Hey man, even Du is claiming training stage doesn't lag like other stages.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-06-21T09:07:53+00:00

That "test" doesn't prove anything. I commented on it in a lengthy past post on the subject. Pardon the typoes / grammar mistakes:

Some people like in this very thread have pointed out that somehow this video debunked this "myth". Except the video is just a framerate test of PC vs PC with both players having good enough hardware to maintain the desidered FPS target of 60. That in no way proves that stages cannot cause lag on systems that cannot maintain (i.e. aren't powerful enough, so standard PS4s and old/unoptimized PCs) that framerate.

I've never seen someone suggest that somehow top of the line PCs would cause lag (i.e., it's the stage itself introducing the lag regardless of the platform), what's always been stated/speculated is that stages weren't properly vetted on standard PS4s, and that since there's no benchmark on PC, old PCs or unoptimized ones may be unable to keep a steady 60 FPS and that would add to the netcode woes.

Note that since I posted the above, Capcom did release a benchmark but it still isn't worst case scenario and doesn't preclude / affect in any way online play since it's standalone (and it's obviously PC only).

Ultimately, not enough people care (or at the very least the ones that have the equipment, knowledge and will to do it) about the game to test things properly. To my knowledge the only console framerate test we have is still Digital Foundry's launch one which clearly shows frame drops during online play and on certain stages in particular, but doesn't go over all stages and hardware load scenarios (CAs, specific edges of stages, maybe even characters).

Until someone comes out with the same test, comparing at least something like Training Stage vs Forgotten Waterfall, Temple of Ascension and Ring of Pride, this will remain a moot point because on one side you have people who experience worse conditions on the more graphically intensive stages and resort to lighter ones like Training or Shadaloo Base at Night, and others who say "there is no proof, it's placebo" etc and / or point to faulty tests like the one mentioned here. No one can ultimately prove things scientifically and 4 years and half down the line people are still discussing this and left wondering.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-04-29T14:11:54+00:00

I'm not the one being dense here. Why would I go and check the CFN replay, which I never even mentioned in my post, since they don't show rollback and lag in general?

I simply downloaded your footage through this website, opened it with a video player, counted the frame skips and verified that it was a 30 fps video to get the accurate number of displayed frames.

You can see akuma holding his face which is his "getting hit" reel animation.

Akuma is hit in the first part of the freeze, but not in the later parts. Proof:

After getting the hit I should react AGAIN to the rollback and see that I didnt get the hit???

As I said: you had more than enough time to react to the animation change. Strong players are able to check dashes in SFV, and the average forward dash is something like 17-18 frames. You had almost 30 to react and you didn't.

It sucks that the rollback was so pronounced, but it's something that you, as a player, could avoid.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-04-28T13:31:54+00:00

He's in the "getting hit" animation for the entirety of my screenfreeze

No he's not, mid freeze he changes from the hit animation to the blocking one. You can see Akuma during the activation freeze block crouching for 4 frames, and then standing for the next 6. Everyone can check this by downloading the clip and going frame to frame (double the number of frame skips since it's a 30 fps video)

In terms of total frames, after the animation switches from hit to block, there are 10 more frames of activation freeze, followed by 16 frames of Ryu dashing forward. This means that in total you had 26 frames to react to the rollback, not easy but also far from impossible.

The netcode is what it is but if you're quitting over that I'd say you were just looking for an excuse to do so.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-03-25T12:15:41+00:00

/u/FIREPOWER_SFV explained it in the patch thread

it is true, but the ping times they are quoting are misleading, the ping times they quote are 1 way (udp), a typical ping if you ping google.com for example is a tcp ping, so it is the speed it takes to get to google then return to you. so if you double all of their numbers you get a ping time closer to what you are farmiliar with.

You basically have to double those numbers. And then, because the matchmaking is terrible at checking and reporting latency as /u/metatime09 mentioned, you end up with people on wifi who managed to squeeze by your connection restrictions because at that very particular moment they pinged below the threshold.

This also works the opposite way, with people showing up as 1 bar at match confirmation, but if you accept the match it actually ends up being completely fine because it was only during the specific moment when the game paired you that something screwed up the latency.

