Author Topic: Touhou 15.5: 東方憑依華 (Eastern Blooms of Possession) ~ Antinomy of Common Flowers  (Read 520142 times)

Hisoutensoku is a terrible game and its randomization up the ass can go fuck itself. I'm glad we're not going back to that ever again.

They just need to remove the little random elements that are left (the weather) and AoCF could easily be the best Touhou fighter.

What's so bad about the flying fighter games? I don't really play fighting games so I don't understand what's all the fuss about.

Someone educate me?  :3

Plubio

  • 宇宙少年
    • Suzunaan
What's so bad about the flying fighter games? I don't really play fighting games so I don't understand what's all the fuss about.

Someone educate me?  :3

I've never played Soku/HM/ULiL at a competitive level but as far as I know, HM had some terrible design decisions and overall a floppy character control. It was also relesased unfinished (Kokoro wasn't fully playable till August if I remember correctly).
I wouldn't be surprised if some people complained about the lack of pre-MoF characters, but I'm not totally sure.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2017, 10:28:24 PM by Plubio »

I HATE the floaty controls from HM onwards, and as a result I absolutely refuse to play these games.

Its really as simple as that.
I am not much of a fan of the fighting game genre as well. Its probably the genre I like the least. But At least the pre-HM fighters had good controls.

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
The issues with ULiL (and I'm going to focus on it here since it's basically Better HM) are that it' A) broken on a fundamental level and B) really poorly balanced.

Note that neither of these issues apply if you use it as a casual fighting game with your friends. In that aspect, it at least succeeds where HM never did. These issues all simply apply on the competitive level (i.e. more than a handful of matches once every few weeks).

A) The game is a three-lane fighter with no throws, no high-low mix-ups, no border escape, and no charged melee. The only way to break guards is a blockstring that forces a crush. Without meter, since blocking is so easy you're never getting meter. And if you can crush a guard, then the other player has no option but to take it since there are no border escapes.

This leads to B) As a result, characters can be sorted into two camps: Those who can actually break blocks with their strings, and those who cannot. The former completely dumpsters on the latter (to the point where an incredible amount of match-ups in the game are 9:1, meaning that one of the characters will win 90% of the time assuming equal skill), and the latter going against its own kind turns into really boring block-fests where the first person who can land a few hits can just run down the clock since neither person can actually break a guard, turning literally every match into a forced 50-50 (who lands the first hit?).  And even if the question becomes "well then, why not have everyone just play high tiers?", 1) the game becomes just Ichirin, Kokoro, and Byakuren (since they're exceptionally poorly balanced) which is boring as fuck from a diversity standpoint, and 2) these characters can end the game in about two combos or so, which is also boring as fuck.


ACoF would have to make a sweeping number of changes to fix the fundamental flaws that ULiL has, and I'm not sure they have any real interest in that. So it'l probably be doomed to maybe being played at cons and with friends in the west, since the lack of competitiveness means that there's not gonna be a community around it. (Also very people like the three-lane system, even if it was tightened up a lot in ULiL)

Critz

  • Heartwarming ★ Miracle
There is a method of escaping blockstun in ULiL though - defensive declaration. No doubt Tasofro is gonna take the reasons they implemented it for into consideration and either keep it or introduce another measure to make all blockstrings escapable in AoCF. Barrier guard is a thing as well.

Also, there's no use treating a fighting game like a solved tabletop game with perfect answers to situations. Not only people make and will make mistakes under pressure, but even against the characters with bad pressure, you will have to take the risk and try to escape sooner or later or suffer a guard crush - every character can apply stagger blockstrings (frame traps) and decide when to dash in for a reset, so it's just a matter of predictability. A different type of 50/50, but still a 50/50. It also helps that there are no non-spellcard invulnerable reversals save for Koishi's Fidgety Snatcher in the game.

HM did have an additional measure that forced people to not sit blocking and running away on HP advantage all the time (they would lose the round via popularity on timeout), but Tasofro decided against bringing it back for ULiL as it wasn't really necessary - I saw enough Tenco replays back in the day to know that the win ratio of any matchup isn't even close to 9:1. And this is coming from a Sanae 12.3 player, who also has to stagger pressure all the time by virtue of her having nothing tight to work with on the offensive xD.

