Version 1.10 of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale represents a comprehensive tuning patch that affects every character on the roster. Our goal was to identify the biggest imbalances in the game and carefully address them without diluting any fighter’s intended combat persona.
The update went live this afternoon, alongside the release of DLC characters Zeus and Isaac and the new Graveyard level. Detailed patch notes have already been posted online earlier in the week. I’m mirroring the complete verified list here, because frankly i’m proud of these changes and i hope the fighting game community embraces them.
General Changes
• AP burst victims in online matches no longer erroneously receive the 30 AP bonus.
• Blocking another attack while in block stun reaction no longer zeroes out X velocity.
• Characters can no longer block or dodge for 5 frames after landing during an air attack.
• Characters can not perform supers until frame 12 after landing during an air attack.
• Characters now remain grounded for the first 10 frames of jumping (previously 9 for Kat, Ratchet, Sackboy, Sly Cooper, and Spike).
Big Daddy
• Air F+Triangle has 11 additional frames of startup.
• Air D+Square now gains 20 AP (previously 10), and victim’s reaction is reduced by 3 frames.
• Level 1 Super now causes an initial stagger reaction on frame 36.
• Level 2 Super’s Triangle attacks are sped up.
• Level 3 Super attacks become active 3 frames sooner and recover 6 frames earlier.
• Level 3 Super attack volumes have been adjusted to be more centered around Big Daddy.
• Level 3 Super victims swim faster and no longer get stuck upon entering Infinite Avoidance.
Cole MacGrath
• F+Square -> Square hit volume enlarged to hit small characters more consistently.
• Neutral Triangle firing rate has been sped up by 4 frames (moved to its recovery instead).
• Ground neutral Circle recovery has been reduced to 20 frames (previously 28).
• Level 3 Super tornado movement speed has been increased.
Dante
• Ground neutral Square attacks can now be canceled into Triangle attacks on block.
• Dante can change facing direction between attacks during Square and F+Square chains.
• Ground U+Square is now jump-cancellable on both active frames.
• Air Square hit volumes were adjusted to combo more consistently against short characters.
• Air D+Square (Helm Breaker) now generates 20 AP (previously 10).
• Canceling ground U+Triangle into air neutral Circle now takes 2 frames longer.
• Neutral Circle active counter period has been reduced to 25 frames (previously 30).
• Neutral Circle recovery has been increased by 5 frames.
• Level 1 Super cost has been reduced to 125 AP (previously 150).
• Level 2 Super cost has been reduced to 325 AP (previously 400).
Nathan Drake
• Neutral Circle has been changed considerably:
• Barrel no longer explodes if countered or destroyed by opponents.
• Barrel’s hurtbox size has been increased, making it easier to destroy.
• Barrel’s lifetime has been reduced by 24 frames.
• Barrel’s explosion is now only active for 5 frames (previously 30).
• Teammates will no longer cause damage to friendly barrels.
• Hitting Drake with twitch attacks will no longer prevent him from creating a barrel.
• U+Triangle explosion is now only active for 5 frames (previously 15).
• U+Square explosion is now only active for 5 frames (previously 15).
• Level 1 Super hit volume has been reduced to 1.85 meters (previously 2.25m).
• Level 3 Super timing has been adjusted so that Drake and the Descendants now become controllable at the same time, 50 frames after the super is initiated.
Emmett Graves
• Level 2 Super cost has been reduced to 325 AP (previously 350).
Evil Cole
• F+Square -> Square hit volume enlarged to hit small characters more consistently.
• Neutral Triangle firing rate has been sped up by 4 frames (moved to its recovery instead).
• Neutral Triangle Overload size has been increased to 5.5 meters (previously 5m).
• Neutral Triangle Overload recovery has been reduced to 40 frames (previously 70).
• Fully charged neutral Circle punch has been changed considerably:
• Startup has been increased to 10 frames (previously 6).
• Active period has been decreased to 11 frames (previously 13).
• Recovery has been increased by 2 frames.
• Armor amount has been reduced to 11 AP.
• U+Circle chain has been standardized to generate 5 AP + 5 AP + 20 AP.
• Up Throw trajectory no longer allows guaranteed follow-up into lvl1 super.
• Level 2 Super startup has been reduced to 16 frames (previously 26).
• Level 2 Super blows up victims much faster, but can be extended to full length by holding R2. Evil Cole now drains AP from victims as you grab them, instead of at the very end of the super.
Fat Princess
• Neutral Square now causes a light overhead reaction and gains 5 AP (previously 10).
• Charged neural Square armor does not activate until frame 6 (previously 1).
• Air F+Circle (Summon Warrior) now has 21 additional frames of startup and longer recovery.
• If Fat Princess summons any assists in the air, she will now land in attack state.
• Level 3 Super effectively has been improved by increasing the number of mages and bombs that appear, removing the warriors’ startup delay, and allowing projectiles to begin tracking opponents during respawn invincibility.
Heihachi Mishima
• U+Square will not collide with other players for the first 26 frames of the attack, allowing the second uppercut to connect more consistently if the first one whiffs.
• Air U+Triangle now gains 20 AP (previously 10).
• F+Circle -> Square VFX for Wind God Fist and Electric Wind God Fist are now more distinct.
• Level 2 Super will no longer be extended if Heihachi is hit by a Freeze Missile.
Jak and Daxter
• Air F+Square now activates on frame 6, so it no longer drives through opponents.
• Neutral Triangle now causes a heavy reaction and gains 20 AP (previously 10).
• Neutral Triangle startup has been reduced to 20 frames (previously 28).
• Neutral Triangle recovery has been increased to 18 frames (previously 8).
• F+Triangle no longer causes an eject roll reaction, and each shot gains 6 AP (previously 10).
• F+Triangle shots fire 12 frames apart (previously 15) and travel 7 meters (previously 9m).
• F+Triangle now continues to fire when holding the button down.
• Neutral Circle (Drone) lasts 1 second longer and fires a total of 21 shots (previously 12).
• Neutral Circle laser shot lifetimes have been increased 0.3 seconds (previously 0.225 sec).
• F+Circle homing blasts have increased range (~8 meters) and speed, cause a mini-launch lift reaction, and accumulate 20 AP total (previously 10).
• U+Circle startup was reduced to 25 frames (previously 41) with 2 more frames of recovery.
• D+Circle hit volume has been reduced by 50% so that it no longer hits behind Jak.
• Level 1 Super cost has been reduced to 125 AP (previously 150).
• Level 2 Super now causes an initial shock reaction 12 frames after timescale returns to normal, which stuns nearby opponents and pushes them into the killing blow. The speed of the super has been increased by 25% and can now kill during the jump arc.
Kat
• Backward evade has been standardized to behave like the rest of the cast.
• Ground D+Square reaction has been shortened to 49 frames (previously 50) and D+Triangle minimum cancel times have been increased to 10 frames (previously 9) to prevent D+Square, D+Triangle -> Square infinite.
• Level 1 Super will no longer kill people protected by a Gravity Shield.
Kratos
• Second neutral Square attack recovery has been reduced to -10 on block (previously -14).
• Third neutral Square attack recovery has been increased to -10 on block (previously +0).
• Neutral Triangle now gains 20 AP consistently – it can no longer gain 40 AP.
Nariko
• Air U+Square startup has been increased by 2 frames and gravity properties were adjusted.
• Air D+Triangle now flattens victims that are grabbed out of the air.
• Air U+Circle now completes the entire animation upon landing.
• Level 2 Super cost has been reduced to 325 AP (previously 350).
• Level 2 Super ammo limit has been removed and rate of fire has been decreased. Turning the cannon around will now knock away any nearby opponents.
