438 thoughts on “PASBR Patch 1.10 Balance Changes”

1. Lance_Drake April 17, 2013 at 5:03 am

   By the way, do you know anything about some of the Zeus and Isaac glitches being fixed? These are actually some pretty serious ones. Isaac’s level 1 spazzes out kinda often, making you miss your shot and waste your level 1, and both Zeus and Isaac’s level 3 can cause the game to crash. For something players had to pay extra for to play as…this is pretty bad.

   Speaking of, one of the only Minions I bought was Ashelin and uh…something messed her up in patch 1.10. Her limbs are going all over the place, the worst thing being that her head is constantly upside down. As I paid extra for this, I’m a bit annoyed.

   Of course, these complaints are null if you have no connections to whoever can fix them. Is there anywhere better I can direct this stuff? I don’t want to just complain to you just because you’re here.
2. Evilisk April 17, 2013 at 6:07 am

   By producer, you mean like from Sony Santa Monica? Or an in-house/dev one? I have another question as well, from what I’ve seen in concept art, would it be correct to say that Big Daddy’s inclusion was something decided very early in development?

   (I’m talking about these concept arts btw:
   http://cghub.com/images/view/357511/
   http://cghub.com/images/view/356951/
   http://cghub.com/images/view/356947/ )

   Last question, I was just wondering, how closely did Sony Santa Monica work with Superbot in regards to PSAS development? Even though we’ve known they’ve been helping out, I never really heard what exactly they did (and since you’re answering, might as well get this out of the way)

   Also since you’re not working at Superbot at the moment, how are you going in regards to job/career (just curious, and of course it always sucks not to have a job).
3. Lance_Drake April 17, 2013 at 5:23 pm

   Evilisk, considering Big Daddy was revealed alongside Drake after the first six, I’d say his inclusion was highly planned from early on.
4. Maj Post authorApril 18, 2013 at 12:25 am

   Grashi: I used to have the same reservations about paying extra for additional characters, but now i think DLC is a positive trend for fighting games. It grants developers a chance to rebalance characters in response to emergent play styles, both fortunate and detrimental – to give the game a better shot at longevity.

   At the end of the day, if Crash/Spyro/Lara are deal-breakers for you and you’re not satisfied with the 24-character roster we managed to deliver, there’s not much i can say. I’m sorry you don’t have $60 anymore, and i hope you feel better after telling me the game i worked on for over a year and a half doesn’t deserve to exist.

   As a fellow fighting game player of 15+ years, my only advice to you would be to avoid becoming attached to a single character before a new title comes out. Better yet, pick your preferred play style and adopt whichever top-tier character ends up representing that play style.

   Otherwise you’ll be disappointed (way) more often than not – either by your first choice being under/over-powered, or having a play style that you don’t enjoy. Let’s face it, even if Sir Daniel was a top-5 character, you’d probably still have some complaints about him being too aggressive or too defensive, depending on whether you prefer runaway or rushdown.

   Lance_Drake: Try contacting Sony Santa Monica Studio on twitter or posting in the PlayStation Community forums. Good luck!

   Evilisk: Generally we’d have a meeting where an internal producer would announce the next batch of characters we’d be working on. Drake and Big Daddy were the seventh and eighth characters revealed in our E3 trailer and that’s roughly the order in which they were added to the game. I believe Big Daddy was our first approved 3rd-party character – though it was a case of lucky timing and things quickly falling into place, more than anything else.

   It’s hard to accurately state how closely Santa Monica Studio worked with SuperBot, but it was a lot like a publisher/developer relationship. I thought both Nathan Gary and Seth Killian contributed great/helpful design feedback to the project. Let’s just say it was a team effort and leave it at that.

   As for me, i’m taking my time in looking for a new job. After eighteen months of working fourteen-hour days, i feel like i’ve earned a vacation and some time to think about what my next step should be. Plus it’s not exactly easy finding an interesting design job in this industry. (And i want to finish a combovid or two in the meantime.)
5. Grashi April 18, 2013 at 2:31 am

   I think you misunderstand where I’m coming from. Firstly, I mean no insult to you or your work here. And I’m not saying I’m not happy to have the game, I believe i stated that I love the game. What I’m saying is I’m disappointed that it ISN’T what it claims to be. A collection of Sony all stars, which to me and a lot of people rings about the memorable characters, battling it out.

   Where as I feel that it’s simply not what it should be. But I guess you could say it’s more about the franchise and not the characters themselves. Sure, Raiden because Metal Gear was big on PS1 and he’s the most current icon and perhaps the easiest to obtain. Though characters like Big daddy make no sense to even be in the game. I simply state the three because it’s just a given. When i think playstation, I think of those 3.

   As for the game itself, you honestly can’t look at it and say it’s a balanced fighter. For something that was talked about appearing at evo, it needs help. And it starts with ending this denial that characters like dan and jak and toro aren’t equipped to take on the higher tier characters.

   As for the DLC, it’s fine when they don’t just go against the game itself. Were you are that Kat’s hitbox makes it so some combos can’t even hit her? Or that certain ATTACKS don’t hit her? (See: Spike’s up square. Second hit whiffs completely.) And even in the recent patch, she barely went changed. I’m fine with DLC when “re-balances” the game but all the recent 2 packs have done is bring about glitches (See handicuff and zeus roll tech) and questionable decisions (See drake’s run n gun loop being removed only to give one to Isaac)

   To this day PS all stars is my favorite game. but i don’t get much enjoyment playing it in its current state. With the netcode issues and the blatant balance issues in ALL game modes there just isn’t much fun to be had without just selling out and picking up a Cole or Raiden. That isn’t the mark of a “balanced” project.

   My issues isn’t that the game exists, but that it exists as is. When people look back on playstation all stars, it won’t have the same glory that Smash brothers had. When they recall their experiences with certain characters, they won’t always be positive. I looked at Playstation All-stars as a game that would be a monument to the wonderful times in playstation history, but that isn’t what it is. Maybe It’s just me. maybe I’m the one looking at it wrong.
6. Maj Post authorApril 18, 2013 at 3:53 am

   Alright, let’s say 2-3 classic characters were criminally omitted and maybe 2-3 existing characters should’ve been left out. Are you saying Battle Royale shouldn’t exist because SuperBot/Sony got 10% of the roster wrong?

   I guess i’m just confused by what you guys expect me to do about it now, although it’s probably my fault for making myself available. Look, it’s been a whole month since this patch went live and two months since the last time i got to work on the game.

   Nearly everyone who’s still posting here is just venting in my general direction, primarily regarding matters i had zero control over – like Crash/Spyro not being in the game, balance issues with characters i’ve already said i didn’t work on, and DLC characters inevitably having less patch support than the initial twenty.

   That’s okay with me. You guys can keep venting and embellishing complaints if you want. I honestly don’t mind playing therapist, but i ran out of interesting responses a while ago.

   For all its imperfections, i think PASBR is a legitimately good fighting game, deserving of a proper sequel. Sadly it wasn’t meant to be – and one of the very, very few studios willing to undertake a brand-new major-budget fighting game franchise was abruptly forced out of the genre. When you look back on all this, just remember, cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
7. dabuz April 18, 2013 at 5:37 am

   I have to say that Maj is right here, no game is perfect (especially in balance) but it came out as a fun first addition to the franchise that has potential if Sony decides on a sequel. Also, unless it’s an indie game, no one person has full control over how it’s made so it’s not fair to attack Maj in this blog. This blog is a great way to get insight into the game development process and something not many devs would be willing to talk about.

   As a side note, the roster was pretty damn good. We had classic characters that appealed to older sony fans and may have even got people in some of the older franchises. (I played Medieval a little after PSA came out because I thought Sir Dan was cool and now Medieval is one of my favorite games despite how much it’s aged) We had modern characters like Kratos which everyone knows about, same modern ones like Jak or Sly which for someone like me give a rush of nostalgia. In all honesty, the only character who I feel didn’t fit well was Radec, but Killzone is hard to represent when there are no continuous villians IIRC and the protagonists are generic military heroes. Saying a game shouldn’t exist when it did a lot of things right from a game design standpoint is just being unfair.

   Maj, for curiosities sake, were any of the original 20 characters decided on so late that the team basically had to rush them out?
8. Grashi April 18, 2013 at 9:51 am

   You’re absolutely right. But I don’t mean it as an attack. Honestly, I’m just curious, as I have been since talking among the other players regarding design decisions, if you KNEW or how you felt about some of these things.

