u/Slonkx

Akali on the left, Qiyana on the right

Yet it’s the #1 thing people cannot stop talking about when it comes to this game. The #1 thing that hasn’t been adequately addressed since its launch. The #1 thing that people bring up as a pain point. Like yes there is no peer-reviewed study or empirical data that shuts down all questioning on whether or not floorhug is the primary reason people stop playing, but be serious. No other topic gets talked about this much when it comes to the game.

Also, no one said anything about it being a “smash success”. I said growth and success in relation to the team’s initial sales projections. They expected more, and got much less.

I think you are operating under definitions that not even the developers do. Yes, the game is flourishing competitively. What does that really mean though? The game has always shown growth competitively, so why isn’t the game succeeding by their standards?

When I say stagnation, I’m referring to the monthly playercounts that have been stuck at 1k for the past 2 years (outside of character releases). Stagnation in terms of the fact that they’ve had to constantly downsize their team to where it was sustainable for their player count. If they thought this game was going to have these numbers from the jump, why have a team that wasn’t sustainable? Also, Dev streams are niche now??? One of the main ways the developers address the community is niche??? What definition of niche are you operating under?

At this point I don’t think this conversation is going to be very fruitful if we can’t even agree on what success looks like.

I brought up BH only to say that this game can succeed, not that it has to be in direct competition with it (though it is, in the grand scheme of things).

“Niche and high level” but for some reason has circled the discourse around this game since closed beta and got a dedicated developer stream attempting to clear up “misconceptions” about the mechanic.

If this game feel is what the community wanted, why is it apart of the discourse? Why is the game still at 1k players? Why is the team struggling to stay afloat? Why do people still complain about it, even after learning counterplay? I understand that this may be a mechanic you enjoy, but once again if it is as good for the game as you are positing, why the stagnation?

There is room to discuss more effective monetization of the existing playerbase, but I’m questioning why the game has not shown growth after two years of development. Floorhug is really the only mechanic in the game that has yet to leave its discourse. Players don’t need to be good enough to understand the ins and outs of FH to have it sour their experience to the point of quitting. This game has an insane retention issue, floorhug is a common gripe with the players that quit. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this mechanic is the breaking point for a lot of people who try out the game.

Platform fighters can succeed. Brawlhalla has been doing it for over a decade now.

Counters are active callouts you can wait out to punish and aren’t present in every character. Sparking is more of a comeback mechanic. It costs a resource, one you don’t get back 99% of the time, and can be waited out or even fought through. Burst can be predicted at best, and at worst is a reset back to neutral. It’s also a limited resource that you have to earn back through proactive play. FH isn’t a resource. There is no limit outside of percent and move used on it. It can be used at any point in time, even during an attack you missed (unlike counters, which are an active move commitment). These mechanics aren’t analogous.

Once again, I am arguing that this mechanic isn’t conducive to the outcome the team wants. You say we “baby people who complain about it,” but this game has gotten so much airtime and exposure in the two years it has been released. It hasn’t seen growth. It has been at ~1k players permanently outside of character releases. If the mechanic, which has always been the main thing people complain about when it comes to the game, isn’t the reason for the game’s stagnation, what do you think is?

You’re not grappling with my main point here. People aren’t saying that you can’t adapt to it. That there isn’t counterplay. That how Dan used it isn’t how you’re supposed to use it. My main point is that this mechanic subverts a core expectation in fighting games. There isn’t an amount of defending or counterplay explaining you can do to justify the immediate guttural reaction on watching someone punish you for landing a hit. I’ve tried. I’m sure you’ve tried. These same players who bounce off the game say to themselves, “Why would I play a fighting game where I can get punished for landing a hit when this other game exists? This other game that makes sense on a fundamental level.”

