GetTheTables

I should have some time on Sat so that works out. Biggest thing with Rev2 is that I never really had a character I settled on. If I had I probably would have become just another one of those filthy Johnny players. I may yet still when he inevitably comes to Strive (and destroys the game balance).

People need to harden the fuck up. Everyone played the game for what, 3 days? The game isn't in the universe of settled enough to start really caring about balance. I'm sure some stuff will get tweaked between beta and launch but odds are really good it is stuff the devs were going to tweak anyways. Even if something launches in a horribly busted state, its not like the game isn't getting patched with every character release, and then with every "season". The modern game model actually makes me appreciate any really fucked up-broken moments more because they are often eventually smoothed over. Remember mid-screen wall bounces from Mika's Irish Whip? Good times. The version of Strive we'll be playing in June 2021 will be very different than what we'll be playing in June 2022, June 2023, or June 2024. If Pot and Ram are god-beasts in that version, let them enjoy their time in the sun. Come 2023 you'll have people clamoring for Pot buffs after he was "over nerfed in Season 2" or some such.

The additional wait is definitely going to hurt. I've been handling the withdrawal by watching beta matches but those are gonna dry up. However yeah they definitely are wise to take the extra time for stability and refinement. For as garbo as the lobbies are, what would be a lot worse is if the game launched and you saw the server issues in the beta writ large. Imagine finally getting the game only for the servers to be down for like 3 days. Wouldn't be great for PR either. I feel like that is actually the bigger motivator for the delay, and they are just using that time to also address the lobbies. Not that I'm complaining; any improvement to those will be tremendously appreciated. I still have Rev2 installed so time permitted we can crack into that. Hell if I remember anything in that game though. 🙂

Yeah at this point there are a decent # of small game teams that have managed to pull it off. Hell Tough Love Arena has rollback and that can't be a small team, and the game is totally free. I feel like part of what "costs" means to these FG teams isn't just raw monetary costs. Even "big" FG teams probably aren't that large, and you gotta figure that if you were going to implement rollback correctly from zero it is going to "cost" you dedicated time of at least one person, probably more. So as a project you have to decide if you can afford the cost in either time (having someone on the team learn what to do and get through the learning pains of implementing rollback) or the raw cost of hiring outside help to save your team from being stretched. In a way this global situation is a key time for companies to make this kind of shift. Locals aren't going to happen again for a long time yet and losing out on the ability to hold events hurts the sales tail on games (a lot of my excitement for SFV came from watching CPT, which turned into me staying with the game and buying stuff over the years even when my actual game time flatlined). Rollback allows you to at least hold online events, and of course for your players to continue playing each other. If you can't leverage that, it doesn't feel like it is even worth releasing a new FG this year. GBVS sort of felt this. It came out and had a little time to shine, then lost a lot of momentum due to everything locking down. Imagine if that game launched with even a proto version of the rollback that ASW is set to deploy with Strive. For whatever good or ill features Strive may have, it is looking like the only modern Japanese FG that can continue to operate in a semi-normal capacity in 2021, and that is going to count for a lot when it comes to evaluating if it was worth the "pain" of implementing rollback for them in the first place. Its fucked up but the pandemic is probably going to end up being one of the best things that could have happened for FG online QoL because it forced the issue so hard. Talking about old SRK poster brought out my tendencies.

The KOF15 rollback stuff is interesting. Not that I'm super invested in KOF but broadly any rollback attempt is better than them not trying at all. With some effort they should be able to get something solid out the door, even if it isn't Strive level or anything. The way I would interpret "internal" is "we don't want to spend money to hire anyone to do this so we're going to figure this out." Considering that a variety of indie FGs have been able to implement working rollback hopefully the KOF team can figure it out. Hell even if it releases in a jank state at least the groundwork is out there and you can refine it. The biggest issue with SFV's netcode hasn't been the jank with it, it has been that they have never really sat down and re-addressed it.

Don't think so sadly. He sort of waxed and waned back in the SRK forums and I think when that died he just nodded and TK'd the fuck outta forums in general. My very rough understanding is that he is on Twitter (I don't twitter so can't verify) and he updates his YT channel regularly enough.

It's SFV so that is a very safe assumption.

Highland Unchained:

Content is good like always but Highland's music choices are always the highlight for me. This one cracked me up.

People hate change. Sort of meme answer but its true, and about a lot of things. Especially if you've spent a ton of time with something. Have it change into something different - even if its better/"better" - is disruptive and unpleasant. I've seen this kind of table flip for years in tabletop gaming. FGs are no different. Or maybe they just really hate her new haircut. Those people are monsters though.

Not unless you were in the EU lobby yesterday. 🙂 Does suck that we didn't play during the beta but hey we can fix that when the full game drops. When I mean blocking, maybe too much, I mean that they were blocking all the time. Not a lot of activity, blocking on jumping forward, stuff like that. Maybe 5-10 dolphins the whole game? Its hard to describe but there is such a thing as blocking too much. Especially with beta May who can (and should) be going a little fuckin crazy to make you have to scramble with her. Her buttons and specials are just so goddamn good and pesky. Once I realized he wasn't really going to dictate the pace of the fight I think I kinda ran him over. That said, that player is coming from a much better base of thought than the Chipp player who's plan was "DP....then DP again!" My favorite beta moment was winning the Ram mirror by winning the last round with wake up super after losing the first round to it. "I learned it by watching you!"