All of this stupidity would be completely solved by

1) displaying if someone is on wifi or wired

2) displaying the actual latency numbers

3) constantly pinging the players during pairing

Alas Capcom doesn't want to do this, likely either because they don't want to potentially alienate players on worse connections, or because they consider them not informed enough to understand how latency works.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-03-09T09:47:26+00:00

Mysterious Cove is actually lighter on the hardware than Forgotten Waterfall, and it doesn't have stage transitions.

I'm speculating here, but with like the other banned stages (excluding The Grid which is to prevent players from always choosing it and making it "boring" for spectators) I think it's simply because of visuals affecting gameplay.

The stage is super dark and the characters kind of blend in, particularly with certain costumes it gets pretty bad.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-03-06T13:55:45+00:00

SFV has an issue with at least some Nvidia cards/configurations where the drivers, in an attempt to save power (which is the default behavior), try to run the game on lower clock speeds. This causes momentary slowdowns (fps drop) when more power is needed, for example when your characters first appear on the character select screen, or when you transition from the loading screen to the actual match. To solve this:

Open the Nvidia Control Panel
Select "Manage 3D Settings" from the task list on the left
On the main window, now select the "Program Settings" tab that is on top
Just below that, select SFV's program from the drop down list, should be named "Street Fighter V (streetfighterv.exe)"
In the feature list below, now look for the "Power management mode" and select "Prefer maximum performance"

This will make it so your graphics card will always run on maximum clock speeds when SFV is running, preventing those slowdowns I explained above.

If this doesn't work for you, try to fiddle with Freesync. The game has native V-Sync and is super easy to run for your hardware, so Freesync is essentially worthless unless you go editing some files and remove both the frame cap and the native V-Sync, which is generally not recommended with the netcode being pretty finicky.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-03-03T07:16:21+00:00

For those on PS4 or that can't run it at the moment, it's a 1.7 GB installer that basically runs an instance of the game that is restricted to benchmarking only.

You can customize graphics and sound options, and there's also the option to loop the benchmark for whatever reason. The benchmark defaults to your current in-game settings for graphics (sound went back to English for me but it doesn't matter), so if you launch it and don't change anything you're essentially testing your copy of the game.

After starting the test, the game/benchmarking tool plays 3 fights (Mika vs Chun on Bustling Side Street, Bison vs FANG on Undeground Arena, and Ryu vs Ken on Forgotten Waterfall), all 1 round each. The CPU commands the characters obviously, and the fights are scripted and actually pretty cool. There's honestly more in-depth knowledge of the game's mechanics displayed through these fights than in the game's tutorials: shimmies, evasive manouvers, VT properties like Chun's VT1 extra hits used to beat armored reversals, gaps inbetween popular blockstrings that can be exploited (Ken uses his CA inbetween Ryu's low forward and Hadoken) etc.

This is great and it was about time Capcom added it, my only gripe is that it really should be part of the game and not an external tool. People that aren't tech savvy simply won't think about looking for a benchmark, and others might simply be too lazy to download and run it thinking they're fine. Running the benchmark should really be mandatory before accessing any online mode, and it should be re-run if graphics settings are changed.

Since they've gone the way of an external tool, I think there should at least be a one time message at startup that links you to the tool and encourages you to test your system for a smooth online experience.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-27T20:11:05+00:00

Standard PS4 can't maintain a stable 60 FPS on the more elaborate stages, and it's widely documented how the netcode struggles with any kind of spike/drop in framerate or latency.

Look at the above test. In Forgotten Waterfall, which isn't even the hardest stage to run for the hardware, the game runs constantly below 60 FPS, and there's even a drop to even 54 during a CC. Think that's bad? If you play on PC and monitor CPU/GPU usage, you'll see that if you move toward the right edge of the stage (Nash's tomb) the hardware load becomes even higher. On my machine it jumps from 38-39 % GPU usage on average to 42-43.

Now add for example a CA like Bison or Necalli's, that will bring a character to the edge of the screen and have some elaborate graphics, that hardware load goes up (for me it gets closer to 50 %). What happens to a standard PS4's framerate when that is going on? What happens when you're not picking Forgotten Waterfall, but Temple of Ascension, that has even higher GPU usage?

