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[UnemployedVillain]

That reminds me...

Going back and watching the exhibition matches from the last tournament in Japan between MOV (Street Fighter) and Abadango (Smash), I can appreciate the matches a lot more now. That probably also means that for people who have never played the game before, it could look like two guys just dodging around all the time and landing hits randomly. I don't know about their ARM choices, but they understand the movement and charging mechanics at least and use it well.

MOV was trying to make Master Mummy work by focusing on his health regen, but as the second set shows, Master Mummy kinda sucks. Big and slow characters in fighting games have high risk and high reward, but there's really not that much high reward in playing Master Mummy because he pretty much does the same amount of damage as the other characters. He has higher damage throws but it's not that easy to land throws with him as he's so immobile.

Hopefully the E3 invitational tournament matches will be at least the level of these matches.

I'm curious how MM will fair with quicker arms. As far as character abilities, his superarmor and defense healing don't seem to adequately offset his weight. His large gloves, and the fact you couldn't really equip them to other characters (in testpunch) were the only advantage he had

 

[SolicitorPirate]

I'd imagine the biggest crossover would be with the Gundam VS community, which the ARMs devs have cited as an inspiration. Given how the Gundam VS scene is much, much bigger in Japan than the West, a lot of the perceived muted FGC reception might be a translation issue rather than actual apathy

 

[AquaWateria]

That reminds me...

Going back and watching the exhibition matches from the last tournament in Japan between MOV (Street Fighter) and Abadango (Smash), I can appreciate the matches a lot more now. That probably also means that for people who have never played the game before, it could look like two guys just dodging around all the time and landing hits randomly. I don't know about their ARM choices, but they understand the movement and charging mechanics at least and use it well.

Here's the matches.
Spring Man vs Mechanica (~50m)
Master Mummy vs Ninjara (~54m)
Ribbon Girl Mirror (~1h)

Ribbon Girl vs Ninjara (~4h)
Master Mummy vs Spring Man (~4h6m)
Spring Man vs Mechanica (~4h10m)

The ribbon girl matches are the most fun to watch.

MOV was trying to make Master Mummy work by focusing on his health regen, but as the second set shows, Master Mummy kinda sucks. Big and slow characters in fighting games have high risk and high reward, but there's really not that much high reward in playing Master Mummy because he pretty much does the same amount of damage as the other characters. He has higher damage throws but it's not that easy to land throws with him as he's so immobile.

Hopefully the E3 invitational tournament matches will be at least the level of these matches.

If there is one thing that needs to be said its that these matches are extremely fun to watch lol.

 

[Doorman]

This has been an enjoyable Testpunch.
[pics]

....How on Earth do you end up with a draw in a 4-player free for all?

 

[jwk94]

....How on Earth do you end up with a draw in a 4-player free for all?

Looks like they ran out of time.

 

[DrDogg]

feeling on viability of tournament scene, balance of characters based on what was presented - i.e. how Master Mummy could stand a match vs Ninjara. Or, just match-up talk in general about grabs, arms weight/speed, character ability balance, etc. Also just curious how much of the FGC is actually looking forward to a new "format" to the genre.

Most of my friends in FGC are smash or Street Fighter so they have passing curiosity to 0 interest. I'm interested in Tekken fans or NRS (juggle fans, basically) or Gundam VS fans feel. 2D fighter fans like Marvel and SF I assume wouldn't give it much interest in contest with their main game, but I feel like someone who has a deep interest in fighting games that a new perspective to the genre is exciting and worth getting people digging into it for viability.


I don't even think I've seen Maximillian make a video about ARMS, so my general fear is that most of the community is just writing it off or not even giving it a chance.

I know UltraDavid was interested in the game. There will likely be some commentary on it during the Tuesday shows before and after release (assuming they have a Tuesday show during E3).

If you want my opinion, I think this game will have difficulty finding a sizable competitive community. It's a very difficult game for Tournament Organizers because it will take a long time to get all of the Arms unlocked for every fighter, and any decent-sized tournament generally doesn't have to rely on the community to bring consoles (which would need to happen with Arms).

