Sendspace: App + Media + Extra + Fanmade (update)
Corrected Rebellion Aldra's overpowered Hellfire, fixed some bugs with Dlanor and Night Owl, and added the fanmade Angel (thanks to Rumormonger Baofu):
Coming next, Marvel's Colossus.
QB Battle
Sunday, August 12, 2012
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...Byebye Hellfire, I'll miss spamming you. :<
ReplyDeleteLol, it was pretty bad ^^U
DeleteI remember some discussions we had about it here, a year ago, with a girl that had some excellent insight of the game... but the thing is, I haven't been able to check the back of Aldra's character sheet until now.
I wonder if anyone wants to do a test on the characters I came up with. You know, the ten game test or whatever to see how they stack up. I was hoping especially with Dlanor that they aren't too ridiculous.
DeleteI knew it! There's just no way that Hellfire was legit as it was :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, sorry I've been gone for so long again. It kind of go in phases... When I feel like playing this game I play a lot, analyze characters, do tournaments, create experimental new character skillsets... And then I don't have any interest in the game for months. Right now I'm in a "feel like playing" mood, but not necessarily in a "make anything" mood so don't expect much from me right now.
With that said, I'd love to analyze your characters Rumormonger! As usual I'll analyze every character that came out since I've last been here, but I'll be needing some time to refamiliarize myself with the game first and since I'm not in a "Oh my god I have to play so badly!" mood I'm not giving any time frame though :)
By the way, how's Rebellion? I haven't got to watch it yet beside the first episode on Crunchyroll (So much sensor light it hurts!)
Welcome back, girl with the excellent insight :D
DeleteI'm looking forward to more analysis from you, take your time, of course.
I haven't watched the Rebellion anime myself yet, but I've been hearing it's pretty good, has a less gritty tone than the illustrated stories and has a rather awful cliffhanger.
Censor means that Hobby Japan makes more money on the Blurays. :v
DeleteWell, I have no problems with censoring in general, it's just that in a few occasions you had censor lights covering 90% of the screen... So it's mostly a case of "What am I supposed to be looking at?" and it's pretty distracting. But on the other hand, I suppose that the uncensored version would be as distracting and take away from the scene anyhow... It's a fair bit worse than the previous QB serie, but on the other hand it might just be the "Must throw lots of zoomed in boobs in the first episode to catch interest" thing. I guess I'll see when I get around to watch it!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I got the occasion to do A-C for the new chars... that was a surprising amount! It's nothing too in-depth, but it's there anyway. By the way, I did recheck Seductress Shion since I still mean to redo her love system (Really hard to get an acceptable amount to use due to many reasons), but I found out that the "10 love points" win condition is actually bugged and doesn't work. I had over 10 love points, used Final Seduction, it completed succesfully but the game went on. I'd appreciate if you could give it a look sometime so that I can fix things up for a future re-release!
Anyway, analysis time!
7 Stakes: Visually-speaking, an awesome book. It's very professional, and it could easily be an official book. Character-wise, they are your standard "Ninja" type character: Low BP, good dodge and boosting bonuses and average base damage. The lack of any "block" move hurts a bit, but overall pretty functional although not really anything spectacular.
ReplyDeleteAgrias Oaks: Good-looking book, and more consistent than the majority of fan books. She's surprisingly a bit squishy considering that she was pretty much a tank in her original game... But with that said, the moveset is WONDERFUL. Her regular moves are lackluster and her dodge bonuses are pathetic, but her special moves are brilliant. The "heal and reflect" is one of the neatest moves in the game, and the Holy Blade serie holds both great support-ish moves and big damage moves. Lots of strategies to use with this character, and I'd say she's one of the best character in the game playability-wise. Strength-wise, I'd say she's better than the average QB character, but nothing gamebreaking by any means. Two big thumbs up!
Angel: Pretty sexy overall, looks good beside the Shelter From Storm page which is mindnumbingly ugly in comparison to the others. Was there really no other usable pages at all? I'm not familiar with the character so I can't comment on the transition, but I do like the move set.
The chain circle mechanism is interesting, and so is the lack of the standard "Smash slash thrust" move list. The "deal more damage if opponent used Red" is also interesting: That thinking could be expanded as a base to a new character. I found the points generation to be a tad slow though: In most matches I don't get to use any of the Super Gauge moves, especially the 8 points one. Since you can have succesful attacks landing you on paries or even knockdown/ect, most fights are over one way or the other before you get there. I did like the unusual bonuses on Behind You (which makes sense hence why I often put them on my chars). I'd rank her average at best strengthwise due to squishyness (decent bp but bad damage pages), lack of block and major problems in reaching +4 in damage (for crits to take down bigger enemies). She seems to have a pretty decent matrix though with limited play experience, which always help.
Athena: Super inconsistent artwise (but no miracles to be done), and it often doesn't even look like the same character period due to how different they are. Moveset-wise, she's pretty solid with some nifty moves. The "reflect damage" and the "splash damage" moves are very handy tools and are a great addition to her arsenal. Having a +4 move to threaten with (with frankly tiny penalities) is also nice, alongside with the healing move. I'm pretty iffy about the Crystal Shoot skill, however... The fact that you need to succesfully resolve a specific Orange move and that you need to instantly use Crystal Shoot afterward gives you no variation at all. That move has nothing special and I feel that the condition to use it are limiting enough to make it completely unappealing. She's pretty decent in every shape or form without that skill, though, so it's not a must-fix or anything of the like: It just feels like a waste of a mechanism.
ReplyDeleteAya: Very inconsistent artwise, but at least the character is always recognizable unlike Athena, and looks good overall. Moveset-wise, I'm not sure what to think. She got decent dodge bonuses, a pretty good block move and some different skills... But those skills are a bit questionable. The 3 turns of 1 poison damage is okay: Low as far as poisons go, but might still be worthwhile against a Mirim for example. Energyshot is pretty unwieldy, what with it's dual condition: IF you land it, your next attack from a small list will do double damage... But the thing is, since her base damage is low, that double damage is only useful if you land a clean hit (A wound or a daze). Doubling a +0 attack on an Unblanced (0 damage on most) is pointless. Generally speaking, I feel that a +3 or even a +2 to the next attack is more beneficial overall than a double damage if your base damage is low. Still interesting move in desesperation scenarios though... That Healing skill is probably the worst healing skill in the game. Most healing skills are like "Gain 2 health and do a jump" or "Gain 2 health on score page" with the occasional better healing skill like Athena I just commented on (not conditional and not so limiting, or heal for more). This move both forces you to jump and require a score page... Anyway, she's viable by virtue of decent dodge bonuses, good long range combat and a swell block, but I'd say a lot of her moves are just not very good and that she's probably best played as a usual slugger using only the basics.
Bayonetta: I absolutely detest Bayonetta, so I have no interest in playing her character, so no analysis here... If I recall well, she did exist last time I did some analysis and I'm pretty sure that was my answer back then too :)
Black Cat: Very nice artwork set, and mostly consistent. Gameplay-wise, solid if unremarkable. Good dodging bonus combined with decent base damage allows her to reach +4 relatively easily, pretty good matrix at first glance. Deal Bad Luck is pretty awesome: Splash damage is useful, and it working on random instead of score makes it quite unique, especially on a safe Green move. I'd put her at the low end of the Marvel characters: Better than the average QB (But not the top ones), but is outmatched by most Marvels.
ReplyDeleteChun Li: BUG: EX Kikoken at extended range can reach the Extended Spinning Bird Kick page. Great visually (Not too surprising considering just how popular Chun Li is), no complaints whatsoever. Great dodge bonuses (+2s on most jumps), a really good block, some hard hitting stuff, and she's actually durable! Very score pages across the board except for Leg. I'm not sure where you would want to use the Sorry! move though... Quite similar to other SF characters (which does make sense), but pretty solid all around and on the upper bracket of the QB chars.
Aaand that right there is why I missed you :)
ReplyDeleteI'll look into Shion's and Chun-Li's bug. Can't go into much details now, but I can say that:
-Yep, Angel's Shelter from Storm is kinda different, but there are barely any pics of her attacking, we're lucky Rumormonger found as many as he did.
-Chun Li's Sorry is supposed to be a taunt (kinda felt like a waste not including one of the most famous taunts in a fighting game), forcing the enemy to attack you for some big damage, though you know what's coming and can counterattack. I thought it was quirky enough to work ^^U
Glad you liked how Agrias turned out and Black Cat's randomness, after this many chars, it's hard to make new ones distinct enough :)
Yeah, I'm not too surprised about Angel's lack of pages... And I don't draw well enough to make a new one to replace :)
ReplyDeleteRegarding Chun Li's Sorry, the big problem is that it doesn't really restrict the opponent at all, and actually put them in a favorable situation. They can Orange, Red or Jump... That covers the vast majority of most characters best options, and you add a +2 to that. It doesn't really any tips on what your next move should be, since Orange and Red cover pretty much everything, and they can even jump out of it. If it was an heavier restriction (For example, only Orange or Jump), it would still be a mediocre move but it might be slightly usable. Locking it to only 1 attack type (like say Orange) would make the move decent, but unfortunately it would lead you to be able to KO opponents too easy (If they did a move that locks them out of orange it would be an insta-win) so it would be too exploitable... So at least, I'd heavily recommend dropping to 2 move types instead of 3, and if you really want to keep the "enrage the enemy" flavor, I'd reduce the bonus to 1. It'd make it at least a little less self-defeating.
