The Fighting Game Thread IV: Arcade Edition

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The Fighting Game Thread IV: Arcade Edition

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

Treat this post as gospel. The baseline for sticks is as follows:

The difference between a $50 stick and a $100 stick is night and day.
The difference between a $100 stick and a $300 stick is that the latter will often look cooler.

If you go cheap, you're going to end up either replacing the parts in the stick (which usually ends up being the difference between the stick's initial cost and $100), or you'll just end up replacing the stick altogether. You WILL sacrifice quality, and unlike getting a lower-quality musical instrument or somesuch this also means that the life of the cheaper stick will be a lot shorter. High-end Sanwa/Seimitsu parts are as responsive as they are resilient, so they feel better in addition to lasting longer and through more abuse.

If you are absolutely scraping by, wait for a major fighting game tournament to happen and Madcatz will often offer substantial discounts on their sticks for the duration of the tournament. They have an EU store for you, too.

Finally, and this is personal preference, avoid the Fightstick PRO models because they have a plastic body that feels cheaper, lighter, and hollow. I have no loving clue what they were thinking when they made those; they feel like children's toys.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 12:32

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 14:07

Fruitsnacks: Oct 28, 2007

goethe gear xx posted:

Hey fighting game thread (sweet OP), help me buy or not buy an arcade stick!

I mainly play SF4 (though by this point I own a lot of the stuff available on XBLA) and am getting to where I'd like to get a little better, but even moreso I'd like to start playing with a stick. My biggest problem with a gamepad, aside from executing some directional inputs on the right side of the screen, is hitting the awkwardly placed heavy punches/kicks on the shoulder buttons.

The issue is of course money. I found this Datel stick most interesting, mainly due to its low price and lack of complete thrashing by the reviews I've looked at. I've no illusions of getting a great stick or even an okay one at this price point � the most important quality is that it won't be aggressively bad. At the moment the 100$+ sticks are out of my price range (especially since I'll be paying a bunch for shipping to Finland on top of the price), but I might be able to swing a pricier stick in the future. How badly can I get burned by this Datel stick? Should I save my money and go for something better? I'm not looking to get super serious about fighting games, I just want a better controller layout and preferably on something that won't immediately disintegrate.

The Datel stick has good reviews because it works on PS3 and 360 right out of the box. This feature alone made it a somewhat popular choice for people who wanted a cheap, dual-console stick without having to actually perform a PS3+360 dual mod. However, that was back in the days when there were no alternatives for an easy dual mod. Players had to either dual mod the old-fashioned way, which was expensive and required tools and soldering skills, or use this stick (or gut it for its PCB). The stock buttons and stick are crap and will definitely need to be replaced, which will cost more money. I don't recommend this stick.

Next weekend The Fall Classic is being held and MadCatz will have probably have coupon codes for their stuff. I recommend waiting until then and grabbing the discounted Soul Calibur 5 stick. It will be $80, which is a very good deal. There's no such thing as a 'beginner stick' and you'll end up paying more money in the long run if you start with a cheap stick and get a better stick later. So, you might as well just start with a high-quality stick that requires no modding and will last a long time instead of paying for sticks twice.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 13:11

Uncle Kitchener: Nov 18, 2009; BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS
BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS
BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS
BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS

Heavy neutrino posted:

I was going off of the values on the Shoryuken wiki -- I just went through a lot of Maxima combos and almost all of them did less damage than shown on it. Leona's EX earring bomb into EX V-Slash does 17 more damage than the wiki suggests. Maybe nothing changed and those values are just wrong?

As far I know, Maxima hasn't been changes in any way in Climax or KOFXIIISteam. SRK wiki is good for stun like garou and older games, like KOF98/2K2, but some of the stuff on KOFXIII. Dreamcancel and Orochinagi are better, imo.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 13:21

40 OZ: May 16, 2003

The Datel was cool just because of the PCB. You could kind of mod that case too with korean buttons and a japanese stick.