I had the same experience with Chipp. My years of Bronze Kens prepared me well for their mania. I think its just the archetype. Though the one Ky player I ran into was also squirrelly as hell. Its probably just in the low ranks everyone is still overly active and antsy. You know the one player I ran into that legit blocked a lot, maybe too much? A May player. I know, I was surprised too. Then I threw that b to deff I'm interested in seeing how chars are in 1.0. Also whenever Johnny shows up he is going to own this game unless they purposefully make him godawful. Can't wait for April.

She definitely seems strong. Great buttons, some random bullshit, good damage, works the corner (giggity), reversal super in a pinch. From my very limited perspective she also has weaknesses but I couldn't hear them over the sound of me hammering on the slash button. We'll see how she is in 1.0. Also I don't eat glue. Paste is much less runny and goes on toast.

So I managed to sneak in a little more beta time thanks to the extension. This time I went to the EU tower lobby to try to force some longer distance connections. Hard to tell where everyone is of course but assuming everyone is actually in Europe (the one guy had a German tag line so that one is 70% likely) things ran really well. A few of the matches had some noticeable minor rollbacks but nothing disruptive. Seems like you can cast a pretty wide net with this game. Additional lobby impressions: The "parks" are a good idea since they let anyone play anyone and theoretically its sort of like an endless lobby, so long as you can keep matching up with people. However due to the game velcro-ing you to a few given spots for matchmaking everyone just kinda clumps up in the middle which can make squaring up with who you want to way harder than it needs to be. In general it would be nice if there were either more anchor points, or if you somehow got an indication where you were going to stick to when you readied up. Out of all the times I've done it, maybe twice have I landed in the spot I thought I would. Every other time I ended up bampf'ing across the lobby and running back. Speaking of runbacks, I'm not sure if this is due to the tower lobbies auto-moving you to another level after a game but I never got to play someone more than once. I seriously doubt that after every game they either got demoted or promoted so I'm assuming they just bolted. A mandatory Bo3 in this game seems like a no brainer. Also a no brainer because of how long it takes you to get back into a match after you've finished up. Back to the lobby. Both avatars animate. Then someone can finally ready up again, then you can play. I get that some of that is likely to hide server exchanges/load times/whatever but its just kind of a drag especially in a game that can have as much momentum in matches as this. Bo3 in ranked and some ability to quick rematch in general, even if they put a hard limit on it or whatever, would be tremendously appreciated. Overall the game is really fuckin' fun. Helps that I enjoy Ram quite a bit. I'm sure the launch version is going to change things up from what we saw here so we'll see how it is then, but the game has good bones to build off of. At least for me. Also managed to dig myself out of the 5th floor and get up to 7. Things are definitely starting to click though I have a shitload to work on when the full game drops.

At least she didn't drop a bus on him. Twice. Someone check the files to see if that was a character specific instant kill that just somehow didn't get found out.

Capcom knows Juri fans like to suffer. Its character appropriate. They were toying around with the idea of a 3rd new costume that can only be unlocked when the player mails the dev team a thumb drive with a video file wherein they put a lit cigarette out on their neck and call themselves a dirty little bitch. It was ultimately decided that effort would be better spent on Ryu playtesting and refinement which does seem to have worked out.

I legit had to pause for a minute and actively try to remember what Laura's VT2 was, and I ran with that thing for like a month. This patch would have hurt me. Kolin got kicked in the gut and Poison seems workable but also took some whacks. Fuckin' boo.

Two big takeaways I've always had with GG lore: 1) It is very 90s/00s anime in the sense that it loves throwing proper nouns at you like you know what the fuck they are talking about. 2) Its still a FG storyline so the delivery is kind of fragmented early on. Once you get to Xrd you're just watching a movie which is way more boring but at least you're getting the story straight up (though still plenty of proper nouns). So what you're seeing is a lot of patchwork between game lore, notes, manga, etc. In some ways I think its a miracle it makes any kind of sense at all. For me GG has always been about: - Its take on magic and things like it - The Gears themselves (and by knock on effect Sol/Ky/Dizzy) I find it is better to let your eyes glaze over and take in the broad picture then pick at the finer points on another go-round (particularly for individual characters, some of which have "hey I'm here too!" plot significance). I take it a step back further and just view it all as an excuse for cool shit to happen. If people asked me about GG lore I'd say "yes there is".

As someone who has spent years deep in the nerd trenches, he absolutely has that intonation. Right around the 4 minute mark of any video you reflexively want to stuff the video in a locker or give it a swirlie.

The struggle is real. Weirdly its the old games now that have all the good online since everyone was willing to backport it (or Fightcade). Though at least in the modern era we have Strive, KI2013 ("modern"), MK11 (and presumably beyond), even FEXL? And I'll give SFV the booby prize for trying. Speaking of SFV Bafael looks do be doing char by char patch breakdowns. Started with the OG Ryu: Definitely a "fucking finally" patch for him.

Same. If I'm not gonna play I still want to see Poison and Laura shitting things up. With Kolin as a solid 3rd. iDom out there doing god's good work. Or satan's since they are my dark wishes.

Not sure about the magnitude but that was the initial scuttlebutt I read this morning. That picture pretty much sums it up actually.

Due to weekend beta availability fuckery they kicked it out until the 23rd. So you've got a bit more window to work with. This SFV patch seems pretty wild. More changes than I expected. The new Honda would have made me vomit. I might still.

I was gonna play May until I realized Ram got revised the way she did. Even though I like the way she plays I still want to try May at some point. She seems like a saucy little fucker. And her redesign is one of my favorites visually.

More beta time is good news. Strive did that thing where it stuck in my brain and I keep thinking of stuff I want to check out. A good sign. Even though the lobbies are wonky as fuck looking forward to having more time to play folks here and abroad.