Da Ji: BUG: Thrust Low leads to the Thrust High page. Artwork's better than I would have expected considering it's for so niche characters. Gameplaywise, she's like a mini Aldra (R). Super high damage (multiple +4s and up easily attainable), and more durable than expected due to decent scores for a mage, and also a pretty good offense-oriented block and a slight healing move. Mage-type characters are pretty rare, so she's a swell addition. In theory she's very strong, nearly as strong as Aldra (R) (who is still amazing even with the nerf)... In practice, I'm having a lot of problems actually winning matches with her. I haven't played enough to know if it's due to a really unfavorable matrix (ala Hulk) or if it's just bad luck. I could just go see her matrix file, but I'm too lazy for that and playing her more is a more enjoyable way to know :)
Believe me. If I could draw them myself I would have done that too. Glad you like them!
DeleteDlanor: I have to admit I have absolutely no idea who this character is, or where she's from... Which makes it even more surprising that there's so much good quality artwork of her. Gameplay-wise... Holy eff! How long did this character take to make? I imagine you could reuse the core of that old ninja character, but that's still a whole heck of addition. The ability to choose your assist character in order to counter-pick your opponent is an extremely interesting feature of the character, especially since you have so much choice. With that said, it makes the character possibilities so large that I can't give a complete analysis yet... But I'll offer my early impressions anyway.
ReplyDeleteAssist character quality varies substancially and I think that some modifications might be useful. For example, the "Take half damage for 6 turns" on an effective 10 turn cooldown is amazing. 1 SP per turn is pretty decent. Being able to have no restrictions for only 3 turns if you get hit for at least 2 damage is extremely mediocre at best. Some would be very situational (might be useful against very specific opponents) but some are just incredibly meh. If you exclude the Assist character part, I'd put her under interesting but definitively underpowered. She's incredibly squishy, since she has pretty much the worst score pages this side of Summoner Shion. She's a jump-centric character in order to build SP to use half her skill set, but her jump bonuses are pretty low. Her block bonuses are good, but blocking does not give you any SP so it feels a bit counter-productive. Her damage is also pretty low: She has one power move, but it can be under a long cooldown.
Beside that one move, her damage is very low. Her SP moves are actually very unspectacular, especially Damage Touch: Two SP for a simple damageless knockdown? Multiple characters have a Turned Around (which is better than knockdown) as regular spammable moves. Her other SP moves bring her to regular character damage (but require SP). Currently, I feel that she's simply too squishy to be able to make good use of many of her assist characters, and combined with her lackluster damage (beside one limited unique move) makes her one of the weaker QB character (better than the "old" characters like Leina, but weaker than the average). I feel a -1 on all her score pages might be a good start to making more of her assists useful. She's very unique, is a great addition to the game and she's very fun and I'd give her three thumbs up if it wasn't for her overall weakness... My final opinion may change eventually, but it's doubtful it'll change dramatically enough to think she doesn't need at least a durability buff.
Thanks Ayra. To be perfectly honest I had originally drafted up the ideas for some of her Metaworld abilities (Lucifer's Attack Touch was going to just let her do a thrust after scoring and Force Counter was supposed to deal automatic criticals on score.)
DeleteDlanor was the first character I put a book together for and I was hoping for someone like you to critique it carefully since I tried too much to make her closer to the source material (Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, Ougon Musou Kyoku fighting game)
I agree with your assessment, as she's supposed to be a grappler with a lot of defense and durability. I also thought of making Counter Boost do triple damage instead of double like the actual game but thought better of it. Good job!
Hm, maybe I was too benign with Sorry afterall. Luna Luna has a similar move to what you're describing, though it needs to score... but fine, it does make sense to make it a little more restrictive.
ReplyDeleteAnd Dlanor... yeah, she took like 3 updates, and I'm still correcting glitches when the CPU uses her ^^U. But yeah, I kinda agree some abilities seem more useful than others, we should be able to balance them out with you here.
I figured you'd dig her versatility, though I didn't expect her to come out as weak... Oh, and the Damage Touch doesn't require you to score, it's an auto-knockdown (I tend not to overuse these, since they could be kinda cheap).
But hey, if you're so sure her scores need a buff, so be it :)
Luna's skill does require you to score, but it limits the enemy to one option only and you get to choose what that option is. With my suggested Sorry, the enemy has two options, you can't choose what options those are and they get a bonus +1 damage. I think it's a fair tradeoff for not having to score.
ReplyDeleteAlongside the same line of thought, it's important to note that "auto" things are not exactly guaranteed: They only happen if they resolve succesfully. If you get hit, or a parry page, they won't happen. Of course, that heavily depends on how safe the move actually is... If it's on something like "excute on 20 outcome out of 24", I suppose it can be okay-ish for 2 points... I suppose the we can see after the score buff how it all pans out though :)
Elena: Pretty sexy high quality artwork! A nice fit for Queen's Blade. Gameplay-wise, it might be due to the fact that the character I last analysed was overall weak, but Elena seems to be a very strong pick. Her base damage is pretty good, she has great long-range combat prowess, she got good jump bonuses enabling her multiple moves to have +4 damage, and while her Energy moves are a bit costly for what they do, she gains energy quickly and she has a good moveset even without energy points. Her Taunt skill is also extremely good as it's extremely safe, and unlike most "block" moves, it's not a Score page (which makes it, much, much better). Hits hard, has actually a different skill set to the normal Street Fighter characters and has different valid options. Pretty swell. The only keeping her from being overpowered is her squishiness due to bad score pages.
Homura: Profesionnal-looking book, and some of the illustrations makes me laught. I have no ideas who this character is, but the idea of a magical rifle gun strike me a fancy. Gameplay-wise, eeehhhh. I have a big dislike of tiny movesets. Her damage is pretty mediocre except at long range where it's excellent. She's also surprisingly durable for 10BP since she got pretty good score pages. The gamebreaking part is her "Full heal without restriction" thing, and it's on a super safe move. So her whole gimmick is to trade low damage hits, get back to full and redo. It's effective, but extremely unenjoyable, at least in my opinion. Gamebreaking good against low-damage characters but oh so utterly boring.
Kaguya: The amount of characters present in the book can make things a bit unsettling, but it looks good overall (plus, images are certainly super rare). I like dual HP bar characters, so it's a nice plus. That combined with average score pages makes her pretty durable (minus the occasional unlucky hit). She has no "flashy" skills so she's a slugger all the way... Except for one key thing that puts her ahead of a lot of characters: Her heal skill. It's a +3 (THREE) non conditional heal: You can spam it at will, there's no cost, no restrictions after using it. The best part? It also heals up your assists by 3 too! It's quite possibly the best healing skill in the game. One thing though that prevents her from being too good is the fact that you very rarely get the option to put damage on the assist characters... so your effective hit points is more alongside 12 to 14 instead of 20. Simple slugger (with heal), but nice enough.
ReplyDeleteKanu: Great book visually! One of the nicest official book in my opinion. It's also one of the few that have such a great "flow" in it's attacks. As in, if you go from one attack to the other, you can easily visualize the movement of the character in that sequence. Alleyne's another example where this apply... Maybe it's just me being weird, but it feels more dynamic when you go from one attack to the other than with most other books. Gameplay-wise, I'm having some problems getting some of her things to work. What does the defense stance actually do? Everytime she takes damage, it seems the stance goes away, and damage isn't reduced any. It goes away on Body hit, Daze, and knock down at the very least, without preventing even one point of damage... Is it normal that it drops before preventing anything? And it locks you out of Orange and all Assault skills too... The offense stance with it's "permanent" +2 damage is very nice, on the other hand (Too bad that it doesn't seem to affect damage for crits to apply). Her +2 damage on block OR parry is pretty handy, and gives her pretty swell damage (bad jump bonuses though). Overall, I'd put her as "average" strengthwise, unless the defense stance does something I'm not aware of or it's bugged.
KOS-MOS: *Fangirl rant* KOS-MOS is supposed to be a super tough tank, not a squishy character! Her D-Teneritas cause pure devastation, not do a measly +3 damage! If there's one character that deserves to be marvel-level strength it's her! It doesn't make any remote sort of sense for her to be able to de disarmed of her blades! Rage!
Ranting aside, visually-speaking she looks pretty good. Gameplay-wise, she's a fairly solid straightfoward character: She got pretty good damage (Especially with up), and she got okay durability by virtue of having 12 bp. She's unremarkable, but she got really good artwork for a fan character and she's around average strength, maybe a tiiiny bit more. My only problem is that this moveset feels like a disfavor to her character: It's a fitting moveset for a run-of-the-mill character, but not someone like KOS-KOS who has three entire super lengthy games revolving around her, and all sort of mind-blowing cool abilities. I'm a big enough fan of her that I'm very tempted to make my own version of KOS-MOS... do you still have the original pictures pack for her?
