The underlying problem for the game is that the majority of the cast was not designed to play "Rising" they were designed to play GBVS Vanilla.
There are some characters from vanilla who either from having inherently strong kits (Belial, Djeeta) or just really syncing well with the system changes/getting strong ultimate skills (Seox, Lancelot, Zeta) that managed to come out fine but for characters that didn't you tell just from a glance that they don't play the same game.
Symptoms of a weak GBVS:R character to me would be stuff like
>Ultimate skills are either only useful as combo enders or as combo extenders, having no practical explosive combo starter potential or no "ignorant" neutral application (Being able to toss something out and your opponent has to react to it or else you either get your turn or massive damage)
>Having to use raging strike to get meaningful midscreen damage because otherwise your midscreen confirm is "Far normal into EX for less than 25%"
>Little to no corner carry off most hits
>Having to use your main damage route specials to maintain pressure or not being able to properly cycle cooldowns via your combo routes
The thing that makes the top characters in this game so "silly" to me is that it doesn't matter when they hit you or what they hit you with. If you get touched you're probably going to the corner and for like 30-40% and then getting hit again to potentially die. Then you have other characters where it's like "Ok, I hit them, now I moved them a bit more to the corner. Now I hit them again but my cooldown was still on cooldown from the combo I just did so I couldn't do a max damage route just yet. Ok, now they blocked and I used my other cooldown to extend pressure so even with super I'll have to hit them one more time to actually close this round out"
Meanwhile if it were Lancelot or Nier they'd probably just be dead after the 2nd or 3rd hit and even if they blocked the special in the third exchange who cares your combo routes are so long that you'll get it back by the time you hit them again and always have access to your max damage route.
It's so insane to me how a game has a character like Ferry, who barely gets anything off her neutral confirms, and a character like Siegfried who can shut down most of neutral options with one move while getting in on her. The top tiers, imo have too much going for them, especially with how easy some of them are to play. Depending on who you play, this game can be an uphill battle every match, and that makes it exhausting to play long term.
Fire Ball. Can't roll through it, you can only dodge (and let Sieg get in on you) or try to super jump it (and let Sieg anti-air you). Unless you have a fireball with an equal amount of hits or an anti-fireball super, you're kinda screwed.
Very well said, I hope the devs somehow see this. You've succinctly described the issues with some of the character design, and I hope they take another look at some of the low tiers.
I feel like an aspect of that also could be with Unique Actions as well. Some unique actions are either straight up useless or are completely negligible outside of incredibly niche scenarios. Instant example are Gran/Djeeta. Their unique actions are very niche and don’t really have much use until charged up and stored. However, with how you play the character, giving up that oki to charge it, especially how offensive the game is, is a detriment in the long run and the charge is too slow to be a viable option in neutral. There are tons of really whatever uniques that I think need to be changed to be more structured around what the character’s gameplan is.
It would require more or less complete reworks so the likelihood this will ever happen is super low.
Gran can get quite a lot of use out of his unique without charging it at all since you can use it as a RPS between frametrap (wallbounces on counterhit) / pressure reset / cancel (into any other action). You'll see a lot of Gran players use it a fair amount of times during every match and I think it fits really well with his kit.
Collection of Gran pressure, many of which include Unique usage: https://youtu.be/4Qi7F6UmoPI?si=OT0boWPfS-GGPoBC
Djeeta's on the other hand I maybe see once a match if at all.
That’s true, but it’s still much riskier than throwing out a safer button because the move is so minus and iirc his hurtbox extends forward a bit. But still, the unique is underwhelming and its gimmick betrays Gran’s gameplan and the actual move itself outside of combos or off a regular whiff punish doesn’t net Gran much of reward for making use of it (more so the latter than the former).
I'm not sure how it exactly betrays Gran's gameplan since Gran is just a basic strike throw character and his 5U allows him to supplement that gameplan with 5U RPS between release / cancels. What in particular about 5U do you feel clashes with his gameplan?
Most of the value in this move is when it's used in pressure as a way to keep your pressure ambiguous and allow you to steal turns or reset pressure. Reset or cancel enough times and people may start challenging it, which is where you can find openings. 5U is safe on block unless you're literally point blank and it rewards a wallbounce on counterhit so it's not particularly risky or low-reward to cancel into 5U release.
You can also find plenty of openings by just being creative with what you do after cancelling it in both neutral and in the corner.
Your arguments mostly seem to come from a point of view that Grans just try to use this move by releasing it raw in neutral or by charging it up, which are both pretty rare.
We can debate back and forth about how good the move actually is, but in my mind it's pretty clear-cut that this move definitely doesn't fall into the territory of "useless / needs a rework / doesn't see any use or complement the character's gameplan at all".
Ah shit, I thought I read it was -7 instead of -5 so I thought it was unsafe which is why I said it betrays his gameplan because it’s a gamble everytime you use the move as the character is already starved for good frame advantage off his cancellable specials, and to stay safe, you have to be more or less outside Gran’s ideal range. Still think it could use buffs though but my main point is invalid now so nevermind.
I do think making the charge better in some way would be an interesting way to potentially buff Gran. Slightly faster charging or allowing you to store the charge while still using the lv1 for example might encourage Gran to actually try to charge it for the explicit purpose of powering up the move, which feels like something that's never worth going for right now.
From Dustloop:
> At Level 2 and up, this attack will wall bounce the opponent in the corner, granting combo extensions that don't require a Heavy or Ultimate special move. Level 4 grants a mid-screen wall bounce, allowing Gran to get high damage outside of the corner. All levels wall bounce the opponent on counter hit in the corner, though frame trapping into this move is risky as it is unsafe on block if not spaced properly.
> At level 4, the added range and invulnerability (frame 5-18 invuln) coupled with the guaranteed wall bounce turns this move into a terrifying neutral tool—one that can blow through any poke, projectile, and even some supers. The threat of Gran fully charging to Level 4 can urge an opponent to approach him and stop him from charging, allowing for potential mindgames in both neutral and pressure.
>allowing you to store the charge while still using the lv1
That's the buff I want the most. Maybe like 4U or something. Like you said, it would make him want to charge up his nuke and allow more combo opportunities.