I haven't looked into the LAN options for Arms, but playing split screen isn't ideal for a tournament setting. If there are some solid LAN options, you still need double the Switch units and double the monitors to really make this game work at tournaments.

Tournament talk aside, I don't think the game is deep enough or entertaining enough at the highest level of play. Most of the good matches I've had go to time out or very close to it because it's such a defensive game. There's no incentive to attack first, especially if you have the life lead. If you're down, you're almost forced to take risks to get back into the fight.

Let me be clear since I know some people don't agree with me. I am specifically talking about the highest level of play where people don't land supers unless they're guaranteed, where people don't attack first.

How do you open someone up in this game if they have solid defense and a life lead?

Looking deeper into the Arms (which I'll be doing more this week), I don't think they're very balanced. I feel like you almost have to have an electricity Arm on at least one hand. It's the only Arm type that guarantees a maximum damage followup in every situation. Then your second Arm is either used for maximum damage after the stun, or is matchup/stage specific.

Disclaimer: I've only had the game for a week and I've played mostly press and Nintendo Treehouse employees aside from Friday's Testpunch (I wasn't able to get in on the others). I know there's a decent chance things will change and that the game is completely different at a casual level and a tournament scene is not necessary for this game to be successful.

For reference, here are some matches I've played against press and Nintendo Treehouse people.

Ranked 1v1 (best match I have recorded)
Random Party Matches, mainly with a handicap

Even in this Ranked Match, I already see some mistakes I made that would've made the match go even longer.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

If you want my opinion, I think this game will have difficulty finding a sizable competitive community. It's a very difficult game for Tournament Organizers because it will take a long time to get all of the Arms unlocked for every fighter, and any decent-sized tournament generally doesn't have to rely on the community to bring consoles (which would need to happen with Arms).
[/URL]

Don't you only need to get them unlocked for a single fighter or can you only choose arms that a given fighter has unlocked him/herself?

Looking deeper into the Arms (which I'll be doing more this week), I don't think they're very balanced. I feel like you almost have to have an electricity Arm on at least one hand. It's the only Arm type that guarantees a maximum damage followup in every situation. Then your second Arm is either used for maximum damage after the stun, or is matchup/stage specific.

Going by Nintendo's previous titles, these things will probably be tweaked as time goes by, so I wouldn't say current imbalance is guaranteed to be future imbalance

 

[Totakeke]

There was a weird moment during the matches where Mechanica got damaged by her own super.
https://youtu.be/j2oF1J9EO8w?t=4h13m52s

Turns out it was a charged super Homie from Mechanica falling to ground after being blocked, and the explosion did 200 damage to Mechanica herself. That was pretty funny and random.

If there is one thing that needs to be said its that these matches are extremely fun to watch lol.

There are multiple moments where they dash multiple times together in the same direction and they're daring each other to make the first move, those are the best.

 

[Neoxon]

feeling on viability of tournament scene, balance of characters based on what was presented - i.e. how Master Mummy could stand a match vs Ninjara. Or, just match-up talk in general about grabs, arms weight/speed, character ability balance, etc. Also just curious how much of the FGC is actually looking forward to a new "format" to the genre.

Most of my friends in FGC are smash or Street Fighter so they have passing curiosity to 0 interest. I'm interested in Tekken fans or NRS (juggle fans, basically) or Gundam VS fans feel. 2D fighter fans like Marvel and SF I assume wouldn't give it much interest in contest with their main game, but I feel like someone who has a deep interest in fighting games that a new perspective to the genre is exciting and worth getting people digging into it for viability.


I don't even think I've seen Maximillian make a video about ARMS, so my general fear is that most of the community is just writing it off or not even giving it a chance.

As Doorman said, part of the problem is that there's just too many fighting games coming this year (plus the likes of SFV, KI, & GGXrd still being updated). Between MvCI, Tekken 7, Injustice 2, & REV 2, the FGC's gonna be pretty occupied with other games to worry about a new IP (& sadly, as Doorman also said, there's the Nintendo stigma to consider).

While I consider myself as a SF, MvC, & Smash player who may take up ARMS (pun intended), I feel like ARMS's best bet at competitive relevancy is to carve out its own scene. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some overlap with the Gundam VS, Pokkén, & Smash communities.