Note: If I wasn't such a big KOS-MOS fan and that I had to rank this character, I'd give it a thumbs up for a solid but straightfoward moveset and nice images... so.... sorry! :)
I actually meant Luna's move that forces you to do Orange or Yellow, so maybe I tried to give one more choice for Sorry for variety's sake... You're still right, though.
ReplyDeleteFor Elena, you missed the parry: if you do the "best dodge" (like jumping over a low attack, or dodging a thrust), the result you get is better. That's some funky thing Bayonetta has, too (even if you don't quite like her), that I think reflects the SF3 spirit pretty well.
About Kanu, I'm not sure if I mistranslated that state, or... I'll have to check it later.
And well, for KOS-MOS, due to my never having played the original games, I guess you could consider this one the "Eternal Frontier" version, like Kaguya and Xiaomu.
But it'll be awesome if you feel like doing a "Xenosaga" version :D I'll look around for the pics, I think I still have them.
Here are the KOS-MOS pics I could gather, some of them may be duplicate, but you'll manage. Give it your best shot!
Deletehttp://uploadmirrors.com/download/1G3NOMIZ/kos-mos_pics.rar
And also, if she feels kinda slender and dynamic, it's because she pulled stunts like these in Endless Frontier:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE5WEIsuIcM&t=0m47s
I totally didn't recall that Luna had a "pick between two" move... It shows how highly I thought of the move, though! :)
ReplyDeleteOkay... I can see why someone would think she's a speed-type character after seeing something like that!
While she can be fast in the cutscenes when she feels like it, in all 3 Xenosaga games, she's always the slowest in the party, with only a cyborg around her speed level. She's also extremely durable compared to everyone else (beside the cyborg), has great damage, and a whole slew of different tricks and moves (like you could see in that clip you posted, plus some "tank" moves). So I was thinking along the lines of great score pages, a good amount of BP, a few big moves but a bad matrix ala Hulk (Maybe just not THAT bad). I'll whip out something eventually...
I totally did miss Elena's special parry: It's pretty neat! The good part about those types of unusual moves/states (also like Sophitia's guard impacts: Same thinking but different implementation) is that it rewards correct guesses and is pretty neat. The bad part of those moves is that it's extremely opaque: Unless the player know in advance, there's very little chances that they will figure out why that parry or guard impact came up, or not even notice it... I'm not sure how to fix that without just spelling it out outright on that page, though.
Anyway, I think I got everyone done! If I did miss any, please feel free to mention it.
Lina: Pretty decent book visually, definitively better than average. Gameplay-wise, she's definitively interesting but I feel she might have the Sakuya syndrome: She has VERY high ressource costs on every single of her abilities, without a benefit over resourceless characters. Unlike other MP users, she's 100% dependent on her MP supply, which gets drained in 2-3 spells max. This means she can't have a sustained offense and her spells, while good damage-wise, aren't higher than a lot of the other offense-oriented characters that don't have the heavy restrictions she has. Her trump card, Giga Slave, does save her however. A +10 attack, no matter how heavy the restrictions are, is always worthwhile to have in your inventory. So to resume, Lina without Giga Slave = underpowered due to MP cost with no benefit over other characters but still usable. Lina with Giga Slave = pretty viable character.
Maya: Well, that's convenient: Another MP dependent character so it makes the comparison easier! Visually-speaking, Lina wins due to more consistence. Raw power, Lina wins due to Giga Slaves and higher base damage. MP regen, Lina wins due to having a non-conditional 8 MP gain instead of 10 on hit. Durability-wise, Lina wins due to 1 more BP and sliiiightly better scores. Consistency-wise, Maya wins. Her MP costs are lower, her starting MP pool is twice as high, and she actually has a few non-MP attacks. She has a big enough starting pool to be able to actually win fights before having to replenish any MP, but if she doesn't, MP regain can be relatively difficult. Overall, I'd say that Lina is the better of the two, but I have to say well-done on having two mage characters that look similar at first glance but are used in a very different fashion.
Mei-Fang: To start, I have to say I like her outfit. The artwork's really, really good, one of the best of the fan books definitively. Gameplay-wise is very, very meh however... Her damage's on the slightly poor side, her score pages are mediocre, her BP is low (10) and she has no utility spells beside the block that can only be used twice. It's a good move, but it unfortunately prevents her from blocking after using it twice. Overall, I'm not seeing much reason to play this character gameplay-wise, but the awesome artwork makes it all worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteNeliel: And here we have a character who's exactly the inverse as the previous one. The artwork is pretty much all over the place (plus I'm not a fan of the character's design but that's personal preference of course) but gameplaywise? She's strong. Very, very strong. She got 12 BP and good-ish score pages. Her base damage is pretty decent, her jump bonuses are pretty good, and she has some amazingly potent skills on top of that. Good attacks that gives bonuses on top of it, a +4 base attack with no penalities that has a bonus +1 splash on hit, a +3 boost to all attacks (which gives nearly her entire moveset 4+ damage) and a "add enemy modifier to yours"... All that with no negatives ever. Yeah, she's good. Amazingly so. I'd frankly rate her more alongside an average Marvel character (despite the 12bp) than a QB one. She's certainly better than a lot of the fan-made super hero character, at least.
Princess Athena: Is that the Athena from the super old NES game?? Whoa! I'd never expected to see her added! I'm surprised there's even 32 artwork that exists of her. She's one of the extremely rare character that is bad at extended range that you made. Nice to see some variety here! Gameplay-wise... Well, I love the Pickup principle, and it matches the character so well. Performance-wise... Well, she's really a throwback on the old original characters. I'd put her at around Leina level due to slightly better offense and slightly worse defense. The fact she has to do the worst jump in the game to use a good part of her moveset (and that she can lose it) compensate for Leina's shield being blown-up-able and no 1-hp heal on extended away. I suppose her being such an oldschool character does make sense for her to be balanced with the old-school QB chars though! :)
Pyrrha: Ugh... Whenever I see Pyrrha it makes me sad at how much of an annoying crybaby she is compared to Sophitia who she replaced... The actual art isn't that bad though. Gameplay-wise... holy base damage batman! +6 on the 36 move, with tons of +2s to bring it to +8! Blues that start at +4! Decent jump bonuses! And with all that, I don't think she's overpowered any. I feel that she's one of the extremely rare character without the 1hp heal and being able to get shield destroyed that is viable. She's a shield character without long range that's balanced with the current characters instead of the really old ones. So I'd put her as perfectly balanced, since she pays HEAVILY for that very high base damage, and it still leave her weaker than older top tier characters like Alleyne. I'd love the character if it wasn't Pyrrha :)
Revy: Artwork's pretty swell and high quality, no problems there. Gameplay-wise... well... I think we have a new contender for "Worst character in the game" if I didn't miss anything about her. Her base damage is fine, but some of her moves have hefty penalities (+2s that force you to jump). She gets 0 bonuses from the most important jump (dodge). She's kind of squishy (low BP and okay-ish score pages). Her block is horrible: -1 score page with no bonuses is pretty much unusable. Her gimmick, adrenalin points, is really inconsequencial. To gain points, she has one single move that doesn't seem to be too safe. She also lose her bonus in a TON of situations (including simply going back to extended range), and her +1 gains on body and head wound doesn't help much since she dies in two hits at best if hit there. I'd put her nearly as bad as release Sakuya. I don't think I'd pick her to be a favorite in any single matchup against any QB, QG or fan made character... except maybe Nowa.
ReplyDeleteSamus: It's Samus! Yay! Artwork's good as expected. I want to preface everything by stating that I love the Missile mechanism, especially since you get to see what attack you landed before you decide if you do a super missile or not. Overall, I still have to put Samus under slightly weak though. While her 14bp is very nice, her score pages are a bit underwhelming (so for example, the 13bp Branwen is actually much more durable than Samus is). Samus damage is pretty mediocre overall: The bases are average, but you can't really improve it. The super misile, while very neat, still amounts to a +3 damage on a thrust move: Nice, but not amazing and cannot really get to +4 damage for crits. A large part of her moveset relies on having missiles, and she is locked to a single risky move to get more missiles (or a meager 2 at extended range). The 10 missile moves feel a bit expensive for what they do. Set Explosive really sound as if that move should do something neat instead of absolutely nothing, but meh, no biggy. She's definitively usable and there's worse characters out there, but I would rank her on the weaker side.
Shanoa: I like Shanoa so I'm glad at this addition. Artwork's AWESOME. She's pretty swell gameplaywise too. Her Absort/Use Glyph mechanism is both very thematic and can be extremely useful against the right opponents: Not only you can have the damage of a 36 move (hello there Pyrrha!), you have it in a much safer fashion, and you don't have the penalities that come associated with it (like Ninja Shion for example). She's squishy (10bp, bad score pages especially the 6 damage body wound and 1s on all knocked down states), but she has a few high damage moves when including her jump bonuses or her +2 buff and a pretty good scoreless block. Pretty balanced and quite fun against certain opponents.
