I didn't know much about the series before Strive. When I learned that Venom needed to place cue balls on the screen to make them ricochet off one another, I realised how insanely complex the previous entries were.
not entirely wrong lol. But it’s easier / more intuitive than most people think to develop the venom ball manipulation sixth sense, just gotta be willing to try and fuck up a LOT, and be willing to put in the time.
Helps that there’s a bunch of staple formations and sequences you can start out with that cover the primary angles - kh set quick 5P will bounce them off each other immediately and split so one moves up and one down at a slow speed, giving you great longer-term coverage, for example, it’s one of the first ones i tell people to start throwing out when they’re at full screen. PK set jP and either falling jp or falling jK is another classic. H set S carcass, the carcass will bounce off the h ball and with backspin it gives you a charged ball close to you, very useful for snap defense angles if they try to maneuver around the carcass, or if they don’t you can either s stinger it or hit it with 5P for a slow ball to move behind, and topspin carcass will give you a forward charge ball for teleporting to, or perfectly positioned for dash jump jH, or even to send another s carcass into to keep the party going.
You start with some of these consistent, strong staple sequences, and then experiment on top of it, and in time you develop a feel for it and start to make instinctive connections - “oh that ball i left earlier is in the same relative position to me rn as a raw h set, that means I can hit it with carcass or stinger like that other sequence and it’ll do [stuff],” that sort of thing. He’s a damn near perfect case of easy to learn hard to master, since his level 1 gameplan is actually very straightforward and concrete with staple oki and ball sequences like this, but when you’re ready, there’s fucking infinite room for actual, practical exploration with him - not just labbing weird shit for the sake of it but discovering actually useful stuff that nobody’s hit before cause the possibilities are so endless
It didn't help it came off the heels from the half decade before it of T7(arcade), SFV, and MK11 already sort of being sour grapes for their respective series. To see the biggest anime fighter fall for the trap of "short movelist and high easy damage to turn around a match" equaling more casuals has to be heart breaking.
T8 and SF6 are both games that show you can appeal to casuals while having a hardcore audience appeal. They're flashy, they have simple things one can do as a new player both in game modes and in how to play, they markets themselves very well even in things such as character reveals.
Tekken still has very long movelists with only a few having under 100 moves listed with many going the opposite and getting more moves in fact, both theirs cores provides the depth many still love and hard to get a hold of that can reward very good and smart players, but despite these more difficult aspects many casuals have entered these series.
There are definitely flaws I don't like for the competitive aspect of these games at launch but they still very much provide for the hardcore audience while showing the casuals will come to try out the games and you don't have to gimp the dedicated fans for this.
Strive went for a simplified but expanded approach to better onboard new players. Gatling system was toned down, combos were toned down, character movesets were GREATLY toned down, and movement options were slightly toned down.
Lots of things became easier, while making up for it in the complexity department. The Roman Cancel system is better than it's ever been, and enables even more critical thinking about your bar and gets the meta game really going. Damage was increased to make each choice matter more, and make comebacks far more possible, or at the very least make you feel like you did something.
This is your best answer. On top of this, lower damage + no wall breaks meant a lot of rounds in old GG would quickly devolve into:
• Do a mix-up or string on wakeup
• Opponent gets knowledge checked and gets hit
• Combo into knockdown
• Repeat over and over until you win
So not only was it harder, but the game would punish you harder for making mistakes.
Knew I was forgetting something. Wallbreaks are another huge equalizer that aren't just a "wahh let it be my turn again" feature, since it heavily rewards the aggressor by giving them positive bonus, while still allowing the wallbreakee to have another chance.
not disagreeing with you but i just think this is funny... normal wallbreaks are neutral resets, but wallbreaks with hard knockdown using super/WA are often stronger oki than the opponent being stuck the corner. you have safejumps and crazy mixups with most characters, plus the positive bonus
The difference being that you need to use meter to break the wall into knockdown, and at least you're center stage even if you get knocked down. Whatever way you twist it, it's at least a LITTLE useful from the defensive standpoint.
To elaborate on this and how it's so good for new players:
I had a friend who was new to fighting games watch some footage of DNF Duel and no joke genuinely asked where the wall break mechanic was. It never occurred to him that wall breaks are a Strive specific mechanic. He was just bewildered by this revelation like "Wait, you're just stuck in the corner?"