 

[DrDogg]

Don't you only need to get them unlocked for a single fighter or can you only choose arms that a given fighter has unlocked him/herself?

You have to unlock each Arm separately for each fighter. There are 270 Arms to unlock in the game and you unlock them at random.

 

[AquaWateria]

Yeah I think I know why these matches are fun to watch specifically the invitational tournaments. It has to be the mobility and dashes which imo makes it interesting to watch plus its fun to do it yourself.

It has some kind of rhythm to the movement that makes it insanely fun to play.

 

[atr0cious]

I know UltraDavid was interested in the game. There will likely be some commentary on it during the Tuesday shows before and after release (assuming they have a Tuesday show during E3).

If you want my opinion, I think this game will have difficulty finding a sizable competitive community. It's a very difficult game for Tournament Organizers because it will take a long time to get all of the Arms unlocked for every fighter, and any decent-sized tournament generally doesn't have to rely on the community to bring consoles (which would need to happen with Arms).

I haven't looked into the LAN options for Arms, but playing split screen isn't ideal for a tournament setting. If there are some solid LAN options, you still need double the Switch units and double the monitors to really make this game work at tournaments.

Tournament talk aside, I don't think the game is deep enough or entertaining enough at the highest level of play. Most of the good matches I've had go to time out or very close to it because it's such a defensive game. There's no incentive to attack first, especially if you have the life lead. If you're down, you're almost forced to take risks to get back into the fight.

Let me be clear since I know some people don't agree with me. I am specifically talking about the highest level of play where people don't land supers unless they're guaranteed, where people don't attack first.

How do you open someone up in this game if they have solid defense and a life lead?

Looking deeper into the Arms (which I'll be doing more this week), I don't think they're very balanced. I feel like you almost have to have an electricity Arm on at least one hand. It's the only Arm type that guarantees a maximum damage followup in every situation. Then your second Arm is either used for maximum damage after the stun, or is matchup/stage specific.

Disclaimer: I've only had the game for a week and I've played mostly press and Nintendo Treehouse employees aside from Friday's Testpunch (I wasn't able to get in on the others). I know there's a decent chance things will change and that the game is completely different at a casual level and a tournament scene is not necessary for this game to be successful.

For reference, here are some matches I've played against press and Nintendo Treehouse people.

Ranked 1v1 (best match I have recorded)
Random Party Matches, mainly with a handicap

Even in this Ranked Match, I already see some mistakes I made that would've made the match go even longer.

I know you keep talking about the highest level, but your "best" video shows that you don't even control your punches as well as donkey does with his Master Mummy videos. I can tell you're using a pro controller and aren't getting the curve action donkey does when they use Twintelle. You just come off real condescending, even if you don't mean too, and your footage does little to back you up.

 

[Totakeke]

...

I personally think that your experience has been biased because of the limited community you can play against. You've been dominating them and players of equal skill level are rare for you. I can understand your comments about the game being far too defensive after watching your videos, but fundamentally it looks to me that it's mostly because people can't dodge your counter attacks. If it's mechanically impossible to dodge your counter attacks then you definitely do have a point (i.e. frame data), but it looks like it's usually because your opponents aren't agile enough.

You could be totally right still, but it's hard to tell when you don't have much competition.

 

[Papercuts]

Ah, I was actually wondering about that too Dogg. I felt the hardest matches I had during the test punches all went to the clock, basically, when both players turtle up. It seems REALLY hard to break defense and ultimately I think the game might suffer from not having much of a reason to initiate. For Honor had similar issues when I was deeper in that due to the parries, but that atleast had feints.

It seems most oppressive with supers, many people were trigger happy with it which made it easy to block, but I held them until they tossed out an arm, which lets you super on reaction. Maybe there's certain arm setups that will change something up here, but I'm not sure. Once you hold an HP lead, just hanging back and having people hang themselves seemed to do the trick. Grabs are too slow and you can dash -> throw them for trying.

I also still don't know how to feel about the characters using any ARM set, to me that feels like the potential depth might get capped and people flock to whoever has the most generically good skillset.

Curious to see how this pans out either way though.