Suchie Pai: Hmm? Is that an official japanese Lost Worlds character before Queen's Blade came out, or..? Anyhow... Artwork's cute and consistent. The concept of putting on panties to gain health is midly amuzing. Gameplay-wise... Holy jeez. She's pretty much Revy tier. 10 BP, bad score page (2 on unbalanced??), only -2 on parries and block, her weapon can be broken, bad long range combat, very unsafe long distance dodge... The only things she has going for her is decent base damage and good Up and Dodge bonuses... But that's not enough to get her out of bottom tier list. I'd say she's slightly better than Nowa, but that's really not saying much.
ReplyDeleteX-23: Artwork is pretty much all over the place unfortunately, though there's a few nice-looking ones. Gameplay-wise, well... She's definitively a Marvel character for sure. 20bp with no drawback beside bad long range is a surefireway to have a good Marvel-level character... especially with life gain on jumps and a non-conditional 3bp heal. Her score pages are a bit bad, but the healing more than override that. Her damage is just okay, but... The 20bp is enough to outlast the vast majority of foes. Pretty good Marvel level character, which means I won't be playing her :)
Xiaomu: A bit confusing with that many different characters, especially with very non-obvious skill names. Yay for dual HP bars, though! Pretty decent score pages combined with assist damage on a few pages means she's quite durable, and her damage is pretty good since she has decent base damage and boosts. Nothing terribly fancy beside the 2 bars, but she's a very strong character overall without being overpowered.
I think you missed Sakura Haruno? Anyway, amazing analysis as usual. I'm glad that most of them are reasonably balanced (except for a few exceptions), that they're mostly bug-free and that we even managed to surprise you at times.
ReplyDeleteFunny that you think Samus is weak, I set out to do a tough tank character like Cattleya (an in fact shares some of her matrix), to differentiate her from Zero Suit, but maybe I fell too short...
The bit about letting you choose a super missile at the same time you score was more like an accident, as I thought the player would almost always choose the more damaging option... but left it like that in the end. Similarly, first I considered Shanoa stealing the entire move 38 with its effects (too all over the place), then move 22 or 38's damage (only practical against a few chars), then settled for the usually most powerful move.
Still, about Suchie-Pai, she's the most recent QG character, barely released a month and a half ago. Just don't ask me why they decided on her all of a sudden, when she last appeared in a game 5 years ago... ^^U
Revy was supposed to be an agile shooter that got increasingly stronger at close range as long as she could keep fighting (i.e. not losing her gun or falling down), I guess I couldn't quite nail that down.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I think they ended up pretty "recognizable", considering QBB's system, be that each mage's MP management, the Endless Frontier chars with boosts to the skills to represent the combos, Shanoa's absorbing or, like Rumormonger just mentioned up there, Dlanor compiling all the craziness from Ougon.
The tricky part was converting all the abilities to QBBattle since they were all useful in the source game and defined each character. Willard's SP Cancel basically let you do Super Cancels, and Infinity SP is supposed to let you do an SP move even if you have 0 SP while the aura is active. Originally Dlanor's own ability would activate along with the ability of your choice, but we thought that would have been ridiculous if she got Armor Boost and something else.
ReplyDeleteI tried to focus on particular mechanics to spice up the roster since some of the characters lacked neat perks (What does Suchie-Pai get, a bonus to her other two moves if you use the one?) Dlanor caught my eye because she came from a 2-on-2 tag game with unique rules and mechanics unlike anything seen in other fighters like gaining meter for your reserve character instead of the active fighter.
Just to preface: Do we still have expert pics finder like Okami around? If so, I'd like to put a request for Kat from Gravity Daze/Gravity Rush. Currently playing that game, and it's pretty awesome and a great moveset idea popped up to mind (depending on available pics of course) for Kat.
ReplyDeleteI'll do the review for Sakura when I have the occasion: mostly just wanted to get a review in before sleep.
The characters definitively are recognizable with the moveset, no worries there! Some are better than others of course, but there's no one I'd say they need a "flavor boost".
For Samus missiles, the main reason to not use the super missile is if you hit a block page: It's better to save missile during those situations (Unless you got one of those horrible -1 blocks). Regarding Cattleya, I did expect her to be a tank myself based on logic... But eventually when I got to check things out more, I found out that she's stupidily squishy, and that she actually has some relatively bad score pages. Her Daze is fine, and so are her unbalanced states, but her body, arm and leg wounds are extremely bad. To put this in context: A mage like Nyx has better score pages overall than Cattleya.
Or compare Alleyne (A tough character, but not a tank) to Cattleya (Scores in order of appearance):
6/3/0/1/3/4/0 for Alleyne
6/5/0/0/4/6/0 for Cattleya
That's a pretty significant difference over the course of a match. So Cattleya is not a good base for a "tank" character in my opinion.
Regarding Suchie-Pai, I didn't see any Queen's Gate logo (I didn't look very long though), so that's why I was wondering... Well, that, and the amazing crappiness of the moveset.
For Revy, if that's what you are going for and want the least amount of work to change the character, what I'd suggest is making her attacks give adrenalin on any score. This way, she'll actually be increasingly stronger as she stays in close range. Seductress Shion has a better version of that mechanism (Her buffs doesn't drop on knockdown), has more BP and better score pages than Revy, and S-Shion is a roughly average strength character (Slightly better than average when played properly, slightly worse when AI controlled). So I'd say you could give Revy adrenalin on all scores and not be afraid to overpower her. Even with that I'd consider her a weak character, but she'd be better than now at least.
So you are the creator behind Dlanor Baofu? Well, a big thumbs up for you! :) I heartily agree with you about it being neat to have a spiced up characters with neat perks... But as Leecherboy mentionned, it's also very difficult to have original ideas for every character, especially when he's done that many so it's unfortunately not always a possibility (I think I could reach about 10 characters so before I'd be completely out of ideas, and I'm at 6 created so far...)
Regarding balancing Dlanor... Well, if her score pages remain as they currently are, I think that actually letting her activate her own armor boost plus having an assist of her choice wouldn't be too overpowered. It would mean she got great durability when her skill is up, and super squishy when not. That change would definitively put her into the "strong character" category, but... There's still a non-negligeable amount of core QB and QG characters that I would rank stronger than her. I'm not saying "Do it now!", but I think it's option that should be considered... I'll also give my comments on each assist sometime in the future: You do what you want with them of course since she's not my character and I'm unfortunately not an all-seeing, always perfect and correct balancing goddess :)
For expert pics finders, Okami seems to have vanished all of a sudden, so Baofu is our guy now. Kat/Kitten doesn't seem terribly popular, though, so maybe she'd have to go with Raven/Crow... (not like I've played the game) We'll see what Baofu thinks.
DeleteI guess that change for Revy would work for now. About Samus, I take it she'd only need more missiles to be relatively strong?
We were discussing how to buff various of Dlanor's assists, but maybe it's better if we wait to hear your opinions on them.
Gravity Daze, huh? I've never heard of this game before, so I'll have to look into it. I was tabling ideas for an Anarchy Reigns/Max Anarchy character myself, just waiting for a full release and for fanart to come out. I'll definitely need more information.
DeleteDlanor was the first character I created. I wanted to make an entrance with this character and figured she would fit in nicely as she's a "grappler" type character and yet she has this big sword. She is slow but bulky and powerful as well as fairly dangerous at grabbing range.
The changes I proposed were both minor and more original to the character and the game she hailed from. Metaworld is supposed to grant you the abilities of your active and reserve character, so giving her Armor Boost + whichever you selected makes good sense, especially since we could only make it function on a ten turn cooldown. Her SP moves were basically EX moves with a super flash and all the added invincibility frames those imply.
I wanted 22 to work by being available only when a second Metaworld gauge was at 50% or higher and lasting the same number of turns as the number of cooldown turns (minimum of 3, maximum of 5 in this case) but then we were worried the abilities would overlap, which tends to happen anyway (Standard tags and Assault Touch grant the ability of the character switching out to the one switching in)
And then there's the Reversal/Arguing mechanic. Making it a 22 move was smart because it was the closest we could get to setting it up.
38 was only about as powerful as any other SP move. The big idea behind Metaworld Declaration was simply to be able to use Dlanor's passive abilities and to use any move safely off of that.
It's time stopping nature meant you could input any move the very instant the characters can move again if timed right and punish anything (Ronove and George were especially good at this; you would bait your opponent into attacking, declare Metaworld and input one of their counters as if the opposing kick or strike was in bullet time)
By coincidence, Leech executed the whole thing perfectly; the arguing mechanic by being a 22 move, and the free frames by allowing no restrictions.
Sakura Haruno: Pretty decent artwork overall, not much to say here! For gameplay, she wins a dubious honor: She's the very first character that I needed 10 fights before I got a single win. With that said, she hasn't been too lucky with opponents and during fights (There's not many who can beat the triceratop and the wyrm), and after those 10 fights she did end up getting a relatively normal win rate. She's basically a "kill fast, die fast" character.
ReplyDeleteConsidering official Taki has pretty much identical base damage and same BP and they are both Ninjas, they are a great comparison... Let's compare!
Long Range: Taki has healing, Sakura doesn't. Sakura has one attack at +1, Taki's are all negative. Draw.
Block: Sakura has great blocks (Good scores, bonus damage), while Taki's are really meh. Advantage Sakura.