   I’m not looking for a change, but really just your opinion on it. I can see how it comes off as attacking, however, and I apologize.
9. Maj Post authorApril 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm

   None of the original twenty were selected late or consequently rushed, but some individual moves were redesigned somewhat late in development (out of necessity). Most of those instances were solved with elegant modifications that you wouldn’t notice unless i pointed them out.

   Only a handful of changes were big/inconvenient enough that they had to be “rushed.” Sir Daniel’s whole shield mechanic (neutral Circle) comes to mind, because originally it absorbed all attacks instead of just projectiles. Since it required so many extra animations, we weren’t able to properly playtest it until fairly late – and quickly realized that it was ridiculously overpowered. Unfortunately changing it to absorb only projectiles required a complete implementation overhaul, which eventually led to this nasty bug.

   Another late change was Sir Daniel’s lvl1 super, which used to fire horizontally forward as well, giving him 180° aiming control. Like i mentioned before, that version didn’t fit his intended combat persona, so we turned it into an anti-air super by narrowing its aiming cone. His U+Triangle reaction was then converted from eject to shock, giving him some cool lvl1 super setups and some interesting anti-air traps.

   Now i actually think these were both good changes, but we failed to account for downward air tech becoming the bane of Sir Daniel’s existence. Personally what i would’ve loved to do is add about 10 frames of landing lag when a character touches the ground while down-teching. Sadly, i had this idea the day before my last day at SuperBot, when it was far too late to implement it.

   Anyway i don’t think character balance or combat mechanics are the reasons why PASBR didn’t fare better. Presentation is what really hurt us. The UI needed to be intimidatingly awesome, and ultimately it just wasn’t cool enough. Some of the extra modes and tutorials were a little rushed, and people weren’t willing to look past that. Parappa’s basic tutorial could’ve been much better, which i’m sure hurt our review scores significantly.

   The last thing you want to do is make a bad first impression, especially when you have as many irrational haters and naysayers as we inherited. Sadly, all that peripheral stuff would’ve been easy to remedy in the sequel, but for some reason the internet thinks the best way to improve a franchise/genre is by telling everyone to boycott it.
10. Grashi April 18, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    Maj, I’m curious. Would you be at all interested in playing some 1s with some of us at any point?
11. Evilisk April 19, 2013 at 4:32 am

    Sir Daniel’s vacuum shield sounds interesting. How would absorbing all attacks work exactly? I mean how it works now, the projectile itself disappears but would the opponent be put in hitstun or something if their actual attack was absorbed?

    Also I want to ask a bit more about Zeus and Isaac.

    Was Superbot or (because of the cut off) SSM the one to do the bulk of the work on these characters?

    From what date were Isaac and Zeus planned to be the next DLC characters?

    How much testing was there done for, Zeus, at least? From some big level 3 bugs to simple teleporting glitches, it seems like he was rushed out of development (at least compared to Isaac who’s pretty standard bugs-wise).

    Also 14 hour days just for a day sounds exhausting. And good luck with finding a job that you feel suits you.
12. Maj Post authorApril 19, 2013 at 12:55 pm

    Grashi: Much as i appreciate the invitation, i really need to step away for a while and figure out what i’m going to do next. It would take me at least a couple days of practice to play well against you guys and that kind of time is hard to come by.

    Evilisk: Sir Daniel’s shield originally negated all attacks during idle/navigation states (while not attacking). I can’t remember if it absorbed attacks adding up to a certain amount of AP or simply a certain number of attacks. It worked a lot like Drake’s D+Circle cover wall. You can see an example of the shield absorbing Kratos’ neutral Square in that early trailer i linked above. It meant he could run directly at opponents and counter-attack at will, often guaranteeing a lvl1 super. It was way too powerful!

    SuperBot performed the bulk of the work on Zeus and Isaac, but it was done under a compressed schedule in a fairly unstable environment with a far smaller internal QA team. I can’t give you exact dates, and we fixed as many bugs as we could find, but i’m not surprised that we missed a few which might seem obvious in hindsight.

    Zeus and Isaac are basically one thorough patch away from being fully acclimated. Believe it or not, they’re 98% of the way there; but that 2% is enough to break a fighting game character. I just think all four DLC characters could use a bug fixing and balance patch – but we would’ve had to start it in April (after players figured out how to exploit Zeus/Isaac) and as you all know, SuperBot’s involvement in PASBR had ended by February/March. Anyway it’s out of my hands now, so here’s hoping SMS saves the day!
13. spola1994 April 19, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    I don’t like it when people say that characters are underpowered or overpowered…Obviously there are some balance issues, as it is impossible to make perfectly balanced characters with such different gameplays, but I think every characters if learned correctly is strong… Every character has his pros and cons… Maybe jak has no kill confirms, but his level 1 is pretty fast and he has an attack for every situation… His level 3 is one of the best… It’s really hard to avoid… Someone says Spike is underpowered but that’s not true… He has the best projectile in the game in my opinion (the bananarang) and his RC car is a great anti aerial… His aerial banana throw monkey is also a great move for a lot of situations… His magic punch could be charged while an enemy is lying on the ground bringing to a Level 1 kill confirm… I’ve also found really strong Sir Daniel players (even if I don’t play as him, so I can’t list his pros). If you think a character is underpowered just learn him, learn new strategies… It’s not easy to balance a super mechanic like this one, but you did a great job… You tryed to bring innovation to the 4 players brawler genre and in my opinion you succeded… You created a great game with a low budget (as I have heard) and as a new developement team! This game deserves appreciation and a sequel. I don’t understand why theres so much hate around!

    Sorry for my bad English and for the mistakes…
14. Maj Post authorApril 21, 2013 at 3:05 pm

    Thank you sir, but there’s no need to defend me. This whole discussion has been very civil/pleasant for the most part – and i’m happy to satisfy curiosity or provide closure wherever i can. It’s just becoming too time-consuming, that’s all. 114 posts is a lot when we’re exchanging essays!
15. Grashi April 21, 2013 at 4:15 pm

    @spola1994

    I hate to say it, but you are wrong. Dan is underpowered. Damage and combo wise, probably not so much. If the game was a traditional fighter, he’d probably hit harder to make up for his lack of safe attacks. But because the goal is to land a specific attack, characters who build meter faster and have more confirms are better. Dan does have the tools to give better characters (cole/raiden etc) trouble, but he lacks the ability to really capitalize on any of it. Dan is underpowered in the sense that his attacks do not benefit him. The best he can hope for is to suffer an eject tornado after attacking another player and clutching his 20-80 AP in the process.

    But he doesn’t need much to be “balanced” IMO. To a degree you’re right. Just because a character IS underpowered, doesn’t mean that a player cannot get good with him. I know plenty of “low tier heroes” who, on a regular basis, put coat-tail riding players to shame.

    Skill carries you a lot further than you would think, but doesn’t excuse a character’s flaws. You just learn to not use those flaws, or to not put yourself in a situation to be caught by them.
16. Evilisk April 22, 2013 at 5:42 am

    I have a bunch of questions that I want to as

    Since you guys won that DICE Award for Fighting Game of the Year and this game has a hefty amount of DLC, were there any sort of talks on a Complete/Game of the Year Edition at all?

    Were you guys ever planning something similar to Assist Trophies from Smash?

    Apparently you guys at some stage were planning on a Lair stage called “Bridge of Asylia” was this true? If so, were there any other scrapped concepts?

    I heard that there was a Hot Shots Golf character originally, is this also true? Same as above, any other character ideas (besides the obvious ones) that also had to be put to the side?

    What was the story behind that banner on the official site that had Ryu Hayabusa, Jin and Kazuya? Was the site hacked, an intern (if you had any) screwed up or was it a mockup that someone uploaded by accident? (image is in this article: http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2012/aug/08/sack-boy-and-raiden-leaked-playstation-all-stars-battle-royale/ )

    Is this image fake? Or more specifically, the section about a Gravity Rush stage? I know that there definitely is a Michael Ha that works/worked (not sure if he still does) on the game but it just seems a bit off somehow (image: http://images.wikia.com/playstationallstarsbattleroyale/images/6/69/2012-12-08-184208.jpg )

    Now early on it was suspected that Snake was going to be in the game due to a tweet from Eric Laden (VA of Cole) about working with Nolan North (Drake VA) and David Hayter (Snake VA). Nothing ended up happening with this because of Raiden, but I’ve heard rumours that David Hayter’s involvement in the game (if at all) was to voice Polygon Man. Is this true? (Polygon Man’s VA was not shown in the credits at all) (source: http://au.ign.com/articles/2012/05/18/snake-drake-and-cole-confirmed-for-playstation-all-stars-battle-royale)

    You said that there was “research” (or just playing each character’s game) done for each character. Now obviously you can’t spend too much time on this so how many hours on average did you guys do for each character before deciding you had a good enough feel for each character? Also in the case of large series like God of War and Ratchet and Clank I can assume multiple people were assigned to multiple games?