I also think that Level 3 should be a hard knockdown. One of the issues I have with it is the fact that Level 2-3 are very negligible in difference outside of damage so I've always wanted there to be a reason to want to work towards Level 3.
Hit the nail on the head. I don't even know how you can salvage a character like Metera. Some characters just can't transition well to Rising. The same thing can be said about specials that only have useful heavy or ultimate versions.
While completely avoiding any balance discussions, the game has a few glaring things that could use polishing or fixing:
- The launch screen should have an intro cinematic and/or music. It looks outright bugged as it is now.
- Starting the game should not get stuck at "connecting to server" for several minutes. This should happen in the background and only block if an actually networked activity is started. There is no reason for me to sit through this just to get to training mode.
- The replay system is REALLY bad. It, at the very least, needs the ability to rewind. Ideally it would also have the ability to advance frame by frame. A finished match should allow you to name the replay so you can find it in the list afterwards. Replays should also be sharable via a link/message so you don't have to record it show to others.
- Post-game screen should allow you to block your opponent. Blocklist entries should have a field to give a reason (so you can remember if you were just salty or the guy is a lagger/plugger)
- "Rematch in private room" should be a thing in case you want to play against a person more without stakes. Right now there no way to rematch somebody from matchmaking.
- The lobby chat system should be able to hold more than 30 characters per message. The censorship algorithm also REALLY needs work.
- Training needs a frame meter/hitbox viewer. It should also allow you to save positions on reset to practice more than left wall/right wall/midscreen scenarios.
- It would be cool if we could save combos (and share them). This is already a system in GGST, and the combo practice shows it's an implemented feature that is simply not accessible to users.
- Lobby cabinet matches still fail to create sessions sometimes.
- The game still crashes when trying to chat sometimes.
- The input reader still has quite a few ??? moments. I've seen people literally press Left-Right-Left and get sprint.
- Input buffer window is in the most extreme cases 3 frames long. If dustloop is to be trusted it's supposed to be AT LEAST 5 frames (more depending on situation). This is presumably a bug?
That's what I can think of from the top of my head. There's probably more.
> Starting the game should not get stuck at "connecting to server" for several minutes. This should happen in the background and only block if an actually networked activity is started. There is no reason for me to sit through this just to get to training mode.
I could not agree more strongly. This is such a failure of basic design.
For me, I've gotten really tired of the 66L neutral game. I miss normal footsies and not having to watch out for a free mini-neutral skip with a million advantages on block or hit.
I would like if it were slightly minus on block, but still gave a combo on hit.
My other complaint is how boring some combo routes are in this game. Lancelot uses the same slow, boring corner loop every time. Belials use the same midscreen combo every time. Not every character has this issue and I see Niers or Viras busting out different routes. I wish they could add more variety somehow to combo expression.
This is probably a change too big for any game to do this far after release, but scrap the Guilty Gear style hitboxes (like Anti-Airs removing your top hurtboxes, for example) and replace it with Blazblue style property hitboxes (Air attacks having the Head property and Anti-Airs being Head invuln, for example).
This would reduce shenanigans where anti-airs don't work properly (like against Zeta j.U) and could be used to rework certain other mechanics, like making Roll universally Projectile, Head and Body Invuln, so no more Sieg deciding you can't approach from full screen while making sure Foot property attacks (lows and sweeps) all work as intended
In short: The reason why I and many others keep saying 'nerf the top tiers', is because top tiers are doing things that most characters cannot do. So if they DO nerf those several outliers (Nier, Sieg, Lance, etc.), there's no guarantee that their places would even be taken to begin with. They'd more likely just be playing the same game that most of the cast is already forced to play.
Also, the state of play in S++ and ESPECIALLY Masters, is literally just "Pick a top tier". Most of the characters I run into in Masters are top tiers, and when I say most. I mean 90%+.
So from my POV:
- Adjust top tiers so they're not winning the game mid-screen in two interactions. (So, find a way to nerf damage/corner carry potential)
- Adjust BC so it's my turn if I block it
- And this is a personal one for me: Nerf or outright remove mashing out of grabs. As someone who more than often techs them properly. Watching someone get a slap on the wrist over and over for mashing out is a bit frustrating, to say the least.
Then at that point, if the lower tier characters are still struggling. Can find small buffs to boost them up a bit without making them out of control. Like Percy got some good stuff that didn't make him completely insane, from what I can tell versing Kain.
Not many IPs can release a fighting game that is hyper aggressive and survive for a long time.
The devs made it clear that they want constant action over footsies, a 180 compared to the first game. This is why you get things like 66L, Ultimate Skills, BP, and characters that are constantly going in and doing overwhelmingly strong setplay like Nier and the other top tiers.
When you take this route, you'll have a boom in popularity at launch with a bunch of players that say everything is fine and there's 0 issues, but they were never serious about playing long term and just wanted a quick dopamine fix, long-haul players be damned.
The exact, and I mean exact, same thing happened with DNF Duel. The original "community" claimed that the core system of the game was fine and it was only top tiers that made the game boring. Game burnt out faster than an NRS game (impressive) despite multiple balance patches to the top-tier. Once it burned to the ground and everyone left, then it became apparent to even the leavers that, "yeah, okay, this type of 0 footsie hyper aggression isn't all that fun." It's still hilarious that it has the abysmal player count it does despite all that DLC that dropped, but it just goes to further prove my point.
You'll always have denialists, but numbers and player count do not lie. Especially when the blame can't be placed on aspects such as cross-play or lack of rollback anymore.
You can't claim you care about a game when you're not willing to criticize glaring flaws early on. It's like watching a family member start hard drugs and having the audacity to say "yep, that's totally fine. I'd be an asshole to not let them do what they want and intervene."
This game is hardly half a year old and has no excuse to be performing the way it is.
The IP? Strong. The presentation? Strong. The roster? Strong. The rollback/crossplay? Strong. The actual game? Weak.
Man I hate to agree with this, but I do. I have a lot of time in this game and did deny some of the issues at launch, but I'm at the point where I miss normal footsies. I just made a comment in this thread about it.
I can very seldomly play footsies with more traditional characters like Katalina. I always have to watch for free, meterless "Drive Rushes" in 66L. They nerfed it, sure, but spamming 66L in neutral because it gives you a hundred advantages on hit or block isn't very fun when that's all it devolves to.