Boosts: Taki has two +2 moves that are +0 attacks by themselves. Sakura has one +3 (+1 for opponent) on a -9 move. Jump bonuses similar. Advantage Taki.
Scores: Sakura scores are slightly worse than average due to 1s in all the unbalanced states, and the rest being average. Taki's are awesome (1 on Arm Wound, 3 on body wound? That's the best scores in the game after Mirim and Echidna, and her other scores range from average to pretty good). Sakura does have a +2BP on heal move, but that's not very relevant: With her meh durability and her high damage, she's nearly always better off to do damage instead. Advantage: Taki.
Overall: Better score pages means a lot in this game. Even with equivalent BP and damage, Taki can simply trade with Sakura and expect to win the majority of the time. Against low damage characters, the effect is further amplified. The only time Sakura will do better than Taki is against characters with INSANE damage, like Pyrrha, Komachi or Nyx: Taki would still get hit by a lot, and Sakura's better parry scores would be helpful there. With that said, Sakura's still a decent character in my opinion and I'd put her right around average. It's hard to get decent win streaks going with this style of character though!
Regarding Kat/Kitten from Gravity Rush/Gravity Daze, I certainly would enjoy if you could get some images from her :) Raven would certainly be a partner that makes sense both storywise and gameplay-wise. Yunica would also be an option, but I'm pretty sure her popularity compared to Kat and Raven is awfully low...
ReplyDeleteRegarding Samus, making it a bit easier to get more missiles would bump her up to "slightly better than average" at best, but not "strong" level... The thing is, her damage is unspectacular: It's all loaded on Orange and nowhere else, unless you use a Super missile. It's also extremely hard to reach crit level damage with her. Her score pages are unremarkable: Her Daze is pretty good and her unbalanced are fine (0) but her core damage pages are pretty meh. She also has no block or defense mechanism of any kind.
What helps her is that she's one of the very few high BP character with a good long-range game. She's pretty decent against the "high damage low defense" style characters due to her bp, and that she'll usually kill in 2 good attacks and die in 3. She's disadvantaged against tanks like Mirim and Echidna or strong sluggers like Branwen though, or against characters with good healing in my opinion.
For Dlanor... If she's supposed to bulky, then she definitively needs either score improvements, or making her activate that 50% boost plus her assist on Metaworld usage so that she's super bulky when it's activated (so 50% of the time at best). I haven't got the chance to revisit each assist just yet, but there's just one that would seem overpowering offhand when combined with the armor buff (The 25% heal per hit for 4 turns).
I'll do my assist analysis assuming that the armor buff will be added on Metaworld: Based on what you say it's what make sense thematically, and if she ends up too strong, the armor strength or duration can be toned down a little and still preserve the flavor.
Talking about flavor, her long-distance game is actually pretty strong right now... All positive attacks and a heal is definitively good. If you want her to be a in-your-face tank, I'd suggest tonning down her long range and improve her close range.
Nevermind that, I did have some time to do the assists after all... Yay!
ReplyDeleteClarity Note: When I talk about "with the shield", I mean if the Dlanor damage reduction is automatically added to Metaworld.
Ange: Kind of bleh. If you hit a page that has 2 or worse score, it means that you have landed on a wound or a daze page. Those generally have pretty hefty penalities attached to them, so usually they are forced to jump anyway... So what you do gain is a second turn of jump. It's not bad, but since it lasts only 3 turns and that you need to land a big hit, it's a bit underwhelming compared to other assists. Against a human player, they'll most likely just dodge away the 3 turns to be safe (You can't get a wound when dodging on the majority of characters).
Battler: Combined with the shield also activating, it's pretty darn good. Without the shield, it's an okay choice: The thing is, all her wounds pages are 4 or worse, so it only negates the base damage you take once.
Beatrice: Very poor choice. Since the most costly SP move costs 2 points, the maximum gain you can get from this is 2 SP. The other two SP gain assist nets you much more SP. The only time Beatrice can be useful is if you start at 0 SP so that you can use a 2SP skill the following turn, while you would need to wait 1 turn more with Virgilia... Which is an awfully niche move. Not a very appealing assist in it's current state in my opinion (except the artwork!)
Bernkastel: Without the shield incomporated, a pretty questionable choice. You do get a bit more potential use of Holy Death Sentence, but that's it. With the shield it's suddenly a very strong pick.
Black Battler: While it's more gamble than Battler (0 to 8 hp gained instead of 4), I'd say that it's the better choice of the two without the shield as while 4 hit points over 10 turns (at best) is not too much when you have squishy wound pages, 8 is starting to get awfully significant. With the shield, I'd pick regular Battler for consistency sake, but in either case I consider this one to be a strong pick.
Dlanor: As mentionned, I'd heavily suggest making this used automatically when using Metaworld on top of a different assist. I'd drop the duration to 5 turns for balance sake, though. It'd improve but not overpower her (I think strong but not overpowered would be her new home), while making it make a whole lot more sense instead of picking yourself as an assist. Without the auto-shield, I still consider this her very best assist right now. Odds are you'll get hit about twice in that duration, and the damage prevented will likey be higher than the BP gain from battler (plus, since it's a heal over time you might die before it's all applied).
Erika: Best of the "offense-based" assists by a mile. For most characters, body wounds are the 2nd highest damage a character can take. Even if they dodge, they now suddenly risk a body wound. It stops them from blocking cold. Extremely good assist, and it would be way overpowered if it had a long duration.
Evatrice: Compared to Erika, this is pretty bad. The average Body Wound damage is somewhere between 4 and 5, and the usual unbalanced state damage is 0 (though Leecherboy made a ton of 1s lately so it skews the number a bit). Blocks are usually -5 to -3. Transforming all these types into a body wound (which also force them to jump usually) means a much bigger increase than the +2 damage here. The only benefit of Evatrice over Eva is that it can help you land a crit and that it will improve the damage more if you land on a Daze or Body wound, but you are extremely unlikely to land on those while the skill is up if you are playing against a human opponent.
George: If you favor a jump-based approach, this is an interesting choice for your SP gain. I'm not sure the SP skills are amazing enough to be worth dedicating your assist to, but it's not a bad choice: Having more of your skillset usable at once is always a good thing.
ReplyDeleteJessica: An interesting choice. It's highly opponent-specific and only really useful against defense-type characters, but it's a huge help against Mirim-like characters. Niche, but since you know your opponent before picking, I'd say it's just fine as is.
Kanon: Without the shield, it's pretty questionable. Picking Dlanor is nearly always a better option, since you have the same duration, the cut damage will likely be roughly similar on average when you are hit, and Dlanor doesn't require you doing a dodge right before it. With the shield, it's probably the best pick if you want to be really, really durable, but might be a bit overkill.
Lambdadelta: Quite possibly the worst assist as it currently stand. If it lasted 6 turns instead of "Works once in 6 turns", it would be usable with the shield. Without, even with that change it'd be bad. At best, it saves you from having to jump one turn. At worst, it does absolutely nothing: The fact that it triggers even on parry or block (since she got a block with a score) means you might not get any benefit. Even if you do get some benefit, it's just not a big one.
Lucifer: Also quite questionable, but slightly better. Pretty much the only use is to get one more use out of Holy Death Sentence, and it's heavily telegraphied if used this way... Still better than Lambdadelta though.
Ronove: Suffers from the exact same problem as Evatrice, except even worse due to the additional restrictions. Well, it is a good choice against the AI if you want to see big damage, but against a human player it's near-useless.
Rosa: One of the best assist. It's pretty opponent dependent, but it can HEAVILY cripple the opponent. Take Samus for example: Remove her orange and you remove nearly her damage, and the duration is long. I think it might actually be a bit too strong, and I can see it being extremely infuriating to play against depending on your character.
ReplyDeleteShannon: I'm not sure I understand this one. Do you mean that if Dlanor get hit while dodging, she'll block instead? If so, what consist of a "non attack move" exactly? Her jumps and -9 score moves? If so, then with the shield up it can be a great choice to make her super durable and also add some offense. Without the shield, well it's still pretty decent. I feel that the shield is again the better option, but I do consider this assist to be better than Kanon, mostly due to the +2 bonus on block. Pretty decent assist if I understand it well.
Siesta 410: Without the shield, I'd say using this is nearly suicidal as there's always a risk when trying to block, and having to have two success before getting any benefit is stupidly risky: Odds are you'll get hit at least once before this triggers, and by then your lost BP is more of a liability than their lost shield. With shield up, it's viable against specific opponents. Unfortunately, characters who's shields can be broken can be counted on pretty much one hand... Also, since the majority of the fan characters are unarmed fighters (unlike official ones who are very rarely unarmed), turning to page 27 is often counterproductive. With the shield it can be a decent choice about characters who are completely crippled without their weapon though.
Virgilia: The best of the SP-gaining assist in my opinion, although George is also viable. I don't think the SP gain is that critical on her, but it's a useful assist depending on your playstyle.