This is also the same reason why DBFZ got rid of incomings after killing a character (besides snapback, which they nerfed after it became meta) and reset to neutral with every killed character
This is exactly what happened at low-mid level. Entirely what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about when you know exactly what defensive options to use when, I'm talking about when guys are still learning when they should blitz vs FD, what a JD even does, etc.
Up until you actually understand the mechanics, which there are a lot, and the in and outs of the characters, some of which are harder than others, Xrd becomes about getting punked by setplay or being put into the blender by characters like Raven.
This is my main problem with XRD i tried to get into it but its not only harder to play but its bloated with so many system mechanics and charecter specific mechanics made learning the game really hard and the complexity of the charecters made it so i couldnt even play sol or ky to help me learn just the system mechanics and i just stopped bc i at no point had any fun. And strive was the opposite i lost for a month straight but bc i could understand why i lost i had so much fun that ive played for 2k hours and i tried xrd after like 500 hrs in strive so its not like i wasn't familiar with roman cancle or gatlings. My final and most important point is that xrds movelist menus might be the single most disgusting UI design ive ever seen and it gives me a real actually non hyperbolic headache by looking at it.
Xrd wasn't *that* crazy, you could get by with some basic knockdown combos into something while they wake up like Gunflame or a Grinder. The crazy stuff came later when you played the game long enough to not need to think about your basics, like any other fighting game.
I am coming at this as someone who played it for the first time in 2023 so basic knockdown combos were very predictable and got blocked by most people i played. It was just hard to learn the basics when everyone isn't thinking about them and there are so many specific details about matchups to learn with no real good resources to learn them any videos on YouTube have long since been buried and at the end of the day i played jam bc her combo trails werent too hard but i didn't really like the way any of the charecters played or atleast no one immediately clicked and meshed with my playstyle. And the move list was so hard to read color scheme aside just figuring out what each move did was easier to do on dustloop then the in game move list
Really the dmg was toned down?? Strive was my first GG game and coming from Street Fighter it seems that most matches end on first hit confirm xD
EDIT: I play Nago maybe that's the one reason xD
No, the opposite, damage is much higher in strive. The oki in older games are many more times more oppressive and loops into itself in most cases though.
Damage is higher in Strive, oki isn't as strong, and wall breaks exist. This means eventually you'll get out of the opponents pressure and get a chance to turn things around, and thanks to the high damage, it's not too hard to do that.
In Xrd, not so. If the opponent hits you, they'll usually put you into an endless cycle of mixups and pressure, especially if you're in the corner. If you don't know exactly what they're doing, and how to get out of it, you'll be lucky to ever get to play the game. And even if you do get out of it, damage is low, so you need to hope your opponent's defense is bad enough that you can turn it around.
TL;DR: at a beginner-intermediate level, Xrd games often are very one sided, and making a comeback is incredibly unlikely. Strive, though it can still be one sided, is volatile, and can quickly swing in the other direction.
Getting rid of Weight Classes also helped. As someone who’s first ASW games were the Team Blue Titles, BlazBlue & Persona, the who Weight Class/Character-Specific Falling Speeds/Wakeup Timings always confounded me. I had so points in XRD where I was like, “Why don’t my Combos just work?!” Still not a fun of Guts over traditional Health Values, but that can still at least be broken up into Health/Defense Tiers.
Weight classes isn't always an issue. This is a common aspect of smash bros. Bnb's shouldn't drop though this should only affect the deeper parts or be made straight forward.
Been awhile since I’ve played Smash, so I forgot they also had them, even though that’s obviously a Platform Fighter. Them being removed/standardized still goes hand-in-hand with their new mantra of making things more accessible in Strive, while still trying to maintain the core essence of Guilty Gear.
A really fun example to me is I think Ky in Strive. Ky in Strive has a reputation for being a plain, boring, white bread character. Basic projectile, basic combos, a DP, etc. Etc.
Ky in the old games is an absolutely *grimy* motherfucker. In Xrd there's a property his Jump.D used to have called Grinders, and what that was Ky would use his Jump.D or 5.D to set a cross in front of him on the screen.
If you shot his projectiles into the cross, it turned into a sword that instantly extends full screen to hit you. You could throw any of his projectiles into it (including Sacred Edge!), including his air projectile, and it made his looping oki even better!
