I made a rambling video about all the stuff I think could be changed in the game, stuff I think is important to include in the future (before the game gets story mode/out of early access), and things our community could improve on.
My description was too long to fit in YouTube's description, so... I'm posting my description here as a forum post.
Here's the video:
Here's what I wanted in the description. It kinda works as a standalone post, though for more explanation you'd need to watch the video. It's a highly informal video, just me going through my notes and voicing my thoughts/explanation while also being sick.
Timestamps for the video are in each section, though some stuff is scrambled.
"I'm still sick and my hand hurts again, but screw it. I wanted to put some thoughts out there. The video isn't the most professional thing, I still have no idea if my noise gate works. No editing for the most part, some swearing, whatever.
Well, I figured having a tl;dr down here would be helpful, since not everyone's gonna want to sit through my sick ramblings. I do go into more detail in the video, but it's highly unstructured and free-flow. If you want my thought process and explanations, refer to the video. There's also a few things down here that I forgot.
- 6B 1-2f Slower, Counterhit during recovery. It's a bit fast considering it can be cancelled into/high profiles, though I wouldn't make it slower than 22f startup. (Active on 23rd frame.)
- Speed up sh.C by 1f, maybe 2.
- 6A's horizontal hitbox reduced a bit. It currently beats a lot of options just by dashup 6Aing, could be toned down a little bit. The forward movement and the extra active frames were both significant improvements, the huge hitbox might be overkill, though maybe it's supposed to function as a wall. Depends on dev intent, really.
- Input leniency on magic dash improved. It's strangely easy to drop, especially in low FPS settings. If you do 4236 or 4126, you should get Magic Dash. But if you do 45236, you should get Magic Headbuck, and if you do 41256, you should get rope. If you never hit 5, then it should be a Magic Dash. (I realize this is more an issue with online FPS drops, but still. Half-circles in this game are stricter than other modern games, though I realize why, considering the input overlap between Magic Dash and Magic Headbuck.)
- Super less damage on last hit, faster startup, hits opponents who are closer while maintaining its current max range. I think her super does silly damage considering it's the cheapest super in the game and also leads to practically guaranteed chip afterwards.
- 214C more reactable. Not different speed, but rearrange animation so the frames in which she's in midair are more prevalent. Should be about 24-25f of reaction time. Velvet shouldn't have an overhead that's only 17-20f of practical reactivity.
- I'm fine with her damage due to her "no mixup" playstyle. It's very hard to get that damage unless the opponent screws up bigtime. The only damage I don't really like is her super.
- Fred easier to pushblock. Basically boils down to giving him more blockstun, which is technically a buff, but considering most of the time I get opened up by Fred is because I missed his tiny pushblock windows, it'd be more of a nerf.
- j.2C horizontal hitbox toned down. It'd still be great on defense, but currently it's too much of a catch-all.
- Super Oki removed/nerfed, at least no crossup potential/needs to really dash forward for a crossup. The entire reason Stagger was changed was because strong combos into vortex was too strong. Pap's super breaks this philosophy. This super does high damage and leads into one of the strongest oki scenarios in the game. Her combos already do a ton, the super adds a bunch, and gives her a low/overhead/crossup/noncrossup/command grab scenario on command at the end of just about any combo. And because she builds herself meter like crazy with j.C, this scenario happens multiple times just about every round with a Paprika in it. You need to guess right if she has 3 meters, or you die in 3 combos. And that is frustrating as hell.
- Super invincibility while it comes in, giving her a much better reversal that can't be OS'd so easily.
- 5C>2C - boosts damage and hitconfirms a bit in exchange for the loss of total vortex after supers.
- Mama and Papa should not cover opponent visually. Not being able to see your character in an intense mixup situation is not okay.
- Unblockable protection. It might already be high, but it could probably be higher. If you can't react to the fact that you blocked one or the other, and switch in time to absolute guard the rest, then it's not exactly fair.
- Different colored magic meter. Change hers, or change Arizona's. They're identical in number of stocks, length, and color.