Willard: Well... With the shield and against anything else but a human opponent that knows that Dodge cancel Metaworld activate, it would be game-breaking good as you could have your shield permenantly up. Without the shield, it feels kind of gimmicky, as the only use of Metaworld is the Holy Death Sentence use, and the timing to be able to use Willard ability is extremely tight (If you use HDS on first turn after Metaworld Declaration, you have to jump the following turn, do a regular attack succesfully and then do declaration: If you do anything else than that, you lose the benefit of your assist), and a 4-turn premade sequence is not terribly interesting in my opinion... I'd recommend remaking this assist to be honest.
Oh yeah. You cannot use SP Cancel to link into Metaworld Activation. It's a seperate command despite it consuming 1 SP.
DeleteWoah, so you finished all of them, impressive :)
ReplyDeleteFunny that you recommend Dlanor activating her power along with the declaration, I was pretty sure her power and her partner's would be overpowered... Guess it's worth a try, though.
Shannon works now with Green and Yellow, basically dodges, yes. Dlanor actually had a scoreless block for a while, but between this one malfunctioning and me thinking it made her kinda too strong, she got the current block.
We were actually thinking Rosa's was weak, but I guess if you consider a lot of strong moves 22 and 38 are orange too, it's not that weak. Let's see what Baofu comes up with, now.
A pretty good assessment, all things considered. If you're curious as to what these were converted from, this page should explain it: http://wiki.mizuumi.net/w/Ougon_Musou_Kyoku/Abilities
ReplyDeleteSo that leaves us with what to do next. Short duration abilities include the following:
Erika, Eva-Beatrice, Ronove, Ange.
I propose we change Evatrice and Ronove's duration to 3 turns like Ange. Erika's can stay at 2 turns, it's quite strong as is (I originally proposed that if she scored, include Critical resolution! That would have been insane.)
Maybe even redefine the ability durations in accordance to the first link (Short = 3 turns. Average = 5 turns. Below Average = 4 turns. Long = 6-8 turns. Extremely Long = 10-12 turns.) I don't intend to use the Metaworld rule from Ougon (Ability durations of two abilities are both equal to the one with the shortest duration)
In return, here's a sample of what SP Cancel can do and Dlanor's combo at 2:45 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD_FQXTc6sg
I just had an interesting thought. What if you could pick two abilities that would both activate on 22? Like Erika and Eva-Beatrice or Ronove and Battler, and applying both of their abilities during Metaworld? Your thoughts on how this would shake things up?
ReplyDeleteIn that case, I'd say it's overpowered :) You could get guaranteed body wounds with +2 damage (so pretty much crit conditions too). Having two abilities would mean that we have to balance each assist with the fact that it can be combined with another... So we'd likely end up with some that will be useless if not combined with one specific power. Plus, it'd be strange to get two assists, but not her own power as the source material does. So personally I'm voting "no" on that idea.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Rose, she's opponent dependent, but she's a huge asset against the right enemy. Take Samus, Branwen or Risty for example: Strip away their orange and their potential damage falls down the drain. To be entirely honest, if I'm playing an orange dependent character and I face against a Rose using Dlanor, it would make the fights extremely annoying... So while useful, I wonder if it's not a "poisonous" ability to game fun.
What I'd suggest for Dlanor on top of adding her shielding on Declaration is either
1) Reduce her long range damages (beside charge) by 1 point and reduce the shield duration by 1 turn.
OR
2) Reduce her long range damages (beside charge) by 2 point.
I feel that should put her in the average to slightly better than average range. I'd also approve the 3 turn duration for the skills Baofu mentionned so that they have some appeal. For the SP cancel, well... Nothing comes to mind instantly but I'll be sure to mention my genius idea if I actually get one! :)
Think I'll go with Option 2. Rosa's Detachment is supposed to work when Dlanor hits the opponent, so have their Orange disabled when hit by anything.
DeleteWe're thinking of buffing Ultra Paper as well. Either allowing no restrictions twice, or having it last three turns altogether. In the source material it was patched to have no duration as it was used immediately to reset the Break meter. It's designed to be defensive anyway.
Regarding overpowered or not, well that all depends on what you consider "Average". My "slightly stronger than average" might be your "overpowered", and I'm not sure what you would call my "overpowered" :) In my opinion, the majority of the characters you make are "below average" strengthwise although there's some definitive exceptions (Saber, Cammy or Nelliel come to mind instantly for example).
ReplyDeleteWhat I base my "average" on is the entire pool of QB and QG characters and ignore everything else. Since there's a power creep upward (On average, the newer characters are better than the older ones), the average also moves upward by definition. I know it would be easy to consider Leina as the average, but she gets absolutely demolished by nearly the entire cast as things stand so I don't believe she's an accurate average. I have 4 different categories of characters: There's obviously some overlap and some character fit in more than one category, but it's still a useful guideline. Right now, my guideline characters for average are:
Mirim and Branwen for close-range sluggers. Characters who are strong in an head-on fight, but have a truckload of issues (Absolutely no range potential, no healing, can get shield destroyed). Most of those characters have either great score pages or high BP. In the same category, Echidna gets Slightly Better due to some long range capabilities, great matrix and less shield dependence, while Risty get Below Average and Leina Weak.
Elina is my average for "trickster agile" types. She gets a two turn trip, a counter trip, a block and counter and awesome jump bonuses which allows her to reach nice damage. She also has decent long-range combat. However, her Daze and Body Wound pages are horrible, and in a straight-up fight she'd lose against any competent slugger or damage dealer. Luna Luna would fit under Below Average (Big bag of tricks but few are effective), Huit under Weak (Great bag of tricks but just too squishy to get to use them effectively) and Sigui under Slightly Better (She's very squishy, but her tricks are nearly game-breaking good and her damage is higher than Elina). Characters with permanent self buffs (or enemy debuffs) also fall into this category generally.
Pyrrha's my new average for a damage dealing type character. She hits like a truck but is pretty squishy, has no healing and has no long-range capabilities. Jubei Yagyu is another average character in this category: She got batshit insane damage after Awakening, but her score pages are horrible, and she can easily die in just two Turned Around even with her 12 BP. Annelotte would fall under Slightly Stronger due to great damage both range and good score pages (Just make sure to NEVER use any of her Knight Tactics, and she might get up to Strong when you know her enough to avoid knockdowns) like Claudette, while Nyx would fall under strong (Relatively squishy, but she can insta-kill a large portion of the cast at both range with a very safe move, and her thrusts fill the rest of the void) and so would Aldra R (Her main damage tools are incredibly safe and spammable, and she has a scoreless block page on top of that) and Alice (Bullets are not limiting at all, and she's pretty durable despite her 9bp due to top5 score pages).
Most "buffable" types fall under Slightly Weaker if everything else is equal. Characters with lowish base damage but that gets big boosts to their next attack are viable (and usually quite fun to play), but they simply aren't as good as characters that can do the same damage out of the box without "wasting" a turn.
ReplyDeleteYou might notice that I haven't mentionned any weak damage dealers... The reason is that those fall into the final category:
The "What is my purpose in life?" type. It's all those characters that have low damage (both out of the box and after boosts/jumps)), bad score pages with low bp and no nifty tricks to make use of. Kasumi, Nowa, Revy and fan-made Taki are great examples. Sometime, they have good enough matrixes to make them usable (as Kasumi and fan-Taki), but it's all hidden from the user, and you have other characters with as good matrixes with better stats and tricks (like Alleyne). Other characters like Aya Brea or Angel fall into this category: While they do have a few small tricks, those tricks are mediocre and everything else about the character is weak.
... Which brings me to current-state Dlanor. The reason why I feel she won't be overpowered with the changes proposed is that I feel that she currently fits under the "WIMPIL" category. She has 11BP (completely unremarkable), she hits like a mewling kitten beside her limited Holy Death Sentence and can barely reach +4 on her riskiest attack combined with her highest boost, her score pages are slightly poor (Arm and leg wounds are the culprit, the other pages are average) and she has absolutely no trick beside her assist.
Adding the shield would make her super durable 50% of the time maximum. That gives her a length of time where she can outslug the majorty of other characters, and a length of time where she can't. It's a unique mechanism in the game. She's still limited to one single trick (You have a variety of picks but only one per match), so she's still mostly a close-range slugger, which seems accurate based on Baofu's description. That change will allow her to perform her job very well 50% of the time and poorly the other 50%: I'd be extremely surprised if she reach "Strong" status after the change.
For reference sake, my personal evaluation of my own characters since I did pretty much everyone but them:
Sophitia: Strong, close to overpowered. She does have the drawbacks of the first category, but I might have overdone the positives, especially once you understand Guard Impacts.
Ninja Shion: Average, damage dealer/trickster. Squishy, but high damage with the tricks, good matrix and scoreless block.
Seductress Shion: Slightly Stronger for player control, Slightly Weaker for AI, under Trickster/Slugger. Incredible permanent boosts and decent/good durability, but starts out very weak. AI can't know how to use her properly.
Summoner Shion: Slightly Stronger for player control, Worst character in the game for AI, under trickster. Absolutely need player input to be of any use, and require good knowledge of opponent characters to know wheater to focus on dweller, tentacle, hybrid or poke-with-healing (for high BP chars), and also when and where to use the more self-damaging moves. Effective when properly used, but requires experience to do so... AI can't come close to win a match using her.
