Street Fighter VI

[Yakumo]

Great, lost my first match ever because you have to tell the game you want to use classic controls in about 6 different menus

Edit: won match two though ��

I had that issue today. Was playing with classic controls in Arcade mode. Changed character after moving out of Arcade mode and found I was back on to the ****ty modern controls. Which by the way suck balls.

[Asura]

One slight criticism I'll make is that for the Fight Hub, all of the avatar clothing seems weirdly expensive? Even in World Tour. I've been playing a bunch last night and much of today, and I'm still running around in the default duds because (1) there isn't much available in the shops and (2) what is available seems too expensive.

Can't be the only one thinking this as it seems everyone in the fighting hub is also running around in the default costume.

[Asura]

Honestly, I'm loving this - but I'm already at a point where, if the competiiton suddenly heated up and I'd struggle to ever win a match again, I'd be happy just with the time I've had so far. This game's honestly amazing.

I had two matches which were just among my favourite Street Fighter matches ever.

Last night, Guile player. Really fantastic zoner, great ranged game, even pretty good upclose with the blockstrings, throw counters, the works. But I only realised part-way through round-1 (which was close); I landed two cross-ups, one of which was a bit hit-and-hope, and in both cases he failed to stop them. That led me to wonder, was he really unable to deal with cross-ups, and in the second round, I went for the cross-up about 10 times and he failed to block even a single one.

Today, Blanka player. Absolutely beasted me in the first game, throwing out the ball, the little Blanka-chan, catching me out. But then during round-1 of the second game, I noticed he was back-dashing on every single knockdown, or walking backwards out of range as much as he could. Every combo, he was dashing back... So I tried closing him down, dashing up, staying in his face, advancing on each knockdown, and he absolutely fell to pieces. I dominated that game, then played a third where he barely got a hit in for both rounds.

The game just creates those situations, where you make that psychological connection and I swear, sometimes you can tell, the moment you hit the other person with something they're not prepared to deal with - it's like breaking a pane of glass. They go from measured, careful, or fierce and determined to just throwing out random moves, jumping at stupid times, staying wide open for throws. I think it's partially due to the Drive metagame.

[Paddy]

Honestly, I'm loving this - but I'm already at a point where, if the competiiton suddenly heated up and I'd struggle to ever win a match again, I'd be happy just with the time I've had so far. This game's honestly amazing.

I had two matches which were just among my favourite Street Fighter matches ever.

Last night, Guile player. Really fantastic zoner, great ranged game, even pretty good upclose with the blockstrings, throw counters, the works. But I only realised part-way through round-1 (which was close); I landed two cross-ups, one of which was a bit hit-and-hope, and in both cases he failed to stop them. That led me to wonder, was he really unable to deal with cross-ups, and in the second round, I went for the cross-up about 10 times and he failed to block even a single one.

Today, Blanka player. Absolutely beasted me in the first game, throwing out the ball, the little Blanka-chan, catching me out. But then during round-1 of the second game, I noticed he was back-dashing on every single knockdown, or walking backwards out of range as much as he could. Every combo, he was dashing back... So I tried closing him down, dashing up, staying in his face, advancing on each knockdown, and he absolutely fell to pieces. I dominated that game, then played a third where he barely got a hit in for both rounds.

The game just creates those situations, where you make that psychological connection and I swear, sometimes you can tell, the moment you hit the other person with something they're not prepared to deal with - it's like breaking a pane of glass. They go from measured, careful, or fierce and determined to just throwing out random moves, jumping at stupid times, staying wide open for throws. I think it's partially due to the Drive metagame.

I love this summary Asura. You interfere with an opponent's gameplan and it sends them in a spiral (I've been on both sides of this for various fighters whilst playing with friends or online).

As a side note once I renew my PS+ I'm happy to play people online for a few rounds. The pros are finding out some filth already that I've been downloading in preparation for future matches.

[Asura]

some filth already that I've been downloading

Yeah, the artists over on Reddit really like Juri

[Asura]

As I've played this more and more, I've started to finally see some cracks.