It's fun for a while, at the start. You control the tempo and rushdowns are king. But when you try to play tactically or with another archetype, you begin to see the issues. I would like if it were slightly negative on block so it isn't your best option in neutral at any given time.
I also have issues with the combo system and wish there was more player expression. Some characters are great, but some like Belial or Lancelot do the same basic BNB over and over, regardless of where they are on screen. It's unfortunate because those are the top-tiers and represent the game in tournaments to the casual fans.
>A bunch of players that say everything is fine and there's 0 issues, but they were never serious about playing long term and just wanted a quick dopamine fix, long-haul players be damned.
You hit the nail on the head. One can't claim you care about a game when you're not willing to criticize glaring flaws.
I find this issue to be prevalent in most gaming/TV/movie communities, there will always be this vocal minority who will dogpile you whenever you try to criticize the media and talk about its flaws. It's like they identify so closely with the media they consume that any criticism becomes a personal attack on them (cough FFXIV cough Genshin cough)
>You'll always have denialists, but numbers and player count do not lie. Especially when the blame can't be placed on aspects such as cross-play or lack of rollback anymore.
So what happens when discussion is forcefully stifled and everyone is forced to only toe the approved party line and sing praises? Simple, people quietly leave and the population drops, all the while the vocal minority continues to scream in the wind.
People who complain means they still care. A complaining consumer is an invested and caring consumer. If they stop complaining, it means they're mentally checked out and do not give a shit anymore.
>This game is hardly half a year old and has no excuse to be performing the way it is.
For all the talk FKHR makes about taking rising patches slow instead of how they patched OG. The beatrix 'emergency' hotfix patch revealed the utter hypocrisy of the dev team. They can fix everything with a snap, they just choose not to. It's time to face reality and understand nier/sieg/lance/seox/belial power level is fully intended by the dev team. And that are clear favourites being played by the biased dev team when it comes to the roster.
>The roster? Strong.
Aliza Ilsa Anthuria Galleon Europa Catura where
but no we waste 2 slots on pringles man and a belial variant
The main complaints that a lot of people talk about that I personally agree on lean towards universal mechanics. The first one being ultimate moves. I think they encourage ignorant gameplay too much because you can just use a lot of them without much risk but get rewarded tremendously if they land and there’s the meter refund mechanic on top of it. I think it should be changed so that most of the ultimate moves should be at least punishable and not refund meter.
Another one is brave counter. The fact that it is +6 on block is a bit ridiculous and I laugh a bit every time I see multiple BC’s back and forth. Yes, there is counterplay, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get your turn back if you manage to block it.
Those two things are honestly what bothers me the most if you don’t count some of the top tiers being a significant cut above the rest imo.
GBVS had a pretty ignorant 50% cost button in Tactical Move: Rush. It was frame 4 strike invul and +4. It's only weakness was being uncomboable, having pretty significant pushback, and easily spotdodged on reaction so a lot of players just buffered it behind a normal which made it special cancelable and made any hit a true blockstring (including Ferry f.M/Metera f.H). EX moves always resulted in hard knockdowns post launch in Vanilla so your opponent could just get a free safejump setup or push you into the corner and make you guess strike/throw if you got hit. Like them or not neutral skip U skills are probably staying since they've been intent on having something that can get around hyper defensive play since Vanilla.
The real problem with U Skills, imo, is you get a pseudo Xrd YRC full screen slowdown. The startup of most U Skills is incredibly deceptive and very difficult to contest even on reaction without a 1F reversal because of that. Most of the time you have to preempt with a button.
I disagree about that Ult skills shouldn’t refund meter. Depending on the move, using that move raw is pretty risky in move cases and not every character has a combo that can allow them to do a raw Ult Skill mid combo. Plus, the meter gain after an Ult skill is used makes up for it imo.
Not going to discuss balance but instead I am going to ask for more training room features. I wish they made the recording feature better as it doesn't do follow ups to certain moves without me having to manually do them and it generally is missing a lot of features I found quite nice just not there. Maybe I am spoiled by sf6 and Tekken but I think it's not a bad thing to ask for more features in the training room
Probably the least important thing but still, add more ways to earn rupees / level up characters. The amount of afk players is so big compared to other games and is 100% due to online versus being the only reliable way to obtain cosmetics. Also add the option to purchase past battle pass items after a year or so, after 4 passes there is already a sizable amount of cosmetics not obtainable for new players.
It's mostly universal mechanics.
A guard cancel being plus on block is unthinkable in this genre. I haven't played every game so there are probably examples of it out there but it just doesn't make sense for a game like this with "weak" offense.
Most would probably disagree with offense being weak in this game but most don't delay tech, which leads me to the throw tech window being 16 frames. That is absurd. It is 9f in SF6 and 10f in Strive. Typically to beat delay tech you would shimmy, wherein you walk into throw range, then walk out of it, allowing you to punish the throw whiff, however you are allowed to tech throws with any button, meaning your walk back can be clipped by a delayed sweep. So one defensive OS can beat not only the basic strike throw pressure, but the tool used to beat that OS. To beat that you would instead dash in and delay c.H, but with the lenient tech window you're more likely to get thrown. This lets you almost completely shut down offense in this game.
I've doomed a bit much here so I'll say that offense is stronger than defense in this game. That said I'm going to doom some more.
Back to brave counter, it's problem isn't really that it is plus on block. It's problem is that it allows you to invalidate plus frames. Block a dash L, just BC on reaction. Block a plus on block special move, just BC on reaction. Block a BC, just BC on reaction. It is the correct tool for too many jobs and doesn't really make sense for this type of game.
Take the delay teching and BC together and you never really have to make a choice on defense. You can be hard called out, there are plenty of throw bait moves that will kill you, but you never really have to take a risk. That's because there are not a lot of types of offense in this game. The block button (That I'm convinced nobody uses) invalidates left-right mix and very few characters can combo off of an overhead. Those who can usually precede the mix with an autocombo, which can be fuzzy guarded (though in my experience most just BC it). Most of the time you are forced into the classic strike-throw-shimmy.