However, if you don't do all those mods (you probably won't, unless you already got soldering poo poo and free time and know what you are doing) then it's a piece of junk.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 13:43

goethe gear xx: Sep 17, 2004; faustoo

Great, thanks for the replies! You've definitely steered me away from the cheapest stuff, looks like I'll see if I can manage a better stick if/when one goes on sale during a tournament.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 14:01

lamentable dustman: Apr 13, 2007; ððð

So I bought KoF13 on steam last night, anyone else having a problem with playing in full screen? The game runs at like 50x speed. I was eventually able to switch to window mode which fixed it but its annoying in that it is only 720 res

# ? Sep 8, 2013 15:12

Safety Scissors: Feb 21, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

Hey guys I'm completely out of the loop, and I just wanted to ask a few questions. I only really played SF4 MvC3. I stopped playing super when marvel came out and didn't touch SF4 since. I haven't played ultimate in about a year. Also the only current console I have is a WiiU, and I'm against getting any more consoles, which pretty much just leaves me with PC as my serious gaming platform. What are my options and how good are they? I heard something about GFWL going down. Does that matter? In super all the down back characters like guile, chun, and Honda were strong. Now they seem a lot weaker. What happened?

# ? Sep 8, 2013 15:13

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

Safety Scissors posted:

Hey guys I'm completely out of the loop, and I just wanted to ask a few questions. I only really played SF4 MvC3. I stopped playing super when marvel came out and didn't touch SF4 since. I haven't played ultimate in about a year. Also the only current console I have is a WiiU, and I'm against getting any more consoles, which pretty much just leaves me with PC as my serious gaming platform. What are my options and how good are they? I heard something about GFWL going down. Does that matter? In super all the down back characters like guile, chun, and Honda were strong. Now they seem a lot weaker. What happened?

Your options on PC are:
Super Street Fighter 4 AE
Skullgirls
King of Fighters 13
Everything on GGPO

And also Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter X Tekken, and Mortal Kombat 9. Next year, Ultra SF4 will release on PC.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 15:41

Mio Bison: Dec 14, 2005; violence is who I am, loser

Safety Scissors posted:

Hey guys I'm completely out of the loop, and I just wanted to ask a few questions. I only really played SF4 MvC3. I stopped playing super when marvel came out and didn't touch SF4 since. I haven't played ultimate in about a year. Also the only current console I have is a WiiU, and I'm against getting any more consoles, which pretty much just leaves me with PC as my serious gaming platform. What are my options and how good are they? I heard something about GFWL going down. Does that matter? In super all the down back characters like guile, chun, and Honda were strong. Now they seem a lot weaker. What happened?

There are no plans for any current-gen fighters to come to the Wii U so your only option is PC. The major current-gen fighters on there are SF4, SFxT and KOF13. GFWL going down will break SFxT and older versions of SF4 if Capcom doesn't do anything about it but the version of SF4 scheduled for Q1 of next year (Ultra) will be Steamworks and the odds of Capcom updating the GFWL titles to use Steamworks are pretty good.

Guile and Honda both got a variety of nerfs in Arcade Edition but almost all of those nerfs were reverted in 2012, the only ones that stuck were Guile gaining less meter on Sonic Boom and Honda U2 being two frames instead of one. Neither character is bad, Guile in particular consistently places high in U.S. majors (IIRC there have been two Guiles in the top 3 at least twice just this year). Chun isn't a down-back character but either way she's been virtually untouched through all the iterations of SF4 apart from U2 being added in Super. People dumped her in the top tier then because she was easy to play and she's steadily moved down the list since because people learned how to exploit her crappy defense and block her crappy mixups.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 15:55

rednecked_crake: Mar 17, 2012; srsly who wants to play this lamer?

Broken Loose posted:

Finally, and this is personal preference, avoid the Fightstick PRO models because they have a plastic body that feels cheaper, lighter, and hollow. I have no loving clue what they were thinking when they made those; they feel like children's toys.

I have a PRO stick (�70) and it's been pretty good so far. The only thing I took note of beforehand was I read the coloured buttons give out for a fair few people and my lk did exactly that last week. Spent �10 to get 4 replacement buttons.

