I think you’ll find it pretty difficult to find this type of combination of obscure, random camera angles AND a black background in any 2D fighter, especially if these effects happen once every 20 seconds. Notice that we have no complaints about subtle camera changes in the old enders, or even the zoom in/zoom out that happens during a shadow move activation (even if you’re going to try and break the first hit, which requires action immediately after the camera resets), because it’s subtle and doesn’t take you out of the game. Apart from the original SF3 video (which replaces the background with a really obnoxious blue swirl and was never done in 3rd Strike, the only version of SF3 anybody actually played and hasn’t been done in a Capcom fighter since the turn of the century), I don’t think any of the effects come close to these new enders in terms of sheer jankiness, exposing elements of the characters that weren’t meant to be seen, and camera shifts making you lose focus of the fight.
This is precisely what I’m trying to say.
I’m also trying to say that the concept behind it is flawed enough that I don’t think spending one or two more months “tweaking” it somehow will save it. You can try to rework the camera angles to remove the janky interactions, maybe get rid of the black background if you can find a way to not expose the rigging behind the stage, but then what are you left with? The original enders anyway?
If the original enders are not only serviceable but actually really good, and the ideal version of smoothing out this implementation is basically just trying to make them pretty close to the original enders, why not just cut your losses, save some money and time, and jump to the inevitable conclusion?
If they’re going to add emphasis to level 4 enders, they should use the dev time on a new approach. That Jago Endokuken gif that’s floating around from one of the trailers seems to have some extra flashy hit sparks in it. Maybe try something like that, I dunno. But because I think level 4 enders have a ton of emphasis already (in S2), I’m not sure they really gain anything from this. If they’re really tight on time and money, I don’t know why they’re trying to improve a solved problem instead of tackling an unsolved one, and why they didn’t cut their losses when it wasn’t working out in development.
A structured and civil response, as always. For the record, it is appreciated.
I sat and watched all the videos I posted for at least a few minutes to compare the effects and I think there are lots of examples that are pretty comparable to the lvl 4 enders both with moving the camera and with the darkened background - especially among the 2D fighters using 3D character model set. The only thing that is universal is that everything in the videos takes a lot longer. There’s degrees to everything, but they look pretty similar to me. It’s fine if you disagree.
I appreciate the fact that some of the camera cuts are choppy - but this seems like a tweak rather than a “rework” to me. Frequency is a recurring them. Maybe I’m out of scale, but I don’t see a level 4 ender so frequently in my matches. I’m going to have to start trying to collect some statistics, but I got on and played against shadows yesterday (which are typically easier than real people to fool into lockouts or hit with long combos) and I still got maybe 1-2 per match. I guess some people are just better at maximizing their combos.
I can only speculate on what the devs were hoping to accomplish, but it seems pretty clear they wanted to provide a little more visual hype to the lvl 4 enders and maybe even thereby encourage novice players to try to get them a little bit more often.
[quote=“Infilament, post:123, topic:6198”]
If they’re really tight on time and money, I don’t know why they’re trying to improve a solved problem instead of tackling an unsolved one, and why they didn’t cut their losses when it wasn’t working out in development.
[/quote] I do think this is a bit disingenuous. It can be applied to any and all changes in a game - including the lighting change, the UI etc. The second part implies that the final is so obviously terrible that the developers couldn’t help but see that it was terrible while working on it. There are plenty of people on here who don’t mind it, and watching the stream they were very excited to share it - so I just don’t think they anticipated this reception for the effect.
SFIII was really really bad to look at that why third strike was there.
X-Rays are a huge timewaste … but they all look freaking good and are well animated.
Injustice was so annoying with the Supers and the Stage Transitions but they still looked better than the almighty new flashy funky perfect KI lvl 4 Ender.
UMVC was too much blinking and color stuff for me to handle - so for me it was worse than Level 4 KI Enders but it did not required Supers to achieve that.
Street Fighter V aside from time waste - they are well animated, you can see the stage and the flow does not get disrupted cause when they end you always see where you are
So imo your examples are pretty bad and the most important part is we are talking about KI here not what other fight games have done.
If i dont have arguments pro them than i must show what other games have done.
Those look really nice and visually appealing, the camera work is done well, the attacks all connect, overall they add hype.
The level 4 enders try to emulate those but falls so flat on it’s face. The closest ones to the level 4 enders are the xrays. Look at how each of the hits actually lands their mark. Look at how the enemy is facing directly at your character so that the camera angle works instead of of facing the screen. Look at how even though the camera angles move several times in the xray it doesn’t feel awful. Over all it is just a more insanely improved version of the level 4 ender.
Yes you can say they can polish the game so that it gets to that level but they won’t. Let’s not lie to ourselves, that would take a long time and money.
I can honestly say I don’t like them either. I think everyone is missing the point when they compare them to x-rays or critical arts in the fact that losing track of where you are on the screen can really mess up your ability to juggle or attempt your next set up. This really is kind of a horrible change to an otherwise fantastic game.
Also, as far as hype is concerned, I think they missed the boat here too. Let’s say I’ve just opened my opponent up and I start a combo. I attempt a counter breaker and he takes the bait. “C-C-C-C-Counter Breaker!!!” right? then I continue my combo which is pretty much guarenteed to be a level 4 ender now and we get that ender effect. I ask you, did the hype come from the ender effect or did it come from the counter breaker?
Both, in my opinion. A big jump in hype from the counter breaker, but then also another when seeing the big cash out - regardless of what the Ender looked like.
I find it hard to believe any KI fan would get excited about watching a counterbreaker in a big tournament, and then get bored seeing a 60-80% cashout.
I feel bad because I know hours were put into these things and they put them in the game. I am not pretending to know a thing about the creation of a game. What if these are in there pretty deep… like they can’t just “remove and replace” with what used to be? Like… they painted the car and you’re saying the color came out nothing like you wanted it to be. I guess that’s just a repaint… well I think I failed that analogy.
This is how I see it.
It’s possible that they slapped the idea into the live stream just to see what we would say.
But effort is effort. I wish people could be more respectful with criticism, but I also understand the emotion involved with this game we care about.
At some point development has to pick a direction. When fans see that direction headed for a cliff, they’re gonna shout for course correction and hope development hasn’t gathered too much momentum to swerve. Otherwise we hope the cliff is just a small dip before a hill which leads to higher ground. Sometimes developers have a better view of what’s ahead.
I wish they had shown them earlier. 10 Days till release doesn’t sound like enough time to do much about them now.
I just hope that they can take a step back and consider other options.