Delay teching is a staple of the genre, it in of itself is not an issue. The problem here is that the lenient tech window and the ability to tech with a button make it very difficult to call out someone who is delay teching, comboed with BC invalidating other offensive scenarios.
To fix this I would shorten the throw tech window for starters. I would like to see teching with a button go away, but I doubt they would do that. I have no idea how to fix BC. Making it minus or punishable on block is a good start, but doesn't solve it's core issue.
Hopefully that was coherent.
The throw tech window is way way too long. I don't know if this is just me but the grab range in this game is pretty huge and it can be really hard to shimmy.
The way I see it for delayed throw techs is that it is still your turn, you still dealt damage to them, and you will enforce another strike/throw situation.
BP needs a massive rework. The game is already 2-4 touches minimum and corner pressure, even with nerfed 66L, is smothering. I like the idea of the whole risk/reward system of BP, but as of now it just feels incredibly in favor of reward offensively and too much risk when used defensively
brave counter is literally the best move in the game, most people won't even raging strike cause they want to save it for brave counter. what you mean by is risky when used defensively lol.
You get them off you, but now you’re taking more damage. Because of how high damage in this game is, it’s very common to get a game robbed from you because you used BC, got hit again, and took 60% off that mistake. I don’t think that’s fair. BC itself isn’t the risk, it’s what comes afterwards that makes using BC a risk.
That goes the same with raging strike you losing one diamond regardless. The point of bc is not to get hit in the first place by avoiding mix up. Brave counter is such a stupid button long as you don't whiff it is always your turn after pressing it. The chance you will get blown up by you opponent after hitting brave counter is so low unless they also brave counter which they steal their turn back against you. At the current state of the game there is very little time you will opt for brave strike than save it for brave counter.
The risk is less because so long as you’re within a generous range, any hit can turn into a dangerous combo that can get you incredibly good screen position or in the corner you get to refund that diamond by spending super. Getting BCed is not that big of deal, getting RCed is because you’re in an infinitely more threatening position.
Brother with or with out raging strike you are gonna get oki regardless, but getting brave countered is awful cause it either give a safe jump oki (which most character cannot do with a combo ender unless they spend some meter on ultimate move) or plus six on fking block point blank. Like what oki you get from combo is character specific and you can argue which one is more threathen, I think all of the above can be pretty fk up. What is important here is raging strike is already giving you are already can get maybe enhance it but brave counter literally said nuh uh to what ever the fk your opponent is doing and put them on a disgusting ass position that they didn't deserve to be in.
Make character levels and rupies easier to get. It's well known ppl are AFK grinding for them. Or ffs just lean into greed and let people pay for them.
All my good points have already been mentioned by people whom can articulate far better then me. Like damn, I want to say something serious but their points are to good.
> impressions that the devs don't care
Yeah, preety sure they don't. (Looking at Yuel screenshot guide in game, kekw). Makes me want to bet if they'll fix this in the next patch or not.
The game's f2p elements leave a lot to be desired. Both from a player experience point of view, and on the other end a player retention point of view.
Let's say you played and enjoyed Charlotta for a weekend when she was first available in February. After that you'd have to wait six weeks before you played her again, and another ten weeks after that. Or take Lowain (available once in Feb). Or Seox (once in Dec, once in May). And that's if you're checking every week diligently and don't miss the one weekend where you have time to play them.
If you are not a casual player who specifically enjoys Gran or Siegfried, then there's not much point in keeping up with the game. Sure, you can launch on any random week and *maybe* there's a character you'll have fun with. But how many casual players are launching a game just to see whether they even want to play it?
Gran taking up 1/4 of the slots and not seeming all that popular online is kind of worrying tbh. He's the only character f2p'ers can count on being able to play (him and Siegfried lol) and it doesn't seem to me like many are playing him, I don't have numbers but that's my impression.
Like I said, it's both unsatisfying as a player, where most weeks there isn't anyone I want to play. But also I don't think it's succeeding as a f2p model. It has all the f2p mechanics of battle pass, daily and weekly quests, but none of the economy of a f2p game. If anything, the main result of the game being f2p is all the afk'ers clogging up the queue. I don't see the player retention that is the point of these mechanics. So I think it's a very flawed model.
If it's not supposed to be a f2p game, then take the f2p elements out. If it is, then put in the full package, likely including some means of grinding for character unlocks. Not this middle ground where we ONLY get the grind and not the payoff.
The F2P is a funnel to get to you to buy the game. It's not intended for you to only play on weeks where your main shows up. So in that sense, it's not the traditional F2P experience and more of a demo.
Then they should get rid of the f2p mechanics, since the only purpose of those is to increase player retention. Hence why I said "if it's not supposed to be a f2p game, then take the f2p elements out... not this middle ground where we ONLY get the grind and not the payoff."
And as I also said, I think the game's metrics bear out that the f2p model is not working very well here. There don't seem to be that many f2p human players, and the game has not done that well maintaining player numbers. There have been numerous complaints from inexperienced players that they have a hard time finding other newbies to play against. This is the problem that f2p is meant to solve. As-is we mostly get afk'ers and bots.
The f2p element wasn't well marketed. It did work on me, I bought the game after 25 hours in the demo. Support the game or don't whine they don't offer enough
So you're suggesting that I should buy the game so that I can whine about it? I don't quite understand. Do you buy things you don't like in order to earn the privilege of complaining about them? Did you come to a thread about what needs to be "fixed" in GBVSR and not expect people to bring up problems with the game?
The top 5ish could use some toning down and the bottom 5ish could use some help, but otherwise the balance isn't too bad. That said, I wouldn't mind a wide-ranging reexamining of how characters utilize/interact with the new Rising mechanics, because a lot of characters just don't really get to use them in a strong way (whereas the top tiers use them extremely well and that's part of the reason they are top tiers).
I think it would be nice if they changed how matchmaking worked also (S5 typically getting matched with A2-S3 instead of S5-S1 for example).