 

[Neoxon]

Ah, I was actually wondering about that too Dogg. I felt the hardest matches I had during the test punches all went to the clock, basically, when both players turtle up. It seems REALLY hard to break defense and ultimately I think the game might suffer from not having much of a reason to initiate. For Honor had similar issues when I was deeper in that due to the parries, but that atleast had feints.

It seems most oppressive with supers, many people were trigger happy with it which made it easy to block, but I held them until they tossed out an arm, which lets you super on reaction. Maybe there's certain arm setups that will change something up here, but I'm not sure. Once you hold an HP lead, just hanging back and having people hang themselves seemed to do the trick. Grabs are too slow and you can dash -> throw them for trying.

I also still don't know how to feel about the characters using any ARM set, to me that feels like the potential depth might get capped and people flock to whoever has the most generically good skillset.

Curious to see how this pans out either way though.

I could see tournaments just limiting people to the character's 3 main ARMS unless either TOs require us to bring our own Switches (with docks being provided) or Nintendo gives us an easier means of unlocking more ARMS.

 

[SparksterMeta0]

....How on Earth do you end up with a draw in a 4-player free for all?

That's... a good question.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

I could see tournaments just limiting people to the character's 3 main ARMS unless either TOs require us to bring our own Switches (with docks being provided) or Nintendo gives us an easier means of unlocking more ARMS.

The defeats the entire purpose of the arms system and reduces it to just another fighting game. Fighting games impose restrictions to reduce unfair, aka random/non-player-deterministic variability, not simply to artificially gimp players. And before you point to Pokemon tournaments, that's because Pokemon is a weird balance of single player and multiplayer, with the former not requiring the same type of balance

 

[LotusHD]

]I could see tournaments just limiting people to the character's 3 main ARMS[/B] unless either TOs require us to bring our own Switches (with docks being provided) or Nintendo gives us an easier means of unlocking more ARMS.

Doesn't that just kind of defeat the whole point, it'd be pretty boring if they only could use default ARMS imo

 

[AquaWateria]

I could see tournaments just limiting people to the character's 3 main ARMS unless either TOs require us to bring our own Switches (with docks being provided) or Nintendo gives us an easier means of unlocking more ARMS.

I'm willing to bet that Nintendo can provide a way to easily unlock all the ARMS.

 

[DrDogg]

I know you keep talking about the highest level, but your "best" video shows that you don't even control your punches as well as donkey does with his Master Mummy videos. I can tell you're using a pro controller and aren't getting the curve action donkey does when they use Twintelle. You just come off real condescending, even if you don't mean too, and your footage does little to back you up.

I don't try to sound condescending. I think it's just how I type. I've always had that issue, which is why I put that disclaimer.

That said, do you have any videos that show donkey playing at a high level?

Right now I don't think curving your punches really changes any of my concerns. Do you have any insight on how curving would allow me to open someone up who's playing defensively? Not trying to say you're wrong, I'm legit curious because I don't see it.

I do wish I could curve with the right analog stick because that would make a huge difference, but for whatever reason that's not an option.

I personally think that your experience has been biased because of the limited community you can play against. You've been dominating them and players of equal skill level are rare for you. I can understand your comments about the game being far too defensive after watching your videos, but fundamentally it looks to me that it's mostly because people can't dodge your counter attacks. If it's mechanically impossible to dodge your counter attacks then you definitely do have a point (i.e. frame data), but it looks like it's usually because your opponents aren't agile enough.

You could be totally right still, but it's hard to tell when you don't have much competition.

More often than not, when I counter punch and it hits, it's guaranteed. There are definitely times in my videos when that's not the case, but my entire play of action is to play as defensive as possible and only attack when it's guaranteed to land. There's a lot of recovery on punches, especially if you have both Arms out.

Ah, I was actually wondering about that too Dogg. I felt the hardest matches I had during the test punches all went to the clock, basically, when both players turtle up. It seems REALLY hard to break defense and ultimately I think the game might suffer from not having much of a reason to initiate. For Honor had similar issues when I was deeper in that due to the parries, but that atleast had feints.