• Level 3 Super now ends properly when the timer expires, and can no longer be extended by performing her Circle attack or holding L1 to block.
Parappa
• Ground F+Square pushback has been reduced to allow more follow-up options.
• Ground D+Square -> F+Square chain has been removed for easier U+Square follow-ups.
• D+Circle (Boxy Boy) will no longer repeatedly eject AP orbs when dropped inside a ledge.
• Level 2 Super duration has been shortened to 4 seconds (previously 5 sec).
Col. Mael Radec
• U+Circle active period has been increased to 70 frames (previously 40).
Raiden
• Air D+Triangle, air F+Circle, and air F+Triangle are all more punishable on block.
• Down Throw now causes a bounce reaction, allowing combo follow-ups.
• Level 1 Super recovery was increased by 8 frames and can no longer be steered using LS.
• Level 2 Super air Square and air Triangle attacks are no longer blockable.
• Level 3 Super decoy NPC boxes will now cause the game camera to zoom out properly.
• Air U+Circle will no longer perform follow-up stomps on destroyed boxes during lvl3 super.
Ratchet and Clank
• Neutral Circle (Mr. Zurkon) fires 15 shots (previously 17), each worth 2 AP (previously 1).
• D+Circle (Tesla Spike) has 6 AP of durability (previously 1).
• Throw victims no longer cause twitch reactions after being shot out of the Suck Cannon.
• Level 1 Super projectile collision was shrunk by 90% to increase effectiveness on ramps.
• Level 2 Clank can now be hit by Raiden’s lvl2 initial burst and Jak’s lvl2 initial shock.
Sackboy
• Neutral Triangle (Jam Session) startup has been reduced to 40 frames (previously 57).
• F+Triangle frame advantage has been increased by +5 on hit.
• F+Triangle can now be canceled by rolling and jumping during the charge-up period.
• Down Square (Bounce Pad) active period ends after 0.3 seconds, matching the air version.
• Neutral Circle (Cake Mine) will disappear after 5 seconds.
• D+Circle (Electric Panel) startup has been increased by 16 frames and recovery has been extended slightly. Interrupting Sackboy during startup will now prevent the Electric Panel from being created. The mine itself can now be absorbed and reflected.
• Level 1 Super cost has been reduced to 125 AP (previously 150).
• Level 2 Super cost has been reduced to 325 AP (previously 400).
• Level 3 Super victim bubbles are now able to move 50% faster.
Sir Daniel
• Down Throw no longer makes Sir Daniel jump on the wrong side of the victim.
• Level 1 Super active period has been increased by 8 frames.
• Level 1 Super recovery has been reduced by 4 frames.
• Level 2 Super cost has been reduced to 325 AP (previously 350).
• Level 2 Super homing Spirits now have delayed activation, following the non-homing Spirits. They will not blow up on opponents as they leave the Chalice, improving the chance that one homing projectile per opponent will remain after after any initial kills.
Sly Cooper
• Neutral Circle active counter period has been reduced to 15 frames (previously 26).
• Neutral Circle recovery has been increased to 25 frames (previously 11).
• Level 1 Super is now vulnerable from frame 5 until Murray’s hit volume becomes active. Interrupting Sly during startup will now prevent Murray from attacking. The hit volume that appears when Murray splats onto the ground has been made smaller.
Spike
• F+Square causes a stagger reaction and gains 20 AP (previously 30) when not fully charged.
• Air D+Triangle now gains 5 AP (previously 10 AP), causes a shock reaction with correct hit stun, and can be countered by projectile counters.
• Neutral Circle now has an extra 5 AP running hit added to its second stage.
• Forward Throw (Monkey Trip!) now causes an eject roll reaction (previously stagger).
• Throws have been remapped to be more intuitive:
• Up Throw: Sonic Revolution (cases eject tornado reaction)
• Forward Throw: Monkey Trip! (causes eject roll reaction)
• Down Throw: Crash Hurricane (causes flatten reaction).
• Level 1 and Level 2 Supers can properly change facing direction on activation.
• Level 2 Super projectile travels faster and explodes on impact with solid walls.
Sweet Tooth
• Ground neutral Triangle can now be steered using LS while active.
• Ground neutral Triangle now gains 30 AP total (previously 8 AP) from a victim caught in front. Victims behind get ejected (previously light reaction) and earn 30 AP (previously 10).
• Air neutral Triangle now gains 30 AP total (previously 25 for front hits and 15 on back hits).
• U+Triangle (Machete Toss) now continues through all opponents after a successful hit. The machete’s hit volume now deactivates properly when it becomes lodged in the ground.
• Level 2 Super cost has been reduced to 325 AP (previously 400).
• Level 2 Super rocket explosion radius has been enlarged by 0.5 meters, missile flight speed and maneuverability have been increased, and minimum detonation time has been decreased to 6 frames (previously 15).
• Level 3 Super duration has been reduced to 13.5 seconds (previously 15 sec).
Toro Inoue
• Ground neutral Circle duration is now infinite.
• Oni air Up+Triangle can now only be used once per jump.
• Oni air D+Triangle startup has been increased by 9 frames with 4 more frames of recovery.
• Level 1 and Level 2 Supers can now turn around properly during the first 5 frames of activation and will no longer slide during activation if Toro was running.
Items
• LR-3 Railgun hit volume thickness has been doubled and aiming sensitivity reduced.
• Sonic Rift hit volume sizes have been increased by 33%.
• Sturgeon power swing armor has been extended until the end of its active period.
• Murder of Crows and Sackbot can no longer be countered during their AP eject hits.
• Sackbot no longer allows opponents to generate AP or pick up AP orbs while attached.
• Spear of Destiny now has 21 AP of armor during startup and active frames. The initial strike now generates 20 AP (previously 10).
Um, this is getting a little weird. I mentioned earlier that i wasn’t willing to review changelists. It’s fine if we’re having a casual conversation about one move, or one matchup, or one gameplay situation. I’ll gladly answer specific questions to satisfy curiosity and do my best to make y’all happy.
But if you guys are looking for my stamp of approval on a buff list to show SMS, you’re wasting your time. I can’t make those judgements without being totally immersed in the game full-time, and honestly i haven’t played PASBR in a while. For me, balance tuning is serious business and i don’t take it lightly. I don’t have the time to compare and evaluate two Jak changelists just to settle an argument. I hate to say it that way, but i literally do not have that kind of time right now.
So you guys are gonna have to settle it amongst yourselves because i’m not interested in putting nails in any coffins. Anyway, i’ll backtrack through the last batch of questions and see what i can answer.
Bamsama: I totally agree with you (in theory) about allowing throws into lvl1 supers with the limitation that they don’t generate much AP. But in practice, it would be hard to eliminate all exceptions. That approach to balancing is dangerous because the more exceptions you prevent, the more problematic the remaining ones become. Though i’d be willing to try it if i knew there were multiple patches scheduled, or if i had a month to test.
Regarding Nariko, i think it’s safe to give her a combo starter throw, now that her air D+Triangle doesn’t loop back into grounded hit reaction. Making her D+Circle guard crush is an interesting idea, but it would break our convention for guard crush attacks. Every guard crush in the game is a chargeable attack at full charge. I’d still be willing to consider it, but do you think it would actually help? Isn’t it easy to see that move coming and roll away?
Thanks for the Zeus suggestions. You’re right, he probably does need a combo starter throw and slightly more reliable combos. I’m not sure about his clone though. With the way it’s set up, i don’t know if it can be given armor or projectile reflect properties.
It would be pretty easy to reduce Zeus’ teleport attack recovery. We just didn’t want it to become too annoying. If it’s not punishable on block, how do you stop a Zeus player from spamming it? Even if it’s like -3 on block, he’ll just keep doing it over and over because it’s his best option in that situation.
