IGN update

Freddie wrote:

"Ideally, I would like a variety of diff stages...somewhat like ur suggestion...but isn't that VF3?"

well, it would be more like VF3, yeah. But just to put things in perspective: it'd also put VF back on par with every other major 3D fighting game at the moment, as DOA, Tekken and SC ALL have stages that are 100% unique. In those games, and in VF3, each stage was different. This just made for more variety.

In VF1 & 2, every stage was the same. In VF3 every stage was different. Slowly, all other fightng games followed this trend, so that now stages in 3D fighting games tend to have quite a bit of variety. Although I don't really like the huge environmental damage, I think DOA's stages are the coolest in any 3D fighter out atm, you really feel like you're in the places, and there's great variety of contemporary, natural and classical settings. Also, and you can see this with VF3 and Tekken 4, when the camera isn't forced to always be showing the edge of the ring (as it is when you're in the geometric settings of VF4), the camera can pull in much closer to the action, making the characters larger on the screen. IMO this is why VF4 adopted the "zoom-in-for-cool-animation" trick, which is the only time the camera can really get in close, when we aren't playing, but watching an animation.

In VF4, there is NO Difference between Shun, Vanessa, Pai and Wolf's stages. Aoi, Lau, Kage and Jeffry's stages are the same stage. Akira, Lei, and Sarah's stages: same. etc.... There's really only 3 or 4 stages in a game with 15 characters. I don't know how anyone can enjoy seeing the series go from 12 unique stages to the simple system we have now. Even if kept flat, stages like Taka's and Akira's VF3 stages show that a little variety goes a long way.

Some might say that being combo'd down a slope sucks, but I think it's exciting! It was wild in VF3 when people would get counter hits down slopes, or were able to get off strange slope-only combos. When was the last time you saw someone score a RO w/ Wolf or Jeffry's pick-up ground throws in VF4? In VF3 this was a HUGE part of their game (partially due to the great range of those throws), some of that was because of stage design. I miss those things.

I know Sega doesn't care about what anyone outside Japan thinks when it comes to VF, and that people who'd like to see more variety have made it clear. But, to me this is an area in which VF is now CLEARLY behind other 3D fighting games, and I think casual observers, fans of other games and a few people around here would agree. It's sad to see AM2 lose out on an innovation they created.

Bryan

 

It's a matter of balance IMO if you have even playing fields that's one thing but not all of them have to be a perfect square. What about rounded off or triangulated. Multi-tier would be nice too. A welcome change to semi-easy ringout situations. It also adds a bit of strategy to how you're going to fight. Tradition is nice but there are plenty of good ideas out there that can be taken advantage of. That's all I have to say on the subject. Good day to you all. /versus/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

I think people need to remember really why VF4 had flat stages.

VF4 was merely responding to an observation. Sure, in 1P mode, varied stages are great. But 99% of the time that people would choose a stage to have a versus match, they chose the flatter stages - Akira, Taka, Jacky, etc.

Shadowdean, sometimes I think you think that it's fun and games over at Sega. That a "minor" change in flat rings is "easy". A lot of the aspects of any game are made in a boardroom with developers, producers etc. These people, no offense, have far more expertise than you do. Also, this is not about making everyone happy. It's about continuing a series in which Sega can be profitable. Furthermore, this game is not the vision of the gamer - i.e. you. It's the vision of the producers of the game. And guess what? Maybe flat square rings is what they envision to be VF5.

I have to agree with Jerky. Stop whining. I know you're stating your preference, but think more about how you're projecting that preference. You could have said "Oh snap. The demo has flat stages, maybe the release will have undulated versions, because I really enjoyed them." Then no one think you're a whiner.

anyway. cheers.

 

Llan - if sega was really concerned with profit they would make a game after Tekken, since internationally it is leaps and bounds more successful....And did I lambast flat stages? No. Hell, Taka's stage I thought was sheer brilliance due to the edge games that came out. Maybe flat stages is what they had invisioned, again - I do not particuarly care what anybodys vision is for the game - I care about my gameplay experince. Maybe someone envisioned two stick figures clobbering each other over the head with just 4 moves...does that mean I should support it should they achieve their goal?
And do I care who/what sega is trying to please? No, in the end I am concerned with my experince.
Having known people who work in software and hardware development in all sorts of industries, I know that it is not just fun and games - hell, there really are no jobs that are just fun and games.