Safety Scissors posted:

Hey guys I'm completely out of the loop, and I just wanted to ask a few questions. I only really played SF4 MvC3. I stopped playing super when marvel came out and didn't touch SF4 since. I haven't played ultimate in about a year. Also the only current console I have is a WiiU, and I'm against getting any more consoles, which pretty much just leaves me with PC as my serious gaming platform. What are my options and how good are they? I heard something about GFWL going down. Does that matter? In super all the down back characters like guile, chun, and Honda were strong. Now they seem a lot weaker. What happened?

Don't get SFxT whatever you do, game is broken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwMsdmfoxhI

# ? Sep 8, 2013 17:49

Fruitsnacks: Oct 28, 2007

lamentable dustman posted:

So I bought KoF13 on steam last night, anyone else having a problem with playing in full screen? The game runs at like 50x speed. I was eventually able to switch to window mode which fixed it but its annoying in that it is only 720 res

Here's a temp fix from the latest patch notes:

- Refresh rate rough fix for the weekend (add "-r", without quotes, to your launch options to limit frame rate to 60fps. This is still a work-in-progress. But those suffering from fast gameplay, let us know how this goes.)

I don't have this problem so I haven't tried it myself. I wonder if this is the same thing as going into Graphics Options and setting Frame Rate to 'Fixed' instead of the default 'Variable.'

# ? Sep 8, 2013 17:58

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

I agree with 40 oz. It's all in the muscle memory.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 18:12

40 OZ: May 16, 2003

Safety Scissors posted:

Hey guys I'm completely out of the loop, and I just wanted to ask a few questions. I only really played SF4 MvC3. I stopped playing super when marvel came out and didn't touch SF4 since. I haven't played ultimate in about a year. Also the only current console I have is a WiiU, and I'm against getting any more consoles, which pretty much just leaves me with PC as my serious gaming platform. What are my options and how good are they? I heard something about GFWL going down. Does that matter? In super all the down back characters like guile, chun, and Honda were strong. Now they seem a lot weaker. What happened?

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is out for WiiU. It's a daunting rear end game if it's your first Tekken but hey its a sweet FG on Wii U.

SF4 has had 2 patches since you've been out of the game and another one will come out in 2014 called Ultra SF4. It will be balanced by Combofiend, to some extent.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 18:53

lamentable dustman: Apr 13, 2007; ððð

Fruitsnacks posted:

Here's a temp fix from the latest patch notes:

- Refresh rate rough fix for the weekend (add "-r", without quotes, to your launch options to limit frame rate to 60fps. This is still a work-in-progress. But those suffering from fast gameplay, let us know how this goes.)

I don't have this problem so I haven't tried it myself. I wonder if this is the same thing as going into Graphics Options and setting Frame Rate to 'Fixed' instead of the default 'Variable.'

That fixed it, thanks. I had it set to fixed thinking that it was a vsync issue but it didn't fix it.

# ? Sep 8, 2013 18:59

ReVerve: Jul 13, 2001; Select and make your first pick.; Biscuit Hider

Fruitsnacks posted:

Here's a temp fix from the latest patch notes:

- Refresh rate rough fix for the weekend (add "-r", without quotes, to your launch options to limit frame rate to 60fps. This is still a work-in-progress. But those suffering from fast gameplay, let us know how this goes.)

I don't have this problem so I haven't tried it myself. I wonder if this is the same thing as going into Graphics Options and setting Frame Rate to 'Fixed' instead of the default 'Variable.'

Thanks for this. I had an issue where it was running fast while windowed but was fine at full screen.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 00:55

ACES CURE PLANES: Oct 21, 2010

So in case you weren't watching the ludicrously-timed Sony TGS pre-show thing, they showed off a new Xrd trailer, now with Axl and I-No!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFZ9xgjTPyM

And a confirmation that it's coming to PS3 and PS4. Nothing about any Microsoft consoles yet.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 09:17

HMS Boromir: Jul 16, 2011; by Lowtax

Haha, sweet, they gave Axl his muscles back.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 09:40

Nostalgia4Butts: Jun 1, 2006; WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

This looks so good.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 10:26

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

HMS Boromir posted:

Haha, sweet, they gave Axl his muscles back.