Where’d you hear about Zeus’ D+Circle giving him armor?
JushtFinisht I think as long as Nariko’s D+Triangle stays the way it is (and the online reaction bug gets fixed), she can be given some buffs without reverting back to the 2v2 monster she was before. Plus she isn’t too far from the mark, so i don’t think she needs too many buffs to be worried.
khknight: You’re exaggerating a bit about Ratchet. He doesn’t have any cancels like the ones you were proposing for Jak, and he doesn’t have any midscreen AP burst combos without janky F+Circle setups. You can see those coming a mile away. I stand by what i said earier. If Jak earns 40-50 AP per encounter now, raising that to 130-140 AP is absurdly dangerous. My feeling is that your target for practical combos should be 70-80 AP with a zoning character like Jak/Ratchet/Radec.
As for Sandover, i don’t see how that’s a valid argument. Invasion is one of Radec’s worst maps too. Our goal was to make the most interesting and diverse levels possible, with as much iconic flavor as we could fit in. Making sure that every character is the strongest on their own map was not a priority at all and honestly it’s kind of a ridiculous notion. Anyway Sandover happens to be a very strange map in general, because it turns a lot of matchups upside-down. Personally i think that’s a cool feature.
LightSage: A lot of your suggestions about Jak’s lvl2 super seem reasonable from a backstory flavor perspective, but they don’t work from a gameplay perspective. First of all, water is weird and more complicated than you think. I don’t know if it’s even possible to prevent Jak from going into a swim state when he touches water.
Anyway i don’t see how that behavior is a big deal because it’s pretty easy to avoid Dark Bombing into water on Sandover. (It’s much easier to get owned by surprise water on Franzea, but then again the whole concept of Franzea is hilarious chaos.)
As for Raiden’s lvl2 super interrupting Dark Jak, that’s just a universal rule of the game. All lvl2 supers can interrupt all other lvl2 supers. If we made an exception for Jak’s lvl2 super, we’d have to make exceptions all over the place and then lvl2 supers would be passing through each other all over the place. Maybe making Dark Jak totally invincible makes sense in a Jak and Daxter game, but it doesn’t make sense to give lvl3 invincibility to a lvl2 super in PASBR. Believe me, it would cause problems.
@Bam- I don’t really appreciate misinformation being said about Jak’s character. Somethings you have said made sense, but a lot has been false…
“Jaks lvl2 isnt one of the weakest and worthless level 2s in the game.”
This is completely wrong, but I believe I already “tapped” into that.
“it has better KCs that ST, Nariko, Emmett, Toro and Zeus”
In terms of KCS, you’re right about Nariko, Toro and Zeus, but that’s it. ST and Emmett are wrong.
“Jaks lvl2 can use his lvl2 to beat out jump ins, as a punishment tool, is still usable on HKD.”
Completely wrong again, except for HKD, because I forgot what that meant. Jak’s initial stun isn’t instant so it doesn’t act as a punishment tool that can just be used against jump ins, especially since this level 2 WILL be negated when used under heavy pressure like some other level 2s. So if you’re being hit by consecutive attacks on block, Jak’s level 2 will be cancelled when attempted to use.
“And while ratchet has slightly better combos into his lvl2 he doesnt have the option of getting killed out of the transformation of his lvl2 like Ratchet does. especially if he was able to build meter a little better he would be fine.”
Slightly is definitely a full understatement. Ratchet has much more KCS than Jak. Unlike Jak, Ratchet KCS don’t all or mostly end with one or the same move, the dashing punch AKA S1. All of Jak’s practical & safe KCS mostly, if not all, end with using the S1, which isn’t a lot. End-lag prohibits D3 from being a practical confirm by itself and either way it would be space dependent. Ratchet’s level 2 end animation & Jak’s are about even actually, surprisingly. Both can be punished severally at the end of theirs, especially since Jak as I said has no invul frames at the end of his level 2. You can literally short hop (not full hop) air dodge and punish with jabs, AP burst or a super at the end.
“He has a great lvl3 and almost instant hitbox out of his lvl2 that can abused like some other top tiers. Especially if his lvl2 doesn’t cost that much ( im not sure about the AP cost) but with his increased AP gain due to combos his lvl2 and lvl3 are effectively getting buffed by staying the same AP requirement.”
Great I guess is it relevant word, however Jak’s level 2 again cannot be abused especially like high tiers, seriously? Jak’s overall AP gain is a problem along with his combo potential, but Jak doesn’t need that much of an AP buff (only like 25% as Maj said) as much as he needs adjusting to majority of his moveset, which even with both of those doesn’t mean his supers wouldn’t need a buff. I’m all for more combo potential, but nothing drastic. Only 5 moves of Jak’s need an appropriate AP buff – S1 (by 5AP, totaling 10), U2 (by 5AP, totaling 10), S2 (by 4AP totaling 10 AP per shot), D2 (by 3AP or 5AP depending on it’s other buffs totaling 8-10 AP respectively) and finally N2 (by 5AP – 1+ per shock equaling 5AP per shock, totaling up to 25 AP, previously 20). So as you can see that isn’t much at all and 2/5 of those moves have no combo potential what so ever.
“Jak is a very mobile character”
Jak is partly a slow and punishable.. mobile character. “Very mobile” would infact actually be Parappa, Kat and Cole in no specific order.
@Maj
Alright I see. I mean I know it’s not a very big deal, but it would be nice for things to be there just to be there, because either it’s cool, sometimes useful in the right time at the right place and/or because it’s a relevant game-play aspect. Like it doesn’t happen that often, but there are times when opponents are in water (on both maps) and the idea comes to mind let me try tossing out a level 2. When you see majority of the cast level 2 working in water it just makes you think and be a little concerned. I’ll leave that change alone then since it seems impossible for Jak’s lv2 super.
Yes see I thought about that. I’m aware of his stunning ability disabling level 2s entirely in this game for balance, but not many people have supers like Jak where as it’s not a fully controllable super, but you control it for a brief moment. Ok let me see if I can word this a bit better. Jak’s level 2 is actually (after taking out more time to think) the only level 2 of it’s kind in the game meaning it’s the only super where a person transforms entirely into a much more powerful form (creature) and CANNOT be controlled for a certain long period of time. Considering you know Dark Jak’s back-story, this game and it’s balance, I thought his level 2 having this exception would be fair because of the supers type and back-story. The thing is if Dark Jak was controllable entirely for a certain time duration then I wouldn’t have suggested the idea at all to any degree.
Trust me I have been studying the balance of this game and picked up on a few things that wasn’t mentioned by SB. All of my proposed changes are always heavily looked into and compared to the entire cast and actually mostly come from the guild-lines you listed on 2.
For example, I believe Jak’s S1 is the only stagger kneel reaction move in the game that rewards him with 5AP. I am completely aware that this move acts as a jab, which are suppose to gain you know 5 AP, but seeing as how Jak can do nothing more then ONLY an uppercut (meh he can do a spinkick to, but that timing is pretty freaking tight even though my success-rate is like 90% xD) after the punch and that the move is part of a reaction that’s known to grant 20AP, how about stagger kneel reaction + highly highly limited combo potential + is a jab + results in a 2hit combo = 10AP? Seems fair to me, what about you? 5AP has just started to recently bother me after taking the time to actually sit down in my room and look into each and every one of Jak’s moves in all possible fields and also comparing them with the entire rest of the cast by picking every character and using their moves.