Hell, if Tasofro really wanted to kill any potential extreme turtling strategies, they only would have to do the simplest thing and remove the timer, as it is no longer needed for popularity. In IaMP, you could absolutely not kill a blocking opponent, so a match could potentially last an eternity - and yet I've never seen that being a problem, as you won't win the game via blocking either, and thus will have to take the risk sooner on later - and in ULiL, you can kill a blocking opponent via a guard crush. The only problem that would pose is if they ever wanted to bring Touhou fighters into real arcade cabinets, where you need the timer.

As for the flying ground system being a turnoff, you might have a point. But the Touhou fighters never were your typical airdashers to begin with, with the bullet graze mechanics - so taking one another experimental step shouldn't drive away fighting game purists, who were never the target in the first place.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2017, 12:18:25 AM by Critz »

I don't have any evidence about these characters but I'm p. sure the last words will still be urban legend related. So, here are some non-ULiL characters with relatable urban legends:
Sakuya Izayoi - Jack the Ripper
Remilia Scarlet - Bloody Mary
Alice Margatroid - Okiku Doll (different story from Okiku and the 9 Plates)
Lunasa Prismriver - Lavender Town Suicides
Yuyuko Saigyouji - Aokigahara (I know it's a real place and that there are lots of suicides there)
Yukari Yakumo - Teke Teke (trains)
Sanae Kochiya - Any urban legend (miracles happen)
Rin Kaenbyou - Tomino's Hell or Shichiinin Misaki
Utsuho Reiuji - Mutations of Chernobyl
Murasa Minamitsu - Bermuda Triangle
Nue Houjuu - Any urban legend (look at her Double Spoiler spellcards)
Seiga Kaku -Shichinin Misaki
Soga no Tojiko - Shichinin Misaki
Clownpiece - Supermoon's Lunatic Effect

The final boss will probably use an urban legend related to Misakis and the only one is the Shichinin Misaki. (which I connected to 3 different characters)

True in my opinion the most chance goes to Seiga, Tojiko and Clownpiece to return.

And also remember the fact that there is no silhouette, so the final boss might not actually be a new character.

game2011

  • mineiptXD
    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
Lunasa Prismriver - Lavender Town Suicides
And also remember the fact that there is no silhouette, so the final boss might not actually be a new character.
I don't think Nintendo and GameFreak will allow ZUN and Tasofro to reference stuff from their games.

And the game's actual cover hasn't been shown yet.  Where are you getting the silhouette from?
« Last Edit: April 16, 2017, 01:12:42 PM by game2011 »

Lt Colonel Summers

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • Do not mess with a soldier
Lunasa Prismriver - Lavender Town Suicides

Maybe Gloomy Sunday is more suitable for Lunasa?
There's nothing inscribed on the dog tag...

OrbOrigin

  • "The galaxy of light is calling me!"
And also remember the fact that there is no silhouette, so the final boss might not actually be a new character.

Truth be told, every main games and interquel fighting games (any .5 titles) has at least a silhouette preview of the final boss of the game's jewel case, and AoCF is no exception.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2017, 01:52:44 PM by OrbOrigin »

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
-snip-

The issue is that, without those added complexities that IaMP/SWR/Hisou had, ULiL is effectively a solved game.

http://tenco.info/game/6/type1_vs_type1_stats/

Here. I'll let the stats do the talking for me. For reference, http://tenco.info/game/2/type1_vs_type1_stats/ here are Hisouteonsoku's stats.

These match-up stats aren't weighted (which is why nothing quite hits the 8:2 or 9:1 level since those levels of MU dispariites only happen at high levels), but they're an easy at-a-glance representation of how utterly unbalanced ULiL is 2 years in - more than enough time to reach the point of meta.  Even killing off the turtling issues wouldn't be sufficient to fix the extreme levels of imbalance that exist within the cast, and I don't really have confidence in tasofro to do that after two games in a row of exceptionally poor balance.