Guardian Shion: Slightly weaker, under trickster. Tricks are interesting, but most require a long battle to build up and Guardian Shion is just too squishy even with the guardian for them to have a good effect. Becomes very limited once the guardian falls.
Christabel: Slightly weaker to average, under damage dealer. Has decent BP and average scores, great "chargeable damage" and okay regular damage. Tends to underperform a bit compared to raw stats however, so I think that her (Captain Liliana's) matrix is not very good (but definitively not Hulk bad).
Here's what I'm thinking. We'll go with some of your recommendations. To sum up what I propose:
Delete- Make Dlanor have Armor Boost automatically with Declaration. It's her ability, always has been, always will be. It even says so on the source material.
- Add 1 to all her close range attacks, and subtract 2 to her X range except her Charge.
- Subtract 1 to all her score pages (and 2 from Arm and Leg)
- Make her blocking page either -4 or -5.
- Change all "Short duration" abilities to 3 turns, except Force Counter because it's quite good as is.
- Allow Eva-Beatrice to add +3 to Dlanor's attacks.
- Buff Ultra Paper by having it last for three turns (Although this is going to be a weaker version of what I have planned for Juri)
- Buff Siesta410's Break Boost so that if the opponent does not have any equipment, they are turned to Off Balance or something such (Simulates Guard Break at least)
Oh, I just remembered about Dlanor auto-knockdown trick, so she has two after all. It doesn't really change the evaluation too much though: It's 2SP, and while it's main usage would be to be able to use Declaration afterward, Declaration gets countered badly by Dodge (Lands on Turned Around, which is more limiting than Knocked Down). It's not a useless trick, but it's not gameshattering or character defining either in my opinion.
ReplyDelete...And once more, Ayra's expert analysis makes me look simple by comparison, lol ("WIMPIL" is both honest and strangely catchy).
ReplyDeleteFor the record, my "average" is pretty much "balanced". Since I get a matrix from combining 2 official chars, I assume it's fine (though in some cases it seems the official chars are flawed from the beginning, I guess you'd say), so it's just a matter of tuning the scores, the attacks' damage and the special effects for the character not to stand out too much either for better or for worse. It's a somewhat simple, kinda holistic approach that sometimes fails, yes ^^U
And I pretty much agree with Baofu's list of changes (though if she needs a +1 in all her close range attacks, she's worse than I thought ^^U).
Haha, I know it's going to make me pretty contrary, but I disagree with most of Baofu's list... At least when combined.
ReplyDeleteThe things that prevent Dlanor from being a good close range slugger are
A) Durability
B) Damage
If you have enough of one, you don't really need the other. Reducing all her scores by 1 (and 2 from arm and leg) would indeed suddenly put her in pretty durable territory, probably near the end of the top 10 which is huge considering the amount of characters. That'd be fine by itself, and I'd heartily approve of the change...
if she didn't get the auto-shielding from Declaration. The auto-shielding from Declaration is HUGE. With her current score pages, she's even more durable than Mirim when the shield is active when facing high damage opponents.
Let's go back to Mirim being an average strength slugger. She's the toughest character in the game and the epitome of a defense-based character. No one else can take more hits than Mirim and survive...
And Dlanor beats that when her shield is active. That makes Dlanor the most durable character in the game when shielded. For that to be balanced, her damage has to remain low. Let's take the comparison further. Dlanor has one assist character giving her a tailor-made trick, Mirim has none. Dlanor can heal herself, Mirim cannot. Mirim can have her shield destroyed, Dlanor cannot. Mirim cannot fight at long distance, Dlanor can somewhat even with my suggested -1. Dlanor has one heavy damage move, Mirim doesn't.
Now, I know it sounds one sided and biased, but... Even with the current score pages, Dlanor > Mirim when the shield is up. However, since she's squishy, Dlanor < Mirim when the shield is down, even though Dlanor is more versatile than Mirim is. The assists are good: The problem is that if the shield isn't automatic, she's pretty much forced to pick it 100% of the time to be viable, unless she did have score upgrades like you mentionned. But since the automatic shielding makes more sense for the character, I'd say score upgrades would quickly push her toward overpowered.
If you give score upgrades and damage upgrades on top of the auto-shielding, she'd completely demolish Mirim in all categories... and a bit better than Mirim is the highest we should be aiming for in the slugger category.
So I stand by my original suggestion: Add auto-shielding, remove 2 points from long range combat, keep the rest the same. This makes her the toughest close-range slugger in game while the shield is active alongside one customizable assist that you can cherry pick once you know your opponent, for the cost of being a weak slugger when the shield is down. Trust me when I say that "toughest close-range slugger" is actually huge: +1 hits on Body wounds is still worth 5 to 6 damage on most characters, and the average BP is around 11... Being able to survive 4 body hits when the opponent dies in 2 is huge, and that's why good score pages are so helpful. Her auto-shielding is worth awesome score pages, especially against big damage dealers.
Let's make a quick example... Let's imagine a fight against Aldra (R), one of the great damage dealers and let's assume Dlanor has her shield up. Aldra (R) lands a +4 damage hit to the body, and Dlanor lands, say, a +1 side swing to the body.
Dlanor BP: 11 - (5 + 4) / 2 = 6 BP left (assuming damage is rounded up)
Aldra R: 12 - (6 + 1) = 5 BP left
Do it another round, and Dlanor has 1BP left while Aldra is at -2. Let's add Mirim, the game's toughest character being hit with Aldra's same attack.
Mirim: 12 - (2 + 4) = 6 BP left
While Mirim would also win the exchange, (0 vs -2), she fares worse than Dlanor in this battle. I can't stress enough how big of a deal the auto-shielding is, and this example also shows just how great defense can often make you win matches against the nastiest damage dealers.
Oh, I didn't notice the list included both score reduction AND auto-shield. Yep, I guess it's one or the other... and you make a pretty convincing case that it's that and the X-range reduction all Dlanor needs.
DeleteThe assists, though, should be fine as listed, as I'd rather not change them too much.
Regarding the assists, I have no problems however. The only one I'm questioning is Evatrice lasting 3 turns for +3 damage. I think that would put it into the new "must pick" assist choice, as +3 brings you in range to crit easily. I'd suggest either +2 for 3 turns, or +3 for 2 turns, either or. I think +3 for 3 is a bit much, but it wouldn't be game-breaking if allowed, though.
ReplyDeleteLeecherboy: When you make this many character, you need to have a simple approach, so it's all good. The one criticism I have is that I think it tends to do "blur" together when mixing two similar characters. While all the characters have fitting artwork (as best as allowed) and that the moveset are all thematic and fit the characters very well, gameplay-wise there's no reason to pick most of them (the WIMPIL).
It's of course more noticeable when I went through a ton in a row to review, but there's things that came to view:
-Most characters have 10 BP. The QB average is probably more around 11.5, so most of your characters have comparatively low BP.
-Vast majority of characters have 0 to +3 in ranged attacks. You have very few that have really bad long-range (From the huge pile I reviewed, the only fanmade that fit was Princess Athena), and none that are long-distance specialist (One could be neat for some diversity, there's only Mina right now).
-Your score pages tend to be around QB mage-types characters (or surprisingly squishy ones like Cattleya) which means that the majority of your characters tend to be on the squishy side especially when combined with the 10bp.
-Resource-intensive characters tends to be weaker. When you have something that constantly limit your attacking abilities (like daggers for Sakuya), the character rarely have some compensation for that restriction.
-The base damage from the majority of characters go from +3 down to 0 or +2 down to 0. There's rarely something that makes your eyes go wide: You don't see Pyrrha's or Junko's. Risty is an unimpressive and plain character, but there's a certain charm in doing Up for +3 damage on your 36 for a total of +7: It gives her at least a reason to be picked. Since the majority of your characters are squishier than average and that they don't have spectacular damage, a lot tends to be pretty lackluster and weak.
Not all fan made character is like this, of course. Some are absolute gems all the way through like the Sabers and some fit what I described above but have so incredibly nice mechanics and tricks that makes them unique like Agrias Oaks (her damage's pretty good too, though). There's plenty of neat ones, but there's also a fair share of WIMPIL that have no reason to be picked unless you like the character it represents.
I'm sorry that I'm so critical. It's impossible to have hundreds of unique characters and you've done an awesome job at adding so many high quality characters (on top of translating a ton of interesting stuff and adding more mechanism for the game) and creating all those new mechanism, especially when I know how much the lack of artwork limits what is doable for movesets.
Well, it could be argued that unlike QB/QBR chars, fanmade characters have no armor or weapons and that's why they're apparently weaker... But you're right, my "balance" seems somewhat skewed frail chars.
DeleteI do appreciate the sincere criticism, and it's nice to have people like you and Baofu to provide feedback on what you think a good character is like and to bring new ideas to the table.
It's a good thing I played it safe this week with a Marvel character... ^^U
Ayra: The idea of balance tends to be rather subjective. I wouldn't know what your idea of overpowered is, but I can say with some certainty I have a good idea. Overpowered is the MP-40 in World at War, or picking Chun-Li, Ken or Yun in 3rd Strike. It's Goat Control and Apr 2012 format Wind-Ups in Yugioh and the Shield Rod + Alucard Shield combo in SOTN.