Oh and I forgot one piece about the Dark Bomb. I think you mentioned both the Raiden’s stun concern I had and the end of his super concern I had. I didn’t say anything about the end super animation concern. Other level 2s in the game have invisibility from physical attacks. My concern towards the end of his super was that DARK Jak can still be hit by regular attacks before his super is entirely over, not supers. A super counter makes sense because that’s balanced, but a Dante for example should not be able to IMMEDIATELY combo me after short hopping my Dark Bomb attack while i’m still in the transformation state if I missed my stun.
I may have not gotten what i looking for, but its still more than what SSM has given us. They refuse to talk with us. Thanks maj, really. I hope you’re doing well in whatever doing now since SB is done.
One more thing though. You may see jak as a zoning character but he isn’t really that. Now i’ve a lot of jak 3 and in that game, jaks guns are crowd controlling beasts.
Wave concussor = beast crowd controller and implemented into the game as such.
Mass inverter= beast crowd controller but implemented as 1v1 move
Beam reflector= same as above
Arc wielder = same as above
My point is, jak should above implemented as a crowd controller. Like kratos…..but with guns :D.
Reveal trailer jak was a good crowd controller but then SB changed him into a below average zoner. They made him something he’s not, thats where i personally feel you guys went wrong with jak.
I feel that my changed to the specific moves i listed will make him good controller again, as he should be. Of course the changes to the needle laser, peace maker and blaster are still necessary though.
Edit time again :/
Played alot of jak 3
My point is jak should have been
Will make him a good crowd controller
And about what u said about ratchet not having midscreen apbursts with out F3….
http://youtu.be/tzXFBBQmynE
And ratchet can jump cancel out of his air F1
@Maj
You’re right in that Nariko was pretty devastating in 2v2s. I’d been watching the old SCR2013 gameplay and it seemed the Nariko players really carried both their teams. It was really close at the end. Unfortunately, some of her nerfs, while evening her out in 2v2, also hurt her badly in 1v1, so I hope she does get buffed properly and that Air D+Triangle glitch gets fixed. (As for the D+Circle suggestion Bam gave, I’m pretty sure it could be made into a chargeable/cancellable move that guard breaks to follow the convention of every other guard break in this game.)
@khknight
I know this is just an informal conversation on Maj’s blog and all, but it really doesn’t help to bombard his blog post comment after comment. I know comments are uneditable here, but it really helps to take a step back and actually think about what you’re going to type before you submit the comment.
I know Jak is currently a character very low, as are other characters like, Radec, Toro, Sweet Tooth, and Nariko, but arguing over small inconsistencies here and there isn’t going to hlep on here. I am not sure, but I think Maj was more of a general combat designer back when he was at SuperBot for PSASBR. As such, he lacks the specific knowledge of a character’s frame data and confirms and combos, etc. I think it’s more helpful to think about how Jak should fit in the overall meta-game. I’m not a Jak expert so I can’t really comment.
This is not to mention it’s been a long time since Maj has worked on PSASBR and played this game so asking him for specific things instead of general things will go nowhere because he just doesn’t have that inside information.
Also, it’s better to seek out the combat designers who were assigned individual characters. As you showed me before khknight, Elizabeth Kim was actually the one who designed Nariko, Jak, and part of Emmett’s combat design. I don’t know if she is responding to your questions if you are asking her though.
I did send her one email and a tweet actually. Nothing so far though, but i’ll keep checking.
LightSage: I don’t think you understand. Making Jak’s lvl2 super more invincible than other lvl2 supers would be a complete disaster. We have one defense priority for lvl2 supers. The only way to elevate it any higher would be to make it lvl3 defense priority, which would cause all kinds of nasty bugs.
Please do me a favor and stop bringing up backstory reasons for potentially gamebreaking exceptions. Half the characters on the roster would be completely invincible during lvl1/lvl2 supers if we went by their own game rules. Some common lines must be drawn for these characters to coexist in the same game. I understand that Jak is low tier at the moment, but there are plenty of ways to fix that without breaking game-wide conventions.
khknight: Ah you’re right, i forgot Ratchet does have a couple of ghetto midscreen AP burst combos. Well, i’m not completely opposed to Jak having one or two similar options, as long as he doesn’t end up with mindlessly overpowered offense in the process. The cool thing about Ratchet’s combos is that they rely on F+Square which isn’t a safe projectile for him to be spamming. And i know about his air neutral Square double-jump cancel, but its uses are far more limited than the one you proposed for Jak.
Personally the first thing i’d try is allowing Jak’s U+Square to combo into air F+Square, because that’d give you around 85 AP starting from D+Circle without making his guns any more spammable. And if the player manages to add one more 20 AP attack in there somewhere, it’d cause an AP burst. But that’s just the first idea that comes to my mind.
By the way i forgot to answer your question about holding a beta before releasing a patch. Um, i guess i don’t really see the point. Something like that would probably have to go through PSN to select/limit the number of users who could participate, and it would take a lot of planning and resources. So assuming those resources were available, why not just release the changes publicly and then release another patch to address whatever goes wrong?
JushtFinisht: I don’t think Nariko has the proper animations to convert D+Circle into a charge move, but it might be possible with a lot of careful tweaking. Also as far as my role in PASBR, i spent most of my time working on items and general combat systems like the AP burst system, standardizing reactions, and the combo system in general – but i also spent a lot of time towards the end helping with character balance and bug fixing.
Since we had a fairly large combat design team, there were a few characters that i barely ever touched at all, and Jak happens to be one of them. And i did know a ton of character-specific frame data at one point, but it’s been a while and i’ve forgotten most of it.
Speaking of character specific frame data, this is something the community has been looking to find for a long time.
So far, we’ve determined that every character seems to have their own on hit and on block reaction which has its own dedicated set of frames depending on said reaction. For example: the most common belief being that Nariko’s on his reaction for butt drop and crumple has less frames than say…Dante’s.
Is this true? And is there a way that the players could find and record accurate frame data?
I’ve attempted it before, but without any clear indication of when an attack is no longer in startup, I’d just be giving a number from start to end. Which doesn’t help too much, but it’s a start.
“Personally the first thing i’d try is allowing Jak’s U+Square to combo into air F+Square”
You mean changing the ground hit reaction to a full launch hit reaction? Cause that is the only was i see that being possible. Also,wouldn’t that change its hit reaction on air opponents? If so then i am 100% against that because it would remove every ap burst combo jak currently has that needs a wall.
But if you wanna talk about conbos, heres something i thought up with my list of changes
Air D3> air D2(single shot with the less recovery i mentioned)> ground F3( with the increased startup)> ground D2(3 shots with the adjusted angle and mini launch)> short hop and air jet board punch = ap burst.
“why not just release the changes publicly and then release another patch to address whatever goes wrong?”
Cause this the last patch we are getting, whatever we get thats it.
We don’t want SSM to take sny chances, we dont want more game bugs(theres enough already as is) and we dont want more imbalances and let downs.
Ssm needs the whole allstars community to test the patch, not some small QA team. That way they will get the patch as perfect as they can. And stomp more bugs than they would of with the qa team. Everyone would benefit greatly from a patch beta.
The forum community has made a petition to make a patch beta and currently 70% of thr active community as “signed” it. We have spoken, we want it to happen cause it needs to happen.
@Maj
Ok I did a little further testing and it seems I was wrong about his level 2 having NO invulnerability what so ever. However, the frames are so short that it makes it seem as though his lv2 has no invulnerability frames at all.