    What was the relationship between PSASBR and the Michael live action series of ads? Was the original ad something that came about because of this game’s production, or did the ad inspire the guys to make PSASBR in the first place?

    In regards to guys like Crash Bandicoot (just wait, I’m not going to ask what you think I’m going to ask lol) or other absent big names, did you guys ever get far with what sort of moveset or playstyle you were planning for them? Even just a few ideas or supers you had while messing around would be cool to hear.

    At what point did Title Fight “become” PSASBR? Like when did you guys decide that it was going to take the direction it did

    And for Ratchet’s were you guys ever considered adding the Groovitron Glove to his arsenal? Or did you have certain guidelines that, for each character that forbade that? (e.g. “you cannot make Kratos dance in any way, shape or form”)

    I also wanted to ask, is there some way to get the music for this game legally? Like is there some soundtrack out there I can buy?

    Sorry if that’s a whole lot to answer.
17. Maj Post authorApril 22, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    Grashi: He never said Sir Daniel wasn’t underpowered. He only said Sir Daniel could be strong if played correctly, which is true of any character. If someone can win a major UMvC3 tournament with Viewtiful Joe and Rocket Raccoon, i’m sure somone can win a PASBR tournament or obtain black belt rank with Sir Daniel. Like you said, low tier heroes thrive on being underestimated.

    Evilisk: Sorry sir, nearly all of those are “five years after” questions. There’s no way i can answer them so soon while there’s still a chance SMS might continue supporting/expanding the game. (Actually i hope you can find someone else to answer them in a few years, because honestly i’d rather stick to combat design topics and leave storytime to someone higher up.)

    We spent as much time as possible researching every character, even staying late at work or playing through the games at home. Also whenever possible, characters were assigned to designers who were previously familiar with them. For example, Dean Rymer was the primary combat designer working on Ratchet, because R&C was his all-time favorite video game series. He’d played through most of them, so he didn’t have to start researching from scratch. We also kept in contact with every character’s original developers, so they always reviewed details like alternate costume colors and cutscene dialogue.

    Regarding the Michael ad campaign, i remember that link circulating around the office back when we had like seven characters fully playable. I don’t know the full story behind it though. Maybe it was a lucky coincidence or maybe it was something Sony’s marketing department purposefully prepared to precede the PASBR announcement. You’d have to ask them.

    As for the soundtrack, i don’t think it’s currently being sold in any form. For what it’s worth, i also think it turned out great and i know Omar liked it too. Anyway that might be a good question to ask SMS, just to let them know there’s some fan interest in buying it.
18. Grashi April 22, 2013 at 10:23 pm

    I dunno about WINNING a tournament. But he could certainly go far if played to his best.

    BUT! That’s not why I’m here. I know i’ve been riding on the Dan train for a while now, but I was brainstorming with another member to submit to SSM.

    What do you think of Dan’s jump forward square hitting down at a 45 degree angle in front of him instead of straight forward? It would rid the problem of it not hitting certain characters, though he would lose some pressure options, it would start as a great opener.

    I was also thinking what if charged forward square ( grounded with shield out) having a wee bit of super armor. or maybe adding the ability to roll cancel or armoring the start up of his shielded charge (forward triangle)

    And perhaps his air down triangle having a hitbox on its way down. perhaps 5-10 AP. Similar to Spike’s aerial down square.

    I was also thinking of how awesome it would be if he could jump cancel the second hit of his square square square combo. But that’s just for my own humor.

    Did any of these ideas come up during development or were they tested before?

    Outside of that, I’m really curious about his forward circle (“green hand”) The detonation time feels really long on it. Players can simply walk past it a lot of times. I mean, you can already block/counter/destroy it. I dunno if it’s a netcode issue, but it feels like something isn’t right with it.
19. mcw00ty April 23, 2013 at 2:18 pm

    Maybe a “game of the year” edition that includes DLC characters and stages with cleaned up menus and more polish to the tutorials could help.
20. Evilisk April 24, 2013 at 4:28 am

    Well it sucks you can’t answer most of my questions (especially as a few questions didn’t seem too intrusive to me, like Polygon Man’s VA) but whatever.

    1) How come there is no ground teching in the style of SF or even Smash?

    2) I had this idea of being able to cancel attacks into other attacks (not including supers) to help some of the weaker combo potential/meter building characters (it wouldn’t affect the guys that can AP burst). It would use up a secondary resource (haven’t thought how it fills up yet though) and to activate it, press R2 in the middle of an attack. What are your thoughts on this?
21. Evilisk April 24, 2013 at 4:35 am

    (it wouldn’t affect the guys that can AP burst)*

    *wording is wrong. I meant, it wouldn’t let them AP burst any further, the idea is mostly for the characters can’t AP burst that well (e.g Jak is capable of AP burst, but it is very, very situational as you need both the wall and a specific distance from the wall to ever land it in a real match)
22. Maj Post authorApril 24, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    Grashi: If we lowered the angle of Sir Daniel’s air F+Square, it wouldn’t mirror his ground F+Square anymore. We tried to make ground and air versions of attacks match whenever possible. You can only get away with a few exceptions if you want a character’s moveset to seem logical.

    Shielded ground F+Square and/or F+Triangle could certainly benefit from having some armor, and there’s precedent for both suggestions – but roll canceling F+Triangle startup is a bit too convoluted. Adding a hitbox during air D+Triangle descent isn’t a bad idea either. We tried quite a few things to improve F+Triangle and D+Triangle, but nothing stuck.

    As for F+Circle having delayed detonation, the idea behind it was to affect an entire group. The green hand keeps running for a few frames after touching an opponent so that it can explode in the middle of a crowd rather than the edge. In retrospect it probably could’ve been implemented differently to avoid the problem you described, but it gets the job done most of the time.

    mcw00ty: That’d certainly be nice, though i don’t know how much it would help at this point. You only get one shot at a first impression.

    Evilisk: You mean a quick get-up after being knocked down? We discussed it at one point, but it didn’t seem necessary. Our wakeup system already contains an unprecedented amount of defensive options, so we wanted to allow the offensive player a little time to set up a wakeup mixup.

    We also discussed a “Roman Cancel” mechanic similar to what you mentioned, but it seemed too convoluted for a brand new fighting game. It’s better to save that layer of complication for a sequel, and even then it’s risky.

    Although we almost made it possible to cancel any attack into a lvl3 super. I’m kind of sad that feature didn’t make it in. It would’ve been fun to mess around with in training mode.
23. mcw00ty April 25, 2013 at 7:47 am

    No one played SFxT when it first came out.
24. Maj Post authorApril 25, 2013 at 8:25 pm

    That true, i suppose some sort of SFxT2013-style relaunch could be a potential difference-maker.
25. Evilisk April 29, 2013 at 4:25 am

    IMO a GOTY/Complete DLC Edition might be good. Actually I was thinking that a PS4 re-release might be all this game needs; I mean the streaming +video upload features would definitely give this game and the community longer legs.

    @Maj: Here’s another round of questions:

    How did you guys decide the date for release?

    How come the patch sizes are so large?

    Do SSM have any sort of material or instructions to work with in regards to patching this game?

    Also what other “layers of complication” were you guys considering for this game?

    Oh and what was so interesting about being able to cancel into a level 3? It doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
26. Fromundaman April 30, 2013 at 2:32 am

    Actually I was thinking about this recently and was wondering, did fighting game pros turned game designers like yourself, Killian and Clockwork study in game design, or were you recruited for your intimate knowledge of fighting game theory?

