OS, which was a complete oversight and as soon as it was brought up here we started working on a solution), but I don't really want to discuss all of them right now so you'll just have to trust me on that. Skullheart is not 'poisoning' the game and critical feedback (even the kind you think is unfounded) can do absolutely nothing except potentially help the game in the long run, and I'm sorry you got that impression that we just threw stuff in here to please @worldjem or @Mike_Z because we didn't go into more detail in the patch notes post. I can assure you, if we took this forum as gospel, we'd have 24 health and heavies would be doing x2 dmg (both of which are a trivial work both in code and art).

I think as a developer you're making a grand mistake by giving the alpha access to very limited people, who apparently happen to also be very biased and ignorant towards your design choices, and start to "argue" against you instead of critically thinking about each game as they are, and why they are that way. Games differ in different aspects because they're different, not because some game is inherently "right"

This would make sense if our original concepts were always perfect, but they aren't. Arguing every little detail makes sure any shaky design decisions get weeded out and it also reinforces stronger concepts because we have to think about them more critically. The only issue is if the argument is bringing up the same stuff over and over, but other than that it's really useful and I would really like people to continue doing so here and elsewhere for as long as we are supporting the game.

I also should mention that we get a lot of private feedback from people that aren't part of this forum, so you shouldn't worry too much about the core design being corrupted by the alpha testers from what you read here.


This is kind of a side note, but I also think I should bring this up because it's relevant:
This game IS going to be shaped by the people who play the game the most, NOT by us. The only reason we are strictly in control right now is because we are the ones who put the most time into it. When Early Access is out, if we happen to have more than like 50 people putting in huge amounts of hours and have a really high rating, THEY are going to dictate where the game will go (especially if the two of us here are not top-level players). I think it's important you know that before purchasing the game, because it's a really strong opinion I have on how this game (and most competitive games) should be designed, and it could take PR in a direction that you will NOT be happy with. People don't tend to spend hundreds of hours analyzing the mechanics of a game out of spite though, so I do think the core philosophy of "short combos and easy execution" will be staying, but I can't even guarantee that.

 

[Cagar]

Obviously, objectively negative feedback literally doesn't exist. Even if it's a comparison to a x game or just saying "this game sucks". It ALL helps. I understand that and don't want you to misinterpret my rambling, BUT
It's just weird to me how quickly you've taken the feedback and made the changes, despite me not seeing any of the mentioned problems in their (very bad) match footage.
Did you? I think you even asked to point them out a few pages back, and they never delivered, and I absolutely feel like you shouldn't make core design choices until the players who have played "the most" are actually competent in the game. (which isn't the case right now)
I understand that your original concepts weren't/aren't perfect, like you said, but you should at least keep them in as long as they're not faulty in your game itself.
'Game feel' is of course a legit reason for the change, but like I said, your "multiple" sources are very limited afaik.

What's the reason for you to change the blocking OUT of the manual 3s style? (now blockstrings are automatic even if you stop holding back, if I understood correctly)
I thought that could be a very important factor in gameplay. It's easy to understand, fits your simple rules and gameplay, and adds another thing to master without any extra complexity or hassle. But nope.
Also, what are the "most" games that do the cross-ups the 3s way?
Did you revert the change of normals refreshing chip timer? To me that already was understandable concept, because of the SF4 & SF5 stun system(s). I hope it's still in.

I know you aren't taking everything that people say here literally and that you probably have a lot of internal discussion before doing the changes, but I have a strong feeling that you let the feedback here affect your opinion too much, considering that the number of testers is little, and that these specific people here aren't necessarily good at the game.

 

[PocketRumbleDev]

I really really don't want to go over every change (like I said in the previous post), but really quickly the reason we had 3S manual blocking was so that people couldn't be buffering specials forever during blockstun and no other reason (buffering SPD forever to have a frame perfect counter to frame traps, while easily bait-able, is really silly). Making you lose block when you are holding down a button instead of forcing you to continue to hold back let's us do that without having the awkward/annoying things that come with 3S style block (get hit by the 4th part of Tenchi's super because you let tried to walk/jump forward a little too early, hard execution to immediately respond with a down-forward special, etc).

Chip timer is still reset by normals, no change there. "It isn't as simple" wasn't a big enough negative to make up for the all the positive that comes with it.

We don't use other people's match footage to make decisions at the moment. We play the game ourselves with the criticisms in mind, and also just in general you can usually tell if something is going to be an issue at high-level by just looking at the spectrum of possible options in a given scenario. Like with a crazy good throw OS, to play optimally, you'll just have to always use that OS in every instance when you aren't expecting wakeup DP. If you are expecting wakeup DP, you have to set yourself up to look like you are doing the OS anyway. Not a very fun array of options for either player (and it's annoying to learn the timing). While it wasn't relevant to us playing here, and it wasn't abused in any match footage that I'm aware of, it's not too hard to break down each specific scenario and find options that are overwhelmingly powerful, especially with how much stuff in our game is the same across the whole cast.