Also the silhouette isn't shown until the jewel case is shown. This has been the case for every game up until this point - the logo's always been teased first, then the silhouette and jewel case are shown w/ the trial version.

lotta people who don't regularly play fighters see strong corner pressure and are just, well, this is ugly/awful/dumb/bad. they're not necessarily wrong, but... the fact of the matter is that, in a well-designed one, to get into that situation in the first place you had to have done several wrong guesses in a row beforehand. 'two combos ends the match' doesn't state how much work it is to get those two combos going on anyone who knows how to defend against their midscreen game, you know?

most of my issue with soku wasn't the randomness, which is still bad, just not the worst part of the game, but that the modified cancel system (strict A->B->C, delayed movement cancel timings) simplified footsies dramatically, so the game you played to avoid getting stuck into these situations got dramatically less interesting while also putting more emphasis on the corner game itself. border escapes were just a bad band-aid over a system that didn't work.

tenco's charts have never been useful since they don't break down by skill levels. balance varies dramatically based on the levels of the players involved; it's a moving target and not something absolute and global. and tbh, iamp's gotten to the point where sakuya/marisa/alice are so undeniably above everyone else at the high end it's not like i can make a claim towards good balance for that game, either. it had a good run tho.

imo, tasofro is making the correct games for the audience touhou has currently. don't worry so much about competitive balance and enjoy them for what they are.

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
I have to say that I'm absolutely looking forward to ACoF as a single player thing and maybe a romp with friends. In that regard, ULiL was an enjoyable experience as it didn't feel like total shit to play like HM did. I also agree that this is the right decision for them to make for the fighting games moving forward. But at the same time, I can't help but feel that the goal of a fighter that has lasting appeal and the goal of one that's fun for a single player/casual experience are not incompatible, and feel some frustration at Tasofro's lack of attempts to balance the game to allow for some longevity.

Tenco's stats are horribly unweighted, yes (and are further diminished in use by the lack of resets ever), but even then no fighting game intended to be played competitively should have the completely outlandish w/l rates ULiL has. I also chose to use it instead of the more refined MU ratios you can get from talking to people in the know + looking at individual profiles of high ranking players since that's well outside of the scope of a simple post arguing "hold your horses, ULiL is actually pretty bad."

like wtf Miko has 7 match-ups with sub 40% win-rates, Marisa has 11 that are well above an already outlandish 55%, and Byakuren has 9 above 55%. None of these numbers should ever happen, much less all three at once combined with the shitshow that the game becomes if you assume both players are high level. I absolutely agree that balance is a moving target, but ULiL shows they flat out don't care about balance, they just want to make a doofy air/3-lane fighter (arguably Hisou was even a lucky exception here since it's full of useless or dumb shit). Which is ultimately fine, I just wish they'd actually balance it. But that's just a nice bonus and far from necessary, and I'll probably buy ACoF either way (though probably wait a month or two for them to inevitably patch it like sixty times.).

Gpop

  • Subconscious Rose Girl, Koishi
  • FIRST PLACE BAYBEE!
Uhh question. Do those stats take patches into account? Because Marisa used to be god tier in the initial versions, but now she's not that great anymore since they destroyed her j.A.

tenco's charts are useless for a lot of reasons:

* they don't clear out per revision, as stated, so old data still populates the list
* there's no sliding window to indicate only recent game data, it's all or nothing
* they don't factor in relative skill levels in their scoring, which means popular newbie-smashing characters make it like ranking flowchart kens higher because newbies get blown up by it.
* many higher skilled players never bothered registering with tenco (TR comes to mind)
* shrinking playerbase means that the data that does show up is skewed towards the people that still play; eg if there's no serious players of character X, she will rank lower, or other characters will be over-represented.

the best you can say from that data is that marisa was popular for beating up players for some period of time, and that miko's harder to play than other characters.

really, most fighters have a few chars that bad or good, tbh. 'balance' was never really a prerequisite until the modern age when people scream up and down at seeing the same characters tournament after tournament. heck, it's only in the modern age that capcom's made even a token effort with SF4/SFV, without a whole lot of success tbh, as patches mostly just changed the top tiers around. ST(boxer/claw), A2(rose/chunli), A3(pffthahahaha), 3S(chun-li/yun/ken) weren't exactly without their problems. and then in games with big rosters you have the problem of, like, multiple characters all being good at the same general thing so you pick the one that's best at doing the thing.