And his old 90s style double denim. Although his lifebar says "Axl Row"

# ? Sep 9, 2013 11:58

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

Question Mark Mound posted:

Although his lifebar says "Axl Row"

How else do you think he got the muscles?

# ? Sep 9, 2013 13:05

Spuckuk: Aug 11, 2009; Being a bastard works

Broken Loose posted:

How else do you think he got the muscles?

Should have rename him Axl Benchpress

# ? Sep 9, 2013 14:31

HMS Boromir: Jul 16, 2011; by Lowtax

Axl Squat has a ring to it.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 17:09

chumbler: Mar 28, 2010

Axl is bringing jorts back.

I doubt that they're going to have the same cast size as the latest GG string of letters edition, so I'm thinking about who would be likely dropped at least for the first version of Xrd. I could see A.B.A., Kliff, Justice, Zappa, Order Sol, Robo-Ky, and Bridget being further up the list of cut characters. Potentially Anji if he isn't very popular, or Baiken if her various weapons are too taxing to model (or Capcom's reason for why Venom wouldn't work is a load of crap and that isn't a problem at all). Dizzy may have the same problem, but I can't see them dropping her for the same reason they probably won't drop Jam. I would hope not on Baiken though, since she's cool and it would be neat to see how they tweak her design.

But who knows, maybe the way they're doing things means that having a large cast is way easier and I'm totally making baseless speculation here.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 17:36

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

chumbler posted:

(or Capcom's reason for why Venom wouldn't work is a load of crap and that isn't a problem at all)

Capcom isn't lying. Look at Marvel 3 Morrigan and compare her to the sprite version of Morrigan for an example. If you have any understanding whatsoever about 3D modeling it would be blatantly obvious as to why a character like Venom is a pain in the rear end to do in a 3D game.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 17:57

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

As someone who knows nothing about 3D modelling, why would someone like Dizzy or Baiken be difficult to do? For Baiken's various weapons, wouldn't it just be a case of replacing the model with the one with the correct equipment? I mean, shooters do it all the time.

As for characters with weird stretching and stuff, wouldn't it be similar to Dhalsim and SF4?

# ? Sep 9, 2013 18:25

Gwyrgyn Blood: Dec 17, 2002

Eddie's in Xrd so I highly doubt they'll have any issues with doing Baiken.

Question Mark Mound posted:

For Baiken's various weapons, wouldn't it just be a case of replacing the model with the one with the correct equipment? I mean, shooters do it all the time.

Yup, Baiken wouldn't even be hard to animate. The issue there is more with memory budget, since half of her attacks have different weapons so they'd all need to be loaded in memory. I doubt it's an issue though.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 18:27

Heavy neutrino: Sep 16, 2007; You made a fine post for yourself. ...For a casualry, I suppose.

I hope they keep Baiken. She's the best one-eyed pipe-smoking samurai with a chain-set mechanical claw for an arm :swoon:

# ? Sep 9, 2013 18:31

chumbler: Mar 28, 2010

Heavy neutrino posted:

I hope they keep Baiken. She's the best one-eyed pipe-smoking samurai with a chain-set mechanical claw for an arm

Also sometimes it is a dragon head cannon. Baiken owns.

Speaking of Baiken, is there a good list somewhere of what she and the other characters are going to get if the new XX revision ever comes out in the US (or is it already out and I'm behind the times)? The only thing I've heard is that she can do her alpha counters out of her run move.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 18:40

anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

chumbler posted:

I could see A.B.A., Kliff, Justice, Zappa, Order Sol, Robo-Ky, and Bridget being further up the list of cut characters.

Bridget is the most popular character in Japan. By a mile.

I highly doubt Bridget would be cut.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 18:49

Lord Chumley: May 14, 2007; Embrace your destiny.

Broken Loose posted:

Capcom isn't lying. Look at Marvel 3 Morrigan and compare her to the sprite version of Morrigan for an example. If you have any understanding whatsoever about 3D modeling it would be blatantly obvious as to why a character like Venom is a pain in the rear end to do in a 3D game.