- 7D - Ground throwable on ground version, can only air dash forward or backward. Only forward would keep its ability to whiffpunish/start pressure while making it consistent to punish/not a get away free card, while only backward would make it so she either can escape or attempt to challenge your punish with falling j.C. Having both options is a bit strong.
- No cancelling to 7D after whiffed Firecracker Kicks.
- Less scaling on Level 2 combos. Maybe make it 20%
- Less damage on Level 2 Crash. It has ridiculous base damage of 400 even with the 25% scaling, and can be used twice. It's essentially the equivalent of a super you can use twice in a combo.
- 236A not be + in midair, more unsafe on block? -6 is very hard to punish in this game.
- Fix the flashing on her Dragon Install masking the color flashes on her knockdowns/CC. I know this is already being worked on, though.
I realize I mentioned in the video that a lot of Level 2 supers aren't worth it and a lot of Level 1 supers aren't worth it, but never delved into it. I'd need to think more about that before I explained myself, but generally speaking I think Pom, Velvet, and Paprika's level 2s aren't worth it usually, while Arizona, Tianhuo, and Oleander's Level 1s are rarely worth it.
- Overheads listed in command list - Especially Pap Free Tee Shirt. Hell, make it the move used for the grounded overhead tutorial. Most new players don't know that Pap Free Tee Shirt is an overhead until someone blatantly tells them.
- Rematch with Spectators - Currently very inconvenient to watch longer sets, being able to watch consecutive games between good players would be great for new players.
- "Wrong block" indicators - While it is a "polish" change, it's one that would help new players a ton in understanding how blocking works and what keeps tripping them up.
- Community Page - A lot of new players have no idea a community even exists. I know the Discord server is "unofficial", but it's too important to not tell people about. Seriously. This is important.
- Good Matchmaking - Pixel lobbies are great, but a lot of people are going to care about ranked, so this thing needs to function.
- 2D BACKGROUNDS PLS - Personal thing, but hot damn, it can't be that hard to implement and it would help so many people who get inexplicable framedrops online. I do not want to play in the Void, where you can't tell where the corner is. Please. I know it's polish but I can't imagine it being too difficult.
- Input Buffer for Normals out of Blockstun? - The less I think about this, the less I like it. Maybe just make some hard-to-punish moves a teensy bit more unsafe, or alter the blockstun timing. Notably Tian 236A and Oleander 22D. If everything had input buffer after blockstun, Arizona would instantly be broken af. Hence, normals only.
- Reversal indicator - Just so it's easier to tell if you got a reversal special move or not. It's quality of life.
- Timers for Fred and Dragon Install. It's very nice to know when this is almost running out.
Streams, events, tournaments, content - It's important to have these sorts of things in a small community like this. FF should probably get back on weekly streams, even if it's a different commentator for now. More tournaments should be hosted, as the only current ones are one that is mostly secret and a major one with limited slots that only happens once a month. I'm going to try hosting some myself, and stream more at twitch.tv/candel_. I'm also going to turn my Arizona written guide into a tutorial around when the game leaves Early Access, to give new players a good resource for one of the characters. Stuff like this is important, and it's something we as a community need to do, not the devs. Our community is small, and it is welcoming, but if there's nothing for us to do and no way for people to find us, it won't grow."
(Some of the stuff listed in this list is not in the video, or is explained in the later sections of the video when I remembered it.)
As it stands, I think all the characters are strong, there's just a few things I think are dumb about each that could be toned down. And I do think the community is good, it's just that I worry for its future and wish it were a bit more active.
So yeah, if anyone wants clarifications on any of these changes, in case I wasn't clear in the video/description, just ask me. This is all my opinion, all based on the perspective of an Arizona main, and all based on purely online play. Just a little disclaimer. Shouldn't be necessary, but just making sure.
My description was too long to fit in YouTube's description, so... I'm posting my description here as a forum post.