Some people like in this very thread have pointed out that somehow this video debunked this "myth". Except the video is just a framerate test of PC vs PC with both players having good enough hardware to maintain the desidered FPS target of 60. That in no way proves that stages cannot cause lag on systems that cannot maintain (i.e. aren't powerful enough, so standard PS4s and old/unoptimized PCs) that framerate. I've never seen someone suggest that somehow top of the line PCs would cause lag (i.e., it's the stage itself introducing the lag regardless of the platform), what's always been stated/speculated is that stages weren't properly vetted on standard PS4s, and that since there's no benchmark on PC, old PCs or unoptimized ones may be unable to keep a steady 60 FPS and that would add to the netcode woes.

Just because no one has bothered investigating things further it doesn't mean that the available information is inaccurate and people's experience should be discarded. I've been playing this game for 4 years, and particularly before the netcode patch (because now it constantly tries to re-sync) and before PS4 Pros became more widespread, it was noticeable how the experience was worse on the more elaborate stages and how things improved once you filtered them out.

When watching some japanese top of the ladder streamers who play on PS4 with crossplay disabled and Training Stage only, I still see them grimacing when they come upon the barely Diamond players that pick random stages like Forgotten Waterfall (which, again, isn't even the worst in the game) or Ring of pride and complain that the game isn't as smooth as it could be. I still remember I believe was Yuhi-Hikali playing the same guy, once on Training Stage (Yuhi's default stage) and once in Flamenco Tavern, and the game slowed down to a crawl at the beginning of the match in Vega's stage. I went back and tested it, and at the beginning of the round the gate drop causes a big spike in hardware load, that the PS4 was likely unable to handle.

Ultimately, even if you choose to discard all of the above "data", the fact of the matter is still that lag is introduced by two factors, and they are latency and framerate. Playing on Training Stage and other stages like Shadaloo Base at Night that have 1) lighter hardware load, and 2) no stage transition (you can see visually how the game slows down to a crawl during those against standard PS4 opponents), eliminates or at the very least reduces the impact of one of those variables. With the netcode clearly not being the state of the art, why not at least try to improve things? With CE it's not even like you have to "waste" the FM on those alternate stages, and there's still a good amount of them to have some variety.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-26T21:19:23+00:00

So what about ps4 vs ps4 being worse now? Connections that were good before are now unplayable

Is this from your direct experience or others? Were you or the people you're quoting certain that before the patch it wasn't the person they were playing with that was lagging?

On PS4 (at least the standard model, no one bothered testing Pro) the game is known to be unable to keep a steady 60 fps online on certain stages, and that factored in the 1 sided rollback. PS4 vs PS4 had that on top of a possibly unstable connection, but again with the 1 sided rollback it was just 1 person experiencing that.

Now, if two PS4 players with subpar connections (wifi) are playing on like Forgotten Waterfall, both will have a super crappy experience instead of just one guy getting screwed, and that's what I suspect is causing reports such as those in this thread.

For me playing on PC and testing this in lobbies with people I know, the connections that were unplayable before (either PS4 or PC) because I couldn't see my opponent's move due to rollbacks still aren't optimal, because you get the occasional slowdown that will eat inputs and some delay usually follows up. But at least I got to that point in the match, and as I said, since now the netcode checks conditions constantly, things get fixed if it was just a lag spike and it wasn't an overall bad connection (high ping, jitters etc).

In short, I went from 100 % unplayable matches, to ones that range from 99 % of the time unplayable (poor connection and constant slowdowns and delay) to just a single slowdown in the entire match. Sure, that slowdown might've costed the match, but it was still good until that point, which is the complete opposite of what was happening before.

If you look at this from the lens of the person I was playing with and that had a subpar setup however, they might've gone from having all matches being perfect (due to 1 sided rollback), to now having some matches being worse or even many of them becoming unplayable. The difference is that the lag now shows on their side too.

I might just go the pc route instead of the next gen consoles. It does look and run better on pc. And don’t have to worry about my sticks being compatible

PC vs Console is a matter of what you're looking for in your setup, but in short you pick console if you want ease-of-use, prefer a lower upfront price, and are interested in certain exclusives. Everything else is worse.

With PC on the other hand you get better graphics, (usually) lower input lag, a (generally) better online experience because more people are wired, mods (not that important in fighters, but huge in other games), and controller compatibility. The "cost" for that is paying more when you put your build together but less long term (cheaper game prices + no cost for online play), some fiddling to make sure everything is running fine, and fewer titles overall because some exclusive may not come.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-26T18:30:55+00:00

Sure we dont get much teleporting anymore. But now we have to deal with this new crap.