Capcom does love themselves some good ol' fashion lyin' though.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:03

sonictempest: Oct 16, 2012

Given that Axl's Rensengeki FRC is kind of a big deal in his offense and Xrd doesn't have FRCs (in its current form, anyway), I wonder how his offense is going to change. Eager to find out.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:07

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

Question Mark Mound posted:

As someone who knows nothing about 3D modelling, why would someone like Dizzy or Baiken be difficult to do? For Baiken's various weapons, wouldn't it just be a case of replacing the model with the one with the correct equipment? I mean, shooters do it all the time.

As for characters with weird stretching and stuff, wouldn't it be similar to Dhalsim and SF4?

Imagine it like this...

3D art is like if you built a puppet out of wood, like Pinocchio.
2D art is like if you drew a picture of Pinocchio.

Now, for the 3D one, if you wanted a picture of him with his hand up, you'd move his hand up and take a picture. All the work is already done for you since the model exists! You can position 3D models and it takes very little memory or budget to do.
For the 2D one, if you wanted a picture of him with his hand up, you'd have to draw a picture of him with his hand up, which is literally the same amount of work as drawing him standing still.

If the 3D one wanted to hold an umbrella, you'd have to go through all the trouble to make the umbrella. Then you'd have to hide the umbrella inside Pinocchio so it wouldn't be visible when he's not holding it (it would already have to be loaded into memory unless you want certain moves to have load times associated with them like the old versions of Mortal Kombat when the game would pause during Shang Tsung's transformations). This costs a lot of memory and budget.
If the 2D one wanted to hold an umbrella, you'd just draw him with an umbrella and it would be no tougher than drawing him standing still or moving. It would use the same amount of memory and budget.

Go look at Martian Manhunter in Injustice. His "transformations" are all really awful-looking because they didn't put much memory or money into making him look good. His limbs stretch like they're made of taffy, but no part of his body actually transforms. It's easy to stretch models in 3D, but if you wanted to transform his arm into a sword, you'd have to model the sword, load it into memory, and hide it inside his body to use with the sword attack in addition to all the other transformed bits.

Dhalsim is a less lovely-looking example of deformation in 3D. A character like Peacock would be impossible to do in 3D because of all the weapons she pulls out, unless you do like they did to the MvC3 Darkstalkers and just remove all her silly weapons and transformations.

So Baiken's weapons could be a problem. They're not huge, though, so maybe they could fit them into RAM? But it still wouldn't be easy.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:07

Gwyrgyn Blood: Dec 17, 2002

sonictempest posted:

Given that Axl's Rensengeki FRC is kind of a big deal in his offense and Xrd doesn't have FRCs (in its current form, anyway), I wonder how his offense is going to change. Eager to find out.

He could still RC it in Xrd, though that certainly hurts his average damage output to need 50% for it. At this point though, we don't even know if Axl will have 2-hit normals or downward bomber or free upward bomber or what. Hope he does though, ACPR Axl is by far the most fun version of him yet.

Also, most characters have gotten new specials so it's possible some of those are going to help replace the functionality lost from FB's and FRCs.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:18

AnonSpore: Jan 19, 2012; "I didn't see the part where he develops as a character so I guess he never developed as a character"

Honestly there's no way Baiken isn't making it in because she's a member of the original GG cast. Faust is a lock-in for similar reasons. I-NO is probably in because of her importance to the story, so in that case that'd probably mean Anji is a go as well because of his interest in That Man and he's a holder of one of the eight jinki. Slayer is probably in as well because I hate playing against him and Ishiwatari probably specifically ordered to include him as a gently caress you to me specifically.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:18

Jmcrofts: Jan 7, 2008; just chillin' in the club; Lipstick Apathy

They did a really great job with Tron and Sentinel in MvC3, those guys pull out weapons and do some cool transformations too.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:22

anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

Jmcrofts posted:

They did a really great job with Tron and Sentinel in MvC3, those guys pull out weapons and do some cool transformations too.

They mostly call in new models rather than morph the models, which is what Eddie and Millia do. The fact that they made Millia look great is really what settled any potential issues I could have.

I have a feeling they'll completely redo Eddie though.

# ? Sep 9, 2013 19:24