 

I thought the producers of VF4 explicitly stated that they decided on the flat and square stages because of the views expressed by the majority of japanese players. So really, Sega is catering to their players, but not people in NA. Since we aren't really contributing to their most profitable venue. So really, maybe you don't care about their vision or their goals, but at the same time, they aren't catering to you either. So why do you expect the game to be what you like?

 

Srider,

this is only partially true, because while the PS2 versions of VF4 sold poorly in Japan (especially Evo), both games sold very well outside Japan (I was told that Evo sold over a million copies on PS2 in US/Europe, I'm sure VF4 did pretty well too).

Sure the arcade markets are different, but Am2 themselves program & create the home versions of the games, even the versions for foreign markets. Shouldn't they care what players think when the sales are 10X higher in these other markets? I have no illusions they they DO or WILL care, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't.

Also, what people say in magazines etc about games & why they are a certain way can often be total bullshit, like when Yu Suzuki told me Taka was taken out of the game because he was "unpopular" at E3, which is just a bold-faced lie.

Players requesting that undulation be removed, I can believe. But does anyone really think there are people out there that requested that the stages be extremely limited in variety, all the same shape, and square? "What we'd really like to see is all the stages be basically the same, that'd be awesome!".

We're basically flogging a dead horse, I guess I'm just suprised that people would PREFER the game have less variety and be more boring.

Bryan

 

Bryan - I agree with what u said abt the levels themselves giving u the exciting feeling...it's almost like it add's on another layer of yomi.

Personally, I especially love pai's stage on vf3. sickening!

Flat rings do the same too..just a different kind.

And yeah..the environment in DOAU..just awesome to even take ur character n go for a walk!

 

Myke,

I guess maybe a better way to put it is this: I'm suprised that when discussing a new version of VF, many people's responses seem to be "the way VF4 deals with stages is perfect, and there's no need to change things."

If this is how people really feel, that's their opinion, and it's as valid as anyone's. But from the other thread running about "What'd You like to See?", you can see that people who're kinda new to VF'd like to see more variety in the stages, too. If I were making VF5, I'd listen just as much, if not more, to the people who aren't hardcore, but are interested, because they're your POTENTIAL audience: the people who play other fighters but are for one reason or another not able to get fully into VF. The hardcore will most likely play no matter what, even if they hate the new version (look at T4, people all still played it).

I get the sense from your post that too much terrain takes away from the "purity" of the fighting action, and I can usderstand that. But I'll tell you a true story. One of the reasons I quit Judo was because of a serious injury to my knee, a torn ACL (ligament). This happened because when my oppt tried to throw me to the side, my upper body moved, but my foot stayed planted. This was because my sweaty foot stuck to the surface of the rubber "tatami" we were fighting on. Anyone that practices martial arts will tell you that footing & footwork are one of the most fundamental aspects of fighting. DOA has special staggers for water and snow areas (and even special "water throws"), I'm not saying that VF should have these things, but they're interesting ideas, and they're really true real fighting as well, at a very basic level.

Llanfair mentioned Taka, Akira, and Jacky's stages in VF3. Even this really limited slice of conservative stages from VF3 offered more variety than all the stages in VF4 combined:

Taka: relatively small, round, open stage. RO a serious threat.

Akira: Standard shape, 2 sides with Wall, 2 with RO.

Jacky: Roughly triangular shape, one side with Wall, rest of the stage open, some mild undualtion on 2 sides.

So yeah, what's really missing to me is the variety. It's made more painfull to me because VF3 had the market for variety cornered (still no game matches the ammount of variation in terrain of VF3). It's a step backwards. Like I said before, in VF3 and all other current 3D fighters, every stage is different. Can't we at least have some different SHAPES in our flatness? Am2 said it themselves: VF4 is the sequel to VF2, not VF3.

I remember when VF4 came out, we all moaned the loss of the E button. 4 years later, most would probably say they preferred the new way (except maybe me and Freddie). Seems like many people now feel VF4 is a perfect game, and that all the new ideas brought forth in VF3 that were left out of VF4 (that everyone used to love, before VF4) should be left in the past. To their credit, the creators of other fighting games have taken ideas presented in VF3 and ran with them, and those games have become better because of that. I mentioned this before, but DOA, SC and T5 all show just how much variety can come out of the simple mix of flat stages, walls, and RO (T5 and SC have no undulation, DOA has only a little). Those games are using the same ingredients, but coming up with so much more.