you should be more concerned how the game flows/plays in a general sense at that tier than overall game balance, because honestly it just is not that relevant to most players.

iamp these days goes like sakuya/marisa/alice >> remilia/suika/reimu >>> give up ok look i guess you can play patchouli if you really like playing high APM >>>> meiling. it's pretty okay but finals are probably going to have one of those top three, and i can't say i'm too fond of what sak and alice turn the game into, in all honesty. and i guarantee if you took averages over all matches like tenco does, alice would come out looking garbage as you have to be amazing to play her at that level and there's only ever been a few who could do it.

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
Again, I don't necessarily disagree, but it's just to give at an-at-glance representation of how flawed the game is on any level, and that's literally the only easy graph that's out there to point to. The actual MUs are *way* worse, and it's like IaMP where it just devolves into the top 3 (Ichirin, Kokoro, Byakuren). Agaiin, I understand and fully agree they're horribly flawed, but it's the easiest way I can think of to provide a showcase of "why it's a bad game" in the face of counter-arguments  (and yeah, Marisa wouldn't be remotely as high as she is if people actually played post-patches and there was enough of a desire to set up actual community stats, which I suppose is the more damning take-away from this).

I'm more concerned with longevity personally, and balance is a huge part of that. Sure, every fighter tends to have one or two bad characters, and usually one or two utterly exceptional ones. At times, ones that even utterly break the game (hi akuma and you air fireballs how you doin). But ULiL devolves at any level into high tiers shit-stomping low tiers, and low tiers being utterly unfun to play (and it's a personal thing but the rocket tag nature of high level play isn't terribly fun either from what I've watched/had limited experience with since nobody plays it and the only way I can know about these MU numbers is asking questions and getting second-hand discussion). And yes, one can argue this is a problem of fighters of the present that never was one in the past, since in the past you had situations like MvC2 where it was just the top 4 and god forbid you try anyone else, but now roster balance/diversity is a real concern and that's the now. Sure, it's not really a concern at a lower level unless there's a particularly poor balancing effort, but it takes really devoted, invested players to set up a community, and that just won't happen if the balance is utter shite.

Though yeah I will fully concede that game flow/play is ultra important even before the step of "but what about roster balance" and many people were soured on the initial utter mess that HM was. But I feel like ULiL did make some real big upgrades to the fun aspect, and if they tightened it up more and did some serious balancing passes we could at least wind up with a fun distraction that gets enough interest for a acofroll and a modest player-base for a bit

aaand yeah there's two reasons I'm personally uninterested in trying to get into IaMP even though it has fewer RNG elements, and that's one of them. Other one being the player base is way hella tiny in comparison to hisou's, which is already p modest..

believe me i wouldn't recommend anyone get into iamp now, it's impossible for newcomers. i should know, i still don't lose matches to anyone who hasn't been playing 5+ years. (and i'd have to get back into serious practice if i wanted to get a win on any of the jp regulars! that's not happening.)

i don't think soku is bad, but it sees what i am looking for in the genre and runs in the opposite direction as hard as it can.

imo, it's more of a problem if the game is 'boring' than if it's 'bad.' hopeless's original sin was just being incredibly dull to actually play. the characters were flying around, doing fun things, but the player wasn't.

you can have fun with a game that respects the player's effort and time, even if the game itself is kind of jank/unbalanced/whatever. and that's all that's really important.

we'll see how this one turns out. personally i'll be happy if the demo runs without needing hacks this time.

PapilLionesskort

  • "Perfectly Immoral Moral Person"
  • Pretty much just lurking innocently

We now *have* a silhouette, in case anyone was wondering.
EDIT: Never mind, that appears to be a troll, it seems.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2017, 06:24:44 AM by PapilLionesskort »
Write or fight, same thing. You might as well come out swinging either way.<3 Just not too hard, as that's no fun.

game2011

  • mineiptXD
    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
It's fake?  Got me hyped for nothing...