About my exceptions and back story. I was only using some back story aspects as further examples to my original points. I never ever wanted full Invul frames on his level 2 (especially as much as his level 3), just a bit more, because the ending of his level 2 is just way too punishable and as I said the frames are barely noticeable. I know exactly how Jak is in his own games and I am not trying to make him as powerful as he was, just taking his games into consideration as the developers did because characters in this game are basically toned down clones that keep majority of their essence in this game. You at one point also said something about there being a few exceptions in this game, which I noticed a few when testing out other characters moves (such as certain eject reaction moves not giving 30AP and certain light reactions not all giving 10AP), I was just doing the samething. Now with the reply you have given me, I get what your point is. I just thought it would be simple change to up his invul frames ONLY by a “few measly” frames with his recovery taken into consideration, because the recovery is why I suggested this idea. If his recovery wasn’t big and or he had some type of active frames on his DB then I wouldn’t have suggested this. So how about these changes only-
– Dark Bomb has same range in back as it does in front.
– Dark Bomb’s effect stays active for a certain short period of time after use (inspired from Emmett’s level 2 lasting frames effect, but not as long as his obviously).
I think extending the explosion on both sides by a meter would be better than just extending the rear.
@khknight
Well that’s your suggestion. I believe this would be more fair and balanced as a change so that no range is actually being increased. Don’t make this place a place where we discuss things towards each other. We clearly have the forums for that, where comments can be edited & shared without certain things being worried about. After what you said back on page 4 though (which most of was wrong about me), i’m done having any kind of debate with you. I’m specifically talking to Maj.
@Maj I noticed you mentioned Nariko could have a combo throw now that Air Down Triangle doesn’t give a grounded hit reaction. Would you consider preventing grab resets from being guaranteed from a grounded hit reaction, so that this sort of stuff wouldn’t matter? To be fair, I don’t know that they are guaranteed offline (a double jump bot in training mode will ALWAYS jump out of a grab reset) but some sort of fix would be needed for grab resets online, where they usually cannot be escaped. Raiden’s old Forward Throw led to some hilarious grab reset infinites! Although, despite the fact I know the throw was outright broken, I do think it was one of the coolest grabs in the game.
Grashi: It’s technically possible that one or two reactions might be longer/shorter, although we did several rounds of testing to prevent that from happening. You could try standing Nariko and Drake next to each other, then hitting both of them with a wide-range buttdrop attack like Ratchet’s neutral Triangle, then hold Up with both Nariko and Drake to see if they jump at the same time. If you can record at 60fps, you can rewatch it frame by frame to see what happens. Try it with a few other characters and attacks, as well as swapping their positions, to make sure.
khknight: The problem is, running a closed beta wouldn’t take any less time or resources than simply releasing two patches. In fact it might require more. So as nice as it would be in theory, i don’t think you guys should get your hopes up. I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask SMS though, as long as you don’t assume it’s feasible.
LightSage: Extending the number of invulnerability frames is fine. What you can’t do is make Jak’s lvl2 super invulnerable to other lvl2 supers. The “toned down clones” comment is what annoys me. Nobody complains about Strider beating Thor or Frank West beating Iron Man in UMvC3. Of course we try to respect as much backstory as possible, but there are many cases where gameplay considerations have to trump backstory.
bc1910: That’s something i’d definitely love to tackle if SuperBot was still around. We discussed some potential systemic solutions earlier, but at this point i’m not sure if any of it would be safe enough to attempt in a final patch.
We tried to ask ssm, they know about it but they refuse to answer our questions. They would rather answer to troll threads. Its so un proffesional and insulting really
In fairness, if SMS started responding to every question and concern about PASBR, it would quickly become someone’s full-time job. I think they’ll do the best they can under the circumstances, and ultimately the patch will improve the game – even if it doesn’t address every bug, complaint, or character imbalance. Don’t forget, we’re talking about a completely free update with no potential for added revenue.
I don’t have my old setup to record anymore, but I’ll be sure to pass the word along if this is still something the community is working on.
Thanks.
@LightSage: You are talking about a lvl2; how does a jump in beat a lvl2? lol.
@Maj: I guess the throw>lvl1 Idea was something like say ST. If he had more time on his down throw to the point he could lvl1 he wouldnt be able to get anything else from that really aside his basic string of u1> f1/d2/f2 etc or perhaps a mine into u3>a.u3 ( 1=square,2=triangle, 3=circle) so basically he would either lvl1 or a combo. because of the nature of throws only releasing a certain amount of AP and the majority of the AP isnt pick up during the throw he would basically only get throw>lvl1 once he has level one. now of course you would have to make his lvl1 have a higher AP requirement but itd basically balance itself without the need of exceptions. of course you would need an in depth understanding of what the character can get. heck you could do the same with Zeus; one of his throw do the hit reaction of charged down square and he’d have a a throw into lvl1 in a way that cant setup a longer combo into lvl 1.
Now I dont think Zeus needs that in particular but those would be instances where they really wouldnt have the possibility of getting anything else aside the level 1 out of grab ( ST at best MIGHT get an a.f1 to lvl1 from a lower cool down on the dthrow to give him lvl1. ( or fthrow could just do a distance ground bounce ( like 2 training squares away) and make it so lvl1 can confirm from that and he’d basically only get that or shoulder charge from it . The thing is throw> lvl1 is okay if
A) a character doesnt get a long combo into lvl1
B) the cost requirement of lvl1 is high
C) the character doesnt build AP quickly ( not a huge combo character)
D) character doesnt have strong (quick or tons of range) hit confirms into Kills
at least thats my opinion on the matter.
Regarding the Zeus thing I think I was miss understood; I dont think his Clone should reflect anything; I merely think it should be utilized like Uriens Aegis Reflector in the fact that once you got a knock down or something you could put out Aegis reflector and pin your opponent between it and you for combos or scary pressure/mixups. Obviously cross ups while they have a use arent as prominent due to the universal blocking button but i think Zeus guardbreaks could satisfy that aspect within Aegis Reflector setups. The idea of armoring it was just an afterthought and would be only for the summon of it not the armoring the clone itself. I think clone should explode on any contact of a person and or projectile. Zeus teleport would definitely have to be a bit more that – 3 but i think making it slightly safer would give Zeus an interesting mobility within the game while being able to pressure in tandem with guardbreaks.
Hey maj, im curious, were u assigned to working on a specific character or characters? Or were you just a general overseer of productiin for all characters?
Bamsama: Haha i read your first paragraph twice before i realized you were taking about Sweet Tooth and not Supet Turbo. Something about the word “throws” makes me think of SSF2T i guess. Anyway what you said makes sense for characters with mainly ground-based combos, but it gets a lot more tricky with characters who have jump-cancels and extended air juggles.
So you think giving Sweet Tooth the ability to combo throw into lvl1 super would justify increasing its AP cost? Somehow i imagine people complaining about raising that super’s cost no matter what the tradeoff.
khknight: I wasn’t a lead or senior designer, so i didn’t oversee anything. During my first year at SuperBot, my main day-to-day task was designing and implementing items. I ended up volunteering to help with a lot of general combat systems like infinite avoidance, but i wasn’t directly in charge of any characters.
However, the entire combat design team had daily play sessions and everyone’s input was taken into consideration for character tuning. Ultimately, Paul and Omar had the last word on all design/balance matters.
As we got closer to shipping, we went through an intense balance phase. During those last three months, i started helping directly with characters since there wasn’t really any major items work left to be done. After the game shipped, i was assigned a DLC character (who was going to be awesome) which eventually got shelved/canceled, sadly.
people may complain but ST has a ton of better options to land a grab than an a.n1. Plus still having a.n1 would allow for ST to have that 50/50 close range. Sure he wouldnt be able to use his lvl1 as a punish as frequently as before but when he has the meter he be so dangerous up close. Plus he has decent meter gain isnt abysmal. I think you would have to increase its AP cost. Otherwise itd be too strong imo. Mine setups would be even stronger and getup rolls would happen more often due to regular get up mine setting up for a KC grab. it would be great. That super is pretty strong as is. It make him a true grappler imo which would be sick.
