Blazblue Taxonomy

Note I am so tired of Arc system works, system and the DLC package they presented I have not added in any characters after the second BB version, Continuum Shift.

As mentioned this was supposed to be posted very briefly right after the GG taxonomy to be a follow up the track of Potemkin = Iron Tager, but more on the affected difference in the games thanks to the very abundant number of control characters in BB. However I had, to much to in the last months.

Anyway, in BB as can be see in the image. Their is a huge number of control characters. First of its pretty hard to right away order characters in BB when comparing it to other games, just from that every freaking character can use projectiles, I just played the touhou fighting game and that one has less projectiles then most games in BB. The problem with pointing out a characters position is for example in Jin cases, he got a lot of projectiles, even air projectile I would say hes kinda similar to Akuma in Street fighter(humor me), however when comparing Jin to for example Rachel he clearly is not close to the control the gameplay is with her. I have to say to that I never really liked playing Rachel while she is similar to Venom, which I relay like in GG. Its probably the fact he is a blind pool player using 4th wall attacks, that is simply to cool to not like. Anyway Jin got a lot of short combos, and easy access to them, making him a Short Combo Speed.

The problem the game has and is pretty know to as Iron Tager got a really huge bottom place in the Tier list is pretty clear. As Slow/Strong has a trouble some match up against control characters the game is gonna be pretty hard only having control characters. Furthermore the game only has one Fast/Weak which is the normal match up a Slow/Strong has an advantage.

 While I personally prefer playing control characters, I think its clear why this game do not favor that well at for any new users. Control is the hardest character to learn, and usually the hardest to(according to me empirical studies) when the user do not know how the their mechanic works. Its also the lack then of easy to learn characters, the only character know to be a "noob friendly" character is Noel, and because of her to much auto combos(reminds of Eddie from Tekken). Its usually frowned upon to play her.

While I am on BB, I was very disappointed in how boring it is to play Hazama, compared to playing Axl low. Its not boring to play Hazama but he just don't have the feeling Axl low has at all, however I guess it was not that surprising as Ragna feels like a really boring version of Sol-Badguy.
 Ghost rider, thats a fun evolution from Axl low in my eyes.

Taxonomy Guilty Gear XX

So the post before this was more for the gamers, trying to learn MVC3, this other Taxonomies will be more of a designer perspective etc.

Table: Guilty Gear Taxonomy.

First of all, in GG almost every character can do really long combos, so in comparisons with e,g Street fighter 4 it would place most of them in Fast/Weak or Short Combo Speed. But to do a Taxonomy correctly the game have to be analyzed in relation only between characters in the same game(more on this in the Blazblue Taxonomy), but we can make relations between the number of a specific arch type or talk about the games fundamental design.

As mentioned GG is a very fast phased game, and I think it has a pretty solid dispersion of characters, many of the 4 arch types with easier learning curve(the 4 four to the right).

But as GG is very combo oriented, the game do only have one Strong/Slow Potemkin. Well he is also kinda the base of a good example of Strong/Slow he lacks many of the mechanics other character has such as Dash. I remember I had a feisty debate about how bad Potemkin fits into the game, with a Potemkin Tournament player(at a SF Tournament), I was the one debating against him, while he was trying to defend his stand in playing Potemkin.
 But today(3 years later) I realize how wrong I was, well Potemkin might still be a little to much of a Strong/Slow, the game needs to have each arch type, and its kinda lacking to only having one. Arguably Order Sol is Strong/Slow(he is the closest) but not really there. So its a little lack in gameplay dynamics, and Potemkin is a little to easy to play when almost everyone is kinda "Fast/Weak", but its at leat much better then in the case of Iron Tager(Strong/Slow of BB next post)

UMVC3 Arch Type Taxonomy

I often hear/read about people playing MVC3 or UMVC3(or back in MVC2) and they cant really understand why they lose games even if they train with their specific character team a lot.
  There is a simple reasoning why, the team don't work.  As in Marvel vs Capcom, the arch type are far more of a extreme case then in other fighting games for example Street fighter(also why its much more interesting to study).

Table: Taxonomy of each character as of UMVC3, there is 3 characters I might should put in other areas.

As mentioned in my earlier works, the arch type create a different Gameplay against each other. Strong/Slow Vs Fast/Weak is one gameplay, Strong/Slow vs Strong Control is one gameplay etc.

 For gamers, in (U)MVC3 its important to realize the game truly is not balanced for 1v1 characters battle, but designed after a working team. Which would mean that you as a gamer should not for example pick 2 Fast/Weak characters as they are both countered by a Strong Slow. This might sound obvious, but I know that most people do not to this, but rather play with a pretty shity team to be frank.

I believe this is for a simple reason, if a person likes the Fast/Weak type of arch type gameplay they will want to play more of that, so they pick 2 or sometimes even 3 Fast/Weak.