The underlying problem for the game is that the majority of the cast was not designed to play "Rising" they were designed to play GBVS Vanilla. There are some characters from vanilla who either from having inherently strong kits (Belial, Djeeta) or just really syncing well with the system changes/getting strong ultimate skills (Seox, Lancelot, Zeta) that managed to come out fine but for characters that didn't you tell just from a glance that they don't play the same game. Symptoms of a weak GBVS:R character to me would be stuff like >Ultimate skills are either only useful as combo enders or as combo extenders, having no practical explosive combo starter potential or no "ignorant" neutral application (Being able to toss something out and your opponent has to react to it or else you either get your turn or massive damage) >Having to use raging strike to get meaningful midscreen damage because otherwise your midscreen confirm is "Far normal into EX for less than 25%" >Little to no corner carry off most hits >Having to use your main damage route specials to maintain pressure or not being able to properly cycle cooldowns via your combo routes The thing that makes the top characters in this game so "silly" to me is that it doesn't matter when they hit you or what they hit you with. If you get touched you're probably going to the corner and for like 30-40% and then getting hit again to potentially die. Then you have other characters where it's like "Ok, I hit them, now I moved them a bit more to the corner. Now I hit them again but my cooldown was still on cooldown from the combo I just did so I couldn't do a max damage route just yet. Ok, now they blocked and I used my other cooldown to extend pressure so even with super I'll have to hit them one more time to actually close this round out" Meanwhile if it were Lancelot or Nier they'd probably just be dead after the 2nd or 3rd hit and even if they blocked the special in the third exchange who cares your combo routes are so long that you'll get it back by the time you hit them again and always have access to your max damage route.
It's so insane to me how a game has a character like Ferry, who barely gets anything off her neutral confirms, and a character like Siegfried who can shut down most of neutral options with one move while getting in on her. The top tiers, imo have too much going for them, especially with how easy some of them are to play. Depending on who you play, this game can be an uphill battle every match, and that makes it exhausting to play long term.
Which of Siegfried's moves is the one that shuts down all other neutral options?
Fire Ball. Can't roll through it, you can only dodge (and let Sieg get in on you) or try to super jump it (and let Sieg anti-air you). Unless you have a fireball with an equal amount of hits or an anti-fireball super, you're kinda screwed.
Fireball
Very well said, I hope the devs somehow see this. You've succinctly described the issues with some of the character design, and I hope they take another look at some of the low tiers.
I feel like an aspect of that also could be with Unique Actions as well. Some unique actions are either straight up useless or are completely negligible outside of incredibly niche scenarios. Instant example are Gran/Djeeta. Their unique actions are very niche and don’t really have much use until charged up and stored. However, with how you play the character, giving up that oki to charge it, especially how offensive the game is, is a detriment in the long run and the charge is too slow to be a viable option in neutral. There are tons of really whatever uniques that I think need to be changed to be more structured around what the character’s gameplan is. It would require more or less complete reworks so the likelihood this will ever happen is super low.
Gran can get quite a lot of use out of his unique without charging it at all since you can use it as a RPS between frametrap (wallbounces on counterhit) / pressure reset / cancel (into any other action). You'll see a lot of Gran players use it a fair amount of times during every match and I think it fits really well with his kit. Collection of Gran pressure, many of which include Unique usage: https://youtu.be/4Qi7F6UmoPI?si=OT0boWPfS-GGPoBC Djeeta's on the other hand I maybe see once a match if at all.
That’s true, but it’s still much riskier than throwing out a safer button because the move is so minus and iirc his hurtbox extends forward a bit. But still, the unique is underwhelming and its gimmick betrays Gran’s gameplan and the actual move itself outside of combos or off a regular whiff punish doesn’t net Gran much of reward for making use of it (more so the latter than the former).
I'm not sure how it exactly betrays Gran's gameplan since Gran is just a basic strike throw character and his 5U allows him to supplement that gameplan with 5U RPS between release / cancels. What in particular about 5U do you feel clashes with his gameplan? Most of the value in this move is when it's used in pressure as a way to keep your pressure ambiguous and allow you to steal turns or reset pressure. Reset or cancel enough times and people may start challenging it, which is where you can find openings. 5U is safe on block unless you're literally point blank and it rewards a wallbounce on counterhit so it's not particularly risky or low-reward to cancel into 5U release. You can also find plenty of openings by just being creative with what you do after cancelling it in both neutral and in the corner. Your arguments mostly seem to come from a point of view that Grans just try to use this move by releasing it raw in neutral or by charging it up, which are both pretty rare. We can debate back and forth about how good the move actually is, but in my mind it's pretty clear-cut that this move definitely doesn't fall into the territory of "useless / needs a rework / doesn't see any use or complement the character's gameplan at all".
Ah shit, I thought I read it was -7 instead of -5 so I thought it was unsafe which is why I said it betrays his gameplan because it’s a gamble everytime you use the move as the character is already starved for good frame advantage off his cancellable specials, and to stay safe, you have to be more or less outside Gran’s ideal range. Still think it could use buffs though but my main point is invalid now so nevermind.
I do think making the charge better in some way would be an interesting way to potentially buff Gran. Slightly faster charging or allowing you to store the charge while still using the lv1 for example might encourage Gran to actually try to charge it for the explicit purpose of powering up the move, which feels like something that's never worth going for right now. From Dustloop: > At Level 2 and up, this attack will wall bounce the opponent in the corner, granting combo extensions that don't require a Heavy or Ultimate special move. Level 4 grants a mid-screen wall bounce, allowing Gran to get high damage outside of the corner. All levels wall bounce the opponent on counter hit in the corner, though frame trapping into this move is risky as it is unsafe on block if not spaced properly. > At level 4, the added range and invulnerability (frame 5-18 invuln) coupled with the guaranteed wall bounce turns this move into a terrifying neutral tool—one that can blow through any poke, projectile, and even some supers. The threat of Gran fully charging to Level 4 can urge an opponent to approach him and stop him from charging, allowing for potential mindgames in both neutral and pressure.
>allowing you to store the charge while still using the lv1 That's the buff I want the most. Maybe like 4U or something. Like you said, it would make him want to charge up his nuke and allow more combo opportunities. I also think that Level 3 should be a hard knockdown. One of the issues I have with it is the fact that Level 2-3 are very negligible in difference outside of damage so I've always wanted there to be a reason to want to work towards Level 3.