    I was wondering since it seems like more and more pros are being involved in the development process of fighting games. For example, a good chunk of pro players of all traditional 2-D fighting game communities seem to have been recruited as testers for Injustice, I know Clockw0rk has worked on this game and worked on the guide for MVC3 and Tom Brady worked on the Injustice guide and I *think* he worked with Netherealms before? (Not been a huge NRS fan before Injustice, so not sure about that one)
27. Maj Post authorMay 1, 2013 at 7:47 pm

    Evilisk: The publisher usually decides the release date, so i’m sure they just tried to find a good slot before/during the holiday shopping season. To be honest, i’m not sure why the patch sizes are large. You’d have to ask an engine programmer about that.

    I don’t know if SMS has any explicit patching materials or instructions – but even in the worst case scenario, i’m sure someone over there can figure it out or hire someone to get it done. As for other layers of complication, we discussed and prototyped all kinds of ideas including alternative kill conditions and different ways of triggering level transitions. Ultimately i think we reached a good balance in terms of core mechanics.

    Being able to cancel into lvl3 supers wouldn’t have changed much from a matchup standpoint, but it would’ve been another subtle feature to explore in training mode. If nothing else, it would’ve been a fun way to explore what happens when certain types of moves are canceled, though i’m sure it would cause a few weird/funny bugs as well.

    Fromundaman: None of us three studied game design as far as i’m aware, but we took different paths into this industry. Honestly i’m not 100% sure why SuperBot (or specifically Omar and Paul) decided to take a chance with me, but i do know a hell of a lot about fighting game mechanics, plus i’ve written a couple of strategy guides too.

    Clockw0rk was recruited as PASBR’s community manager, but obviously we got as much gameplay input/feedback from him as we possibly could during development. Seth had a similar start at Capcom, then gradually transitioned to a formal design role. He’s easily the most successful of our bunch, but to be fair, both Omar and Paul have roots in the fighting game community – and of course so does Ed Ma. So it’s not really a new trend.
28. Fromundaman May 1, 2013 at 11:18 pm

    Awesome!

    I didn’t know about all that being relatively new to the competitive fighting game scene (Started with, strangely enough, Smash Bros Brawl), but it’s great to know that pure passion, dedication and skill was able to get you guys into the industry. It’s not for me personally, but it does make me happy to know that.

    Really glad you guys got the opportunities you did; you deserve them!
29. saerreng May 20, 2013 at 11:28 pm

    Hi Maj,

    first of all i want to thank you for the work you invested in psasbr, the work in footsies handbook (Helped me out when i started with sf3s as a 16 years old brat and started to get more and more in the competitive scene interested and playing) and of course that you answered the communitys question regarding psasbr, even with irrational hate towards you.

    I probably know the answer to my question but i am still interested in your answer.

    There are more and more offline tournaments rising for psasbr. A lot of smash players are getting interested and a lot of 2d traditionell fighters (myself included) wanted to test and play something new. Here comes psasbr! :-D.

    I am currently developing a german offline psasbr scene and creating a rule set for 1v1 and 2v2. (ps-allstars.de)

    All things good but our american friends banned kat for every online tournament.

    I am not here to ask for Kats balancing equation. She is without a doubt the best character in the game and i do not want to defend her position.

    My question is, is the verification and justification through online tournaments and theory fighting on the net enough, to ban a character for the rest of the psasbr lifespan?. In my opinion not and i will allow her in my / our local tournament scene even if the top3 is full of kats.

    I know some ‘online’ top level players (sorry but without (imho) offline tournaments there are not top level players) have sparred with Kat but how many matches did they played?. I know my struggle as ryu in sf3s versus the top 3 characters in sf3s and it was hell for the first, i dont know, months?.

    What is your opinion on banning through the net without establing a true offline scene where blood is shed and with the rise of online gaming in general, without the need of a offline scene (for lots of players).

    As always, thanks for the time.

    P.s. i am excited for Dive kick !.
    p.s.s. oh and you created a wonderful game :).
30. Maj Post authorMay 24, 2013 at 1:25 am

    Thanks for your kind words. I’m happy and honored to hear that you’re going to organize PASBR events, and i wish you the best of luck!

    Having played fighting games for as long as i have, it’s definitely strange to see such a strong online tournament scene for PASBR with almost zero offline representation. I understand the reasons for it and i’m glad everyone likes playing online enough to organize netplay tournaments, but losing the real life community aspect of it is always kind of sad.

    Anyway the short answer to your question about Kat is that i think you should try allowing her in tournaments, then ban her if there’s a concensus among your local community that she’s overpowered. However, i think most of her problems stem from online issues, so maybe she’ll be okay offline.

    In fact when i asked for suggestions earlier, the only two changes dabuz requested were fixing online bugs related to Kat’s neutral Circle debris and increasing her neutral Square startup to 10 frames. With the former out of the way offline, maybe the latter can be overcome?

    Actually i’d love to hear assessments of all four DLC characters, because i know relatively little about how they’re faring in the competitive environment. If they’re overpowered, what are their most glaring faults? If they’re underpowered, what are their biggest weaknesses?
31. saerreng May 24, 2013 at 5:25 am

    Kat has sometimes weird hitboxes on her air dash or her ground down triangle, which completely nullfies some projectiles or pokes/strings.

    Her jab combine poke, ‘counterhit’ setups (because it is so fast) and even the last hit is safe against 20 or 22 chars from the roster. It’s basically high reward/low risk used correctly.

    Ground Neutral triangle attack leaves her in a position, where the opponent has to rely on a anti air attack with a vertical hitbox and even if he has one, most of the time it’s too slow to punish on block and on reaction it has not enough range or the active frames are too low.

    With wavedash tech ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3JHWkpYNz0 ), she leaves no oppenings to punish because she can block while keeping her momentum. Ground Neutral circle, Debris and the ability through wavedash to instantly jump means, she can actually punish you from afar and dashing to start her combo.

    A increase in startup to her jab and more recovery on her last or second hit would definitely help.
    Also i would remove the property to ‘dodge’ some attacks or projectiles on her ground triangle. I would also remove wave dash tech but keep her normal air dash to the ground, because she can’t block but still cancel in other attacks but with the nerf to her down triangle, her slide, she could be hit.

    And if that is not enough, remove the ability to air dodge on her forward airdash or on all of her air dashes . She would basically commit to her momentum.

    Right now, she ignores zoning and spacing in a really efficient way and over a half of the cast can’t space or defend there space through pokes, because they’re to slow to keep up with Kat. Or she simply ignores projectiles as i mentioned.

    The way i play her now is more of a ‘reset range’ character. Every range is my range. If i am not comfortable in that or specific character range, let’s go back to the neutral game.
    And if you don’t know the match up against a kat or dont’ have some fg fundamentals, she will just murder you over and over again.

    Think of Kat with Debris as a sf esque character with a poke that goes quarter or even half sceen that lures for counterhit setups and does 1/3 lifebar damage. Oh and that poke is safe on block and has upper body invincibility.
32. saerreng May 24, 2013 at 5:26 am

    Oh i almost forgot. In 2v2 and ffa she is actually fine :-).
33. bombrider May 25, 2013 at 6:17 am

    Maj :Actually i’d love to hear assessments of all four DLC characters, because i know relatively little about how they’re faring in the competitive environment. If they’re overpowered, what are their most glaring faults? If they’re underpowered, what are their biggest weaknesses?

    I’ll tell you what is pretty much the consensus, but I won’t hold back on my opinions.

    Kat – Absolutely broken character with 0 bad match ups. Banned from tournaments. She is essentially the “Akuma” of the game in that no other character has the tools to deal with her toolset and the game just wasn’t designed to cater to her type of playstyle. Her kill confirms and punish game are out of this world while remaining pretty much safe on everything she does. Some characters can’t even kill her because of her mobility and her ability to stick to the wall where most characters can’t even reach her during their level 2 or level 3 supers. One of the few characters that can just as easily kill you in the air similar to how she can kill you on the ground. She can kill you from throws too. Her ability to generate AP is among the highest in the game…not that she needs it because she has touch of death combos. Because she can air dodge during her air dashes, she essentially has invincible air dashes so no character can stop her approach. Her ability to slide also makes it difficult to stop her approach. Her fighting ability suffers a little in in FFA and 2vs2 since her combos can be interrupted but she is still a pain. I believe Dabuz and LizardHeart were considered to be the best Kat players. Even they admit this character should be banned from tournaments.

