Marvel vs. Capcom 3

[Pikachu]

Coming Feb 15th. Get ready.

Seth Kilian confirmed that the "Take you for a ride" theme will be remixed as well. Too good.

[Pikachu]

Ok...some initial impressions. The game looks very nice in HD... not something I think is needed, but it is easy to appreciate childhood favorites on a big screen in HD. Still the same damn character select song, but at least the stage music isn't elevator music.

MvC3 feels like BlazBlue speed for non triangle jumpers atm. I will probably change that opinion when I get used to wave dashing and get acquainted with the game in general. Air dashes are not available to everyone... and I am concerned about that a little. That said, it is much, much harder to replicate tri jump mixups because the air dash down is faster, giving you much less time to hit your attack. Hopefully, it will not favor only the pixies in the long run.

Combos are fairly easy to figure out on a basic level. Launch, magic series, special, super. Or some mild variation. Watching a few pre-launch videos will teach you everything. Even w/o knowing the specific hits, I could at least do a relaunch combo with Dante (the new Ken) into his flaming ghey sword into faggy cumshot super. There are some hard (yh) combos, but there is virtually an easy and effective bnb for everyone to use, with some extra hits to sneak in for style should you choose.

Have not tried too many assists yet. All I know is that Chun has good lightning kick assist and Dormammu has Blackheart assist and that they are gud.

Wolverine had some fun combos in trial mode.

Everyone is capable of ripping off at least 50% life with one meter given almost any opening. On the other hand, combos doing much more than that require much more meter. I think this is a good change whereas Marvel 2 didnt allow for such a breadth of characters to have that threatening power, while God tier characters could kill off one team with two bars of meter and a guard break.

There is also a bit of a mind game for building meter and bursting a combo... will explain that when I am not typing on my phone for a later post. Overall, looks fun and I certainly think it will be more fun than BB.

[Pikachu]

Also in the system - a way to tag your partner (yh) in during an air combo. This is done by pressing up, right, or down + special button.

If successful, you tag the character in and it can potentially continue the combo. However, the opponent can "tech" this by inputting your same command (direction + special).

Now any of us who have any grasp of expectation values will scratch their heads and wonder why there would be three options instead of two, since with three, because the transition from 50/50 to 33/33/33 is hella random. What they've introduced, therefore, is a weighted expectation value system in the form of meter reward. If I hit with up + special, I get a small chunk of meter as a reward. Forward + special nets half a meter, and Down + special nets a full bar.

EDIT - Neutral special button at the end of the combo will spike the person down as in MvC2 flying screen. However, a lot of characters can land and super, or special move into super (i.e. Hulk can land and do ground rocks super, Iron Man smart bombs into Proton Cannon for lulz, Super Skrull touches you in naughty places into super)

I am not sure whether this will be a part of the game or totally ignored, outside of desperate need to build meter. Either way, going for this meter is a net loss in damage. Then again, without meter, you may not be dealing tons of damage in the first place. Anyway, the idea is theoretically interesting and I'm looking forward to what this looks like from a practical standpoint.

On the other hand, some characters with long combos like Wolverine can probably build their remaining meter and finish all over your face (yh).

MOAR EDIT - Did a little thinking on the meter thing while driving to school... guess it potentially makes anyone a battery, so long as the player can get the openings. Then again, if characters prove to be able to build meter well without needing to hit combos, then I guess it's moot. I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to at least break the mold of needing a battery/user/assist... and in Marvel 2, hella characters were good batteries AND users, which was kinda BS.