As for less obvious decisions, we don't try to break genre conventions just for the sake of being weird, and we'll always take the genre standard route if the pros outweigh the cons. Our goal is to simplify things to their absolute bare essentials while still having interesting choices in as many scenarios as possible within the gamespace (even if those choices sometimes betray standards). For anything that we are unsure of (variable anchor points?), we'll leave them alone until a bigger audience can respond to it.

Also I think you underestimate just how useful criticism from people with extremely solid fundamentals is (even if they are "bad" at PR right now). @worldjem brings up a lot of issues that are undetected by every other person who gives us feedback, and I don't think bad match footage can invalidate detailed write-ups. I know you think some criticism is unfounded, but even if some of it was totally bullshit (it isn't) we still desperately need that other 90% of feedback that identifies key issues.

So, to be as clear as possible, every decision we've made we think has objectively made the a game better and was made after lots of personal playtesting and thought, not anybody else's. We don't commit to changes lightly and I think you should wait until you have the game in your hands before coming to the conclusion that we "caved" with any of the changes. I regret not going into more detail with the patch notes.

Now no more posts until Early Access is done, I'm out.
(I'll still lurk though)

 

[Cagar]

Alright, thank you for your time and response(s). You've convinced me for now.
Now get the Early Access out so I can become the most playing player.

(You also probably shouldn't waste your time by reading my e-mails if you already haven't, as it's the exact same thing(s) I've written here)







< btw nice forum feature

 

[RemiKz]

So got my code for the game and played it for about two hours with someone so far; so yeah obvious not too much time put into it. One thing is super glaring and throwing me off.

I'm not a fan of the way specials are performed. A lot of the time when I try to do a crouching attack, I end up getting a special when I really don't want to because I was previously holding a direction prior to doing it. This makes it incredibly frustrating to play when I'm constantly throwing out unintentional attacks. I got better about it towards the end but I still would occasionally got stuff like tenchi's downback horns when I was just trying to do a crouching attack after blocking and get punished pretty hard for it. On top of, it was rather hard to hit confirm into specials at times because there seems to be a slight delay to when I press and hold the button and when the special actually comes out. Had A LOT of instances were it was just hard to get the special out when I wanted it.

Is it in the cards to add an option for traditional motion inputs? This would alleviate my biggest frustration with the game so far. Or even a button dedicated to specials maybe? I dunno but I haven't been this frustrated getting my intended inputs to work how I want them in a fighting game before.

EDIT: Finally starting to get the hang of just tapping the buttons and not holding them when I want a normal to avoid having a special come out, though I still get the occasional unwanted special here and there. Still feels super jarring that I had to adjust so much to this game after having played so many other fighting games.

EDIT: As an aside for everyone else, this first combo seems to be the highest damage you can currently get in the game. Tenchi can do the same with a jump-in and full meter.

 

[skull person]

@PocketRumbleDev

I played the game with Dolfinh today for a bit online.
We're both SG players that play a lot together.

I didn't know anything about it but I heard that GGPO was implemented so I bought it and picked the fireball guy and went in after 20 seconds of sort of figuring out my buttons:

I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY don't like holding buttons to get a special.
If I see a jump in and I react to it and I do DP, I want that DP to start up come out when I hit the button
Knowing that there's a delay it means you have to DP early.
It basically feels like I'm playing on GGPO 8 for specials and everything else is GGPO 0.
Switching between those two.. timing rules is not very fun, or simple, it's complicated!
Especially for combos.

Like a third special button is something I could jam to easily.

If the delay on every single special is for balance reasons, I'd rather have the move start up slower.

Something like 5A 5A Fireball actually works, but it's really difficult to do because the 3[A] needs to be input SUPER fast after the second A in order for the charge time to complete.
The second A for the second Jab doesn't need to come out that fast, but the 3[A] needs to be very quick and also it needs to happen immediately after the second 5A has started or else you'll get one 5A into an uncombo fireball.

This all seems super complicated for something that could be 5A 5A 6C.
A into a B special is very clean and so is B into an A special.
A into an A special and B into a B special does not feel good.

-

The other thing that was a bit strage was that anything but 5A 5A is really hard to confirm into a special (and that requires you to be extremely close) [What am I saying it's really hard to confirm that because of the reason I explained above with the charge times]
So this leads to scenarios where you can do things like 5A/5B/2A > Fireball which I believe is at least safe on block and also a combo on hit.

If your normal that you wanted to link into the special happens to catch someone out of a jump (maybe out of the corner or they were trying to jump your throw), the special will come out and whiff through them and leave you open for a counter hit punish.

Should I only be using specials for 100% confirmed punishes or is this just an intended risk reward game that sometimes my stuff is going to go through them if they jump?

You also can't hit confirm into specials because there's a big delay before they come out I talked about, so you have to hope that they will be on the floor when your normal connects.

-

Those are my two things I cared enough to talk about.

I found it pretty easy to pick up and start playing.
A lot of my downloading from playing Dolfinh in SG carried over too : P

I'll be trying all the versions.

Looking forward to all the characters.
Music is cool.
I like the art.

(I didn't even know there was a timer until a time out)

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

@PocketRumbleDev
A lot of my downloading from playing Dolfinh in SG carried over too : P

Fuck you :<