This game is trying (and failing) to purchase the time and attention of its consumer base. This mechanic is not conducive to that outcome. If the Devs didn’t care about that, then it would be a moot point. But they do. They malign the game’s lack of success while sticking with the main mechanic that causes players to leave. That, to me, is stubborn. Something has to give at this point, and if they couldn’t figure out the branding issue after nearly two years of post-release development, how long until they do? And if it never happens, will they say the game failed because they couldn’t brand this mechanic well? Or will they say that maybe the community was right on this mechanic being a hard-stop for the majority of players? This fact should have been grappled with much sooner in the game’s lifespan, but hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.

Fair enough on providing your anecdote, but the DP argument is flawed. The main difference between the two is risk and the amount of commitment tied to DP. If your DP gets blocked or it misses, you get an extended punish leading to considerably more damage than you would take otherwise. If you miss time a floorhug, you get…the same reward you would normally get for hitting the opponent. People aren’t saying that 100% of hits landed in neutral are floor hugged, but the fact that this is still a point of discourse in the community tells you that when it does happen it’s an extremely jarring experience. I get what you’re saying about swinging into an opponent with a weak move, but the argument is that shouldn’t matter. Yes, the reward on hit wouldn’t be as much as an optimal move, but getting outright punished for successfully doing what the game incentivizes you to do is hard to conceptualize as “fair” or “rewarding”.

Getting DP’d feels fair because the opponent has to actively comment to a move of their own, predict/react to what you were doing, and the risk of them being wrong was you doing increased damage on your punish. Floor hug will never get the same outlook. Even in Dan’s example, he used a fstrong, got punished, floor hugged the punish, and got his hit off. This is not a fulfilling gameplay loop for the vast majority of people who try this game out.

I don’t care about it being in the game, but likening it to a DP is just operating in bad faith.

Fair points. I was speaking on momentum and exposure alone. The fact that it launched with no tutorials and performance + server issues did definitely hurt it. The floorhug discourse only added onto it.

I’m indifferent on the mechanic at this point, but if they were going to remove it, it should have been done a year ago. In my opinion the team has tried for way too long to make the penultimate bounce-off mechanic work. It’s obvious they want the game to grow and be (at the very least) a sustainable product, but this mechanic is the number one reason why people stop playing the game. I understand the mechanic is apart of their vision and why it’s in the game, but at this point it feels more stubborn than anything else.

Rivals 2 had a really good launch, but ever since then the discourse around this mechanic has never really stopped. Some people get back on the game when a new character drops, but then it’s back to the usual ~1k players. Misconceptions 2 and 3 especially strike me as out of touch. Attempting to put something like wavedashing on the same level as floor hugging is a bit disingenuous. People (generally) don’t come back after learning how to wave dash and complain about how it feels unfair. Every time I’ve done it with a new player I get asked “How do you do that”, taught them, and then it’s smiles and rainbows. I can kind of see how it would be hard for devs to see what mechanics are and aren’t intuitive, but that’s what community feedback is for. The same feedback has been given for nearly two years now. Anecdotally the main complaint I hear from people who I introduced to play this game isn’t that the game is hard, or that there aren’t enough skins, or that the characters feel unfair. It’s “Why am I getting punished for landing an attack?”

Breaking one of the most fundamental rules of a fighting game is going to be a hard sell, and I don’t think this game is selling it all too well (if the concept can be sold at all). I genuinely do not think I’ve ever seen a mechanic need to be defended on this scale from its own player base. The future of this game already doesn’t look bright by the team’s own words, and I don’t think any amount of characters, skins, workshop content, custom colors, console release, or cross play can really save it if we’re still discussing whether or not floorhug should be in the game nearly 2 years after its release.

the first songs that come to mind are The Ooz & Seagirl

https://preview.redd.it/zylau430tljh1.jpeg?width=1082&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be950d81c496459a8bfa94321beafd6bb3b7fc3e

Maka - Probably has a better relationship with her father. Still quite stern, and I think that she’d be a teacher at DWMA. Design wise I can see her dressing a bit like Azusa.

Soul - Relatively similar to how he was. Dresses in the same vein as well. Could still be Death’s scythe depending on what has happened. If he’s not, music director at DWMA.