Two things.

Firstly, the netcode seems amazing. Like the game plays really smoothly. However, I've had a few moments where I've lost games due to split-second things where I'm giving it a bit of the side-eye. One ongoing one seems to be with Juri; her Overdrive pinwheel kick is meant to be invulnerable on wakeup, but I've had issues where I'm getting hit on wakeup when doing it. I was willing to put this down to execution at first but it's happened quite a lot, and the game's "window" for wakeup inputs is really generous, so I'm not sure if there's some sort of shenanigans going on there.

Secondly though, I've played enough now to see some pretty high level play, and it's affected the game for me; in particular, the damage output possible from some of the fast characters in a single exchange. I've played numerous Lily and Kimberly players who have absolutely mastered their extended combos; I had a Kimberley just now who, off a pretty basic medium, would go into a combo that would shave off just under half of Juri's energy bar, or even slightly more when they chose to use meter and do an Overdrive Cancel. So they're a speedster, yet it's ~6 seconds into the game and the first damaging hit has left me with half health.

I'm not criticising them; they've obviously mastered their characters to a high degree, and the game has given them those tools to use. That's all fine. I wouldn't dare; I mean I mained Abel a fair bit in SFIV and I used to abuse the FADC and the EX meter like there was no tomorrow, because it was vital to his game-plan.

It's more about the game itself, and how it's weird that a fragile speedster character can land Zangief damage values in a single exchange. It makes me wonder what the point in heavy-hitter characters is, if light characters are really heavy-hitters too once mastered.

[Asura]

Also, one other thing - Capcom should've balanced health in online avatar battles.

Today's challenge requires you to play 5 of them (not win - god, if it were win you could just forget it) and I got matched with someone who had literally more than 3x my health (like they had multiple health bars, like a Streets of Rage boss), along with a bunch of permanent RPG-style buffs. I know avatar battles are something of a scrimmage, but it's really not fun to be someone's plaything. I hope Capcom don't ask that for a daily challenge regularly.

[speedlolita]

I've avoided avatar battles so far simply for that reason. I'll jump in (maybe) once I'm done with world tour mode.

[speedlolita]

A little over two weeks from release and I've already clocked more hours than I did for the duration of SFV.

[hudson]

I'll jump in...

[Asura]

So I hit gold...

But this might actually be where I give up Ranked Match.

Coming back to what I said before... I'm unhappy with the sheer amount of damage a character can easily deal in a single whiff/punish exchange.

Two matches tonight were particularly prominent - Marisa and Lily. Notable because Marisa is a big, hulking mass of a character, and Lily is a tiny waif who's really fast. Both of these characters can produce enormous damage off combos. I had a moment earlier where I whiffed one throw against Lily as Juri, and she literally took off half my health bar in response, without using any super attacks - like this was just her regular gameplay.

She clearly had those combos down to a tee, where she could just pull of those incredibly damaging responses as if they were as easy as just pressing punch. It made the game pretty pointless as even with all 3 stocks as Juri, I just can't land that kind of damage.

I'm sure I could learn... But here's the thing; I'm not certain I want to. And I think it's a shame that the game clearly puts so much stock in that gargantuan combo damage.

I still enjoy playing casually, but I think Gold 1 is "the wall" for me, i.e. it's the point where I'll literally need to train to get higher, and the higher level gameplay just doesn't do it for me.

Also, random thing? I dislike that Drive Impact requires three hits to stop. Preferred how Focus in SF4 only needed 2.

[hudson]

No shame in stopping the rank grind at gold. That's a decent achievement to be fair. Maybe take a little break and come back and doing the daily challenges, only because there's no ranked "need to win this" mental weight, the challenges will say something like play or win three matches in Battle hub. There's no ranking, but at least you may get a little satisfaction out of achieving the challenge. Most importantly you'll be getting more practice. Chances are once you get into a battle hub match, the matches turn around so fast thanks to no loading times, you'll end up playing someone for a load matches.

[Asura]

This is gonna sound weird, but I don't know how I feel about all this.

I just lost to a Gief and a Ryu.