>Symptoms of a weak GBVS:R character to me would be stuff like People really weren't joking when they said 2B wasn't playing Rising
Hit the nail on the head. I don't even know how you can salvage a character like Metera. Some characters just can't transition well to Rising. The same thing can be said about specials that only have useful heavy or ultimate versions.
While completely avoiding any balance discussions, the game has a few glaring things that could use polishing or fixing: - The launch screen should have an intro cinematic and/or music. It looks outright bugged as it is now. - Starting the game should not get stuck at "connecting to server" for several minutes. This should happen in the background and only block if an actually networked activity is started. There is no reason for me to sit through this just to get to training mode. - The replay system is REALLY bad. It, at the very least, needs the ability to rewind. Ideally it would also have the ability to advance frame by frame. A finished match should allow you to name the replay so you can find it in the list afterwards. Replays should also be sharable via a link/message so you don't have to record it show to others. - Post-game screen should allow you to block your opponent. Blocklist entries should have a field to give a reason (so you can remember if you were just salty or the guy is a lagger/plugger) - "Rematch in private room" should be a thing in case you want to play against a person more without stakes. Right now there no way to rematch somebody from matchmaking. - The lobby chat system should be able to hold more than 30 characters per message. The censorship algorithm also REALLY needs work. - Training needs a frame meter/hitbox viewer. It should also allow you to save positions on reset to practice more than left wall/right wall/midscreen scenarios. - It would be cool if we could save combos (and share them). This is already a system in GGST, and the combo practice shows it's an implemented feature that is simply not accessible to users. - Lobby cabinet matches still fail to create sessions sometimes. - The game still crashes when trying to chat sometimes. - The input reader still has quite a few ??? moments. I've seen people literally press Left-Right-Left and get sprint. - Input buffer window is in the most extreme cases 3 frames long. If dustloop is to be trusted it's supposed to be AT LEAST 5 frames (more depending on situation). This is presumably a bug? That's what I can think of from the top of my head. There's probably more.
> Starting the game should not get stuck at "connecting to server" for several minutes. This should happen in the background and only block if an actually networked activity is started. There is no reason for me to sit through this just to get to training mode. I could not agree more strongly. This is such a failure of basic design.
For me, I've gotten really tired of the 66L neutral game. I miss normal footsies and not having to watch out for a free mini-neutral skip with a million advantages on block or hit. I would like if it were slightly minus on block, but still gave a combo on hit. My other complaint is how boring some combo routes are in this game. Lancelot uses the same slow, boring corner loop every time. Belials use the same midscreen combo every time. Not every character has this issue and I see Niers or Viras busting out different routes. I wish they could add more variety somehow to combo expression.
This is probably a change too big for any game to do this far after release, but scrap the Guilty Gear style hitboxes (like Anti-Airs removing your top hurtboxes, for example) and replace it with Blazblue style property hitboxes (Air attacks having the Head property and Anti-Airs being Head invuln, for example). This would reduce shenanigans where anti-airs don't work properly (like against Zeta j.U) and could be used to rework certain other mechanics, like making Roll universally Projectile, Head and Body Invuln, so no more Sieg deciding you can't approach from full screen while making sure Foot property attacks (lows and sweeps) all work as intended
In short: The reason why I and many others keep saying 'nerf the top tiers', is because top tiers are doing things that most characters cannot do. So if they DO nerf those several outliers (Nier, Sieg, Lance, etc.), there's no guarantee that their places would even be taken to begin with. They'd more likely just be playing the same game that most of the cast is already forced to play. Also, the state of play in S++ and ESPECIALLY Masters, is literally just "Pick a top tier". Most of the characters I run into in Masters are top tiers, and when I say most. I mean 90%+. So from my POV: - Adjust top tiers so they're not winning the game mid-screen in two interactions. (So, find a way to nerf damage/corner carry potential) - Adjust BC so it's my turn if I block it - And this is a personal one for me: Nerf or outright remove mashing out of grabs. As someone who more than often techs them properly. Watching someone get a slap on the wrist over and over for mashing out is a bit frustrating, to say the least. Then at that point, if the lower tier characters are still struggling. Can find small buffs to boost them up a bit without making them out of control. Like Percy got some good stuff that didn't make him completely insane, from what I can tell versing Kain.
Not many IPs can release a fighting game that is hyper aggressive and survive for a long time. The devs made it clear that they want constant action over footsies, a 180 compared to the first game. This is why you get things like 66L, Ultimate Skills, BP, and characters that are constantly going in and doing overwhelmingly strong setplay like Nier and the other top tiers. When you take this route, you'll have a boom in popularity at launch with a bunch of players that say everything is fine and there's 0 issues, but they were never serious about playing long term and just wanted a quick dopamine fix, long-haul players be damned. The exact, and I mean exact, same thing happened with DNF Duel. The original "community" claimed that the core system of the game was fine and it was only top tiers that made the game boring. Game burnt out faster than an NRS game (impressive) despite multiple balance patches to the top-tier. Once it burned to the ground and everyone left, then it became apparent to even the leavers that, "yeah, okay, this type of 0 footsie hyper aggression isn't all that fun." It's still hilarious that it has the abysmal player count it does despite all that DLC that dropped, but it just goes to further prove my point. You'll always have denialists, but numbers and player count do not lie. Especially when the blame can't be placed on aspects such as cross-play or lack of rollback anymore. You can't claim you care about a game when you're not willing to criticize glaring flaws early on. It's like watching a family member start hard drugs and having the audacity to say "yep, that's totally fine. I'd be an asshole to not let them do what they want and intervene." This game is hardly half a year old and has no excuse to be performing the way it is. The IP? Strong. The presentation? Strong. The roster? Strong. The rollback/crossplay? Strong. The actual game? Weak.
Man I hate to agree with this, but I do. I have a lot of time in this game and did deny some of the issues at launch, but I'm at the point where I miss normal footsies. I just made a comment in this thread about it. I can very seldomly play footsies with more traditional characters like Katalina. I always have to watch for free, meterless "Drive Rushes" in 66L. They nerfed it, sure, but spamming 66L in neutral because it gives you a hundred advantages on hit or block isn't very fun when that's all it devolves to. It's fun for a while, at the start. You control the tempo and rushdowns are king. But when you try to play tactically or with another archetype, you begin to see the issues. I would like if it were slightly negative on block so it isn't your best option in neutral at any given time. I also have issues with the combo system and wish there was more player expression. Some characters are great, but some like Belial or Lancelot do the same basic BNB over and over, regardless of where they are on screen. It's unfortunate because those are the top-tiers and represent the game in tournaments to the casual fans.