I have also decided that I hate the control layout. The control concept moving away from punches/kicks doesn't bother me too much outside of traditional SF games, but going into this system for MvC3 is getting painful. Here's the current control layout on a stick, by default:

L M A1
S H A2

Where it's (L)ight, (M)edium, (H)ARD, (S)pecial, Assist 1 and 2. For my own muscle memory, it's a little hard to break into this pattern, where the LMH progression usually dances across the top three buttons, not to mention that the launcher button is where the LK button traditionally resides. The alternative is:

L M H
A1 A2 S

This takes care of the LMH progression problem, but putting Assists down there is also quite strange. It does have a more Guilty Gear feel to it, since S is where Dust is as a launcher button, and LMH on top makes sense. HOWEVER, this makes X Factor hard to hit (X Factor is your one-time Roman Cancel/Alpha Counter which can heal and increase your damage/movement, gaining more power as you have fewer characters). It's also incredibly weird to have Assists on the bottom row having played even a little Marvel 2.

So.. yeah, it's just really strange and aggravating at times, especially for supers. For example, Sentinel orb super and Hyper Sentinel Force had the same motion but the former was a P super and the latter was K. Doing mission mode for Sentinel was HELLA awkward when I absentmindedly did the Rocket Punch -> HSF cancel. Just some weird shit to relearn.

Still haven't bothered to play online. Most people are probably jumping around like crazy like retards who scout in Duskwood. I'd rather get a good feel for the game and then nerdrage on people with dial-a-combo Dante.

Another Edit -

Better button layout:

L M H
S A1 A2

Still don't like having Assist buttons there, but at least it's possible to X Factor. I REALLY hate having launch button where it is.

[buhwhyen]

I bought mvc3 the other day. Haven't played it too much yet, but the control layout is fine, using beta layout, which is:
l m h
s a1 a2

Works alright. Never had a "launcher" button before, so other than looking for punch and getting launcher, it's not bad.

Movement...is driving me insane. You really do NEED to wavedash with a lot of characters, particularly ones that don't triangle or square jump, but even those characters need wavedash to really move around properly. It's really weird/aggravating to get used to hitting buttons for movement, but it's something that I'm sure you HAVE to be able to do on demand because it's the only way for non-pixie characters to have a hope of keeping up movement wise. Even then, it's seems really difficult to keep up unless you can properly utilize your assists to help you get in (assuming you don't play a pixie or someone with triangle jumps).

Execution is not too bad for the most part. Some characters really need a lot more than others for their damage combos. Though, if you could air combo in Guilty Gear, air comboing in mvc3 is pretty straight forward. For me, anyways, it's more a lack of familiarity with movesets and general game mechanics that's throwing me off. Also weird shit like fly-unfly sentinel combos seem really wonky (Morrigan can do some really dumb shit with her mirror super and fly/unfly fireball spam).

My biggest problem right now is actually learning the timing to call assists in to both extend combos use in the middle of block strings to mix up. I can't quite figure out when to call out an assist during a combo and still be able to continue the combo. Choosing what assist you want is also less straight forward, there are a lot less "get off me" assists because assists no longer carry over invincibility from the original move. Ie Ryu's srk doesn't have invincibility when you call it in as an assist, but does when you use it with Ryu as a point character.

The air combo tag in stuff is really....too good. for hitting up/forward/down + special during an air combo you perform a tag in and are able to continue the air combo, this also nets you meter based on which version you used. Down gives a full meter level, while others give less (halfish? not sure about how much they give), it's seems like it'll more or less be free meter for whoever combos with minimal risk and also a really good way to tag in another character without DHC.

[Pikachu]

Played a few games online. More button mashers than SF4, which should come as no surprise. The button mashing is SO severe I theorize that people are mindlessly pressing shit even when they are blocking (resulting in pushblocks everywhere).

Do NOT let your assist get caught. Assists take more damage traditionally, but it's very severe here. Since the hits never scale, getting them caught in a beam super of any sort means 60% damage easy. Today my Magneto got caught just bu a Tron mashing low H into drills and it killed him outright. Very irritating. OTOH, playing both Iron Man and Dante, I've DHC'd for a lot of assist kills as well.

Fat characters like Hulk and Haggar are quite scary as well. Getting hit with a random jump in will mean at least half your life bar gone, even against noobs, because their magic series is savage. With XFC (X Factor), it's death. More noob friendly than Dante, because at least Dante needs to utilize the joystick a little (yh).