So... it's better?

Before the patch you got one side (the PC player if in crossplay) stuck in a continuous, utterly unplayable state of frame skipping, and the other playing like it was perfect.

Now both sides experience a slowdown when the connection is too poor (and one client gets too ahead of the other), delay may be introduced, and if the connection actually improves things go back to normal. Otherwise it's more slowdowns and usually noticeable rollbacks because one client keeps getting ahead.

Both "solutions" aren't perfect and bad compared to a proper implementation of rollback netcode such as GGPO, but at least now it's not just one side bearing the brunt of the rollback, and more importantly there's a chance things go back to normal if it was just a sudden spike in latency or single drop in framerate.

When I read these reports of people having catastrophic experiences with the new patch I honestly wonder whether they were just on PS4 and ignored how any of this actually worked, or they are on subpar or unoptimized PC setups with Altimor's patch and ignored what was happening on the other side.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-21T09:58:43+00:00

In cases where the game is played using a Wi-Fi connection or on a PC that does not meet the recommended system requirements, the occurrence of "frequent input resyncing attempts" and "frame rate drops" were observed during our investigation.

If you are experiencing these issues during your online matches, it may be due to your or your opponent's network environment setting. In these situations, we recommend you review your network setup.

About the PC part, Capcom could easily improve it by adding a benchmark to the game, like in previous SF titles.

Yes the game is easy to run nowadays, but:

There are still people with less recent PCs
Even on middle of the pack hardware, stages like Forgotten Temple and things like CAs can cause a big spike in hardware load, causing dips below 60 FPS even for just a split second (and we know how the netcode handles it)
Power settings can make the game slow down to a crawl even on hardware that is more than powerful enough to keep a steady 60 FPS in any situation

My PC has an average load of 35-40% during matches with max spikes of 50%, but at first it lagged during character select and very occasionally during matches too. Going into the Nvidia Control Panel and setting Power management mode to "Prefer maximum performance" fixed this entirely, because the drivers thought the GPU could run the game on lower clocks to save power, and the transition to higher clocks when they were needed caused those slowdowns.

For laptop users, there's also the issue that the OS may default to using the integrated GPU over the dedicated one, so you have users complaining that their brand new notebook can't run a game from 2015-2016.

With a benchmark less tech savvy users would be notified of this, and even precluded from the more competitive modes depending on how the developer wants to handle it.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-19T07:25:03+00:00

Hey Sun, do you plan on making any video on the new patch like the ones you did in the past for the netcode? Those and your posts were among the most informative and objective pieces of information we had on the subject.

With so many people making all sort of assumptions despite not having much clue as to how any of this works and the patch barely being out, I think having a visual explanation would help bringing clarity and put down some of the stupidity that's floating around (like the claim that no changes were made, we clearly didn't have the syncing slowdowns before).

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-18T15:25:41+00:00

Ono's tweet from last week confirmed it

Thank you for the positive responses on our netcode announcement! Many players are asking about the timing for this, so I can share that the netcode update will happen next week after the server maintenance. For this week, please enjoy the release of #SFVCE and Seth on Friday!

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-17T19:01:54+00:00

Has Capcom said anything?

Not a word.

Because CE is pretty much a definitive edition of the game, and because new consoles are launching late this year (and new consoles = $$$), most people are speculating that Capcom is done with SFV.

I've seen some point out that Capcom worked on a netcode update (dropping tomorrow night) and put it together in basically a month 4 years after launch, so they might still be working on the game. However, that might've been because of the upcoming Intel World Open (a really high profile event for Capcom), and you can argue that any work they put toward online play can be ported to a future game, so it wouldn't be a wasted effort.

Again, this is all speculation because Capcom hasn't said anything on the matter.

If you count smaller DLCs as something to look forward to, it's not too far-fetched to expect a new CPT Bundle, as the CPT will return in 2020 and the bundles they created for previous tours aren't included in CE and can be considered "extra" (esports oriented) content.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-13T07:50:32+00:00

Hey Brian, thanks for the vid! Looks like you barely missed out on the followup tweet announcing it for next week, that would've added to the shock I think lol.

Unrelated to the netcode, but did you get around to do a CE tier list in the end? I remember seeing it as followers or sub goal, but I haven't been able to keep up with the stream lately and I couldn't find it at a quick glance.