But then, it too early for the jewel case to be shown.

PapilLionesskort

  • "Perfectly Immoral Moral Person"
  • Pretty much just lurking innocently
At least it's just another 16 days before anything should happen.  :V
Write or fight, same thing. You might as well come out swinging either way.<3 Just not too hard, as that's no fun.

It's not like Ulil and HM are trash on the competitive perspective, even from a casual perspective I did not find these games fun at all. The wacky float fighter just doesnt work out and everything just feels so out of control...

All I'm hoping for is that AoCF will either refine the float system so badly that it'll actually be fun and/or a general change of basics.

OrbOrigin

  • "The galaxy of light is calling me!"
It's not like Ulil and HM are trash on the competitive perspective, even from a casual perspective I did not find these games fun at all. The wacky float fighter just doesnt work out and everything just feels so out of control...

All I'm hoping for is that AoCF will either refine the float system so badly that it'll actually be fun and/or a general change of basics.

Or we could hope that all characters' boots on the ground again; similar to IaMP, SWR and Soku, along with new features like taunt or stage hazard.

Story-wise, I hope this will concludes the urban legend incident with their respective urban legends will dissapear for good.

ZoomyTsugumi

  • zoom zoom
Never really understood the hate for the floaty system. Honestly I felt like it was really cool, and I specifically liked the fact that it made it feel like there was a whole lot more combo potential especially with switching between the lanes during them.  So many of the moves hit differently if you use them in each of the 3 lanes and then can string on with other attacks depending on where you are.

I want the timer gone for sure (or at least removable), and I'd love to have the HM customisable moveset back (with different properties for different placements too), and I'd honestly be happy with this.

combos are kind of easily the least interesting part of the genre if you're doing anything other than watching videos tho

Even though uncompetitive, I do miss the Deck System. It added so much diversity to playing even a single character. Nothing like that feeling when you get *just* the right card in a tough moment.

Them putting their boots on the ground again wouldve been great, but since they already announced they'll reuse assets we'll likely have to deal with wacky float again.

~Shin Kuroi~

  • Sleepy Cat
  • fuwaaa... sleepy...
the thing i'm most concerned about is the netplay.

HM and ULiL have horrible netplay. it's virtually unplayable. i really, really hope they fix that.

i love soku, but it'd be nice tew have something else for a game as well.
yawn...

N-Forza

  • Information Superhighway Robbery
  • *
  • I said it was a steal, but not for whom
Excepting Japanese games that have no intention to expand beyond the domestic market where internet speeds are blazing fast and distances are negligible to have optimized netplay is vain hope.

Gpop

  • Subconscious Rose Girl, Koishi
  • FIRST PLACE BAYBEE!
Even though uncompetitive, I do miss the Deck System. It added so much diversity to playing even a single character. Nothing like that feeling when you get *just* the right card in a tough moment.
Actually, that's the kind of thing I want to actively avoid in a fighter. I'd rather have 100% control in my options, not just praying to RNG that I get a skill or SC at the right moment or not having it when I do need it, etc.

HM's deck system is probably my favourite though. It does the diversity thing except better.

CrestedPeak9

  • Fangame Advocate
For me, HM was virtually unplayable because no dash button :v

That said, ULiL was amazing and I have a lot of fun playing with a friend, even though both of us are terrible at fighting games.

If AoCF can improve upon ULiL, then we'll have no hesitation on switching over.
Lunatic 1cc: EoSD, PCB, IN, MoF, TD, DDC, LoLK, HSiFS, WBaWC

Gray21oh

  • An excuse for a title
  • This is suppose to be nonsensical except it isn't
I'm definitely hoping that AoCF will be the next big Touhou fighter though ultimately I'm wondering if it can even break the mold of HM/ULiL's engine by being something people actively want to put time into and have some fan made lobby ala Hisoutensoku's Soku Lobby to circumvent the wonky netplay that's oh so wonky in general doujin games.

But who knows with how Soku is it'll REALLY have to prove itself. Which I hope it does cause good grief I really cannot get into Soku anymore and I wanna fight more people in ULiL (PS4 specifically because of all it's beautiful boons)