    Isaac – Isaac is the third best character in the game under Kat and Good Cole. Has 1 – 3 bad match ups. While he isn’t banned from tournaments, he is pretty much a broken character as well. Are you aware of Isaac’s “Gun Loop”? It is similar to Drake’s old Run ‘N Gun Loop except Isaac doesn’t need to be near a wall to perform it. Isaac’s meter gain is extremely high despite having really good supers. Isaac can kill confirm into his level 1 super from a grab. His level 2 is pretty much a guaranteed death from too many of his attacks. His land mine’s explosion radius is way too big making approach for most melee characters nearly impossible. Online, the land mine cannot be destroyed due to a glitch. There is also a glitch that only occurs online that prevents Isaac players If I’m not mistaken, I believe Isaac is another character that has a touch of death combo. LizardHeart was the best Isaac player while he played this game. LizardHeart always mentioned how he played Isaac out of necessity rather than actually liking the character or the playstyle. If you like easy wins, pick Isaac in any game mode.

    Zeus – There is a lot of conflicting opinions about this character. For the most part, this character is regarded as a high tier character for 1vs1 (top tier for FFA and 2vs2 though). This is definitely a character with a learning curve. VinDaBess is easily the best Zeus player and before he came along, everyone thought Zeus was a bottom tier character. Zeus is all about mind games. One thing about Zeus that is broken, however, is his “Roll Extension” glitch. This glitch allows Zeus to cancel his roll animation into another roll leaving Zeus vulnerable for only 1 frame. While this is pretty much broken, it is pretty much argued by VinDaBess that Zeus needs the broken Roll Extension glitch in order to be competitively viable. The fact that Zeus is only a high tier character and not the best character in the game seems to support this (meaning the characters above Zeus have even more broken aspects about them). VinDaBess used to be regarded as a fantastic Kratos player but dropped him to learn Zeus. I believe VinDaBess mentioned that his playing skills with Kratos dropped as a result of picking up Zeus since Zeus requires a certain mindset and playstyle to play correctly. Zeus’s roll extension makes it impossible for a good Zeus player to be killed for some characters (Nariko literally can’t kill him with any of her supers…not even her level 3 super). Zeus is high tier thanks to his broken Roll Extension glitch. Without that broken aspect, Zeus probably wouldn’t be so good. Other characters are too strong in their current state for it to be removed though.

    Emmett Graves – Similar to how I am considered to be the best Sweet Tooth player, I am also said to be the best Emmett Graves player. Emmett Graves is universally considered to be the weakest of the DLC characters, but he is at least a decent mid tier character. Mid tier in this game means “unviable for tournament play” though. Emmett’s “Loadout Cancel” (discovered by me) allows Emmett to cancel an attack animation by reloading his weapon if he presses L1 while near a gun locker while performing any attack. Emmett pretty much does one thing: Zoning. Emmett’s melee is quite possibly the worst in the game (still somewhat competent, just slower and more unsafe than any other character in the game) but he makes up for it in his zoning abilities. All three of his load outs (rocket, shotgun, and pistol/rifle) are useful and great spacing tools at differing distances. Emmett’s rocket super is his best level 1 super but it has no hit confirms except for some impractical wall bounces. Emmett’s rocket super is good for punishing opponents who try to destroy his turret. His shotgun level 1 super is the fastest super but has very little range. His shotgun super has a hit confirm, but it requires the usage of a move that is both slow and unsafe (ground forward square). His shotgun super is good for checking blocking opponents. His rifle super is, disappointingly, completely worthless. It is either the worst or second worst super in the game. The rocket super is superior to Emmett’s rifle super in literally every single possible way. Lack of hit confirms really does hurt Emmett considering what some of the high tiered and top tier characters have. Emmett can’t beat characters with solid anti-zoning tools since all he can do really is Zeus (Sly Cooper is an unwinnable match up for Emmett…quite possibly the worst match up in the game just like Radec vs Sly Cooper but Emmett’s melee is worse than Radec’s). Emmett also can’t beat characters that can destroy his turret in one hit and remain completely safe to Emmett’s attacks (even if read) since he absolutely needs the turret to stall for time while he gets his lockers out (most of the high tiers and top tiers do this too well in my opinion). It is worth noting that the turret also can’t aim downwards so it is completely useless against characters with decent slide attacks (Drake and Kat are hard to deal with as a result). Land mines strategically placed on his lockers also give Emmett a difficult time. Pretty much the way I would describe Emmett is a very “middle of the road character” in that you can’t really write him off as being a good character or a bad character. He is pretty much one of the better designed characters in the game in that he isn’t broken in certain aspects nor is he useless against top players.
34. bombrider May 25, 2013 at 6:20 am

    I forgot to mention that Emmett also has the handcuff glitch (haven’t seen that since Street Fighter lol). Grabbing someone near one of his lockers then pressing L1 at a precise time will “handcuff” the opponent to Emmett until the handcuffed opponent loses a stock. Also, the netcode can’t really handle the load out cancel in conjunction with rapid firing rockets. The rockets have the tendency to teleport across the screen if too many are being fired off. With that said, the Load Out Cancel is absolutely necessary for Emmett to just be a mid tier character.
35. bc1910 May 25, 2013 at 6:34 am

    Funnily enough, the debris glitches balance Kat out a bit. I recently found though that in most games when you’re not hosting if you simply delay the R2 a bit after pressing circle, she can still confirm her Level 1 off anything (the regular timing is pressing circle a split second before pressing R2).

    I’d also like to thank you for speaking with the community Maj, and I have one question regarding Raiden. You guys removed the ability to steer his Level 1 in patch 1.10, but he is now able to turn round at the start of the super similar to Toro and Spike. Was this added as some sort of compensation balance?
36. Maj Post authorMay 28, 2013 at 1:21 am

    Cool, thanks for the breakdowns, sirs. If it was up to me, all these weird bugs would get fixed before committing to any balance adjustments. If Zeus needs that roll invincibility bug to compete, then what he really needs is another buff to make up for that bug being taken away.

    The same is probably true for Emmett’s loadout cancel. Actually i don’t mind that one so much, as long as all the online bugs it causes can be fixed.

    And Kat’s disappearing debris definitely needs to be fixed, even if it makes her stronger in the process. It’s really heartbreaking that the DLC characters weren’t given enough patch support to be brought in line with the rest of the cast. I think they add a lot of interesting gameplay variety to the roster.

    bc1910: Every character should be able to turn around for a couple of frames at the start of their supers, so that part was a bug fix. Removing Raiden’s ability to steer his lvl1 super was a balance decision, but i don’t know the thinking behind it. My guess is, it was done to reduce multi-kills in FFA.
37. bombrider May 28, 2013 at 3:52 am

    @Maj

    Well the difference between Zeus’s roll extension glitch and Emmett’s load out cancel is that Zeus’s roll extension causes him to have some rather lopsided match ups while Emmett’s load out cancel does not. The load out cancel is actually pretty tame (almost seems intentional by how well it flows in the game) since you are essentially cancelling an attack animation but you still trigger the animation where you reload your gun. In the case of using the rocket load out, the animation to reload is actually shorter than the recovery animation of shooting off a rocket so it encourages Emmett players to defend their “base” since it gives them an advantage which seems similar to the game Emmett actually hails from. Still, he isn’t shooting rockets so fast that the opponent is locked in a block infinite or anything…like I said, it is actually quite tame since Emmett still needs to complete the animation of reloading before he can perform any other action. There is really only a problem with it when the connection between players is bad which can cause the rockets to appear to teleport on screen for the opponent since they are being shot out so fast.

    What really bothers me though is that whenever a level 3 super is activated, all of Emmett’s tools disappear and he can’t get them back until after the level 3 super. Even if the super was triggered by Emmett himself or an ally. It is bad enough that Emmett gets set back so far whenever he dies (since all his load outs disappear) since they take so long to put out but making him lose everything when a level 3 super is activated feels like overkill. I feel as though a small reduction on the animations where he calls down his weapons would go a long way too.

    Bug fixes would be a good priority to have at this point because the game is filled with them now (seems like a lot more than when the game first came out). There is actually something going on that has everyone scratching their heads. See this video (be sure to read the description and comments): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzZ03C8u5PY

    With that said, the balancing is kind of whacked as well. The top three in particular are just completely out of hand. Kat, Good Cole, and Isaac just completely trash the rest of the cast. That isn’t to say the other top tiers wouldn’t need some serious toning down as well either. Before the patch, Kratos was a high tier character…now he is top tier thanks to the additional landing lag frames. Raiden now top tier thanks to the “nerfs” on his super which somehow increased the number of kill confirms he has. Sly Cooper needs to be completely redesigned at this point since he just completely nullifies pressure and zoning and still doesn’t suffer from landing lag. Some people say Fat Princess is still a top tier candidate as well. Also the bottom 10 characters would need buffs to keep up. Toro is now considered to be the worst character in the game while Radec got bumped up to the second worst character in the game.