Here's the video:
Here's what I wanted in the description. It kinda works as a standalone post, though for more explanation you'd need to watch the video. It's a highly informal video, just me going through my notes and voicing my thoughts/explanation while also being sick.
Timestamps for the video are in each section, though some stuff is scrambled.
"I'm still sick and my hand hurts again, but screw it. I wanted to put some thoughts out there. The video isn't the most professional thing, I still have no idea if my noise gate works. No editing for the most part, some swearing, whatever.
Well, I figured having a tl;dr down here would be helpful, since not everyone's gonna want to sit through my sick ramblings. I do go into more detail in the video, but it's highly unstructured and free-flow. If you want my thought process and explanations, refer to the video. There's also a few things down here that I forgot.
= = = Character Changes = = =
- - - Arizona 1:40 - - -
- 6B 1-2f Slower, Counterhit during recovery. It's a bit fast considering it can be cancelled into/high profiles, though I wouldn't make it slower than 22f startup. (Active on 23rd frame.)
- Speed up sh.C by 1f, maybe 2.
- 6A's horizontal hitbox reduced a bit. It currently beats a lot of options just by dashup 6Aing, could be toned down a little bit. The forward movement and the extra active frames were both significant improvements, the huge hitbox might be overkill, though maybe it's supposed to function as a wall. Depends on dev intent, really.
- Input leniency on magic dash improved. It's strangely easy to drop, especially in low FPS settings. If you do 4236 or 4126, you should get Magic Dash. But if you do 45236, you should get Magic Headbuck, and if you do 41256, you should get rope. If you never hit 5, then it should be a Magic Dash. (I realize this is more an issue with online FPS drops, but still. Half-circles in this game are stricter than other modern games, though I realize why, considering the input overlap between Magic Dash and Magic Headbuck.)
- - - Velvet 17:45 - - -
- Super less damage on last hit, faster startup, hits opponents who are closer while maintaining its current max range. I think her super does silly damage considering it's the cheapest super in the game and also leads to practically guaranteed chip afterwards.
- 214C more reactable. Not different speed, but rearrange animation so the frames in which she's in midair are more prevalent. Should be about 24-25f of reaction time. Velvet shouldn't have an overhead that's only 17-20f of practical reactivity.
- I'm fine with her damage due to her "no mixup" playstyle. It's very hard to get that damage unless the opponent screws up bigtime. The only damage I don't really like is her super.
- - - Oleander 30:12 - - -
- Fred easier to pushblock. Basically boils down to giving him more blockstun, which is technically a buff, but considering most of the time I get opened up by Fred is because I missed his tiny pushblock windows, it'd be more of a nerf.
- j.2C horizontal hitbox toned down. It'd still be great on defense, but currently it's too much of a catch-all.
- - - Paprika 40:20 - - -
- Super Oki removed/nerfed, at least no crossup potential/needs to really dash forward for a crossup. The entire reason Stagger was changed was because strong combos into vortex was too strong. Pap's super breaks this philosophy. This super does high damage and leads into one of the strongest oki scenarios in the game. Her combos already do a ton, the super adds a bunch, and gives her a low/overhead/crossup/noncrossup/command grab scenario on command at the end of just about any combo. And because she builds herself meter like crazy with j.C, this scenario happens multiple times just about every round with a Paprika in it. You need to guess right if she has 3 meters, or you die in 3 combos. And that is frustrating as hell.
- Super invincibility while it comes in, giving her a much better reversal that can't be OS'd so easily.
- 5C>2C - boosts damage and hitconfirms a bit in exchange for the loss of total vortex after supers.
- - - Pom 53:46 - - -
- Super JDG or lower launch. Looping Level 1s is too practical and damaging.
- Mama and Papa should not cover opponent visually. Not being able to see your character in an intense mixup situation is not okay.
- Unblockable protection. It might already be high, but it could probably be higher. If you can't react to the fact that you blocked one or the other, and switch in time to absolute guard the rest, then it's not exactly fair.
- Different colored magic meter. Change hers, or change Arizona's. They're identical in number of stocks, length, and color.