It seems most oppressive with supers, many people were trigger happy with it which made it easy to block, but I held them until they tossed out an arm, which lets you super on reaction. Maybe there's certain arm setups that will change something up here, but I'm not sure. Once you hold an HP lead, just hanging back and having people hang themselves seemed to do the trick. Grabs are too slow and you can dash -> throw them for trying.

I also still don't know how to feel about the characters using any ARM set, to me that feels like the potential depth might get capped and people flock to whoever has the most generically good skillset.

Curious to see how this pans out either way though.

I think Arms make the difference, not the character. We'll see how that changes in the future, but right now I think characters with high mobility and Arms that stun or allow for big damage combos will reign supreme.

 

[Passose]

I'm willing to bet that Nintendo can provide a way to easily unlock all the ARMS.

pay 20$ dlc to unlock all arms

 

[Unicorn]

pay 20$ dlc to unlock all arms

WB publishing ARMS?

 

[Neoxon]

pay 20$ dlc to unlock all arms

$5 sounds more fair, though I'd prefer a cheat code.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

pay 20$ dlc to unlock all arms

Lol have you played a Nintendo game with DLC before?

 

[pariah164]

pay 20$ dlc to unlock all arms

Fuck that noise. Earning the money to unlock the ARMS sounds like fun.

 

[Unicorn]

$5 sounds more fair, though I'd prefer a cheat code.

well, getting dupes of arms increases their stats, right?

I could see tourneys going how they went with Smash 4 where mainly it was default vanilla sets, but some TO tried to do free-for-all tourneys where you could load up custom moves and were then trying to balance loadouts based on broken-ness (nightmare fuel).

The logistics of set-ups for an actual tournament is a valid concern though. Marketing on reveal had Splatoon 2 tourney players bringing their own devices and setting them up in tabletop mode, so Nintendo are clearly aware that TO will want to have tournaments.

 

[selo]

I agree with DrDogg in that there's no incentive to attack first, I also felt this when playing the game, it is always better to wait and react accordingly. I don't know if Nintendo plans to update the game in its mechanics (I know we're getting free dlc characters) but the game does need more offensive options, because as it is, it is super easy to avoid punches.

I was thinking that to add more depth, feints could be introduced. Something that baits your opponent into doing something that doesn't leave you as open as throwing a punch does (say... feint that you throw your left punch and cancel it into a dash to the right and right punch or similar).

We do need more variety in offense but not just based on the arms, but based on character abilities/movement.

 

[Totakeke]

More often than not, when I counter punch and it hits, it's guaranteed. There are definitely times in my videos when that's not the case, but my entire play of action is to play as defensive as possible and only attack when it's guaranteed to land. There's a lot of recovery on punches, especially if you have both Arms out.

I'm not going to ask you to compile videos of your guaranteed counter punches (not counting supers), but to the untrained eyes I don't see it. And do those only happen with two punches out or just one punch as well? If it's the former, and that it's easy to guarantee counter hits, then people would naturally just gravitate towards using only one punch until it's safe to use two, wouldn't they?

But again, we're going down this path where it ends up being whether I trust what you say, and it's hard to just rely completely on what a single person says. So I'm just going to see how it plays out when the game releases.

 

[Unicorn]

I mean, can't that be said about any fighting game?

The incentive to attack is you gain meter for Rush. Footsies and spacing as time ticks down, but someone has to land a hit so it's not just a draw...

 

[atr0cious]

I don't try to sound condescending. I think it's just how I type. I've always had that issue, which is why I put that disclaimer.

That said, do you have any videos that show donkey playing at a high level?

Right now I don't think curving your punches really changes any of my concerns. Do you have any insight on how curving would allow me to open someone up who's playing defensively? Not trying to say you're wrong, I'm legit curious because I don't see it.

Sorry to put you in the middle of this donkey, I just think your gameplay speaks for itself.

Master Mummy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i0lYDu6oWI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DhFc4h4_ug


Those were all done using motion controls. All you have to do is believe! <3

and a clip of Twintelle.

The divergence is in playstyle, obviously. Since you're on a pro controller, you rush down and close the distance so you don't have to curve. donkey uses the distance, especially with MM to get wins.