Speaking of Dante, he makes Noel's Drive series look mundane. His mission 10 combo:

l, m, h, s, sjc, j.mx2, djc, j.m, j.h, j.s, land, df.H(mash otg), f.H, S+Atk (command jump), qcf+l, land, qcb+l, mash h, qcf super

There's an otg relaunch, and then a second relaunch, all off specials only. I'm surprised they didn't complicate this combo with yet another relaunch during the magic series, because it's very possible.

The mission mode overall helps you get an idea of what to do with a character, but never delves into anything very challenging. It'll make things hard with a critical spot here and there where your hands have to move a bit fast, but with some adjustments for practicality, a lot of those combos can even be extended for further damage. The combo system in this game is very open, with many ways to hit large damage so I think even bread and butters will vary in years to come.

Akuma has an infinite where he can juice kick people forever. Thanks, Desk.

Anyhow, at this point, probably playing Dante/Magneto/Iron Man... trying to replace IM, but his keepaway and chip is nice and lame. May replace with Storm instead for equal lameness. She can apparently hit a magic series, land, and hit hail. Wtf ghey.

May experiment (nh) with Doom and Trish once the quarter is over and I can look into more of their combos.

[Pikachu]

When comboing with assists, you either piano the buttons or hit some buttons simultaneously. It depends on the lag of the assist. I think it's less important for combos and more important for pressure though.

There really are no more get off me assists, and I'm kinda glad. Switching to space control assists is herra gud.

And I know what you mean when it comes to movement, and I think it helps even less that all the characters move very differently. Definitely press buttons to move and not traditional dash (and in this game, apparently not all characters can wavedash).

Some Buk gameplay... he's an asshole. www.justin.tv/teamkhaos/b/279454543

[buhwhyen]

I think it was Sanford that also mentioned "true" wavedashing is actually done by hitting l+m+down (any 2 attacks and down) at the same time, so you don't actually need "duck cancel" in between dashes.

Need more random information like this.

Oh yeah Hsien Ko's assist is hilarious if you super before switching her out. And in case you didn't know, Jwong is really good at MVC3.

My team right now is either:
Magneto, Dante, Sentinel
or
Wesker, Dante, Sentinel

Might use Iron man (nh) because he has one of the only remaining low triangle jumps that can hit overhead (though Storm got a new overhead) and he's generally brain dead. I tried Trish, but I'm not a huge fan of her at this point, I don't have a good enough grasp of how to abuse her trap assist, and other than that her damage is pretty damn subpar. Morrigan is aggravating to play cause you have to wait after you start a dash to hit moves, seems really slow after being used to CVS2 (but what doesn't seem slow after CVS2? MVC2...duh). Amaratsu was neat, but I hate stance switching characters in general. Thor...is really slow. Probably gonna try Storm and X-23 next, both look good. Storm super damage is just retarded (her hailstorm hits for too much chip damage).

I'd lean more towards Magneto (nh) if my execution was more solid, I can't consistently get the full looping air combo (j.h adf j.m, j.h) to land, so I lose a lot of free pressure and damage. And my timing for hitting triangle jumps is just off.

I might rage quit on Dante because I have always had issues with down down moves. No clue why of all things I have issues with down down commands, but missing it and getting random full screen whiffed launcher is bad.

[Pikachu]

Mag's adf combo shouldn't be hard.. unless you're talking about maintaining enough height for 3-4 reps OR if you've been dashing using stick (use buttons instead). His damage is pretty good even without meter, and with meter he's pretty stupid (relaunch after Gravity Squeeze in corner? wtf?)

How's Wesker? He looks interesting, but I'm not grasping him very well (nh). X-23 was shown off in a recent Mikado tournament.. should be interesting to see how she develops.

[buhwhyen]

Uhm...lawl. You can use buttons to airdash mid combo?.....I guess that would make it easier. But I actually have more issues with timing the j.h after landing, so I end up either dropping the combo or they fall further than they should. I can consistently get 2 loops, but generally can't get 3-4 that I should be able to.