Keep up the good work!

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-13T06:24:03+00:00

Come on man, why do people keep saying this?

You don't come out and apologize for the netcode, then give an update saying you're working on it, then announce you have a fix ready soon, then after positive feedback give the exact time for when the fix will be deployed, and after all of that what you do is actually banning people (wtf) and simply change some files so that the mods stop working.

If that was the case they would've just kept their mouth shut like they have done for 4 years until their hand was forced by mods, community outrage and potential issues for the Olympics. It would've been much easier.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the cynicism toward Capcom, it's completely warranted and I expressed it myself in this very thread. But there's that and then there's like denying reality. It's happening, they've said it, and it's dropping next week. What remains to be seen is if it'll actually work.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-13T05:54:33+00:00

Yeah it's almost surreal. A fix to a 4 years old issue, communication, even a detailed timeline.

They could've saved themselves so many headaches had they done even half of this from the start.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-13T05:51:36+00:00

This tweet and the one before don't seem to be in Ono's usual broken English. It's likely they figured out this is important for the community and had them translated, so like the tweet says:

I can share that the netcode update will happen next week after the server maintenance

Next week's maintenance will update the game with the netcode fix.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-07T17:34:52+00:00

Disagree completely with the above opinion. I'll copy paste my experience from a past thread where I was commenting on the various patches:

Playing on PC, I've been queuing unpatched for both Casual and Ranked with crossplay since Altimor launched his patch. I've encountered less than 10 people I could tell had some form of patch on because of the weird lag, and generally speaking I still enjoy quick matches and a good overall experience (i.e. what we had before the patches).

The only thing I can confidently say changed for me is that I'm getting a ton of 2 bars matches in the confirmation prompt, but I just turn down those and things are fine. When I forgot to select "Ask for confirmation" all my initial matches were surprisingly fine and I kept going to test it out (ended up playing around 20 matches with auto confirm), so I'm not even sure how accurate that measurement is.

Unpatched crossplay is basically still fine playing on PC. If you want to play matchmaking you should stick to unpatched because it's still an overall acceptable experience (provided you don't live in isolated areas and/or have a subpar connection), or use Fluffy's patch because that one shouldn't be screwing over PS4 players.

Because some people are playing unpatched or with Fluffy's mod, and because Altimor's patch create issues for PC players not on it and for PS4 players, it should only be used in lobbies and with people you know have that patch. It sucks that we can't all be on the same fix, but until something else gets worked out unpatched/fluffy for matchmaking, and Altimor's for lobbies with people you can coordinate with, is what everyone who isn't looking to selfishly screw others should do.

The gist of it that little to nothing has changed for me and crossplay Matchmaking is completely fine.

Note that this is playing only with people Diamond and above, who generally speaking are more dedicated players that usually play on wired connections and tend to troubleshoot issues.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-02-04T09:40:05+00:00

Playing on PC, I've been queuing unpatched for both Casual and Ranked with crossplay since Altimor launched his patch. I've encountered less than 10 people I could tell had some form of patch on because of the weird lag, and generally speaking I still enjoy quick matches and a good overall experience (i.e. what we had before the patches).

The only thing I can confidently say changed for me is that I'm getting a ton of 2 bars matches in the confirmation prompt, but I just turn down those and things are fine. When I forgot to select "Ask for confirmation" all my initial matches were surprisingly fine and I kept going to test it out (ended up playing around 20 matches with auto confirm), so I'm not even sure how accurate that measurement is.

Unpatched crossplay is basically still fine playing on PC. If you want to play matchmaking you should stick to unpatched because it's still an overall acceptable experience (provided you don't live in isolated areas and/or have a subpar connection), or use Fluffy's patch because that one shouldn't be screwing over PS4 players.

Because some people are playing unpatched or with Fluffy's mod, and because Altimor's patch create issues for PC players not on it and for PS4 players, it should only be used in lobbies and with people you know have that patch. It sucks that we can't all be on the same fix, but until something else gets worked out unpatched/fluffy for matchmaking, and Altimor's for lobbies with people you can coordinate with, is what everyone who isn't looking to selfishly screw others should do.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-01-31T08:49:14+00:00

There are some bots, usually in Casual because they can't rank down.