Just means you commenting on the viability of curving is suspect.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

well, getting dupes of arms increases their stats, right?

I could see tourneys going how they went with Smash 4 where mainly it was default vanilla sets, but some TO tried to do free-for-all tourneys where you could load up custom moves and were then trying to balance loadouts based on broken-ness (nightmare fuel).

The logistics of set-ups for an actual tournament is a valid concern though. Marketing on reveal had Splatoon 2 tourney players bringing their own devices and setting them up in tabletop mode, so Nintendo are clearly aware that TO will want to have tournaments.

Smash 4's custom moves are nothing like ARMS. The foundation of arms is being able to interchange arms and their variability follows a set of rules. Not to mention you can do ranked arms battles using any arm you want. In Smash 4 custom rules were a side mode and weren't even allowed in For Glory IIRC. There is no logistical nightmare because it's how the game is meant to be played

 

[Doorman]

Looks like they ran out of time.

Yes, but in instances like that in any other mode of the game, the win goes to whoever has the most HP (which is easy to calculate, since every character has the same amount of HP thus there's no weird scaling or anything to even try and consider.) I guess two of the four players happened to have the same amount of health left? I've had a draw by timeout in a 1v1 fight before so I suppose that's possible, just seemed incredibly unlikely.

I think Arms make the difference, not the character. We'll see how that changes in the future, but right now I think characters with high mobility and Arms that stun or allow for big damage combos will reign supreme.

At least based on my own impressions I feel like the early meta's going to gravitate this way. Electricity just seems way too useful in guaranteeing follow-up damage in basically every mode of the game outside of V-ball, and putting that on characters that can move and evade the most puts you in the best situation to punish opponents' errors. Like others have said, I wonder how someone like Master Mummy will fare once he's not the only fighter that can pack a Megaton, since otherwise most any character could play his "block and bait attacks" style of game...but also speed around the field and evade attacks if they wanted to. The healing provides a bit of added urgency on your opponent, but if you already have the life-lead, the onus is going to be on them anyway. Armor's nice, but also better served on Mechanica, who has better mobility on top of better arm-charging options.

Maybe there's something to it that we just haven't found yet and it'll be more apparent once a larger base gets their hands on the final product, but I'm not sure how an element like "stun" would ever be preferable when you could have electricity or ice instead. Secondary to them, I could maybe see explosion for its extra hitbox catching some folks off-guard, or blind...but that only being available on the Blorb so far kind of limits how many people would realistically use it.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

anyone doing good in battles have tips to share?

I'm a beginner and what I tried recently I was getting whooped by more experienced people. Seems like slow moving fists are useless against more experienced players.

 

[DKL]

feeling on viability of tournament scene, balance of characters based on what was presented - i.e. how Master Mummy could stand a match vs Ninjara

I've actually bodied a Ninjara with Mummy lol

Like, maybe it's because the game is new, but every single Ninjara I play essentially has a movement pattern that looks like this:

-jump
-side air dash

So you just wait for the air dash, which has a set trajectory, and you get a free hit (or throw if you're really confident).

It was only towards the end that I actually saw a Ninjara that bothered to do something different:

-jump
-punch

...

But I adapted and slammed his face to the ground with Twintelle :v

Overall, it mostly feels like you can play any character the same as long as you understand what each character's gimmick is (unlike, say, Tekken 7, the game isn't too hard in this area since it's like maybe 1 or 2 things as opposed to random strings whose frame data I don't know and have never seen before and I eat until I've seen it enough or can learn how to space a character out and not deal with the mixups, which is still hard in T7 even though they've made movement easier).

A lot of the matchups, as mentioned earlier, are probably going to center around arms loadouts as opposed to one character vs. another.

Ah, I was actually wondering about that too Dogg. I felt the hardest matches I had during the test punches all went to the clock, basically, when both players turtle up. It seems REALLY hard to break defense and ultimately I think the game might suffer from not having much of a reason to initiate.

I don't really know why people think it's hard to break up defense (I've actually played some people enough that they started to turtle up, like in my Spring Man story earlier, but it didn't matter since I always caught them even though all they were pushing was the dash and jump buttons). There's actually a lot of recovery from various movement options, which means it's always possible to tag people consistently if your reads and arms steering is good enough.