VF heads used to point to things like VF3's E button, the gorgeous stages with walls, undulation, RO etc (before other games had any of that) and say "See, you don't even have to play to see that VF is a superior game, look at all that's going on! There's just so much more to it, it's like a real world, not this abstact little square". Now that everyone else has caught up, we'll try to claim that our way is more pure, or on some higher conceptual level of what a fighting game really is? Smells like we've started to buy our own bullshit to me.

But now we're going to play VF5. Should Am2 proceed with the idea that VF4 is perfect, and that it just needs minor changes? Or should they go back to the drawing board, as VF has always done? Should they ignore the ideas presented in all other modern 3D games?

Maybe it's because I'm a visual artist, and I'd like to have more in the way of beautiful settings where characters tread on grass, walk in water, square off in a shadowy forest... Fighting games have always been known for beautiful scenery. Maybe I'm tired of feeling like I'm confined to a kind of cage when I play VF4. It's just my taste, same as yours. But I don't feel there's any valid reason to have only 3 or 4 real stage designs, even if keeping to the flat/geometric standard.

Can we have a Triangle? A long Rectangle? A Circle? An Octagon (if you like Tournament settings)? Is there any good reason not to?

The combo variety that exists in VF4 isn't because they removed the undulation homie, you know that. It's due to:

1. VASTLY expanded command lists from VF3 to VF4FT. Seriously, the addition of new commands from this gap over the gap from 2 to 3 is big. Take Sarah for example, Flamingo alone has added scores of new Combos to her game.

2. Improved "Bounce" and Ground combo system. While there were Flop and OTB combos in VF3, both ideas have been heavily fleshed out and tuned in VF4, with many characters now having the standard "High 14-Frame Flop" attack.

3. Return of "Modified Commands". VF3 seriously toned down VF2's bufferable Crouch Dash system so that characters like Lau and Akira purposefully couldn't use Upknives and DblPms as much in Combos. VF4 brought this back. How much variety would Aki's combo game have in VF4 if you couldn't do a buffered DblPm? W/out that one ability, Aki's combo list in the Orange Book goes from 26 combos to 13.

4. Tech Roll: most of VF3's staple combos were ugly and unded quickly for a reason: so you could always tack on a guaranteed Down Attack/Throw. Example: Jeffry's +->+->+/++. Looks bad, works good.

Can you imagine the combo variety we'd have if we could play VF4 on VF3 stages? I bet over a hundred new combos would result. Horrible images of Sarah combos on a slope come to mind, but I know Am2'd balance it, they always do (in VF4 version A Jacky can do +->+).

"I get the impression that people think VF4's stages are about as complex as sidescrolling bitmap, and it's upsetting if their understanding of each stage is really that shallow."

It's not that the stages aren't interesting, it's that there's really only 4 of them. And in most, to be honest, there really ISN'T that much to think about, it's usually either you register "this stage has RO" or "this stage has a wall" before the fight. Generally you're better with your back away from both, but each character has a few ways to turn this tide. If I'd have asked you in VF3 time if you thought the stages were too complex, I doubt you'd have anwsered yes, although maybe you'd have said sometimes Kage's elbow whiffed when you were uphill /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

I'm not gonna go on, I'm just rambling because the board is pretty dead otherwise, and TBO, on other sites there's big discussion and speculation going on about the new versions of DOA and T5. It's fun to talk about people's preferences and ideas, but I feel a kind of "quit whining, Sega won't listen to us, VF4's way is ideal, so let's be quiet" attitude here.

I think Yamagishi put it best: "Some people like VF3, some people like VF4... VF4 is a speedy game, fast commands win. VF3 is like a puzzle game, mental puzzles win".

We've seen the sequel to VF2, I wanna see the sequel to VF3 AND 4 combined. Best of both of those 2 worlds would be a HELL of a game.

Bryan

 

My question is... how come everyone hates the castle stage in VF4 home version... you know, the one where you're in a cage filled with water....