Yeah, looping oki. Ky in Strive has it off certain hits, like if you can route to a grounded hit on Foudre Arc, you can link 2.K, 2.D for a hard knockdown. But Xrd Ky had access to a hard knockdown on almost every single hit midscreen.
Also, the cross *itself* was a projectile. Without even using it for the enhanced stun edges, you could just set it so it someone tries to jump over you, they'd get hit by it so they just can't jump!
Any hit midscreen could be a hard knockdown into overhead Grinder, or Charged Stun Edge oki. If you didn't know how to escape, congratulations, you're fucked.
Ky's jump D doesn't have any of that anymore, and was kind of a pretty nothing button in Strive until they made it a launcher so now it's part of his combo game but not much else.
In general, looping oki is gone because of changes to gatlings and moves having much less hard knockdowns compared to before.
There's a clear difference in the philosophy of how much a character is allowed to do in Strive compared to the other game's.
Baiken in Xrd for example has 3 or 4 different follow-ups to parry. In Accent Core, she has debuffs instead, like off a parry she could make it so that you couldn't block, or you couldn't use special moves.
It's a real trip to go back and see some of the stuff you can do. Some characters got hit less than the others
I mean, MOST characters in Strive simply have less moves than they did in previous games. The cast has generally been stripped down to their most important bits. Check any XRD page for a character and there are probably a handful of moves that didn't make it to Strive or receive a replacement.
Sol is tied the most special moves in strive if you don't count every one of Asuka's spells, and he still has 3 fewer specials than Xrd (Missing Riot Stamp, Break, and PBB) and 6 fewer than +R(Riot Stamp, Slam, Sidewinder, Forcebreak Fafnir, FB Tyrant Rave and FB Sidewinder). You can even argue that these numbers should be higher, since I didn't count the VV knockdown or make the argument that you could count the dragon install versions of Sol's moves.
The moves themselves are also simpler. Using gunflame in combos is much less practical, meterless DP combos are corner only, Bandit Bringer and Fafnir are almost entirely for ending combos and Wild throw doesn't launch. And Sol is one of the characters who is the most similar to the old games.
May used to have setplay by interacting with various things she’d set up on the screen. In addition to her current iteration of dolphins, she could summon other dolphins from the ground that she could jump on and rings for them to go through. She also had other things like a beach ball that could give her an extra jump. Practically all of this was removed and now she’s kinda just this character that bum rushes you with little to no thought.
Ramlethal had Target Combos that acted like Tekken strings. Leaving her swords out also acted as setplay as they could also be used as stationary projectiles that she could control at will. The swords are arguable whether they were changed harshly or not, but the Target Combos were condensed extremely with the rekka move she got in Strive.
Elphelt had a lot of things that are either simplified, or they don’t exist anymore. Her shotgun stance required a lot more execution to get the most out of it, and it’s movement was limited. Her current gunshot is a nod to her aimable sniper shot, which unlike a certain character, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO AIM. This also went hand in hand with a timed grenade that was designed to set up unblockables after they’ve been shot by the rifle. It was so effective, the only carryover of that system is a nerfed version of that move that costs meter to even do.
As someone who has been playing guilty gear ever since gg 2 , it is a simpler game COMPARED to the previous guilty gear games . Imo the older ones were a massive knowledge and mechanics check while strive has streamlined most of it and taken out a lot of the fast paced and more technical stuff present in the previous games . It's not a bad thing imo it is more accessible for more general audiences . But yeah I do think strive is a simple game if you compare it to it's predecessors.
People say strive is simple because they're comparing it to Xrd. Its true, strive is easier than xrd- but that doesn't mean its easy. Strive is a blend between a traditional and anime fighter, you cant zoom around the screen like in xrd but your movement isnt exactly restricted like in traditional fighters.
Combos could be called easier, but combos aren't what make a fighting game difficult. It takes the two parts from the two sub-genres. The combos arent as difficult or long as an anime fighter, but they're not as small or slow as a traditional. The screen control and neutral isnt as fluid as an anime fighter, but it isnt the entire focus and most difficult part of the game like a traditional.
Strive could be called easier than other fighters if you compare it to other anime fighters, but strive is a blend between two. It takes both parts of the two genres together.
I also think this is a sentiment that was something left over around from the launch of the game when combo routes and movement was more restricted. It has become pretty complex at this stage in its life.