    I know you can’t really do anything about any of this though. Really just making conversation and giving you an idea on the game’s status in regards to its balancing. Unfortunately, a lot of the game’s top players ended up leaving due to all the bugs and balancing issues or to just play Injustice (which is a really good game btw…well balanced overall I think).

    Still, playstation allstars is a fun game to me even with all its glaring issues…there are still too many times where my jaw just hits the floor from some of the stuff that happens in this game lol.
38. saerreng May 28, 2013 at 8:09 am

    Maj was there a discussion or the thought of low/high blocking?. It would be chaotic in ffa to block but nonetheless :).
39. Maj Post authorMay 30, 2013 at 12:59 am

    bombrider: Personally i think Emmett’s loadout canceling ability is pretty cool, so i’d vote to keep it intact. Hopefully those netcode desyncs can be resolved without removing his loadout cancels. I have no idea where those bizarre PAL disc / CRT TV oddities came from, and i’d have no way of knowing without talking to a programmer.

    As for the game becoming more glitchy over time, i don’t think that’s our fault. The patches have generally fixed far more bugs than they’ve introduced. In fact, most of the new bugs have been caused by DLC content, which i view in a slightly different light from on-disc content. It’s unfortunate that the DLC content was produced under such hectic conditions, with so little post-release patch support allocated.

    With that said, you have to understand – much of this was simply inevitable. Every fighting game in the history of fighting games has become more glitchy as players discover new tech. At some point, it’s up to the community to draft tournament rules and ban certain glitches. In extreme cases, it maybe even be necessary to ban certain characters.

    But unless Santa Monica Studio patches the game again, it’s up you guys to find a way to keep it alive. And even if there is another patch, it’ll just postpone the inevitable. Even if every single currently known bug is fixed, new ones will be discovered and we’ll be back to this dilemma in a year. So it’s really up to the players to decide if the game is worth keeping alive and to agree on a viable tournament ruleset.

    Believe me, i won’t blame you guys if you let the game die. Sometimes you just have to move on to another game. Players get bored and restless. It happens. Nevertheless, PASBR’s fate really is in your hands now.

    saerreng: We did have a few discussions about high/low blocking, but ultimately decided to keep it simple. For the first few months, very few people were using blocking effectively – even without having to worry about high/low mixups. Even now, most players prefer to evade instead of blocking, and prefer to jump around instead of staying on the ground.

    Plus the fact that we have platforms and slopes would make it very difficult to maintain a consistently intuitive definition of low attacks and overheads. If Kratos’ neutral Square hits Nariko’s toes because she’s standing on higher ground, shouldn’t it count as a low attack? If Kratos’ D+Square hits Nariko on the head because he’s standing on a higher platform, should it still count as a low attack? These are difficult communication problems to resolve.
40. bombrider May 30, 2013 at 2:11 am

    @Maj

    I suppose it is true that many of the game’s glitches have been fixed compared to its initial release. I still shudder at the fact that my opponent would gain 30 AP from ME causing HIM to AP burst but only while online. When I first posted that, I thought it was actually a “newby helper system” that helped online new players by rewarding them for the other player’s play. I’m glad to hear that that was actually a glitch that was fixed.

    Also Dan’s shield glitch just had very…interesting results back when it was still present.

    With that said, there have been new glitches that have somehow come up where the same situations would get applied with different results from the past. I was actually playing a Big Daddy player the other day and was about to win with Sweet Tooth’s level 3 super (it is basically a guaranteed 3 kills in 1vs1) and I still had 2 stock left. He activated his level 2 and I dodged his first attack. He then charged at me and…my character just froze. He couldn’t interact with me or anything and I couldn’t do anything to get out. So we just had to end the game since we could no longer continue.

    In any event, every game eventually dies though that is usually as a result of a sequel’s release. I do hope a sequel for this game eventually comes out and more time and resources are permitted in the creation of the sequel though it honestly seems unlikely due to the lower than expected sales and criticisms. Some people actually claimed that they boycotted the game simply because Crash Bandicoot wasn’t in the game which seems really silly to me. Although I was disappointed that no iteration of Snake was in the game, I still bought and enjoyed many of the other characters that were in the game. Too many comparisons to Smash Bros seemed to hurt this game in the eyes of many critics for some reason (I would think similarities to Smash Bros would be a good thing, and not a bad thing).
41. Evilisk July 2, 2013 at 5:47 am

    “Sorry sir, nearly all of those are “five years after” questions. There’s no way i can answer them so soon while there’s still a chance SMS might continue supporting/expanding the game. (Actually i hope you can find someone else to answer them in a few years, because honestly i’d rather stick to combat design topics and leave storytime to someone higher up.)”

    Not sure if you’ll answer but if you don’t mind, could you point me to a few higher ups that I might be able to talk to after any NDA’s are lifted?
42. Maj Post authorJuly 3, 2013 at 2:29 pm

    I doubt there’s ever going to be a day when you can ask any question you want and get a complete answer. It’s too easy to attract negative attention in this industry, so everyone’s on guard. But i suppose it doesn’t hurt to ask. The complete SuperBot Entertainment credits for PASBR are available online, so i guess your best bet would to be to figure out what each of those people do and follow them on twitter or whatever.

    If you have questions about how characters look, ask a character artist. If you have questions about how how characters move, ask an animator. If you have questions about specific attacks or level layouts, ask a designer. If you have questions about the roster, maybe ask a producer. If you have questions about sound effects or voiceovers, ask a sound designer. And so on. Pretty straightforward, right?

    There isn’t one specific person who has all the answers and can’t wait to share them with the first player who asks, if that’s what you’re wondering. Everyone just has a different perspective on the project based on their part in it, so it’s more about finding the developer who happened to work on whichever aspect you’re interested in learning about.
43. JushtFinisht July 19, 2013 at 1:13 pm

    Hey Maj, I have some big concerns on Nariko mechanics. Sorry if they are long-winded – please bear with me.

    First though, I have to address her Aerial D+Triangle glitch on an aerial opponent. Offline, it does what it is supposed to according to the 1.10 balance patch. Online, however, there is a discrepancy between what the Nariko user sees and can follow-up with and what the victim sees and can do. On the Nariko user’s screen, the victim is in a heavy slam knockdown. On the victim’s screen, they are butt-dropped and thus recover the same frames as a butt-drop. This makes it hard for the Nariko user to predict exactly what their “victim” will do after they recover from their butt-drop. This glitch happens 100% of the time online, and it really hurts Nariko.

    Now on to my questions:

    1. Nariko’s 2nd tier of Square attacks and her cancel system (gold ring beneath her feet). I am not sure why the Key Pose/cancel system mechanic was added in the first place, seeing as how she never had this in her own game. I have used it to great effect in many matches, but in the end, this makes her 2nd tier of Square attacks – her yellow chain attacks after N+Square, her anti-air blue attacks after U+Square, her blade crumple to acrobatic kick after F+Square, and her red heavy sword attack after D+Square – all the more useless. The only way to access these moves is by allowing a gap in her Squares, and, with the exception of D+Square, they are all punishable on dodge. This is not to mention the gap itself leaves her open to a counterattack by, say, Raiden, for example. For the 2nd tier of Square moves, I think there needs to be a change to the Key Pose mechanic or to have them able to be accessed without inputting the 1st tier of Square moves (perhaps by holding L1/R1 and then the corresponding input, similar to in Heavenly Sword). Otherwise, they’re just a waste of code.

    2. Nariko’s really big on mix-ups and punishing escape options. Unlike Kratos though, for example, whose N+Square strings have a significant frame advantage as well as punish jumping AND bad rolls, Nariko has to have a single move for every punish option. This makes it really difficult for Nariko to punish someone who escapes differently every single time they get caught in her N+Square/F+Square or D+Triangle. This forces her to mainly rely on anti-airs (U+Triangle) and N+Circle. The former is unsafe on air-dodge – due to no longer being able to jump-cancel on whiff – and the latter is unsafe on block.

    3. Outside of her D+Triangle mix-ups, any idea on why Nariko’s D+Triangle to N+Circle was made into a 1-frame link? I know other fighting games have characters with 1-frame link combos.