On our podcast for ST we were thinking of just allowing some way for lvl2 to combo from up throw so he would have a throw KC in that manner. Which would be good for him as well. I think ST in general would become instantly better with a throw into lvl1.
Though I think the best plan for him would be just to give him upthrow> lvl2, allow up throw to chain into ground up circle or a. up circle. and make his dash shoulder have shorter cool down on the ground so it can be used for movement ( currently I use low air shoulder dashes for movement since it cancels into another shoulder which can be used for advancing or retreating.) Itd just give him favorable air resets in tandem with his dthrow grab combos into hard knock down. plus he’d get the majority of his meter from grab and itd be more reasonable. While still mainitaing his low lvl1 cost for a strong punishing dash super. Thats how i would better him at least. itd make him a scary grappler in that mid to close range. It remind me of some of the amazing SNK grapplers haha. slightly rush down grapplers are sick.
But yeah like you said its makes sense for ground based combo characters. I gotta ask you, brokeness aside, which character design is your favorite? I personally love Kat. She’s absolutely ridiculous but the creativity in combos she allows along with amazing resets and an awesome projectile ( which definitely needs to be toned down lol) she just so fun to play.
Oh and regarding Nariko i think that air down circle as a guard break would be good for reading rolls and capturing landings. a combo starter throw would clearly be great for her as well, and is probably the most important thing she needs right now. Man i do miss air down triangle air to air hit reaction. If only it could be balanced and disallow infinites haha it had some very fun reset potential for her.
Oh and whats the character you were working on? Was it Dart? I sure you would make a sick character so I would love to hear who you were in charge of handling.
and what would you do to benefit Toro? Ive been thinking about the character. Not really sure what would make him better aside an actually viable lvl2 and lvl1 confirms again haha. The character’s tool kit is solid its just lol by the Kiill confirms available to Toro and just general bad Supers he has.
Can you please tell us who the character was? Pretty please?
Its not like you’re still on a contract with sony, you can spill the beans right?
Sorry guys, i can’t give out any details or clues about unreleased DLC characters. Those Sony NDA contracts are pretty buff. The only thing i’ll say is that the first day the character was performing combos on my screen (with rough prototype anims) was the last day i got to work on him/her. It was heartbreaking. What can i say? Them’s the breaks.
Bamsama: My favorite character design is probably Dante with his whole Triangle cancel mechanic, because i think it turned out really well. We were having a lot of problems with his combat persona early on, and that idea was sort of a group effort to save him. I’m not even sure who suggested it initially, but a whole bunch of people contributed to making it work and polishing it. There were (many) points during that process where Dante could straight up fly off the map, so i’m kinda proud that we got it to work right.
As for Toro, i guess he probably has to go back to being a lvl1 confirm monster since trying to make his lvl2 super into a reliable kill confirm is kind of a lost cause. Even if you gave him a direct cancel that works consistently on a flat map, it probably won’t work under a ledge or near a wall. Personally i wouldn’t have a problem with him regaining his lvl1 super confirms if they’re properly costed and if that ghetto divekick loop doesn’t come back.
Oh god now ur killing me maj, i must know who it was.
There has to be some kind of loop hole with those NDA agreements.
Can you atleast tell us who you didn’t work on?
Hi Maj, I’m IceColdKilla44 from the Official forums. If you visit the forums a lot you might recognize me as the person who created the official Community Wishlist. I’m a huge fan of your combo vids and your work on Playstation All-Stars: you and the SuperBot team deserve a lot more praise, it’s a really fun game!
I’ve been reading your responses for a while to try to get a better idea of what SuperBot’s original goals for this game were. I posted a lot of ideas for the community wishlist based on these, but I think the ideas I proposed in the Game Mechanics thread ones are the ones I’m really interested to hear your feedback on. There are currently 11 of them, but I wouldn’t want to clog this comment section by mentioning them all here. I have more extensive writeups on each idea in the thread link above, but I’ll only ask about a few at a time. Hopefully hearing the SuperBot perspective on these suggestions will give us players a better idea of what SuperBot’s balance structure was for the game.
1) Twitch Attacks. Right now, twitch attacks like Dante’s pistols and Kratos’ fire bow shots can be blocked, countered, reflected, and absorbed. Was this an intentional decision made by SuperBot, and if so, why? I would imagine that this would be unnecessary for twitch attacks since they have small AP gain and don’t limit the opponent’s defensive options. You could even make the argument that twitch attacks pose more risk to the user rather than the receiver. For example, I wouldn’t dare use Dante’s guns, Ratchet’s Mr. Zurkon, or Jak’s Neut Circle while grounded against someone like Kratos, because he can take my one shot that causes 1-5 AP, absorb it so he himself gains 20 AP automatically, and additionally turn it into a 20 AP blast that will crumple me and let him combo or kill confirm me. Same with Sweet Tooth if I’m facing a Sly Cooper: I wouldn’t dare throw my molotov on the ground, because Sly would just run into it and spam counter, allowing for him to either freely steal 40 AP from me or Kill confirm me with Level 1. It just seems very strange, to me at least, that attacks with such tiny reward have such a high risk associated with them.
2) Counters:
[1] Is there any reason counters are currently able to successfully counter guard break attacks? I would think that since guard break attacks are usually charged attacks, they require a lot of commitment from the person using them. Meaning they’re easily telegraphed, and often punishable while being charged. Sure, many can be rolled or jump cancelled, but keep in mind that this forfeits the attack. The sole exception to this is Zeus, who has armor to prevent his charged attacks from being punished on startup. But counters themselves have extremely small startup: it’s their long recovery that usually makes them unsafe and non-spammer friendly. But their ability to counter extremely easily telegraphed attacks like charged attacks kind of breaks that risk/reward factor. If I’m Zeus, the reward I gain for taking the risk of charging up my attack is mitigated if someone can just stand there as I charge, and counter when I let go, for immediate punishment. What are your thoughts on this?
[2] Counters currently grant the attacker (the person who is being countered) 50% of their attack’s AP gain, the same as a block. So if I do a 20 AP attack that gets countered, I still gain 10 AP. I’m curious, what was SuperBot’s reasoning behind this? In my opinion this defeats the point of a counter in the first place. A counter allows me to break through your attack and punish you for making a good read, but punishes be greatly for a bad read. However, if you still gain half of your AP from your attack even after I counter you, then my counter isn’t really much more useful than just punishing an attack on block, which every character in the game can do. If my opponent is inching towards a Level 3, I don’t really want to block because he still gains AP from that. Ideally, if counters didn’t grant him any AP, I would take the risk of countering him while he constantly attacks me. If I’m successful, I can make an opening for a grab. If I’m not, well that’s a free punish for my opponent. That 50/50 risk reward is what would make them an extremely powerful tool imo, but I honestly don’t see much point in using them if they’re just slightly upgraded blocks. Reflective moves like Nariko’s counter, Ratchet’s Up Square, and Parappa’s Neut Triangle don’t work this way: the attacker gains no AP if his attack is reflected back at him. I feel like up-close counters should work this way too.
[3] Counter Kill Confirms. Personally I think counters should be used for combo punishes but not Level 1 confirms. The people who have them don’t necessarily need them imo: Raiden already has plenty of KC’s, Sly Cooper’s L1 has more range than most and can be performed while invisible, and Kratos’ super high AP gain makes him more inclined to go for higher Level supers anyway. Dante, Nariko, and Heihachi can’t KC off of their counters, and that’s the way it should be if you ask me. What are your thoughts?
[4] There seems to be a current inconsistency for projectiles that can be reflected/countered. I have a running list in the Game Mechanics thread linked above, but Kratos can reflect certain projectiles that Nariko cannot. And some projectiles like Sir Dan’s axe boomerang can’t be reflected at all: both Kratos and Nariko treat them as melee moves & counter them that way. Was this something SuperBot did intentionally for the projectiles listed?