The bigger problem I have with Magneto atm is his triangle jump. I can't get the timing down for hitting j.l because you have to delay your ad downforward till you hit the peak of your normal jump or your j.l whiffs. I also have issues with crossing over with the triangle jump...really just being able to do what I want to do with it (nh) in general.

Whesker...takes a lot of getting used to. I still have issues with choosing which input for teleports. Basically after any gunshot (direction + heavy attack) you can teleport to 3 set locations on the screen with l,m,h. Or you can dp? rdp? to teleport to the same locations. What bothers me is that he has no air dash, but has teleportation for movement. It's weird playing 2 characters with lots of air mobility and then one that relies on teleports for movement.

Other than that, he's really solid. Lot of opportunities to set up unblockables if you can start pressuring your opponent. Particularly with Dante, you set up an unblockable with Dante's teleport, but if you mess that up you also can get them to block the wrong direction, so it's just generally fucked up (especially since you can cancel normals into Dante's teleport, so any blockstring potentially becomes an unblockable/crossup set up).

[buhwhyen]

Does Dante's Killer bee (qcf + L in air) hit overhead? I thought about it, it might be more reliable to set up an unblockable by doing l,m,h x bold move (attack+special to get a jump cancel) and at the same time you input bold move, call wesker assist. So its h x bold move+assist. This is a lot less good if Killer bee or other air special moves don't hit overhead, at that point might as well just go for a teleport.

If you don't play wesker, this might be an okay way to keep pressure (using a different assist), but not necessarily set up an unblockable. Actually Magneto assist is pretty fast, so it might be a decent frame trap to call an assist when his h gets blocked and cancel into bold move. Delaying a regular air attack to bait them to try and anti air (or just punish them for mashing).

And actually after playing a little more Amaterasu, I'm realizing I don't really need to switch stances that much. Also a good replacement for Sentinel assist and does overall lots of damage.

[Pikachu]

Dog assist looks like it's really good. I just haven't had a chance to use her.

I'll double check later regarding Killer Bee.. I doubt it's overhead. I know the air flaming spin sword move (air qcf + h) is overhead though. Do you know what the low hitting assists are? The ones I remember from Marvel 2 that might carry over are Wolvie's claw slide normal and I think Tron had one too. Otherwise, a fast assist like Mags or one that locks down a long time like Doom rocks/Chun legs would be nice too.. just gotta call out sooner in the pressure string.

Btw, what are you crossing up with for Dante? If you're using j.S, are you able to otg launch with df+H -> S special?

Not sure what to think about tri jumping. It's really hard to do Mags tri jump L at Marvel 2 speeds. I think it's intentional to make it more plausible to react to, although a faster tri jump makes it easier to fake the high and do a low attack instead. Also, they purposefully changed the height for j.L hitbox to further increase the minimum height you have to jump. Btw, I think you want to SJ for the tri jump rather than normal. Normal's tri jump seems faster than Marvel 2, but I think SJ should take you to the necessary height faster so that the j.L connects at all. Mind experimenting with j.M for me if you get around to it?

Regarding the crossup... do you mean crossup H? Fairly sure you have to SJ for that.

Oh oh, just remembered.. flight cancel j.S is a decent overhead. Another thing I haven't tried yet. It's usable as a part of a string too, so that's good. Gonna guess the input is qcb+S, tap S to cancel, S for the j.S attack as you drop down... assuming there's a window you cannot attack as you cancel flight. Or you do the j.S attack first and the last tap cancels flight? Whatever.. it's three taps of S either way. Was surprisingly fast from a visual perspective and it can lead to c.LMHS.

And yeah, use buttons for the dash cancel in combos haha. Otherwise I wouldn't know how to do the H loops (c.LMHS, j.H, addf, J.H, repeat). Ben showed off a decent number of loops for this... dunno the difficulty level. I've just been watching j00tube stuff in between (and during) classes to keep myself up to date, but haven't tried. I guess the H loops make this the new ROM infinite, but the damage doesn't seem to be too much more, and I think it should build less meter even. Does look cooler though. Pretty excited to see what else Magneto can do (nh).