Black Star - I don’t see him ever losing the boisterous aspect of his character, and I can’t imagine him in a classroom. I can see him being way more tempered in his approaches with others though. Probably holds a position similar to that of the previous Death Scythe’s (stationed somewhere out in the world) or something like what Sasuke was to Naruto after Naruto became hokage. Hopefully dresses in something like the Spartoi outfit he had.

Tsubaki - She’s the same. Still Black Star’s weapon. Still the most mature out of the duo. I don’t know what to think about how she’d be designed.

Death (previously known as Death the Kid) - He’d be doing his deathly duties while hopefully being a bit less obsessed with symmetry. We know what he’d be wearing.

Liz & Pattie - Depends on if they’re still Death’s weapons or not. If they are, they’d be in close proximity to him. If they aren’t, I can see them running a store or a club (assuming weapons don’t have to be apart of DWMA in some way). Dress less like cowgirls and more like baddies.

If there was a continuation I’d rather they focus on a set of new characters than revisit the old gang. I think it’d make for a much more interesting story than just giving us the gang but older saving the world again.

Late 20s. Started in 2015 during closed beta.

https://giphy.com/gifs/9ekZwVf14pbDNIZV42

The way any respected sociologist does:

Twitter

Maybe? Correct me if I’m wrong but I always thought we don’t take Sundered because our enhanced autos can’t crit.

The one that popped out the most is Murakami, but I’m probably the only person interested in what he would design and for which characters.

Ben 10 would be cool too.

Playing Ambessa mid is kinda uncharted. One thing to note is that while Fizz is a bit useless if he’s not ahead, Ambessa is perfectly fine scaling. She has strong trading patterns once you learn how to space and play around her cds. You’re really strong at 1 item, dip a lot at 2, then straight going back up at 3+.

As far as roaming goes, I don’t recommend it too much pre 1 item. Like you’ve noticed, it’s hard to hit her R without any setup, so guaranteeing a roam is going to payoff is a little bit iffy (especially if your wave isn’t in a good state). I’d recommend playing around your jungler/objectives more than roaming to other lanes. You’re a pretty good skirmisher and being healthy for grubs/drag is worth more than roaming to other lanes. Obviously some games a roam will be free, but what I’m saying is more of a general rule than something you have to follow 100% of the time.

Runes are matchup dependent. Elec is a good “Idk what to go here” rune and can be run 90% of the time. Grasp is good into trade heavy melee matchups (Yas/Yone, Sylas, Tanks/Bruisers mid). Conq is good into lanes where you’re able to farm and scale relatively uncontested (Malz, Galio, things of that nature) OR tanky team comps.

Items are also matchup dependent. I toss up between Eclipse and Voltaic as first items, and sometimes I build both. Second item (if you didn’t go those two first) can be DD for survivability, Shojin, or Profane (I don’t really go this item but it is an option). 3rd is Endless Hunter. 4th+ can be the usual suspects for this archetype. One thing I’m wondering about is Bastion Breaker after the buffs. Could be nice.

Best of luck on your Ambessa mid journey.

what i do

From what I’ve played

1. Bloodborne

2. AC:FA

3. AC:6

4: AC:VD

5: AC:4

6: AC:LR

7: AC:SL

8: Sekiro

9: DS3

10: ER: Nightreign

11: AC:N

12: AC:FF

13: AC:3

14: Elden Ring

15: AC:AA

16: AC2

atp if you’re not building a good amount of defense with all the sigil slots you have now you have no one to blame but yourself. 190k hp on fully transcended terminus and i have to be asleep at the wheel to die on beatrix. a stronghold, guts, & aegis + greater (even stout + steel nerves if you can slot it) will go a long way, and that’s not even mentioning drain and potion hoarder.

fairs

what if i just liked dls more than goretrance 9 and cupra

will definitely check it out, thanks for the rec

i have no idea what a dusthead is but i’m gonna run with it

cold vein was a harsh exclusion but i truly love that album to death

BONES has always been iffy for me but i haven’t listened to that record, def gonna check it out later today