Also, getting knocked down once is actually enough time for someone to move into the range where it becomes hard to react to a punch/throw mixup. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm always trying to get in dat ass in this game since there's only like maybe 5 or 6 things people can do on wakeup (neutral getup, wakeup jump, wakeup dash, guard (actually may be the best option that no one does lol), super) and it can get pretty devastating if I keep guessing correctly (which you can since people unknowingly form patterns in their movement after a point).

Saying that you can't get it on someone in this game is like saying that you'll never get in on Robert in KOF XIV just because he has a fireball and a DP >_>

No one can be that consistent on defense, especially in a game like this that has a ton of mobility and attack arcs lol

Like, I've gotten hit by YOLO throw from max distance (two times in a row, even) because the person I was playing was good enough to actually steer that shit.

As someone who at least exposes himself to enough FGCs, I don't think the fundamentals involved in this game are inherently less interesting just because you don't have to bend over backwards to set something up or execute combos.

I mean, casuals actually think that VF5 needs a PhD to play, so how reliable can opinions from people be :v

 

[Man God]

Lean left during arms selection, then dash right and throw out a punch with your lightest arm, followed by your heavier arm.

Worked like a charm 90% of the time to start off.

 

[Unicorn]

Smash 4's custom moves are nothing like ARMS. The foundation of arms is being able to interchange arms and their variability follows a set of rules. Not to mention you can do ranked arms battles using any arm you want. In Smash 4 custom rules were a side mode and weren't even allowed in For Glory IIRC. There is no logistical nightmare because it's how the game is meant to be played

I mean the TOs that tried to implement custom moves (were not allowed in For Glory). Logistical nightmare was mainly for getting set ups for people that want to enter but don't have a system or their own joycons/controllers.

 

[Man God]

They might patch in a Tournament mode with all arms set at level one.

 

[DKL]

anyone doing good in battles have tips to share?

I'm a beginner and what I tried recently I was getting whooped by more experienced people. Seems like slow moving fists are useless against more experienced players.

Pay attention to people's movement.

It seems intimidating at first, but there's actually a ton of recovery from things people like doing (air dash, in particular... you fall in like one way with most characters with this thing lol).

Once they stop moving around since you've punished them enough, just mash throw :v

 

[bumpkin]

Pay attention to people's movement.

It seems intimidating at first, but there's actually a ton of recovery from things people like doing (air dash, in particular... you fall in like one way with most characters with this thing lol).

Once they stop moving around since you've punished them enough, just mash throw :v

The only thing that consistently irked me was that movement and punch arching are both tied to the direction you're pushing the left analog stick. You can't be dodging to the left but hooking a punch to the right. That is unless there's some nuance I don't understand about the game's inputs.

Aside from that, I generally had a good time with the Testpunch. I'd occasionally encounter some really frustrating match-ups for 2-v-2 team fights, and I felt like I could never get a handle on winning in Skill Shot.

 

[Unicorn]

They might patch in a Tournament mode with all arms set at level one.

ideal.

 

[Man God]

The only thing that consistently irked me was that movement and punch arching are both tied to the direction you're pushing the left analog stick. You can't be dodging to the left but hooking a punch to the right. That is unless there's some nuance I don't understand about the game's inputs.

Aside from that, I generally had a good time with the Testpunch. I'd occasionally encounter some really frustrating match-ups for 2-v-2 team fights, and I felt like I could never get a handle on winning in Skill Shot.

That's the real superiority of motion controls as long as you can get your movement to be as precise as it is on sticks, which is possible. Independent arm control from movement. It's especially noticeable at extreme long ranges what you can do with the joycons.

 

[Totakeke]

That's the real superiority of motion controls as long as you can get your movement to be as precise as it is on sticks, which is possible. Independent arm control from movement. It's especially noticeable at extreme long ranges what you can do with the joycons.

I don't believe that's true. It's the same thing on motion and non-motion where you can't separate movement from arm direction. The actual advantage of motion is independent control of both arm directions at the same time.

 

[random25]

anyone doing good in battles have tips to share?

