Hi!
I had no idea the internet was so against experimentation. Multiple websites focused on various aspects of sex had led me to believe otherwise. (^.^)
Yes, it'll get tried in the Beta. This stuff is the reason
we have a Beta. It will NOT be on console in the upcoming update. Though of course if it sticks, it will be in a future update.
As a game designer, I'm absolutely giddy at the thought of being able to put a new system in front of the people who play the game to see whether they like it and possibly CHANGE it or AVOID using it at all if they don't! Rather than shipping a whole game and finding out people hate it and then having to market the hell out of it and hold huge-prize-money tournaments and keep positively spinning it just to force people to think it doesn't suck.
(Keep in mind, "I have to relearn my long junk" is not a reasonable rationale for hating it as opposed to any other system - that's just hating any change, Grumpy.)
Treat it like it's a new game, since we seem to be allergic to increasing the sequel number. MvC1->MvC2, rather than 2012->AE.
[edit] I had a goal when I started for what the gameplay would look like, and each change is an attempt to get to that. However, SG now has a playerbase which has their own ideas, and ultimately that's more important. If the playerbase disagrees with something that brings the game closer to my goal, that will probably win.
Rationale: If a designer can't give you a rationale that's when you call them George Lucas, thanks whoever that was.
Every iteration of the IPS has been aimed at reducing repetition and increasing variety in combos. Obviously you can't/shouldn't force people to do a different combo off the same starting hit every single time, but at least reducing the "loopiness" of that combo they'll always do.
After much observation it's quite possible that IPS is tracking the wrong thing.
The current way you build a combo in SG is you find one thing you can link off of, and you link off of it with everything that IPS allows. (Painwheel Buers or s.HP, Parasoul LP shot -> s.LP/s.LK/s.MP/s.MK, or her j.HK or B+HK, Double barrel, Valentine j.HP, Filia drill, Peacock LK George, Fortune axe kick, etc.) Sometimes you combine multiple versions of this in one combo. This leads to
boringish combos that have a lot of the same characteristics of loops.
This was especially evident in v1.0 where Parasoul could use standing and crouching LP and LK for four easy reps of Napalm Shot...people tend to play this way because it requires the least thought and takes the most advantage of muscle memory for the most gain in your combo. Plus it only requires learning to link off one move.
The goal of this experiment is to see whether this changes combos to be less loop-related. It is not to reduce damage, though it will affect optimized combos because that's the point. It may reduce length, but that is a side-effect of eliminating loops rather than anything else. It may also not reduce overall length, I dunno, that's why we experiment!
How it works, the OP is basically correct:
- Stages are the same, tracks whatever in Stage 3, triggers upon doing whatever in Stage 5.
- Does not track chain starters anymore. (I think doing that also is too restrictive...then again, each time I've been nice about what you can do it has led to problems, heh.)
- When you start a new chain, if you linked off something you have linked off before, it will trigger.
- It tracks the move you linked off, so
that move has to have been in Stage 3 to count / Stage 5 to trigger. Stage 2 ground chain -> launcher does not count, so you can do another launcher later.
- I have no idea how it treats supers since this is a quick test, but launch, aircombo -> air Gregor -> Gregor -> any hit will trigger IPS. So it looks like they are treated as regular moves. I could possibly make them free if this sucks.
- Tracked moves carry over on DHC. They didn't last night, because that was turned off since Undizzy basically takes care of that problem, but with no stun they kinda have to.
- Fortune's head is ignored, if you do blahblah s.MK, head, s.LP it counts as linking s.MK to s.LP.
A few things:
- Resets ALREADY kill faster than long combos, even right now. The DPS of a reset is way higher than a fully-scaled anything. I doubt this will slow down the match pace between two people who know what they're doing besides combos.
- This doesn't mean Undizzy would stay gone, but since Undizzy is currently the limit I want to see what the limit is with this new system.
- If it sticks, this may result in the removal of limits which were added in an attempt to reduce the number of times you can link off things (Fortune axe kick, Filia airball cancel, Kanchou bounce, etc.) Or not.
- If this might cause you to relearn your optimized combo, I don't care. :^)
In the end, the point of an experiment is to see what people think. If you hate it, great, that's valuable information which we wouldn't have learned without you being able to try it.
(@
Broken Loose - Solo currently takes a long time mostly because of 2x timer / 2x win-loss pose and intro / no meter kept, all of which going to Downs would help with. And matches with Shin AT-proof in most games take close to the maximum allowable time. Heh.)