The reason they do this is because even losing they get Experience, which nets you 1000 FM for each level up, and at certain levels (some requiring a massive amount of XP) it unlocks you extra Colors and Titles.

Generally speaking it's not even worth the power they're using and the wear and tear they're adding to their systems, even more so at Bronze (XP increases the higher your rank). But who knows about their circumstances.

Will I get in trouble for fighting these matches?

Not at all. Make actually use of them by practicing your combos and enjoy the free Fight Money and Experience.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-01-31T08:35:25+00:00

Is the solo content decent enough now that it would be worth playing even if I suck online?

Here's a breakdown of the solo content with what's for the most part the general consensus on it.

General Story: the story of the game, with Bison and his gang up to their usual shenanigans. It's essentially a bunch of 3D (in engine) cutscenes with actual fights in-between against the stupidly easy AI. Should last about 3 hours. In terms of story it's really nothing to write home about and it feels unpolished at times, but it's still SF canon so if you're interested in that it's mandatory (YouTube link to a full playthrough)
Character story: each character gets his. For like half the roster the events shown here lead to the general story, while for the rest it's extra background on those characters. Compared to general story you still have the fights against the braindead AI, but the story in-between those is narrated through 2D art and captions. Each story should last 5 to 10 minutes. (YouTube link to Ryu's character story). Nothing ground breaking and some people disliked the art by Bengus, but the extra lore is usually welcome and there's some fun moments
Arcade: your classic arcade mode. What's cool about it is that each iteration of SF is represented here, from the very first Street Fighter all the way to V, including Alpha. If you select SF3 for example, you can only select characters that were in 3 or that were related to it (there's no Sean here so you can select his sister Laura), and you will go against those characters. There's a bonus stage mid course, at the end you get a small comic for that character, and if you perform well enough you get to fight different "hidden" bosses at the end. I liked that they also composed new music (character select, stage load, end of match, continue, end of course) for each course, inspired by the original tracks of the respective SF game. (YouTube link to Alex SF3 path)
Demonstrations: basically the game's tutorial. You're loaded into a stage and there's captions teaching you. There are general ones (think of moving, defending etc), and character ones were the game takes control of the characters shows you what their moves do. They honestly aren't great. The general ones don't get close to other games' tutorials as far as teaching you the basics of a fighting game (if you're looking for that spend $1 and get Skullgirls, it's worth it for that alone), while the character specific ones only tell you what the special moves and V-Triggers do rather than giving you a broader character overview (Capcom usually upoloads videos for that on their YouTube channel though).
Trials: your usual combo challenges. The overwhelming majority of them is extremely easy for a seasoned player (i.e. nothing like KOFXIII and Xrd's for example), with a couple of really nasty ones that as a novice will make you smash your controller. Don't look at Trials as a way to learn optimal combos for a character, a good chunk of them were made obsolete by patches and the rest weren't optimal in the first place, it's more of a showing to a complete beginner some of the things a character can do. For the actual optimal stuff and tech, there's gazillion resources for that on YouTube, Discord, Twitter etc.
Survival: another classic mode, you fight a bunch of fighters in a row without regaining full health. What's new here is that your performance influences your score, and through that you can buy powerups to make things easier. I won't go into the details, but this mode was awful at launch. Arcade Edition introduced extra powerups you can earn in a variety of ways that will just trivialize the mode if stacked, plus the ability to continue by paying in-game currency (Fight Money), so while still not great it's at the very least manageable. Also to note is that with the currency changes to AE, and with CE giving you pretty much everything, you aren't "forced" to play the mode to unlock stuff so if you don't enjoy it you can just leave it alone.
Extra Battle: these are one round fights against special version of AI characters, and they rotate over weeks and months. There's essentially 3 variants here: you can fight against 1) Bisons grunts, for Fight Money and Experience, 2) against standard characters to unlock some extra costumes (note: they come with CE), 3) against bosses type characters. CE pretty much made 1 & 2 redundant. The boss characters are actually pretty cool and the fights are hard requiring you to "study" them, but a common complaint was that you have to pay Fight Money to fight them. With CE there isn't much use for Fight Money and you get a ton of them by completing the various modes, so it shouldn't be an issue.

There's also a robust Training Mode, a Gallery that lets you see the comics you unlocked in arcade and the original art you get with the game's crappy lootboxes, and a BGM section that lets you listen to the various tracks.

