Still an often debated subject in the fighting game community, Street Fighter X Tekken's gem system has caused a stir from the moment it was announced. “Yeah the competitive community is quite worried about the gems,” begins Seth. “I’m in that competitive camp so I understand. Any time you make changes, it’s like SACRILEGE! UNACCEPTABLE!
“I get that, because I had the same reaction myself internally. I was excited about the idea of customisable characters on paper, but then I started playing and seeing how the whole thing was evolving and I was thinking, ‘this is going to be a hot mess, I better go find another job pretty quick!’
“But then I actually went hands on with the prototypes and it started pushing my nerd buttons.”
Street Fighter X Tekken has literally been built around the inclusion of gems. It’s as central a feature as focus attacks in Street Fighter 4, or parrying in Street Fighter 3. Elements of the gem system are intended to make the game more accessible to new gamers, but Seth hopes they’ll ultimately result in a new meta-game, a system that adds depth to an already fluid fighting system.
“I started trying out the ones I thought would be cheap — I was using for an autoblock gem and a meter builder, choosing Zangief and just running in and piledriving everyone! That build didn’t work out for me, so we had to balance and evolve over time. But once you start playing with the gems, you move from trepidation and fear to thinking of all the possibilities. Now I wake up from dreams going EUREKA! No-one has ever thought of this!
Pointed out by Slasher and an anonymous reader.
I agree with Seth. One of the biggest problems in the FGC is that people are afraid of change. If it wasn't in MVC2 or Super Turbo, then it's "dumbing down the genre for casuals".
People hated on SF4. The game has been being played worldwide for 3 years running now.
People hated on MVC3. This'll be its second year at EVO.
Not to mention that both games have helped the community grow at an alarming rate.
In short, calm down, open your mind, and just have fun. That's what these games are all about.
Ono said end of jan-feb meaning we might see them next week or get an update about them.... Unless they meant megaman and pac-man O_o. they were announced last week so...
Ultimately I understand what they are trying to do but since it's a core mechanic it shouldn't be based on external items like gems, Focus Attacks and Parries are things you can do anytime with your characters body, the idea should have been directed to "training" instead of gems, like if Ken wants more speed he does special training to focus on speed like real fighters do.
Also having a cosmetic glitter show to indicate when and what gems are being used is not helping to improve the meta-game, it should have been changes that you set at the select screen which the player has to commit to for the entire match.
@5 your the type of guy that makes me worried about the gems because youll think youre so pro when its your bought out gems which makes me worry about another thing what if at a tourny the gems I need arent there I'll have enough fun playing the new characters with new moves I think this gem thing is just another reason why people will have no skill wins and losses
Sure it will be fun picking different gems to make me win more but I rather it be thinking of new ways to combine my moves into combos to make me win more
Wish they would just bring back focus attack and cancelling it is "SF" x Tekken afterall. I think they tried to hard hard to come up with new concepts, from the looks of things they're still not to sure on what direction they really want to go with this either and the game is a month n some change away from the release date.
@12
"from the looks of things they're still not to sure on what direction they really want to go with this either and the game is a month n some change away from the release date."
how do you figure they don't know what direction they want to go with a game coming out in a month???? haha your kidding right?
i respect seth and consider gems a good thing.ill give it a try on weekend but never as competitive game.
if we do ,then SSBB is a competitive game.
we will buy the game to support you but please let it be the last cross over.so we can get on with our lives.
focus more on Sf5 and bring all the dudes missing from 3rd strike.
@17 And what if you have auto-block gem activated but the meter building gem requires that you take an attacks to activate?
@2: The funny thing is that back when MvC2 came out everybody got mad that it was "dumbing down" the game by only having 4 attack buttons and combing light/medium attacks into 1 button.
Also, people still get mad that SF4 has 'easy inputs' and it's dumbing down the game and 3rd Strike is a real man's game. Well, guess what? 3rd Strike had the exact same easy input system. Nobody seems to know this but go ahead and load up 3S, pick a shoto, and do d/f+mk, d/f+fp and you'll see the low forward cancel into an uppercut. This really annoys me because people who should know better don't seem to know this <cough>gootecks</cough> and refer to easy inputs when talking about the differences between SF4 and 3S.