K, back to writing graded shit... there's a lot I want to try right now

[buhwhyen]

The instant overhead shenanigans with flight is actually just qcb + s, s. Hitting S with any character in flight mode cancels flight mode and throws out j.s. This works particularly well with storm, but I think Magneto can link stuff afterwords too. This is also how Sentinel can hit confirm his j.h...j.h and then chain to j.s if it hits, this drops you down for a follow up combo. Actually you know...flight cancel is really just broken in this game. It also allows Morrigan to spam out 2 fireballs in the air and still be able to dash around afterwards (which when you have mirror super running, is 4 fireballs). It also allows for some really effing retarded air combos (hi Magneto) because I'm pretty sure using flight mode mid combo resets your air dash.

Killer bee is not overhead...so I'll stick with teleport stuff. Really feel like I need a better way to get overhead hits on Dante, his j.s is really slow and the minimum height to attack after a jump is pretty aggravating.

I don't think Dante has any crossup jumping attacks? I cross up with his teleport during block strings while I call assists.

For Magneto...I was referring to how Yipes was able to (in MVC2) triangle jump over the person, land on the other side and hit cr.L - essentially switch sides and hit low with triangle jumps. You really just have to jump a lot higher now than you did before to do anything with triangle jumps, unless you're going to land and mash for low hits.

Low hitting assists I know off the top of my head are:
-Weker
-She-Hulk
-X23
-Felicia
-Deadpool

Don't know if Doom has a low assist, but even if he does, I don't see a reason to not take hidden missile assist if you play Doom.

[Pikachu]

Sentinel is so immature. Low Medium can take a bunch of hits in a certain portion of the attack so that it absorbs jump-ins, making it an anti-air that leads to launcher. Once someone is launched... you can just do a simple air combo like MMHS or LMHS, land, dash, rocket punch, HSF, XFC, HSF/Plasma Ball and more or less remove a character.

Although not plausible online due to lag, with Sentinel you can launch, MMH, Flight, LLHS, land, dash, rocket punch, super - not tons more difficult. It's not the best combo to hit, but for the meter you get from the hits, it's a lot less effort.

I'm really not liking the TAC mechanic. Between similarly skilled players it's fine, but it is SO abusive against beginners who are just kinda mashing or cannot keep up with what's going on in the game. Consider that the better player will certainly get more openings and block more attacks, inherently creating a difference in damage. Why does that player need to have access to 2 more meter bars, potentially for an unscaled OTG -> Lvl 3 super? Seems like overkill while also being hella random at times.

Temporary flavor of the month: walk forward and mash H at the start of the match. Throws are fast in this game, but there are no attacks to poke them out of an attempt, so at worse, you throw break if the other person is doing. I'm sure there will come a time where this is a mind game where you can dash back, jump or do something else, but for now, I think I'm going to start with Mags and just do this for a free combo.

Float Cancel with Storm is hilarious. Up, up really quickly to activate float, hit an attack to sink down immediately. I can't really foresee Storm being anything less than top tier in this game right now. She is still mobile as all fuck while staying safe. If she wants to rush, she can do it too - and like in MvC2, she wasn't the highest damage dealer, although I've noticed she can crossup someone's body when they've been knocked down hard (yh) due to her dash not being on the ground. For some small characters, she can dash straight through them from point blank even if they are standing. I can't wait for Justin Wong to demonstrate a Sentinel or Doom Assist call and dash crossup to create an opening.

Couple things off the top of my mind to test: hard knockdown, call assist, dash crossup, low light -> bnb, or float cancel -> bnb, or flight cancel ->bnb, or double dash back (not sure if there's enough time). Why is Storm such a ho?

Thank God Magneto has a harder time doing this.