For example I have a friend that only plays female characters(yes,,) and they usually are Fast/Weak(in games in general), so hes accommodated to the Fast/Weak gameplay, in BB he plays Taokaka, in Street Fighter Chun-Li or Ibuki(Speed Control), in GG Millia Rage and so on.
 So when he plays (U)MVC3, he plays Chun-Li, X-23 and Felicia. He also might play Zero(another Fast/Weak), sometimes he do play Hsien-Ko.
 With his normal team, facing for example Mike Hagger or The Hulk, anyone experienced to the game knows its 3 bad match ups.

A team consisting of all the same characters, have the upside of that if you learn to play one of the characters you probably can play all, the downside is, when you play against a person that can play all of his characters you will be crushed if he have the counter arch type to the one you are playing.
Side Note: It also has the upside of being more fun to only play one arch type if that is what you like is what people have told me in my field studies, this is true. But personally I enjoy (U)MVC3 as it let me change the Gameplay(arch type swap) during on play session, so for me its only better to play 3 distant oriented characters.

Summary:
Always have a team of 3 unique arch types, which should preferably not be a neighbor(my figure earlier post), for example you don't want a Strong Control + Control + X its better to have Strong Control + Speed Control + X in this case then Short Combo Speed,All Round or Explosive

Fighting genre design guidelines publication.

So today, I presented my

Fighting genre design guidelines.

Which has been published in the conference Sider 2012(today).

 Anyway, it its basically a summary of what I have earlier presented link it on my portfolio page).  

I am gaming with the Madcats one(to the left), Anton gaming with the Qanba 4Q and Ebbe playing with the drum set.

I brought my sticks(gonna write a rewivew of the qanba on soon), and unpsrungly my theories about what characters are harder to learn for new users where corect on this people to.

-more games you cant beat to come-

Games you cant complete without a guide Ogre battle

Ogre battle, March of the black Queen

First I want to say that this game is amazingly great. It has such a unique and good battle gameplay. And the different ways the user can clear the game is a very nicely done. Also why this game is such an incredible hard game to have the real ending. You should play this game- and not read this as I will now spoil the narrative-

One of the most unique games to snes, a very strange strategy game.

Basically any normal person will always get the bad ending of the game. This game do actually have an tutorial. But still blatantly have no Usability what so ever.

The game have several game mechanics important to completing the game that is never explained.
First of the game we have to answer question to determine our personality.

This is strange but actually a pretty cool start to a game, on the other hand the user really has to answer the question in a non truthful way to get an easier chance for the true ending. This is actually vastly important to the story progress, while never being explained. We get either Evil,Neutral, Neutral,Good.
Getting neutral 1 is funny to, is the suicidal samurai class for the main character, pretty nice first time playing the game, its instantly game over when the main character dies. 

When taking over cities in the game the leader of the group affects the games “reputation” meter, Something that is never explained either really(ok partly but not well enough). And its the alignment of the leader that affects if the meter goes up and down.

First of there is never explained how alignment works. And that is one classic problem with the game. For example to upgrade a class to a paladin, we need a knight to be at 60+ alignment.  But often every character will be at 0 alignment and then they can only become ninjas. Not even ninja master or evil ones because they are 10-20 alignment....Because a class called Evil One clearly is not pure evil. 
To gain alignment the player needs to not kill good characters. This means  we are not allowed to attack healers in the enemy team, just like in any other game, we would like to attack the healer first. We cant kill angels and other races that are viewed as good even if they try to kill us. And Its not OK to kill characters that are lower level neither.


Basically playing this game if you have not read a guide you will run around with 100 ninjas.

And this is only the ice berg of the game. That whole reputation meter, is vastly important to trigger story mode scenes. Which of course are all hidden. And the meter drops each time we lose a city in the game.
A normal play trough of ogre battle is to use a gryphon leader fly around and liberate all cities to get all power full tarot cards and then win the battle. Its supposed to be that we have to send a unit per city and defend it without ever losing a battle.
Of course the game have several hidden stages(which you will never find) the game also have hidden items, that are only find by walking around during the battles.
To get items in the game we have to run around aimlessly at places,. to get characters its often about flying to different towns 10 times.
This is the easiest character to unlock in the game.

this is how a normal play of this looks like roughly.(starts at 3.44)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta-UoPB3e2w&feature=related

There is of course also characters that shouldn't be allowed in to the army to make it more confusing.


To beat the game, the user has to constantly keep the repution meter at max, find all the secret hidden narrative parts(this is rideculles hard) find items, the user gets by just moving around at places. I mean really to get brunhilda which is a most to get the hidden stages the user has to run around on different islands. Etc there is no help in the game to know this. Keep playing hte gam the right way, always only kill leader and never good characters. And the main character cant be used. Never play with the main character, I mean it never use him/her(yeah one of the first game where user could pick gender).
 And never, use the Tarot Cards that lowers reputiton,

At a good point is that the secret characters who is unlocked is a very very strong. So at least the last stages becomes very easy.