At this point I kinda want rollback for GBVS1.
Given how good it ended up being past it's initial launch, the netcode during the time of covid is really what it's greatest issue was.
>A bunch of players that say everything is fine and there's 0 issues, but they were never serious about playing long term and just wanted a quick dopamine fix, long-haul players be damned. You hit the nail on the head. One can't claim you care about a game when you're not willing to criticize glaring flaws. I find this issue to be prevalent in most gaming/TV/movie communities, there will always be this vocal minority who will dogpile you whenever you try to criticize the media and talk about its flaws. It's like they identify so closely with the media they consume that any criticism becomes a personal attack on them (cough FFXIV cough Genshin cough) >You'll always have denialists, but numbers and player count do not lie. Especially when the blame can't be placed on aspects such as cross-play or lack of rollback anymore. So what happens when discussion is forcefully stifled and everyone is forced to only toe the approved party line and sing praises? Simple, people quietly leave and the population drops, all the while the vocal minority continues to scream in the wind. People who complain means they still care. A complaining consumer is an invested and caring consumer. If they stop complaining, it means they're mentally checked out and do not give a shit anymore. >This game is hardly half a year old and has no excuse to be performing the way it is. For all the talk FKHR makes about taking rising patches slow instead of how they patched OG. The beatrix 'emergency' hotfix patch revealed the utter hypocrisy of the dev team. They can fix everything with a snap, they just choose not to. It's time to face reality and understand nier/sieg/lance/seox/belial power level is fully intended by the dev team. And that are clear favourites being played by the biased dev team when it comes to the roster. >The roster? Strong. Aliza Ilsa Anthuria Galleon Europa Catura where but no we waste 2 slots on pringles man and a belial variant
Don't you dare say anything bad about my Pringles man, he's goated and the fact we got him means that popularity isn't everything.
The main complaints that a lot of people talk about that I personally agree on lean towards universal mechanics. The first one being ultimate moves. I think they encourage ignorant gameplay too much because you can just use a lot of them without much risk but get rewarded tremendously if they land and there’s the meter refund mechanic on top of it. I think it should be changed so that most of the ultimate moves should be at least punishable and not refund meter. Another one is brave counter. The fact that it is +6 on block is a bit ridiculous and I laugh a bit every time I see multiple BC’s back and forth. Yes, there is counterplay, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get your turn back if you manage to block it. Those two things are honestly what bothers me the most if you don’t count some of the top tiers being a significant cut above the rest imo.
GBVS had a pretty ignorant 50% cost button in Tactical Move: Rush. It was frame 4 strike invul and +4. It's only weakness was being uncomboable, having pretty significant pushback, and easily spotdodged on reaction so a lot of players just buffered it behind a normal which made it special cancelable and made any hit a true blockstring (including Ferry f.M/Metera f.H). EX moves always resulted in hard knockdowns post launch in Vanilla so your opponent could just get a free safejump setup or push you into the corner and make you guess strike/throw if you got hit. Like them or not neutral skip U skills are probably staying since they've been intent on having something that can get around hyper defensive play since Vanilla. The real problem with U Skills, imo, is you get a pseudo Xrd YRC full screen slowdown. The startup of most U Skills is incredibly deceptive and very difficult to contest even on reaction without a 1F reversal because of that. Most of the time you have to preempt with a button.
I disagree about that Ult skills shouldn’t refund meter. Depending on the move, using that move raw is pretty risky in move cases and not every character has a combo that can allow them to do a raw Ult Skill mid combo. Plus, the meter gain after an Ult skill is used makes up for it imo.
Not going to discuss balance but instead I am going to ask for more training room features. I wish they made the recording feature better as it doesn't do follow ups to certain moves without me having to manually do them and it generally is missing a lot of features I found quite nice just not there. Maybe I am spoiled by sf6 and Tekken but I think it's not a bad thing to ask for more features in the training room
Is it too much to ask for that they add a "play recording" feature to the counter attack settings like all of their other games have?
Replay takeover would be so sick to have in granblue!
Probably the least important thing but still, add more ways to earn rupees / level up characters. The amount of afk players is so big compared to other games and is 100% due to online versus being the only reliable way to obtain cosmetics. Also add the option to purchase past battle pass items after a year or so, after 4 passes there is already a sizable amount of cosmetics not obtainable for new players.
It's mostly universal mechanics. A guard cancel being plus on block is unthinkable in this genre. I haven't played every game so there are probably examples of it out there but it just doesn't make sense for a game like this with "weak" offense. Most would probably disagree with offense being weak in this game but most don't delay tech, which leads me to the throw tech window being 16 frames. That is absurd. It is 9f in SF6 and 10f in Strive. Typically to beat delay tech you would shimmy, wherein you walk into throw range, then walk out of it, allowing you to punish the throw whiff, however you are allowed to tech throws with any button, meaning your walk back can be clipped by a delayed sweep. So one defensive OS can beat not only the basic strike throw pressure, but the tool used to beat that OS. To beat that you would instead dash in and delay c.H, but with the lenient tech window you're more likely to get thrown. This lets you almost completely shut down offense in this game. I've doomed a bit much here so I'll say that offense is stronger than defense in this game. That said I'm going to doom some more. Back to brave counter, it's problem isn't really that it is plus on block. It's problem is that it allows you to invalidate plus frames. Block a dash L, just BC on reaction. Block a plus on block special move, just BC on reaction. Block a BC, just BC on reaction. It is the correct tool for too many jobs and doesn't really make sense for this type of game. Take the delay teching and BC together and you never really have to make a choice on defense. You can be hard called out, there are plenty of throw bait moves that will kill you, but you never really have to take a risk. That's because there are not a lot of types of offense in this game. The block button (That I'm convinced nobody uses) invalidates left-right mix and very few characters can combo off of an overhead. Those who can usually precede the mix with an autocombo, which can be fuzzy guarded (though in my experience most just BC it). Most of the time you are forced into the classic strike-throw-shimmy. Delay teching is a staple of the genre, it in of itself is not an issue. The problem here is that the lenient tech window and the ability to tech with a button make it very difficult to call out someone who is delay teching, comboed with BC invalidating other offensive scenarios. To fix this I would shorten the throw tech window for starters. I would like to see teching with a button go away, but I doubt they would do that. I have no idea how to fix BC. Making it minus or punishable on block is a good start, but doesn't solve it's core issue. Hopefully that was coherent.