PS - Anyone want to take a bet on my idiotic tendencies? As much as I want to keep playing Dante and Iron Man to be lame, I have to wonder if I will gravitate to MSS as if it were Marvel 2.

PPS - Arthur/Doom/Sentinel sounds like the best team on the face of this planet... for getting hatemail.

[buhwhyen]

Storm's only downside right now is that her damage got really scaled down, so she can't outright kill characters in a single combo w/o assists. Other than that she's really dumb. I mentioned earlier the instant overheads in the game, the one I was referring to was the up up special thing you mentioned. Basically you can call assist, run up/triangle jump short short, if it doesn't hit, go straight into an instant overhead up up special. It's so wrong, sosososo wrong. It's really to the point where Storm doesn't even need to triangle jump for the overhead hit anymore.

Sentinel...actually I see being more about his assist than as a point character - drone assist is just too damn good. The problem with Sentinel as a point character is that if you block just about anything, you can get combo'd for it. Block a max range cr.b, free combo, blocked special, free combo. Yeah it's really good online, but anyone smart enough to block will rape your face. Not to mention it's really difficult to deal with pixie characters since you can't stay in the air as easily as in MVC2. Also...because of Sentinel's gigantic hitbox, there are a lot of Sentinel-only instant overheads that work against him. Wolverine has one where he can hit a jump c? or something like that and go straight into drill claw/dive kick and combo. Kthx Jwong. Justin Wong also won't be playing Sentinel, he's publicly stated he hates how "easy and brain dead" Sentinel is...but Jwong has said a lot of bad things about MVC3 so eh.

Storm = top tier, Sentinel = maybe top tier, but certain characters can just rape Sentinel. Ameratsu's spammable beam projectile actually locks down Sentinel really badly...her low beam attack goes under high/low laser from Sentinel and also drones. Her angled up beam makes it difficult for Sentinel to jump over, and actually hits more often than it should when Sentinel is grounded. Ameratsu can also duck lasers when crouching, and her seal special move is hilariously good for controlling space and setting up some wicked frame traps (particularly on larger characters).

Recently my team has been: Dante(a), Storm(a), Ameratsu(b)
Right now I need a better assist character Dog assist is really good, but only to keep pressure and lock down, it comes out really slow and it whiffs at various ranges so it's feels like somewhat inconsistent lockdown since I'm not used to judging ranges on a screen that zooms in/out. Storm assist is actually...less amazing since I tend to rush down a lot more than play keep away, and the pushback on block is basically to full screen (similar to push blocking range if not further).

I really wish I liked Tron as a character, flame assist is one of the only invincible assists in the game. I also wished I liked Doom, so I could use beam assist or hidden missiles. Akuma's tatsu assist also seems to be invincible? or just have silly priority. Might play Zero or Wolverine, but both have some really unsafe shit that needs to be covered with assists. Magneto is always pretty high on my list to play, so I might switch Dante for Magneto or something.

I actually have been starting games with throw because it was the only way to consistently beat out people who mash at the start of rounds.

Speaking of online lag. I actually have lost a lot of desire to play the game just from the latency online. I have ~50 ms ping, and my opponents roughly the same I can feel the lag. I'll be inputting Dante air combos, and then literally just wait for them to finish so I can relaunch. It just makes me want to go for simpler combos to make sure I can at least get my damage and knockdowns, but it's really dumb that you have to adjust to latency by practicing what you wouldn't ever use in an offline game. Yeah it's nice they have online play as an option, but the netcode and amount of information and the speed it needs to be transmitted at is just makes it unrealistic to play a lagless game.

[Pikachu]

I hear you on the lag bit... it's such a bummer.

Wolvie's instant overhead is jump A... it hits on a lot of characters surprisingly. Obviously it's easier on Sent. So I guess you call, jump A, assist hits, drill claw, dive kick, <combo>. I think there is an assist-less method to it, but I haven't practiced it or anything.

And I need a new stick. Buttons are kinda sticking (nh) like Alvin's (yh).