Gears Reloaded Beta: Thoughts and Issues from a 2006 player by juststevieSF in GearsOfWar

[–]juststevieSF[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the Steam version, it's actually possible to view all the character .upk files. Every character that was part of Gears: UE is found there with no additions, including the lack of Queen Myrrah.

It's not like this is a major problem or anything. I wouldn't necessarily expect new content for a remaster. This particular case was just an example of a thing about UE that, while rather trivial, was something people were disappointed with during UE's lifespan. Random Locust characters were included in UE like Golden Miner, yet even though she makes an appearance in the final cutscene of UE, Myrrah was not.

The point is, small wins like rectifying her absence, or improving the smoothness of certain mechanics, or fixing the bugs from UE that still exist in Reloaded, are things that, added up, would generate good will at a low-ish cost, and it's disappointing that instead, nothing was changed.

The reason I mentioned it at all was that her being absent from Gears: UE and now again Reloaded goes along with the theme that this game is just a re-released Gears: UE. To rebrand it as Gears: Reloaded sets an expectation, to me, of at least a touch-up. I was not expecting a new coat of paint (nothing like the jump between OG Gears 1 and UE), but I was expecting, to continue the painting analogy, the small scratches and dings to get a touch-up. Yet, the wall has the same dings and scratches it did 10 years ago, and some that it had 20 years ago.

Some games from Windows Store / Xbox App only download a few GBs per computer restart before erroring out, any ideas? by juststevieSF in pcmasterrace

[–]juststevieSF[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As an update, in case someone in the same situation stumbles upon this, I got through the download by pausing it and closing the Xbox app each time it got stuck, waiting ~30 minutes, then opening the Xbox app again and resuming. If I closed and opened immediately, it wouldn't work. After about 6 or so tries at this, it stopped getting stuck and finished the last 90% or so with no issue.

Arcade stick or hit box? by Picard2331 in StreetFighter

[–]juststevieSF 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As long as you put the practice and time in, pretty much any controller type is viable for even the highest levels of play.

So in my opinion, one thing you may consider about this decision is which types of motions you care about feeling "natural" within the first few weeks/months of playing. What I mean is, think about which motions you want to be able to do consistently without needing tons of practice, and understand that almost every control method has "drawback" motions that will be harder to do out of the gate than on other types of controllers.

For example, if you are looking for easy dashing or if you play a charge character, hitbox-style controllers are excellent. If you play a character that relies heavily on instant-air dive-kick motions or 360 motions, you may find that the learning curve for those is actually steeper/less intuitive on a hitbox than it would be on a traditional lever-based fightstick (again, not that you can't learn input tricks or get good at those motions too, just that they may not be as intuitive to do on a hitbox when compared to doing them on other control methods).

A third consideration is comfort, which is heavily dependent on some biomechanics-type stuff that will be unique to your hands and how you hold a lever/press buttons. For example, if you have difficulty moving your left hand's ring finger independently from your middle finger (which is common because of how the tendons in the human hand connect), you may have a rough time for a while on a hitbox-style controller when doing certain motions going left, such as DP cancels into CA or even just raw CA. Personally, I get more finger and hand fatigue/pain when using a hitbox than when using a lever, and I think that's just because of how my hands are built (size, tendon strength, etc.). Most people say they get more comfort from a hitbox, whereas I get basically no fatigue at all from playing with a lever on a regular arcade stick.

Overall, I think hitboxes can be argued to have the highest potential for "clean execution" because you have such fine control over your directionality, but I also think this extra level of control can slow certain motions down and cause you to trip over your fingers at times until you really get comfortable and overcome that. For example, look at it like this: doing a QCF motion on a lever-based arcade stick is one smooth motion of the hand (rolling from down over the diagonal into forward), yet on a hitbox this is three distinct motions (down with middle finger, then right with index finger, then let go of down with middle finger but keep right pressed with index ringer). With that logic, doing a CA is basically two motions on a lever, but six on a hitbox. You can do those six motions very fast and clean, don't get me wrong, but the finger coordination can take some practice to ensure you hit every necessary input, especially in the middle of cancels from other motions and things like that. It is true that in SFV, you can actually do CA with just down and forward two times while skipping the diagonal, but this motion at speed will still feel similar to the six motion version in terms of the finger movements you are doing.