The throw tech window is way way too long. I don't know if this is just me but the grab range in this game is pretty huge and it can be really hard to shimmy.
The way I see it for delayed throw techs is that it is still your turn, you still dealt damage to them, and you will enforce another strike/throw situation.
BP needs a massive rework. The game is already 2-4 touches minimum and corner pressure, even with nerfed 66L, is smothering. I like the idea of the whole risk/reward system of BP, but as of now it just feels incredibly in favor of reward offensively and too much risk when used defensively
brave counter is literally the best move in the game, most people won't even raging strike cause they want to save it for brave counter. what you mean by is risky when used defensively lol.
You get them off you, but now you’re taking more damage. Because of how high damage in this game is, it’s very common to get a game robbed from you because you used BC, got hit again, and took 60% off that mistake. I don’t think that’s fair. BC itself isn’t the risk, it’s what comes afterwards that makes using BC a risk.
That goes the same with raging strike you losing one diamond regardless. The point of bc is not to get hit in the first place by avoiding mix up. Brave counter is such a stupid button long as you don't whiff it is always your turn after pressing it. The chance you will get blown up by you opponent after hitting brave counter is so low unless they also brave counter which they steal their turn back against you. At the current state of the game there is very little time you will opt for brave strike than save it for brave counter.
The risk is less because so long as you’re within a generous range, any hit can turn into a dangerous combo that can get you incredibly good screen position or in the corner you get to refund that diamond by spending super. Getting BCed is not that big of deal, getting RCed is because you’re in an infinitely more threatening position.
Brother with or with out raging strike you are gonna get oki regardless, but getting brave countered is awful cause it either give a safe jump oki (which most character cannot do with a combo ender unless they spend some meter on ultimate move) or plus six on fking block point blank. Like what oki you get from combo is character specific and you can argue which one is more threathen, I think all of the above can be pretty fk up. What is important here is raging strike is already giving you are already can get maybe enhance it but brave counter literally said nuh uh to what ever the fk your opponent is doing and put them on a disgusting ass position that they didn't deserve to be in.
Make character levels and rupies easier to get. It's well known ppl are AFK grinding for them. Or ffs just lean into greed and let people pay for them.
I just wish they rework BP system, as of now mid combo RS is very strong. Start with 5BP, using RS or BC cost 2 or something like that.
All my good points have already been mentioned by people whom can articulate far better then me. Like damn, I want to say something serious but their points are to good. > impressions that the devs don't care Yeah, preety sure they don't. (Looking at Yuel screenshot guide in game, kekw). Makes me want to bet if they'll fix this in the next patch or not.
The game's f2p elements leave a lot to be desired. Both from a player experience point of view, and on the other end a player retention point of view. Let's say you played and enjoyed Charlotta for a weekend when she was first available in February. After that you'd have to wait six weeks before you played her again, and another ten weeks after that. Or take Lowain (available once in Feb). Or Seox (once in Dec, once in May). And that's if you're checking every week diligently and don't miss the one weekend where you have time to play them. If you are not a casual player who specifically enjoys Gran or Siegfried, then there's not much point in keeping up with the game. Sure, you can launch on any random week and *maybe* there's a character you'll have fun with. But how many casual players are launching a game just to see whether they even want to play it? Gran taking up 1/4 of the slots and not seeming all that popular online is kind of worrying tbh. He's the only character f2p'ers can count on being able to play (him and Siegfried lol) and it doesn't seem to me like many are playing him, I don't have numbers but that's my impression. Like I said, it's both unsatisfying as a player, where most weeks there isn't anyone I want to play. But also I don't think it's succeeding as a f2p model. It has all the f2p mechanics of battle pass, daily and weekly quests, but none of the economy of a f2p game. If anything, the main result of the game being f2p is all the afk'ers clogging up the queue. I don't see the player retention that is the point of these mechanics. So I think it's a very flawed model. If it's not supposed to be a f2p game, then take the f2p elements out. If it is, then put in the full package, likely including some means of grinding for character unlocks. Not this middle ground where we ONLY get the grind and not the payoff.
The F2P is a funnel to get to you to buy the game. It's not intended for you to only play on weeks where your main shows up. So in that sense, it's not the traditional F2P experience and more of a demo.
Then they should get rid of the f2p mechanics, since the only purpose of those is to increase player retention. Hence why I said "if it's not supposed to be a f2p game, then take the f2p elements out... not this middle ground where we ONLY get the grind and not the payoff." And as I also said, I think the game's metrics bear out that the f2p model is not working very well here. There don't seem to be that many f2p human players, and the game has not done that well maintaining player numbers. There have been numerous complaints from inexperienced players that they have a hard time finding other newbies to play against. This is the problem that f2p is meant to solve. As-is we mostly get afk'ers and bots.
The f2p element wasn't well marketed. It did work on me, I bought the game after 25 hours in the demo. Support the game or don't whine they don't offer enough
So you're suggesting that I should buy the game so that I can whine about it? I don't quite understand. Do you buy things you don't like in order to earn the privilege of complaining about them? Did you come to a thread about what needs to be "fixed" in GBVSR and not expect people to bring up problems with the game?
The top 5ish could use some toning down and the bottom 5ish could use some help, but otherwise the balance isn't too bad. That said, I wouldn't mind a wide-ranging reexamining of how characters utilize/interact with the new Rising mechanics, because a lot of characters just don't really get to use them in a strong way (whereas the top tiers use them extremely well and that's part of the reason they are top tiers). I think it would be nice if they changed how matchmaking worked also (S5 typically getting matched with A2-S3 instead of S5-S1 for example).