Actually, full context, I won a few games. Was feeling good. Then went on a losing streak, where every game was the same. Now I'm back to before I started and hovering at sliding back into Gold 1 next time I lose. Again.

I take soooo much damage of 3-4 exchanges.

Just had a Ryu there. I worked hard as Juri with the pokes, trying to get in between the fireballs and DPs. Landed plenty of hits. Nearly won every round, most were close in health.

But I lost because in that last one, Ryu took off like a third of my bar doing some crazy thing which started with, I think, a standing medium, that did some ridiculous hit > hit > hit > command normal > hit > ex tatsu > dragon punch, and I swear it took off over a third of my health.

Ditto for a Gief before that. I worked REALLY HARD in that match to land the hits, but he seems to have multiple moves that walk through hits. He even did an aerial grab which beat Juri's EX air divekick for the win, which was only, I swear, the third thing he did.

I'm stick of getting hit by Drive Impacts when mine always get thrown or blocked, too. I don't even get how people do those successfully. I seem to be up against people who, when I'm wakeup, seem to roll that dice (the one which says throw, shimmy, block) and seem to roll the right number every single time while I almost never do. And Juri's wakeup EX pinwheel execution... I'm not sure what's ****ed about it (presumably me) but the number of times I've been straight-up jabbed on wakeup while doing that supposedly invulnerable move... And there? That's 40% of my health gone in response.

Street Fighter's not supposed to be DiveKick or Bushido Blade. I just feel that when mastered, characters do too much damage in a single exchange, and I'm not questioning that the game is good or bad; I'm just saying I don't like that, and now I've reached gold and seemingly everyone is outputting that sort of stuff, I might have to tap out.

[hudson]

I've been on those weird losing streaks. It's like the matchmaking goes, "oh you're on a streak? Here's some opponents who are also on a streak or have a decent win rate, beat em up guys!". Happens to me. I was about to hit Platinum 2 after going on a streak and then just went on an unholy losing streak.

Having a break is a good idea.

[speedlolita]

This is gonna sound weird, but I don't know how I feel about all this.

I just lost to a Gief and a Ryu.

Actually, full context, I won a few games. Was feeling good. Then went on a losing streak, where every game was the same. Now I'm back to before I started and hovering at sliding back into Gold 1 next time I lose. Again.

I take soooo much damage of 3-4 exchanges.

Just had a Ryu there. I worked hard as Juri with the pokes, trying to get in between the fireballs and DPs. Landed plenty of hits. Nearly won every round, most were close in health.

But I lost because in that last one, Ryu took off like a third of my bar doing some crazy thing which started with, I think, a standing medium, that did some ridiculous hit > hit > hit > command normal > hit > ex tatsu > dragon punch, and I swear it took off over a third of my health.

Ditto for a Gief before that. I worked REALLY HARD in that match to land the hits, but he seems to have multiple moves that walk through hits. He even did an aerial grab which beat Juri's EX air divekick for the win, which was only, I swear, the third thing he did.

I'm stick of getting hit by Drive Impacts when mine always get thrown or blocked, too. I don't even get how people do those successfully. I seem to be up against people who, when I'm wakeup, seem to roll that dice (the one which says throw, shimmy, block) and seem to roll the right number every single time while I almost never do. And Juri's wakeup EX pinwheel execution... I'm not sure what's ****ed about it (presumably me) but the number of times I've been straight-up jabbed on wakeup while doing that supposedly invulnerable move... And there? That's 40% of my health gone in response.

Street Fighter's not supposed to be DiveKick or Bushido Blade. I just feel that when mastered, characters do too much damage in a single exchange, and I'm not questioning that the game is good or bad; I'm just saying I don't like that, and now I've reached gold and seemingly everyone is outputting that sort of stuff, I might have to tap out.

Are you not countering drive impacts with drive impacts? I wouldn't even bother trying to break a drive impact with hits, you can also throw people out of them too. Neutral jump works too.

It might be worth going through your trial combos so you get an idea of how to do good damage yourself instead of moaning about it.