3) Is there any reason eject rolls attacks at the edge of a platform act differently than eject rolls throws at the edge of a platform? For throws, opponents are thrown off the ledge as they roll. But for attacks, they’re not; they just roll in place at the edge of a platform. This seems like an unnecessary difference to me: shouldn’t they both cause the opponent to fall off the ledge?
So i’ve been seeing this issue with jak for a while but never said anything about it till now.
Sometimes when he does a combo that gains 100 ap or more, it doesn’t ap burst. This usually happens when the last attack to hit is air spinkick. Since you’re the ap burst expert, maybe you can fill us on on why that is?
@khknight: thats because its an online issue. For some reason aerials moves wont burst until usually 110AP. Thats not including anything twitch reaction stuff that doesnt count toward IAS.
@Maj: Yeah Dante is pretty awesome. The combos with him are very entertaining to watch and the more we find out about the guns the more intriguing they become ( i think the block stun idea was pretty cool). I think thats part of why Pheracus ( the current top Dante main) and I were contemplating adding more start up to his lvl1 to take away his jab>empty cancel> jab>empty cancel>level 1. Especially now that he has a legitimate ToD from it now, it gives no incentive to utilize all his combos and tech. Im really glad about his canceling on block as well. Really makes the character fun to watch when play properly.
I think my favorite character designs are Kat, Dante, Raiden, Drake, and Fat Princess.
I did the combo offline in practice mode, got 105 ap and nothing.
IceCK44: Twitch reactions are generally used for AoE attacks that can be thrown into the world with relatively minimal risk and linger for a long time. Admittedly they’re more useful for FFA/2v2 matches than 1v1 matches, but they do have a clear purpose. Dante’s guns are sort of an exception in the sense that they’re very risky, but then again they aren’t meant to be used as standalone attacks. Sly’s counter is also a weird edge case, which admittedly is a little too powerful against those types of attacks, but i’m not sure how that could’ve been avoided. Though i do think that allowing twitch attacks to be countered/reflected is more intuitive than not allowing them to be.
Counters vs guard break attacks is a tough question. I can see it going both ways, and i think you make a convincing argument. Ultimately i think it was left the way it is for consistency. Plus most of those guard break attacks can be roll-canceled, so if you expect a counter, you can roll to punish it. So i think it works out, more or less.
Why do counters grant the opponent 50% AP? I’m not sure. It might’ve been an oversight, or an unintended consequence of the way that system was set up. Counters are significantly stronger than block punishing though, since they come out much faster and have some invincibility. It does seem kind of odd and it’s observant of you to notice, but in the grand scheme of things, i think it’s a relatively harmless oversight.
To be honest, i do have some issues with Raiden’s supers in general. There probably needs to be a discussion about which kill confirms he needs and which are excessive. Personally i don’t mind the idea of one character in the game having a counter kill confirm as their unique gimmick, but having it in addition to fifty others is a bit overkill.
As for some projectiles not being reflectable, i’ll be honest – those things were set up in twenty different ways and some of them caused crazy bugs when we allowed them to be reflected. Sir Daniel’s axe is a good example because that thing would just rotate around Nariko forever if she reflected it. Those were programming issues related to custom motion modes, and there just wasn’t enough time to address them all. Sorry!
I remember there was a lot of discussion about eject rolls and ledges, but i’m not sure what the final decision was based on. The big issues were stage hazards and general visual appeal. With normal ejects, you always have a chance to air tech and double-jump to safety or whatever. With eject rolls, you basically fall into the hazard and have to stand up into it. So part of it was an effort to prevent that from occurring all the time, but it looked weird when it happened very close to a ledge and the opponent still didn’t get knocked off it. What we ended up with was probably a compromise between these different concerns. And i’m honestly not sure why eject rolls from throws and attacks would behave differently.
Bamsama: Wait so you guys don’t think Dante should have a lvl1 kill confirm?
khknight: What’s the combo?
Get on aldens tower in practice and a dude next to an invisible wall at the edge of the map
Air wave concussor > air reflex beam> spin kick> uppercut> air spinkick
20 5 30 20 30 = 105
Um, i think some of the Daxter hits during Jak’s neutral Square might be twitch? That’s the only explanation that comes to mind.
Thats what i thought, this issue could of been fixed if the spinkick was one solid hit
Or if all the spinkick hits were all light hits, although that would probably push the opponent back too much right?
If it was one solid hit, your combo probably wouldn’t work anymore because that’s equivalent to adding more recovery. It might work as all light hits, but that’s a little trickier to implement than it sounds, and there would be some strange situational cases of hits whiffing for sure.
Really appreciate the responses, Maj, thanks!
Regarding twitch attacks, I totally agree that they’re not supposed to be used as standalone attacks. However that’s also the reason why I think it’s very strange that an opponent can block, absorb, reflect, or counter twitch attacks as if they are standalones. They become low risk/low reward for the twitch attacker, but low risk/high reward for the opponent. Blocking is another small pet peeve too: they don’t cause hitstun, so it’s weird that they’re able to cause blockstun. In short, do you think it would throw balance out of whack if twitch attacks couldn’t be blocked, absorbed, or countered/reflected? I personally think that would be pretty reasonable: right now it just really irks me that twitch attacks seem to benefit opponents a bit more than the attackers in many matchups.
Thanks for your feedback on the counters. I agree that there’s a lot of grey area there, and I guess that’s just a 50/50 that SSM’s going to have to decide. I’d assume they’d follow their GoW:A philosophy and make guard breaks crush counters and take away any benefits to a countered opponent, which I think would be good changes, but we’ll have to wait and see. Also appreciate the info on the inconsistent projectiles: I had a feeling that bugs/programming was probably the biggest reason for this, and hopefully SSM has had enough time to address those by now. Same for the eject roll differences: making them always cause opponents to fall of ledges would be overkill like you said, but making them behave like current throws do (opponent only falls off ledge if eject roll animation began at the very edge of a ledge) would be reasonable.
Actually, your point about Raiden’s Supers does remind me of something else discussed in the forums. Raiden’s Level 2 currently has both Free-cutting on the right stick and insta-kills on Square/Triangle, but I’m willing to place a huge bet that your telemetry showed that the right stick was almost never used online. The instakills, imo, are what make the Super overkill: it’s already the longest Super in the game at around 10 secs, so it’s actually quite capable of getting 4+ kills. This also defeats the purpose of his Level 3: why would I bother spending 750 AP for maybe 4-6 kills, when I can just stack two Level 2’s for just 50 AP more (800 AP) for 8+ kills? After watching Raiden’s reveal trailer and gameplay, it seems that at some point in development he was only able to kill with the Right Stick. Was this ever the case, and if so, why was this changed? I think only allowing Right stick to kill would have been much more balanced AND would have been much more true to Metal Gear Rising. Free-cutting people with Blade Mode is pretty much the sole reason why that game even exists, and to be honest it’s a huge shame that it’s completely ignored in PSASBR.
One more small balance suggestion I should mention is regarding AP orbs. Currently, you can pick up AP orbs while performing defensive actions, like blocking or rolling. I think this is a little counterintuitive: AP orbs are in a lot of ways supposed to be effective baiting tools, since AP’s the main economy of the game. Baiting normally implies that an opponent is left vulnerable if he takes the bait, but that’s not really true for AP orbs if opponents can just roll through them risk-free. Now items are fantastic baiting tools, because you know an opponent can’t just roll through them to pick them up. He has to commit to the pickup animation, leaving him very vulnerable to attack or Super. I think picking up AP orbs should be similar: blocking, rolling or doing defensive actions like Sly’s invisibility or Heihachi’s wave-dash should prevent you from being able to pick up orbs. It would especially add some more interesting risk/reward gameplay to things like Parappa’s AP boom box: IMO there’s nothing interesting about just watching a PaRappa place a boombox down and hold block. What are your thoughts on this?