Which major fighting game coming in 2012 won't have DLC anyway?
#21
Exactly. History is simply repeating itself.
Capcom knows what they're doing. People need to just calm down and let them handle it.
I don't have a HUGE problem with the gems, I just have issues with how they're charging cash for some AND how potentially broke some of them may be. I don't have issues with Gems like maybe a meter building gem or a health up gem.
Things like an auto guard gem however I have issues with
Hey guys, let's put up DLC gems that are exactly the same as the gems you get in-game, except without any negative penalties.
lololol
@21
Uhhh... 3S did not have the shortcuts that SF4 does, I just played some 3S side by side with SF4 while posting this, it doesn't work. Get your facts straight.
The issue with gems is not balance or gameplay per se.
It is a logistical issue.
Button checks already take long. Gem check will take longer. And whenver I go to a tournament, the consoles don't even have all colors or alt costumes or DLC chars.
Do you expect 50 tourney stations to have ALL available gems?
^That's pretty much the problem with the gem nonsense. And there's like a hundred gems, who the hell wants to go through that with the time it takes to decide what you want to equip?
Gonna be trying to counter pick gems all day, it'll be stupid.
"Elements of the gem system are intended to make the game more accessible to new gamers"
And I'm definitely not getting this game. How come new people that are getting into these types of games can't learn how to actually get the feel of the game and its characters?
It took me some time when I was a kid, the new generation can learn form this as well. If they spend countless hours playing other games, then they could practice this as well.
Seth might as well said "We want to attract the Call of Duty audience" to be much more clearer.
@28
The difference is, most people don't like sitting in a training room doing moves over and over again until they perfect their combos (this feels like doing homework), whereas in games like CoD, you learn by just running around in actual games playing with other people (this feels like playing a game).
Sure, you can do the same thing in a fighting game, play actual matches to learn moves/techniques/combos, but it certainly is hard to do so and there is very little leeway when a good player is bodying you.
The general public, as opposed to the minority hardcore gamers, like simplicity and the feeling that they are doing well while playing a game, not the feeling of being made to felt inept, helpless and uncompetitive. People play games for fun, and it isn't fun to go online, only to lose in less than 20 seconds because the other guy is l33t and you are not. Most people in the world have 0 desire to become a tournament worthy player, so they aren't going to dedicate the hours upon hours necessary to become good at the difficult aspects of the game. This is where CoD has a leg up on fighting games in general. Even if you aren't good at CoD, the gamer is made to feel like they are accomplishing stuff and getting better through points and the acquisition of new perks, weapons and kill-streaks.
What they need is a better match-making system for online so people of similar skill are paired with each other, instead of putting n00bs against tourney pros.
I look at the gems like this, I love using hibiki but fact is he's at a disadvantage. Maybe using the right gems will make tiers a little less drastic.
@26
Irrelevant. Tournament organizers will allow the standard gems (the ones with the game not the pre-order or DLC gems). Problem solved. For the button (and gem) check, you can do it in the character select screen so it's faster than SFIV.
The only problem with gems is the DLC problem. You can't sell a core mechanic in DLC. Again, it is an ethical issue because the logistical issue is already solved and I don't give a f*ck about DLC gems, I have a lot of stuff to do with standard gems.
I think people really need to read everything that gems do. They give a small amount of buff, for a little while. The higher you go, the less time you have, and you will have drawbacks. 10% 20secs. 20% -10% on another stat for 15secs. 30% activate Pandora. I wont be using pandora unless ik that without it, the next thing i do, ik the opponent is going to die, like they have 1 left on their HP. X-Factor has high ass buffs, and does just about every Gem and some. Everyone has adapted to X-factor. So give Gems a chance, its not going to give you a shoe-in win if you have a certain layout with certain people.