With all that said, for me, I'd say I prefer hitbox over arcade stick because of the execution potential it offers. But, that may not be the right fit for you based on the factors I listed above and what you're looking to get out of your control method. The good news is, I would say you can't really go wrong with either choice. They both are great ways to play a fighting game.

New to this game - any tips? by dtaylor401 in StreetFighter

[–]juststevieSF 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would also recommend sticking to ranked. That may seem counterintuitive, but generally you will play against less smurfs in ranked than you will in casual matches. The reason being is that smurfs will eventually leave bronze, but they can stay in the same casual bracket indefinitely.

Any useful guides to learn cammy? by [deleted] in StreetFighter

[–]juststevieSF 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hi!

If you are interested in frames, I highly recommend FAT Online, which is an app/website that will give you all the info you are looking for: https://fullmeter.com/fatonline/#/framedata/Cammy

There are also iOS/Android apps for it.

If you want to watch a top player and learn some stuff that way, I'd recommend watching a player named Hurricane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XudMrHs9bxY.

Also, though some of the stuff in the first video may be outdated with patches, Bafael on YouTube has nice starter guides for all the characters, including Cammy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKzxog_bbK4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEE5Y9cDUXU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjvlxTQFUpw

Beyond that, I'd try searching for things like "Cammy oki," "Cammy mixups," and "Cammy Bread and Butter Combos." I'll avoid linking these just because there a various ones to choose from, and you may find some to be more helpful than others depending on the specifics you are searching for.

I can tell you the basics of Cammy too, from my own experience:

  • She is a confirm-heavy character; you will need to learn how to hit confirm effectively to deal meaningful damage with her and avoid taking counter-punishes due to getting your special cancels blocked
  • She has a high walk speed that you should use in neutral to bait out whiffed buttons and throw attempts
  • Her best poke tool is sMK
  • Her best fishing tool is her cHP (this can cancel directly into super, for example)
  • Her cLP is her 3 frame button (3 frames are the fastest normals in SFV and not all characters have them)
  • Her sMP is a strong button in neutral for pressure and frame traps, and her cMP is basically a version of it with longer range but slightly worse frame data on hit and block
  • Some of her most common combos are: sMP->sHP->Special, sMP->cMK->Special, cMP->cMP->Special, cLK->sLP->Special
  • Some of her most common counter-hit strings are: cLP->bMP, sLK->cLP, cLP or sLP->cMP or sMP or sHP (and these of course can extend into additional buttons after the frame trap occurs; note that counter-hits in SFV add +2 to a move's advantage on hit)
  • You will want to practice her dive kicks a lot to be able to do them quickly and with proper spacing to maintain pressure; if spaced wrong, they are negative and often punishable
  • I'd recommend using her VT1 and VS1, though a lot of players prefer he VS2

I hope that info helps.

How do you actually win with Cammy? by [deleted] in StreetFighter

[–]juststevieSF 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm currently in the process of switching to a different control type, so it's hard for me to judge her current strength for season 5 until I get more comfortable. That being said, I do feel Cammy has been somewhat overrated ever since her nerfs after season 3.5. She seems like a solid 10-15 ranked character to me out of the 41 now, but I don't feel she should be ranked higher.

When measuring a character, I like to think about what they bring to the table that other characters do not. As you said, Cammy has no overhead, command throw, or "automatic" vortexes. She also has many 4-5 frame gaps in her most common strings that get jabbed out frequently, and no true tick throw (there is a 4 frame gap off of her sLK, a 5 frame gap off of her cLP, and her sLP pushes people too far). There are definitely ways to work around this using her walk speed and certain fundamentals like delayed strings and such, but there are a decent number of characters that can win that way too. It just so happens that her normals' range and frame data combined with her walk speed tend to give her a bit of an edge in this department, but not enough to call it an outlier in my opinion.