ReplyDeleteYour input has been helpful in terms of better improving the characters in the WIMPIL category. Giving those characters a purpose in the game through improvements is always useful.
But this is not a metagame, and there are no prizes to be won here. My aim is simply to create characters who have moves accurate to the source material, nothing more.
Eva-Beatrice goes to 3 turns for +2. That should do nicely. ^^
Balance is definitively subjective and my word is not law (awwww, how unfortunate) :) It's still a game though, and even if you don't plan on using a character, the AI or another player might (Speaking of which, I registered up on the 2nd Hamachi server as Ayra and I'll pass by once in a while in hopes of being able to catch a match or two) so it's "important" to not make characters that are stronger, tougher and cuter than all the others. Well, cuter's fine. If I had my way, Katt would have like +9 score, a super matrix and like 5bp... But that wouldn't be terribly balanced or fun for anyone :)
ReplyDeleteAbout your examples, let's see...
World at War: Didn't play
3rd Strike: Didn't play
Yugioh: Didn't play (Surprised we don't have a Black Magician Girl character, I assume there must be thousands of pics of her)
SOTN: Did play! I did have the shield rod but I don't think I had the Alucard Shield though...
I understand what you did mean though :)
Anyway, I do apologize to you two about being so pushy sometime.
Do we agree about changing Dlanor to what has been mentionned? Being able to actually play her new form might help to properly tweak the other assists or herself further if needed: Theorycrafting is nice, but it sometime gets hard to do it properly when there's too many variables changed at once.
You mentionned that you have an upcomming character from the same serie. Will the assist set be the exact same for the new character?
On my side, my "to-do list" currently is pretty much just Kat from Gravity Daze if pics allow, and Xenosaga KOS-MOS but I haven't drafted an actual moveset yet. If Kat ends up being possible, I'll most likely have to bug you about a new mechanism to the game unfortunately! There's also a new Pieces comming out in a few weeks starring Shion (again), but as far as I can gather it's mostly a reuse of pictures from the Toguihime book (which I already used sprinkled through the ninja and guardian) and an "adult story" which based on the previous one, is not terribly appealing and is hardcore enough that it's nearly unusable even when censored (I used maybe 6 pictures total from that book for the guardian and seductress)... So the odds of me bugging you about having autorization to add a new Shion is pretty darn low. You can sigh in relief now :)
I'm also itching to make a long-range specialist character, but I unfortunately don't have any actual character lined up for that. My dream for that would be a slinger: The problem is that
A) There's pretty much no characters anywhere that uses a sling
B) Even if there was, no way there'd be 32 fitting art.
I'm STILL toying about the idea of drawing my own book, but at best it'd look like the most horrible of the Lost World books (I barely practiced since then), and it'd be in pencil. Not terribly appealing to the eyes! Still, it's probably my only option if I do want to be able to make the moveset I imagined for a slinger...
Oh yeah, we're agreed. I wanted her to get buffed anyway. :)
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts on buffing Angel?
Well, I'll admit that the only thing I know about Angel is that she has nifty clothes... I have no ideas how she is in her game, or what her game even is.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, my suggestion to make her a nice pick would be:
Increase her Up bonus to +3
Give her +2 on dodge
Increase her Duck bonus to +2
Increase her Away to +2
This way, she'll be a great mobile character. She gets hit hard, and her base damage is low, but evading attacks gives her great damage, and makes her big SP move pretty threatening. "Stick and move" as they say. Evade and counter twice as hard. It'd make her pretty interesting in my opinion and a pretty good but not overpowered pick.
I can work with that. Angel in KOF has some evasive tricks up her sleeve and can be hard to hit. Here's a sample as she outwits an entire enemy team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1M0WH3-Boo
DeleteShe's supposed to have a move during her Chain set that basically turns her behind her opponent, but leech here decided to launch her without telling me I was missing a dodging picture. Just a little more time and I would have gotten one. :P
ReplyDeleteOh, is that so? Sorry, I get kinda impatient around release time.
DeleteI gave you a prototype a couple of days in advance to complain to your heart's content, though ^^U
Well, Angel does look pretty cool... I unfortunately don't know the game enough to be able to gather anything beside that she's definitively a speedy type, though :)
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I forgot to mention last time Leecherboy: You did mention that most of the fan based characters don't have weapons and that's an advantage... You are perfectly right there, and I do tend to forget that point during character analysis.
I did look for Kat pics, and I turned up with around 65, but there's none of her using any of her special skills or even her regular kick combos... I may be able to salvage something useable though, we'll see. If I do, the mechanisms I'll need are a way to get the Height value of the character so that I can use it in various places (Score damage, ect) and also a way to increase Height by x instead of just setting it to an hardcoded value.
In other non-news, I started a new "tournament" run to put some of the theorycrafting in practice. As usual, the rules are: You have three tries to get to 10 wins total. No character upgrading with points at all. Character is played to the best of my ability, but if one ability is broken, I won't spam it. If you face a Marvel strength character or worse, the loss won't count if you lose, but the victory will count if you win. I will play fanmade Marvel characters that I consider are not stronger than "Strong" QB and QG characters.
ReplyDeleteI got up to Cammy. Here's the results:
Characters that got to 10 wins without a loss: Agrias, Aldra (R), Alice, Alleyne, Annelotte
Characters that got to 10 wins with 1 loss: Aldra, Black Cat, Black Widow, Branwen
Characters that got to 10 wins with 2 loss: Cammy
Characters that did not reach 10 wins: 7 Stakes (6), Angel (8), Aya Brea (5), Bayonetta (5)
Bugs found: Morrigan is missing page 15, causing an error. Aldra Petrifying Gaze doesn't trigger properly anymore.
Interesting tibits:
While Agrias managed to win with 0 losses, she did come down to 1 or 2 bp in most matches.
The average time it took for Alice to win matches was around 5 seconds each. She killed a lot of characters on the first attack, and all the rest beside one died on the second turn. It still wasn't a close fight, but she was lucky with opponents.
Most of Annelotte wins came against high-powered Marvel characters or Wyrms, while she had near-losses against meh characters.
Aldra (R) took down the Triceratop again. I also had underestimated how good Scare is: It's super safe, and against the majority of characters, if you follow up with the down smash, you have a near-guaranted Daze hit or body hit...
Black Cat struggled a lot to get to 10 wins with 1 loss, and she did have a lot of bonus opportunities (She got a lot of random Marvel fights which didn't count in her losses fortunately).
She's pretty fun, but she's definitively more alongside a good QB character than a Marvel one.
Angel and Cammy losses were both to Annelotte and Alleyne (with one from Mattha added to Angel), so they weren't low-profile opponents.
Bayonetta may not have gotten my absolute most careful playing... But I didn't make her do that bad intentionally.
As usual, don't read too much about those results: I will naturally do better with characters I'm very familiar with (like Annelotte, Alleyne or Elina) than I will be with the ones that are new or played less. Also, there's obviously a lot of randomness involved both in opponents and in the matches themselves (No matter how good you are at the game in analysing and predicting opponent movements, there's still a lot of luck involved). 10 battles is a small sample, but it is interesting to see how little variation there has been so far compared to the previous "tournaments": There's been no major change in success for any characters beside Cammy (Had rough opponents this go around) and regular Aldra (Did poorly previously) and the theorycrafting did hold up for the new batch of characters although I didn't expect Agrias to manage a flawless win streak(against QB and QG anyway). The rest will come whenever I get to doing more :)
And... I forgot write Athena. She got to 10 wins with 1 loss, path wasn't easy though. Airi did not get played because she's instant-win against many characters and nearly instant-loss against others... So I don't have any interest in playing her.
ReplyDeleteA few more bugs to add to the previous post: Chun Li Extended Ex Kikkoken goes to Ex Spinning Kick.
ReplyDeleteZelda Extended Trust occasionally goes to Light Arrow (which sucks since it forces you to jump).
AI can keep using Izumi's bow for 6 damage, even though it's supposed to be limited to once per fight.
The wyrm keeps Incapacitating itself by flying up.
The game also crashes whenever it picks Nightowl (not just Dlanor), but I think you might be aware of that one.
Sigui's "Bind With Chain: leg" goes to Holy Pose: Service. It might be correct but it certainly looks a bit strange.
I think regarding Sigui that might be correct. Maybe the name needs to be changed but the matrix itself seems correct despite them using a different picture (And I like that she has that as her attack; as everyone falls to their knees in worship)
ReplyDeleteWhat I found even stranger was that she has a "Chain Broken" page but nothing in her matrix links her to that at all. Leech included a patch that basically has it broken like any other shield (36 on 26 for instance)
That reminds me. Pit Dlanor against Sigui with Break Boost and see if her chain can be broken by that effect.
There we are, Sigui's 55 is different from the rest, so Break Boost actually gives her 1 BP instead if she blocks twice. Whether this needs to be fixed or this can be left in as Dlanor and Sigui are both inquisitors of a holy order I leave entirely to the creator of the game itself. :3
ReplyDelete