Auto-block is only useful if you dont know how to block properly. It takes off a whole stock from your Meter. It will not work if you dont have any meter. So you cant run in at all times with anyone like Zangeif to piledrive the opponent and not have to worry about blocking. the opponent can just crouch lp you three times and there goes your meter, and you have nothing to help you. Dont choose layouts just b/c you think its cheap, try it, you wont do much against Pros when they find their good layout
#33
Where do they say you can buy more gems beyond the pre order gems?
#26
Sounds more like a problem with your tourney organizers. No good tournament leaves out content just because it's DLC/"No one uses them anyway". When it comes to characters at least.
@2 I understand what you're saying, but the problem here isn't "dumbing down" or change (I play Brawl and I hate that argument, it's that they built the entire game around an extremely controversial and experimental game mechanic. If they just had gems in there as a part of the game, like parrying and focus attacks, that would be fine, but no. They decided to build the entire game around it. Street Fighter 3 wasn't built around parrying, Street Fighter 4 wasn't built around focus attacks, and Marvel 3 wasn't built around X-Factor, they were built around the game, unlike gems. Also, there will be over 200 gems upon release. With that alone, it will take forever to establish a stable metagame and working strategies, because you will have to test out every single combination on every single character. This is extremely damaging to the competitive scene and should have been thought of before it was made into the core element of the game. All in all, this just seems like a very poorly thought out decision.
Everyone's already forgot they're releasing a 'tourny mode'
Yeah, but that won't disable gems, it will only make button checks easier (something like that, Ono wasn't very clear).
So the whole gem system was created so "casual" players could enjoy the game?
So wouldn't all this be solved if they made better / fine-tune matchmaking online with a more in-depth skill determining system so people with similar skill levels can play each other?
^
Adding to my comments above, this reminds me of how Blizzard chipped away at hardcore raiding in WoW to the point it made raiding at high levels pointless. Why try hard when you're handed everything on a silver platter?
Of course the big difference here is that the main target of WoW was casual players, so it made sense for them to do what they did.
For fighting games though... I hope fighting games don't follow the same path leading to the core guys just throwing their hands up and saying why bother?
No, it's more like the core guy throwing his hands up and saying "I find mirror matches to be boring and uneventful, so instead of playing a different character, I'm going to make it more interesting by adding a completely foreign element to the genre and build all of my future games around it. Surely only good things can come from this."
Biased statement is biased -_-
As if Seth would say "even though I work for Capcom, after going hands on I don't feel it is a core mechanic" which is what he might think.
Of course he'll say it's a great core mechanic regardless of how he really feels, so I'm not too convinced.
Capcom is caught in the grips of Gamblor, just like Marge Simpson was!
@Stickyresin
While this is true, the cancel and reversal windows in SF4 are stupidly large, so even the same kind of input shortcut is not really that viable. It is easier execution to do a real buffer/2-in-1 in 3S as opposed to doing crouch forward, mash the stick forward and down forward, and hit punch. Besides, the real reason why 3s players complain about SF4 is because aggressiveness is no where near as rewarding. Huge reversal window + Long invincibility on DP's + Easy inputs + FADC + Invincible backdash = Best option is to mash while getting comboed or pressured and high-low mix-ups are basura. The fact that you have to work really damn hard to get your opponent to block as opposed to it naturally being the best option is the real sticking point.
Also, what Seth Killian wrote basically boils down to this.
"At first I thought this idea was bad and was worried about it, but then Capcom reminded me that they sign off on my paycheck so now I LOVE GEMS!!"
Such fraudulent thinking. I wonder what Keth Sillian had to say about this.
@ 21:
I love SF4, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about as far as 3S's inputs being just as easy as 4's. That is BS! and on top of that, You can't mash out of everything alive when playing 3S.
@RagingDemon
Infinitely wrong, the auto-block gem is godlike. I get out of ambiguous cross-ups that can lead to huge damage for 1 meter? Sign me up. 30-50% of my life is worth a lot more than 1 stock
What happened to the "end of the month" character reveals today It is the 31st........=(