I'm a beginner and what I tried recently I was getting whooped by more experienced people. Seems like slow moving fists are useless against more experienced players.

Slow arms are a good setup tool to force a reaction out of opponents to use the other faster arm as a punish tool. They also have some odd execution times which throws opponents off. As slow as the hammer is, hitting with it is so reliable because opponents seem to react too early that their dodges or jumps leave them more open before the hammer whacks them.

 

[AquaWateria]

I hope Nintendo makes animated shorts for this series.

The characters are begging to be shown interacting with each other.

 

[Totakeke]

I hope Nintendo makes animated shorts for this series.

The characters are begging to be shown interacting with each other.

There's no scenario where Nintendo will make anywhere near as much money from ARMS as Blizzard does from Overwatch though

 

[DKL]

The only thing that consistently irked me was that movement and punch arching are both tied to the direction you're pushing the left analog stick. You can't be dodging to the left but hooking a punch to the right. That is unless there's some nuance I don't understand about the game's inputs.

Actually, you can punch in various arcs using traditional controls.

A lot of people don't realize this, but you're kind of "planted" in your state for a few frames after a punch is thrown regardless of what control scheme you use.

It's during that moment where you can actually input the direction you want a punch to go in.

I guess the easiest way to describe this is using exaples:

If you air dash left, during that entire animation, you can take your left arm and curve it right...

Like, you cannot actually do anything else during this state, so the game prioritizes "steering" over movement.

If you are walking left and enter a punch input, the game will plant you in a neutral standing state and can freely steer stuff with the analog.

You can't actually attack and move freely like you would in a traditional shooter (at least, this is my current understanding).

As far as I can tell, the only thing you can't really do on traditional controls is steering individual arms very late into their animations.

 

[AquaWateria]

There's no scenario where Nintendo will make anywhere near as much money from ARMS as Blizzard does from Overwatch though

That's only because Overwatch has microtransactions and limited skins BS.

But yeah I get what you are saying.

 

[Totakeke]

Not sure if this guy is a reliable source *cough*, but he has detailed info on Byte and Barq.

I think I'll just recreate one part of a previous comment I did as a thread, because I think people need to know about this stuff before writing off Byte and Barq as having unreliable AI.

• Barq will by default stay either northeast or northwest of Byte, and attack. He seems to attack more the further the opponent is.
• When you jump on him, his 'AI objective' seems to change and he will stop shooting the opponent and follow under you to allow you to continuously hop on him. This AI objective deactivates if you air dash though, and will return him to the default 'standby objective'.
• When you hop on Barq, you will do the Spring Man deflection on impact. Since you can choose to either short hop on Barq, or do a high jump, this allows you to continuously be able to deflect ARMS coming your way if you short hop well enough, while also protecting Barq from getting hit. And since you charge up ARMS while landing on Barq, you will have constant ARMS charge, while also making sure Barq is protected by the deflection.
• When you charge up ARMS as Byte, Barq's next attack will actually be charged as a fire punch too, which will up the damage from 30 to 70 and be a guaranteed knockdown. Because of Barq being the third ARM, this allows you to be able to do "standoffs" with opponents much better due to the knockdown if Barq hits.
• Lastly, because Barq doesn't dash with you, you can always quickly dash behind him (since he is diagonally in front of you by default) and let him take a hit for you at any time.

Decided to do this so everyone knows it's out there and everyone can see it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ARMS/comments/6fb1pv/byte_and_barq_consistency_and_barqs_hidden/

 

[Man God]

Slow arms are a good setup tool to force a reaction out of opponents to use the other faster arm as a punish tool. They also have some odd execution times which throws opponents off. As slow as the hammer is, hitting with it is so reliable because opponents seem to react too early that their dodges or jumps leave them more open before the hammer whacks them.

Mechanica was by far my most successful character precisely because most people were mystified what to do about the hammer. It goes slow, but it has a long range and is easy to curve around defensive arms and wide enough to get people who didn't dodge far enough. You can also follow it up with a light arm and probably break their guard if you hit them twice or get a good combo in if it hit true. I love the hammer.

 

[Neoxon]

Ninjara was still the most used character, with Twintelle taking 2nd.