    4. This might be a stupid question, but why is Nariko’s parry the only one to be mapped to N+Triangle instead of N+Circle like Heihachi, Sly, Kratos, etc.? I know her counter was mapped to Triangle in her own game, but it makes her all the more inconsistent from other characters – unless that was the goal in creating her.

    5. Her F+Triangle and Aerial F+Triangle. Not sure exactly what the usefulness of her Debris Sweep is here. She really doesn’t need to push people away as Nariko is somewhat mobile anyway. The ground version recovers too slow to be used in any combos, and the aerial version needs to be used at an EXACT, PERFECT height for it be followed-up. The only practical use I have found for it is using the aerial version as a frame trap on aerial opponents (and then following up with U+Triangle). And that’s not saying much.

    6. Nariko has a lot of trouble against turtle-blockers. She has become what Dante was pre 1.10 patch and what Raiden was post 1.05/pre 1.10. Anyone can just block and wait until she mixes up into one of her highly punishable moves and attack her that way. I have been chatting with some other Nariko players in the community, as well as others who are familiar with Nariko (vizionary2012, Blue_BaIIz, to name a few), and they all agree that blocking is the best way to shut off Nariko. Her throws cannot be comboed off of – save for her F+Throw at the PERFECT distance from a wall-bounce into U+Triangle (this is nothing, really), and she has NO guard breaks. Interesting how she had guard break attacks in her own game but not here….

    7. Overall, I have no problem with her nerf, especially her disc spam, as I did not pick up PSASBR until after the 1.10 patch was released. Her Aerial D+Triangle though, like I said above, desperately needs a fix. She could do with an added guard break or two, or a combo from throw because as it stands, that is her one big weakness.

    Now my general concern is how other characters are both stronger and more used than Nariko. You guys feared that she would become overpowered and overused if she were to stay as strong as she was as in the SoCal Regionals. Well, now she is one of the least used characters in the roster, and characters like Kratos, Raiden, Cole, and Kat remain popular picks online. Kratos, especially, as of now, appears SIX times in the Top 10 in FFA Ranked.

    Okay, let’s talk outside of FFA and 2v2. Right now, 1v1 is the only truly active competitive scene in PSASBR right now, despite the major character imbalance. Raiden, Cole, and Kat dominate in 1v1s, partly due to their air-to-air confirms for their supers. It’s gone so far that Kat has been banned in tournaments. There has even been talk about banning Raiden and/or his Aerial U+Triangle confirm into his Level 1.
    I know PSASBR was balanced mainly for FFA, but 1v1 is the most active competitive scene now, and it is not as perfect as it can be due to these huge imbalances.

    I know you and Superbot are not in charge of PSASBR anymore, Maj, so I know my concerns won’t change anything much. I just wanted to know if you had any answers. Thanks in advance.
44. Maj Post authorJuly 25, 2013 at 12:55 am

    Your observations seem insightful and accurate, so i don’t know if i can provide much further clarity. In retrospect, most of Nariko’s moveset was designed with a focus on ground combat. Her Square attacks work pretty well if the opponent tries to fight back instead of blocking or jumping away.

    Unfortunately for her, most players prefer jumping nonstop and attacking from the air instead of approaching on the ground. We noticed this trend a few months before the game was released, so a lot of minor adjustments (like landing lag) were made to address the resulting problems.

    Nariko’s D+Triangle was originally a combo starter, but that caused a lot of nasty infinites which took us a while to properly address. I’m sure you can imagine, she had dozens of infinite variations stemming from D+Triangle and neutral Circle – some of which circumvented infinite avoidance.

    Somewhere along the line, D+Triangle was repurposed into a tool for pulling opponents into her close range mixups and initiating her neutral Square game. That’s mainly why ground D+Triangle doesn’t combo reliably into neutral Circle anymore. In fact it’s not supposed to combo at all, as far as i remember. If it’s really a 1-frame link, that’s probably an oversight more than anything else. Do you think she needs that combo?

    I agree that air D+Triangle is a huge problem in its current glitchy state. I’m not really sure what caused that online bug, but i certainly wish i could fix it.

    Nariko’s counter being mapped to neutral Triangle instead of neutral Circle bothers me too. I can’t remember why it wasn’t standardized, but i’m sure there’s some minor circumstantial reason for it.

    As for F+Triangle, that move is just plain useless. With 24 moves per character, there’s bound to be a few that aren’t great. Sometimes a move idea seems really cool on paper, but it turns out limited in some unexpected way that makes it underpowered. Or it turns out overpowered in some unique way, and the only viable way to balance it takes away its primary purpose, making it essentially useless.

    Out of curiosity, if you could change one thing about Nariko, what would it be? (Apart from fixing air D+Triangle; let’s imagine that’s fixed.)
45. JushtFinisht July 25, 2013 at 10:59 am

    @Maj

    Thanks for the detailed reply, Maj.

    It’s interesting that you say Nariko was designed to be focused on ground combat. What usually happens in practice is that she will either be zoning out aerial approaches with her U+Triangle, punishing throws with her Air U+Square, or chasing grounded opponents with Air D+Triangle.

    Her ground mix-ups have potential though. An N+Circle after, say, an N+Square, Square, Square, will catch people trying to jump (away or into aerial move, doesn’t matter), for example. But will she guess right? If she guesses wrong, she gets punished badly for it, which is okay since she has very hard-hitting combos. The problem is that other characters like Cole are more efficient meter-wise, and can just win a match with low-cost, hit-confirmable Level 1s, whereas Nariko usually has to go all the way to her Level 3.

    I agree with the decision to not make D+Triangle combo into anything. As far as I know, it only combos into that 1 frame link into N+Circle or 2-3 frame link (not sure, but I know it is more lenient than the 1-frame link) into N+Square at a short distance anyway. When D+Triangle is used at its max distance, it does not combo into anything.

    If I could change one thing about Nariko? Well, it’s never just one thing. It depends on which path I would want to take with her. Do I want her to have more viable and interesting mix-ups or do I want her to have a simple answer to everything? I’m leaning towards the former, as I believe mix-ups are the core of Nariko’s play style. Having the 2nd tier of her ground Square moves accessible by themselves would make her interesting and less frustrating to play as. I understand that this would be hard to implement as one might have to change a few more things here and there. The latter option (i.e., a combo from throw) would make her equally less frustrating to play. It would be easier to implement by simply changing the properties of one of her throws, like say changing the knockdown from her D+Throw into a bounce. It wouldn’t make sense physics-wise, like Raiden’s post-1.10 D+Throw, but it would be a simple solution.
46. bombrider July 26, 2013 at 8:09 pm

    Hey Maj, I have yet another question to ask.

    What is your opinion on the “screen clearer supers” (Parappa, Heihachi, Toro, and Spike’s level 3 supers)? Personally I believe these supers (while cool looking in terms of animations) handicap the characters since they are perceived as being the worst level 3 supers in the game. Even in FFA, the only practical use these supers have is for “trolling” and being “stylish” (admittedly, Heihachi’s and Parappa’s level 3 supers always have me smiling).

    Now, I know that these supers only cost 600 AP and grant guaranteed kills for no work after you get the required AP but all the other level 3 supers in the game that only cost either 75 AP more or 150 AP more grant the opportunities to grant up to 2 kills per player without too much difficulty (sometimes even 3 kills). The only real exception to this rule would be Fat Princess, who undoubtedly has the worst level 3 super in the game (not that it matters…her level 1 super and level 2 super have exception uses). A lot of the time, some of the characters’ level 2 supers were better than their level 3 screen clearer supers like Parappa and Heihachi. I have to be honest here…I feel like the only reason why Parappa’s level 2 super was nerfed was to justify the usage of his level 3 super (which in no way improved it).

    I understand that there was probably a “gimmick” that was attempted in that there’d be a strategy in which a character with a screen clearer super would just wait for one of his opponents to use a level 1 or level 2 super then activate their level 3 super in order to make the opponent waste their meter. This idea sounds good on paper but I believe this scenario only handicapped the player utilizing this gimmick since it created a situation in which the player would not be allowed to gain anymore meter while his opponents did. These opponents would be able to build up AP until they hit their own, more powerful level 3 supers rendering the screen clearer devoid of the purpose that was set for it.

    Personally, I have two different ideas as to how I would improve the utility of these supers.