 

(Out of topic) becos the music is TERRIBLE...that's my own peeve with that stage....

Back to the topic, ummm good point son!
Anyway...perhaps a good balance is to keep the wall stages aka FT style...

But when it comes to open stages...do something new with them? Maybe that might be the next innovation from AM2.

 

[ QUOTE ]
My question is... how come everyone hates the castle stage in VF4 home version... you know, the one where you're in a cage filled with water....

[/ QUOTE ]

its way too small?

 

I loved the castle pool stage, that is until homestay alira came to jersey to explain to me why its pretty lame through various examples involving my head and his akira's many bs moves.

 

Gonna TRY to keep it concise /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Myke said:

I don't mind that the VF4's stage structures are subtly different, unlike VF3. While some people think they're all boring and the same, I believe there's ample detail with each stage for the astute player to notice and take advantage of.

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OK, I'm looking at my book here, and it spells out what IMO is the problem:

Vanessa, Pai, Wolf's stages: Identical
Shun's stage: exact same as above, but 12X12 instead of 10X10.
Lei, Akira, Sarah's stages: Identical
Jacky & Lion's: Identical
Jeffry, Aoi, Kage, Lau, and Dural's stages: Identical.

So we'll say there's 5 types to be fair. That's my point, if you were playing on Wolf's stage, and they turned the graphics off, then secretly changed it to Vanessa's stage mid-fight, then to Pai's stage, it wouldn't make any difference, you'd think you were in the same stage; because you are, just with a different paint job. Within the 5 types, there is no variety, it's just graphics.

5 stage types for a game with 15 characters? If the task were given to me, and I had to stay in the rules of VF4's Geometric stages, I might do things like:

A stage with High Walls on 2 sides, no walls on the other 2
A long rectangle with Walls at the end, sides open
A Great Wall-ish stage, long with Break-ables spaced randomly with gaps along the sides
A ring with 3 high walls, one open side
High walls where the bottoms could be smashed out, but the top would remain
High walls with holes in them
An "L" shaped stage, all 90 deg. angles. Imagine trying to RO someone across the corner but they land on the other side
etc.

Even if it's Flat and all 90 deg. angles, there could be 15 (now17) TRULY unique stage types for us to think about & enjoy. Things that could affect play, not just eye candy. I also miss how the VF3 stage designs reflected the characterss styles and personalities: Shun's stage actually moved like it was drunk, Taka's ring etc.

And like I said, if we had all VF4's systems and added undulation, we'd have even MORE variety, isn't that a good thing?

Srider, I like the castle stage, and it's a good example of what I mean: the fact that people hate that stage shows a little variety can go a long way. It's only 2m smaller, but makes a big difference, RO and Wall must be considered constantly, I think it's fun.

Bryan

 

Spotlite - I think you hit the head on the nail with most of the VF community buying into their own b.s..
btw - you never went back to judo? How bad was the tear?

 

Why not just have both kinds, VF3 and VF4 style stages. Before a match starts the players can agree upon what type of stage they wantt o fight in.

 

agreement. not always likely. the only thing you could do is have an option for stage select with undulation on or off. challenging player would get the option of selecting the stage the same way it is now.

Undulation really screws with matches. I remember hearing that AM2 built the cave stage (dural's stage) in VF3 to be the ultimate tournament stage because it entered so many variables. The players, however, almost always chose flat stages because they only really wanted to deal with one (major) variable...their opponent.

I have no problems with undulation being in a future VF as long as stage selection is an option because I can see being pissed off (as I was in VF3) when my elbow passes through my opponent or when my hands grasp at empty air because the recognized throw zone is 4 virtua inches below the predetermined limit. I would, however, LOVE to see irregular rings as long as they were designed so there were no inherent issues with being on P1 or P2 side from the start. I don't see anything different or more difficult in ring navigation with this being included than what is already present.

GE

 

[ QUOTE ]
GodEater said:

agreement. not always likely. the only thing you could do is have an option for stage select with undulation on or off. challenging player would get the option of selecting the stage the same way it is now.

...

GE

[/ QUOTE ]

No kidding, just look at this forum or even this thread. make up our minds for us because this'll just bring the retarded online flamewars into our own front rooms.

 

Didn't VF3 do that with flat stages and undulated stages? Just make both types of stages to satisfy everybody.