- - - Tianhuo 1:04:18 - - -
- 7D - Ground throwable on ground version, can only air dash forward or backward. Only forward would keep its ability to whiffpunish/start pressure while making it consistent to punish/not a get away free card, while only backward would make it so she either can escape or attempt to challenge your punish with falling j.C. Having both options is a bit strong.
- No cancelling to 7D after whiffed Firecracker Kicks.
- Less scaling on Level 2 combos. Maybe make it 20%
- Less damage on Level 2 Crash. It has ridiculous base damage of 400 even with the 25% scaling, and can be used twice. It's essentially the equivalent of a super you can use twice in a combo.
- 236A not be + in midair, more unsafe on block? -6 is very hard to punish in this game.
- Fix the flashing on her Dragon Install masking the color flashes on her knockdowns/CC. I know this is already being worked on, though.
I realize I mentioned in the video that a lot of Level 2 supers aren't worth it and a lot of Level 1 supers aren't worth it, but never delved into it. I'd need to think more about that before I explained myself, but generally speaking I think Pom, Velvet, and Paprika's level 2s aren't worth it usually, while Arizona, Tianhuo, and Oleander's Level 1s are rarely worth it.
- - - 1:29:08 Important Changes to Have When Story Mode Hits - - -
- Overheads listed in command list - Especially Pap Free Tee Shirt. Hell, make it the move used for the grounded overhead tutorial. Most new players don't know that Pap Free Tee Shirt is an overhead until someone blatantly tells them.
- Rematch with Spectators - Currently very inconvenient to watch longer sets, being able to watch consecutive games between good players would be great for new players.
- "Wrong block" indicators - While it is a "polish" change, it's one that would help new players a ton in understanding how blocking works and what keeps tripping them up.
- Community Page - A lot of new players have no idea a community even exists. I know the Discord server is "unofficial", but it's too important to not tell people about. Seriously. This is important.
- Good Matchmaking - Pixel lobbies are great, but a lot of people are going to care about ranked, so this thing needs to function.
- - - Wishlist - - -
- 2D BACKGROUNDS PLS - Personal thing, but hot damn, it can't be that hard to implement and it would help so many people who get inexplicable framedrops online. I do not want to play in the Void, where you can't tell where the corner is. Please. I know it's polish but I can't imagine it being too difficult.
- Input Buffer for Normals out of Blockstun? - The less I think about this, the less I like it. Maybe just make some hard-to-punish moves a teensy bit more unsafe, or alter the blockstun timing. Notably Tian 236A and Oleander 22D. If everything had input buffer after blockstun, Arizona would instantly be broken af. Hence, normals only.
- Reversal indicator - Just so it's easier to tell if you got a reversal special move or not. It's quality of life.
- Timers for Fred and Dragon Install. It's very nice to know when this is almost running out.
- - - Community 1:41:00 - - -
Streams, events, tournaments, content - It's important to have these sorts of things in a small community like this. FF should probably get back on weekly streams, even if it's a different commentator for now. More tournaments should be hosted, as the only current ones are one that is mostly secret and a major one with limited slots that only happens once a month. I'm going to try hosting some myself, and stream more at twitch.tv/candel_. I'm also going to turn my Arizona written guide into a tutorial around when the game leaves Early Access, to give new players a good resource for one of the characters. Stuff like this is important, and it's something we as a community need to do, not the devs. Our community is small, and it is welcoming, but if there's nothing for us to do and no way for people to find us, it won't grow."
(Some of the stuff listed in this list is not in the video, or is explained in the later sections of the video when I remembered it.)
As it stands, I think all the characters are strong, there's just a few things I think are dumb about each that could be toned down. And I do think the community is good, it's just that I worry for its future and wish it were a bit more active.
So yeah, if anyone wants clarifications on any of these changes, in case I wasn't clear in the video/description, just ask me. This is all my opinion, all based on the perspective of an Arizona main, and all based on purely online play. Just a little disclaimer. Shouldn't be necessary, but just making sure.
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