    The first option would make it so that opponents that were slain by these screen clearer supers dropped 15% (maybe 20%) of their AP that can be collected. This would make these supers a strong counter to other characters going for their more expensive level 3 supers by draining their meter (the more they have, the more they drop). This would also give these supers an interesting “discount” mechanic since the player (as well and his ally) could then collect the dropped AP to fuel their next supers. Despite this causing opponents to drop about the same amount that a grab would do (maybe a little more with 20%) this would make this an effective super since grabbing was countered by jumping anyways.

    The second option would be to make the screen clearer supers level 2 supers instead of level 3 supers but make them cost 500-525 AP (which are more expensive than the currently existing 325 and 400 AP level 2 supers that currently exist). Doing this would mean giving these characters improved level 3 supers, so this option would obviously take quite a bit of work that is likely not going to happen…but this is more of a “what if” scenario so bear with me. Anyhow, this scenario would allow these characters to have the ability to negate the level 1 or level 2 supers of other characters on command but still have the option to build meter towards an even stronger level 3 super that would have the capabilities of scoring 2 kills per player like all the other level 3 supers.

    I’m interested in your input Maj. Do you think the screen clearer supers are fine the way they are? If not, what would you do to improve them if you had control over that.
47. Maj Post authorJuly 29, 2013 at 2:54 am

    JushtFinisht: Honestly i’d be hesitant about allowing direct access to Nariko’s secondary Square chains simply because it would probably involve breaking the N/U/F/D+button convention and that’d be a disaster.

    Letting her combo after a throw is probably safer, especially since she probably couldn’t use it to confirm into a lvl1 super. I still have mixed feelings about Raiden’s throw confirm into lvl1 super. It wouldn’t be an issue if his U+Triangle reaction wasn’t set up so damn weird. Can you think of any other ways to help improve Nariko’s mixup game?

    bombrider: Personally i’ve never been a big fan of those cinematic lvl3 supers. I guess they’re a convenient way to encapsulate a nostalgic moment, but i’d prefer anything that involves actual gameplay. I’m actually really happy that Fat Princess’ lvl3 super is in the game though. Learning to survive it is a very fun/interesting mini-challenge, and like you said, her lvl1/lvl2 supers are good enough to offset it, so i think that case worked out pretty well.

    I like your idea of using cinematic lvl3’s to manipulate opponents’ AP, and i guess that might work since all of them ended up being similarly underpowered. It’s probably better than reducing their costs, since there’s not much room to do that without making it difficult to keep a lvl2 super without accidentally getting a lvl3. Plus i don’t think i’d want to see non-interactive lvl3 supers more often, so powering them up is preferable.

    We definitely can’t flip those lvl2/lvl3 supers though, because lvl3 supers have some very unique properties that override all kinds of stuff. I guarantee it would cause some nasty bugs that would take a long time to fix completely.

    As for Parappa’s lvl2 super nerf, it was totally independent of his lvl3 super. That damn skateboard was an automatic triple-kill on small stages. You know it’s a problem when people around the office start saying “My skateboard never stops” in a serious tone with a super-creepy serial killer look in their eye. Obviously it’s not as good on big stages like Dreamscape, but those stages let Parappa run away and build meter from boomboxes by himself. And if those cinematic lvl3 supers are good anywhere, it’s on gigantic levels where transformation lvl3 supers become comparatively less effective.
48. JushtFinisht July 29, 2013 at 11:09 am

    @Maj

    You’re right, Maj, it would be very hard to implement direct access to her secondary Square strings. N/F/U+Square, a blocked/whiffed D+Square, and D+Triangle (without considering her 2nd tier of Square attacks) already lead into some great mix-ups. Honestly, I think Nariko’s ability to cancel into other moves at the Key Pose sort of makes up for the low viability of those secondary chains – but only if the opponent does not end up turtling.

    What happens when someone turtles against Nariko? As Nariko has nothing to combat turtling but to try to gain chip damage, pressure the opponent, or use throws, this either slows down the pace of the match considerably or leaves her punished badly for trying to throw. Her strong Level 3 – but comparatively ineffective Level 1 and risky Level 2 – goes inline with her high-risk, high reward play style, but her inability to defeat one common defensive option turns her into a high-risk, low-reward character.

    To improve her mix-up game, all one would need to do is to give her a sizable reward for defeating blocking. That is all she needs. I can only think of two options to going about this:

    1. As stated before, a combo from throw would work wonders to improve her mix-ups. Blue_BaIIz even suggests instead of giving her a full combo from D+Throw to just give her a non-AP Burst combo by simply removing the aerial kick from her U+Throw. This would let her follow up with Air U+Triangle, Air N+Circle, and Air N+Square, Square, Square for 70 AP, for example.

    2. A guard break works too. Guard break combos were the essential key to beating her own game, Heavenly Sword, and adding a few here wouldn’t break the essence of Nariko at all. One could add a guard break after one of her Key Poses and give another element to her mix-ups. Grounded/Air D+Circle also makes a good candidate for a guard break move simply because of how devastating it looks.

    And that’s it, just a few tweaks to give Nariko a robust punish against every escape option her opponent might use to round out her mix-up game. She still has to guess right to get in a full combo, but at least she has a high reward for every high risk she takes.

    As for Raiden’s D+Throw confirm, I can only comment that it is not the actual D+Throw that’s the problem but the fact that his strongest moves on an aerial opponent allow him to loop into his U+Square, Air U+Triangle BnB and finally into a Level 1. Furthermore, he can combo into Air U+Triangle from the ground by bringing his opponent into the air with a U+Square or U+Triangle (not that he really needs to from the ground), and he can combo into it from the air with his aerial jabs (Air N+Square). This is not to mention his other myriad air-to-ground and ground-to-ground confirms. I know many players, casual and high-level, complain about Raiden’s multiple confirms (Kat and Cole are also guilty of this) from almost any height. I have not played Raiden as much as I have played Nariko, but I do hope what I provided about him gives insight from the overall community.
49. Maj Post authorJuly 29, 2013 at 7:01 pm

    Hmm, actually this leads to some general questions:

    1) Does everyone need a combo-starter throw to succeed? Are there any characters that don’t?

    2) Should any characters have throw confirms into lvl1 super? What should be the cost of having that option?

    3) Does Raiden need confirms into lvl1 super to succeed? Probably. Does he have too many? Probably. So which confirms does he need and which should he lose?

    4) What does a character without lvl1 super confirms need to succeed?

    I’d like to hear some different opinions on these questions.
50. Grashi July 29, 2013 at 7:50 pm

    1) No. But in a game where throws are the most effective way to stopping a player from reaching their goal (under standard competitive rules anyway) characters who can NOT combo from their throws should benefit greatly from them. Characters like Nariko and Dan cannot do much from their throw and against low AP characters it does not benefit them as much as it does say..Parappa or Kratos. So, no. Not everyone needs that potential, but the characters who don’t have that ability currently would benefit greatly from it.

    2) No. Something i’ve discussed many times is if a character can combo from a throw, that throw should not catch rolls nor should it have the standard 30 AP of super armor. 10-20 is fine, but there needs to be a way to stop it.

    3) If Raiden lost his ability to kill, he’d just be Dante who would need a gimmick to do anything outside of stylishly comboing his way to level 3. It’s pretty well agreed that flipkick into level 1 may be the most broken thing about the character. Outside of that, I cannot comment.

    4) Every character in the game has some sort of confirm into their level 1 they just aren’t all practical. I recently even found that some of these characters even lost confirms with the last patch. Toro and Spike come to mind what with wallbounce confirms. A character who cannot confirm needs setups. It’s essentially the way I, and another member, play Sir Daniel. Instead of just fishing for 1 or 2 attacks, that character needs to be able to limit the other players options and put them in a situation in which their super becomes viable. Not only that, but it needs to be something that hits the entire cast, and not just a third or half. (referring to Dan again). Also, the AP requirement for such characters should be much lower than those who have many many confirms such as Raiden.

    There currently isn’t much trade off to the games Win factor. The bad characters generally have low AP gain, little to no practical confirms, bad raw supers and they don’t have a BS tool like the top tiers do. Those top tiers, I feel, should not have confirms but setups that make landing them practical. Where as the low tiers should have the ability to combo into them. It would flip flop the tiers, but I’m looking more at the characters and not at a ladder.

    Off-topic: You never got back to me on if you’re willing to play a few with us :D It would really boost the morale of the community…