So to fix jak’s spinkick, why not…..
Make the ground spinkick a shorter spinning(as short as the actual move in his games) 30 ap attack.
And for the air version, take daxters hits out and increase the ap gain of jaks hits to equal 30 ap.
Could that possibly work?
@Maj: Yeah we were thinking that for a few reasons:
1. He has a true ToD in the game that coupled with his jab speed and dash range are pretty overbearing as a whole.
2. even without ToD, Dante’s virtually has no reason to do anything but jab>empty cancel> lvl1 which negates the use of a myriad of his moveset.
3. if his uthrow was more standardized to allow follow up combos on everyone; he would have his 276 AP combos on everyone. If he also had his air forward square out of his angel dash have the ability to reverse it the other way he would have strong frame traps and safer tick throws which would allow him to get to lvl2/lvl3 at a reasonable speed while allowing for teh combo creativity of the character.
I think as a community we were gearing characters to have few good lvl1 confirms ( so they have to read something for a raw lvl 1 kill or pressure you into a few scenarios where theyre lvl1 kill confirmscan work). Then lvl2 can be the more combo centric super unless you have a bad lvl 2 and you look for more lvl 3 or raw lvl1 punishes or something along those lines.
@Maj: I mean obviously those things should vary for character diversity. I mean the Dante has great tools, great mobility options and rewards decent execution with a ton of meter. Along with a great range. So changing the lvl1 to have longer startup and bigger hitboxes ( with a bit of a back hitbox) will set it up for some soft read situations. Especially if he would get that new air counter hit reaction and canceling ability ( so it becomes a combo starter as you said awhile back). I think that would make his meter gain simple enough and reward creative combos and AP efficient combos.
I also speaking on account of all the other major changes we’ve suggested; especially to the top/high tier. Being Kratos being unsafe up close ( i mean cuz even then he has some safety since his jab combo strings ( ending in down square, square, or neutral triangle) all function like a rekka. Patching Good Cole to not have one of the greatest escape tools and fireball pokes in the game ( which leads to exceptionally low risk high reward kill confirms). Those kinds of things. in fact though some of them need to be changed heres the list that Tank from SSM supposedly picked up from us.
http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-All-Stars-Battle/Podcasts-and-Notes-For-Tank-and-Co/td-p/41606131
@ Bamsama:
Can you please tell me who is working on the changes for Jak? Also I’d like to know who has the last word on the buffs. And is it still possible to participate?
@erazor
All we know is that ssm is working on patch, who from ssm exactly? No one knows, but i can guarantee you that seth killian is probably the “lead designer” for the patch.
@ khknight
I meant who is responsible for the list of changes that will be proposed to SSM by the community.
http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-All-Stars-Battle/A-Problem-with-the-Blocking-amp-Multi-Hit-System/m-p/41737949#U41737949
Maj, you NEED to read this.
Someone has discovered a serious flaw in the game mechanics regarding the multi hit system and blocking characters.
We’re hoping you can shed some light on way this is the way it is. This kinda thing is right up your ally, you’re the expert on this.
While you’re looking into the thread post, perhaps you can answer this question too. A while back you said sly need more nerfs, which i whole heartedly agree. What kinda nerfs did you have in mind?
Make >+triangle more punishable on block?
Remove the projectile bounce on the dynamite barrel?
Force sly to fall to the ground after using dynamite barrel in the air so he cant use it more to get offscreen?
Increase start up on air forward triangle?
Remove being able to turn the other way when doing the up square>square combo?
Increase recovery on successful counters to remove lvl 1 kill confirm?
Change ap steal mechanic to stealing 5 ap a hit with neutral square, causes light reaction and can be mashed repeatedly to steal more ap?
Uh… Better throw in decreasing the ap gain of up square square from 40 to 20 and increase the needed charge time for a fully charged down square.
you know i had a random thought about ST the other day. I know we discussed how the old iteration allowed ST to jab cancel and do some crazy strings. Initially I concurred with you that he shouldnt have all these crazy combo as hes more of a brawler grappling character. But then it dawned on me; i dont think we both took into account his ranges. In fact ST’s ranges for his square is horrendous; from neutral to up to down square. Only his forward square has a decent range. His jab cancels would be cool but would really only have use in two situations ( especially if they only canceled on hit) 1. point blank (which would make them as punishable as they are now except with some decent reward) and throw ( which would make sense because hes a grappler and brawler type character) Itll make his major method of AP gain be throws, mine strings, and a.n1 combos on grounded opponents which is it currently is; cept he doesnt get enough reward. Itd make him like a a brilliant grappler combo character without being broken and itd stay true to his design in terms of ranges and everything. I would just put up his lvl1 cost a bit more and volia! a strong grappler character with limitations whose demands to be feared right up close.
Just a thought that was riding through my head.
IceCK44: One thing you’re overlooking about game design is that communicating a concept effectively is equally important as making it logical or balanced. How would you communicate the notion that twitch attacks aren’t blockable? Let’s say we’re learning PASBR for the first time and i shoot you with Dante’s guns, and you try to block but it doesn’t do anything. How are you supposed to figure out what’s happening?
That’s why it doesn’t make sense to make twitch attacks unblockable, because it would be too hard to communicate intuitively. The same thing goes for countering/reflecting twitch projectiles. You’d need some kind of unified visual language for identifiying twitch attacks and twitch projectiles before and after they connect, but that’s a lot of extra work (and extra rules for players to memorize) to “fix” such a minor issue.
Regarding Raiden, i think his lvl2/lvl3 super costs and durations probably need to be adjusted. But the reason he was given basic attacks during his lvl2 super is because nobody was able to find his Right Stick attacks when they played him for the first time. I think it was the right choice, in terms of improving accessibility. Your suggestion is very interesting in terms of balance, but it wouldn’t fly because you can’t overlook the accessibility problem.
I do agree that you probably shouldn’t be able to pick up AP orbs while rolling or blocking. Though i don’t see as much of a problem with stuff like Heihachi’s wavedash or Sly’s invisibilty.
khknight: Jak’s neutral Square AP burst issue is definitely fixable, but the question is whether it’s a priority.
Regarding the diminishing returns on combo AP gain, i think you guys are looking at it wrong. It’s not meant to be an AP value reduction on the attack. It’s meant to be a form of AP scaling on multi-target combos, so Kratos can’t rack up 450 AP from a single lucky combo.
It may seem weird that you get more AP from hitting one opponent and one blocker compared to hitting two opponents, but you have to remember that hitting two opponents makes them both helpless to follow-up attacks whereas one blocker can usually punish you or interrupt your combo attempt. I know the numbers seem weird when you look at it a certain way, but i believe the system is working as intended.
Also i have no idea how i’d address Sly because he’s the single biggest character design exception in the game. I’d have to think about it. But that list looks an awful lot like a changelist you want me to review, haha.
Bamsama: Hmm, that Dante stuff makes sense. And it would make his lvl2 super more relatively useful. Haha i just don’t know about making his terrible lvl1 super and worse than it already is.
Regarding Sweet Tooth’s neutral Square cancels, which ones were you thinking he should have and what kind of combos do you imagine him doing? For example, Square -> D+Square would give him a pretty dumb loop. And allowing any kind of delay leniency for Square -> U+Square would probably give him extra U+Square loops. Were you thinking he should have easy AP burst combos from neutral Square?