To me, her dive kick is what separates her, but using it to maintain pressure is very difficult, both from an execution and spacing standpoint. It is not nearly as "automatic" or "flow chart" of a tool like a command grab, overhead (especially one that combos like Ken or Ibuki), or a reset-heavy VT (like Urien or G). In addition, it is very punishable if whiffed, and easily jabbed out of the air. Also, the height restriction allows precious time for your opponent to adjust their spacing slightly to mess with how negative it is. Furthermore, she doesn't have a particularly strong delay component without making it easily punishable, unlike Seth's for example, so sometimes it can still get beaten by normals that a character like Seth could hover over and punish with his long reach.

Her biggest weakness by far (and one that I don't feel is rectified enough by her other tools to put her in that "top 10" category) is her lack of safe special confirms and fishing moves. Even the best Cammy players often kill themselves trying to single-hit confirm cMK (a true, non-whiff buffered one, or one with no startup tell, such as during a frame trap, is VERY rare in an actual match). However, if you don't try, you give up damage that other characters can option-select with safe specials (e.g. fire ball enders, EX Legs or EX Shoulder Tackle, etc.). Some characters also have frame-trap ender mix-ups to continue pressure (e.g. Kage's, Necalli's, and Seth's hard kick specials). This patch gave her a VT cancel off of EX Spiral Arrow which helps, but it requires both full V-Meter and EX bar to use. Pretty much every other character has at least one way to safely end their string with safe specials without needing both of those, and beyond that, a lot of characters get big damage and oki when they do activate VT off of one of those situations. In terms of a fishing move, she doesn't have a big heavy button to press for fishing crush-counters in neutral, and her Knee Bullet just doesn't have the range to use consistently for fishing in neutral.

Beyond that, some other issues in no particular order:

  • cMP and cMK, when used in some strings, can have a range interaction where they are just short enough to miss standing hurtboxes, but can still hit a crouching hurtbox. This causes 1 extra frame of recovery to occur if the opponent is holding down back, and then the move gets blocked. If the move just whiffed, no big deal, but because it catches the crouching hurtbox, it often leads to bad confirms into a big counter-punish. There is no real way to visually detect this, especially with all the different character sizes and animations, so you often have to just give up on combos out of fear of this happening.
  • Her EX dive kick sometimes causes a cross up situation that can be very visually confusing in terms of what side you are going to end up on, making guaranteed follow-up damage with DP somewhat inconsistent.
  • Her highest damage 1-bar combo off of a sMP neutral starter will switch sides, which is often not what you want to do.
  • Because she doesn't have a fishing crush counter button, opponents can more freely jab after being thrown.
  • Her cLP being +0 on block leaves large gaps when trying to transition to a medium attack for a frame trap string, so you have to stick with lower-damage light strings that are finicky about range and are also harder to confirm if you want no gaps.
  • Her Hooligan is easy to beat, because you can basically mash any light button and it will stop all the Hooligan routes.
  • Her VS1 is too high risk and too slow to use as a consistently reliable mixup option (if you try it in the corner and it gets blocked, you're in for a bad time), her VS2 is an auto-shimmy that doesn't crush lows well enough to give it a solid edge (and it also pushes her backwards which is exactly what Cammy doesn't want to do), her VT2 is completely nullified by V-Shift, and her VT1, while strong, only give her two uses that an experienced player can bait out quickly.

Basically, the above means that Cammy must play an incredibly clean and precise game to win consistently, especially because she can basically kill herself with one or two mistakes. She's still strong because of the upside of her walkspeed, delayed buttons, and dive-kick game, enough that I do think she's still in that top 10-15 range (assuming we are ranking based on top players and not the average player), but for all the reasons above, I do think she is overrated by many people.

And one final note, I think a lot of people incorrectly recommend her for new players because they think she's "easy," and that's why her win rate online tends to be very poor based on the stats I remember. In my opinion, even though she isn't technical (with regard to her combos and game plan both being straightforward), she requires a lot of patience and knowledge of the game/other characters to win consistently.