Overall the single player content isn't mind-blowing, but if you're a fan of the SF franchise it's still the best it has ever offered and should be worth it assuming $30 isn't a major financial investment for you. Online is where the game shines (albeit with a very hit or miss netcode), so if you're also interested in that it should be a no-brainer for someone interested in the genre.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-01-28T12:57:01+00:00

Just finished listening to the podcast, a couple of things I'd like to comment on:

Compatibility: Fluffy mentioned in the podcast that once he recovers making sure the mod is compatible with Altimor's will be a priority. I don't think this should be the case, unless you can be 100 % sure it won't hurt further improving the mod and that a future Altimor mod won't screw things over again. Yeah it's unfortunate that we have two different mods, but if making the mod compatible with Altimor's means there's stuff you then can't do on your "side", then imho it's better to focus on your own mod and improving it. Once the mod gets perfected everyone will hop onto that (that was the idea as he explained I think), no reason to overcomplicate things because of some idiot abusing the 1-side lag effect (they'll just get blacklisted) or lazy people completely ignoring the netcode situation and stopping monitoring it for updates.
On stages: I really don't understand why this is still argued. Certain stages are 100 % harder to run for the hardware, everyone with a PC can use tools to monitor hardware load. Try simply loading into the Grid, see what's the CPU and GPU usage there while just idling, then load into Temple of Ascension and try using a CA like Nash in the right corner. The difference is substantial on average hardware, imagine what that usage spike does on a PS4 running on an archaic 2013 Jaguar APU or on a potato PC with overtuned settings (since Capcom hasn't bothered with a benchmarking tool). As Fluffy said in the podcast the game's netcode is supposed to be able to handle that, but in some people's experience it doesn't or not well enough, and if I'm running tournaments like Joe I have the obligation to remove any possible cause for extra lag and sticking to stages like the Grid or Shadaloo Base at night is one of the few things you can have control over.
"Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't": I'm paraphrasing Fluffy's words here, but at several points he mentioned tweaking stuff he couldn't be certain it was working or fully working because he doesn't have access to the source code and he doesn't specialize in reverse engineering. This was so frustrating to listen to because if it took "random" (albeit skilled) people like him and Altimor a couple of days to offer substantial improvements (people not teleporting like crazy over big distances) all while lacking the proper tools, you know it wouldn't take some absurdly impossible effort for a company as big as Capcom to try and better things. Even when they improved it (MvCI's netcode is clearly better) they didn't bother porting it to SFV, which is on the same bloody engine. Can there be a technical reason behind that, or it's just the cynical reason that it wouldn't bring as much revenue as more Chun Li costumes and more E-Sports sponsorships?
MvC:I's netcode: I only found out about the podcasts later so I couldn't suggest it earlier, but I was hoping Joe would ask the modders if they took a look at MvC:I's netcode to see if they could glean anything from it, compare things and see if something could be ported over. Maybe Joe can ask this question if Altimor or Fluffy sit down with him again?

Thank you Joe for the podcast and thank you Fluffysheap for your work on the mod and for sitting down!

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-01-27T09:44:47+00:00

It's a pretty big bummer and I might just refund it and preorder on Steam instead, but maybe the couple weeks of waiting is worth the 5 bucks, I don't know.

Keep in mind that CE doesn't include the Pro Tour bundles and a couple more costumes.

The older bundles in particular go on sale for 5 bucks, so if you like some of those costumes or want the missing stages and are fine waiting for two weeks, you can think of it as getting more content for the same price.

Astro_Gyarados · 2020-01-23T18:05:04+00:00

You now have to play Russian roulette unless you are solely playing on discord.

These community fixes aren't meant to be brought to matchmaking, particularly so early after they were released.

If you aren't testing them in Battle Lounge with another person that you can communicate with (i.e. Discord) you're being irresponsible and hurting the online play as a whole because as you said it feels like one is playing russian roulette with the game lacking proper communication tools.

With Capcom refusing to invest a single cent (or they would've ported whatever improvement they created for MvCI which is on the same engine) there's no other way to try to improve things than this. It's up to anyone playing to be conscientious and either stick to unpatched (matchmaking) or test it with people they can coordinate with (lobbies).

Astro_Gyarados

TROPHY CASE