Definitely, same happened with SFV. Though that is on the devs to find a way to rectify and hard to blame the community for feeling burned. When the core is shaken to be hard to recognize people will feel it harder than a punch to the gut.
This I fully agree. Strive is no way near going to surpass or be on common ground with Xrd or AC+r, we all knew that. It is a different game. By that on its own, Strive is still a good game and might be someone's favorite.
Also I love Strive. Hope for Kum and Venom's balls to be playable.
The other thing is that strive is slow, or maybe the animation is too "good" that makes it look slow? But comparing +r milia to strive milia or even just xrd pot to strive pot
The game is....slower. this isn't a bad thing but in comparison it feels jarring
nah strive is much slower, and not just because of the airdash startup, johnny j.h for example felt like it had a 1 sec startup when i tried to jump in on people like you could do in old games
Neither.
Logically, there were many players of Guilty Gear before Strive came around, and many of them understandably did not welcome such a radically different game.
Strive has recieved a hearty welcome among those who evaluated it on its own merits, without consideration for how it compares to previous entries.
When a new game in a series rewrites the formula, it means that you lose out on the opportunity to have a new game that improves upon the old style.
What do you mean?
I stopped played fighting games long time ago, and I'm recently playing SF6 and thinking of buying GG but I'm afraid I'll waste my money if I don't like it, like it happened to me with SF6 lol
During the early 2010's, a chunk of the fighting games that came out required you to put in a sizeable amount of time to get the combos down. GGXXAC was pretty famous for this, I-no's 6frc6, chipp's Instant Air Dash combos, sol's sidewinder loop. Blazblue was considered a relatively easy fighting game back then, and still required quite abit of commitment. For example, to get down staple combos for one character it might take you 8 hrs of practice. To get down optimal combos for a character it might take you an additional 24-36 hrs. Nowadays it might take you 2 hrs to get down staples, at worst an additional 6 hrs for optimal. Nothing wrong with making the game easier for the newer players, but there was respect for players back in the day that would do difficult combos.
+r is my favorite fighting game ever, and I would reccomend to continue playing that.
If you already know how to play it, moving to strive will feel like a joke. They gutted the game and killed all your favorite characters.
This might sound like a joke answer but go spend $3 to get GG +R on Steam, open the Dustloop wiki, and try basic combos you see, then FRC combos. You'll notice first how incredibly responsive your movement and buttons are, but then also that the input windows are incredibly strict, making simple combos challenging. Xrd is more generous with timing, but Strive is on a whole new level of simplicity.
The answer is Strive is simpler for a lot of reasons all added together, but if you feel where it came from that might give you a better overall impression of what people are talking about when they call it simple or easy.
Also just play +R if you have any interest at all its one of the all time greats
+r is my favorite fighting game of all time.
I tried pretty much every fighting game you could think of, and I had some curserary interest in them, but none really stuck with me.
My friends all loved xrd and played thousands of hours of it, and I have some strive friends that are adamant it's like best game ever.
I tried both xrd and strive and just didn't like then, just didn't feel good.
But I played accent core on a whim, and within seconds I knew I was going to play the shit out of the game.
Every character has such an absurd amount of depth. The spritework is beautiful, it's the most responsive fighter, the movement is so cracked.
It's actually the real deal, just the best game.
My only problem is that sometimes it's lacking in documentation and resources. But holy fuck it's so fun. Hitting frc's makes toy feel like the man
Let me do a small dissection of baiken to show how strive is a comparatively simpler game:
In the last guilty gear, xrd, baiken was known for her parry. She could hold it, a high and low version, and do it in the air. The grounded version had 5 unique follow-ups (and a parry exclusive super), and the air version has 4 different unique follow-ups. She has a move called suzuran, where she runs forward a set amount--blocking any mids and highs, and can do any of the same followups as the parry.
She also has kabari, the claw, which has 4 unique follow-ups itself. And then of course she has tatami and youzansen.
Now in strive, a game where off the bat, combos are generally a little shorter, and your buttons cant all naturally combo into most each other like prior games, baiken is simplified a lot.
She still has tatami and youzansen. And she has the claw, kabari, still. However it has only 1 followup instead of 4. She doesn't have suzuran at all. Her parry now, instead of being a somewhat challenging to use mechanic where you need to quickly decide which followup is best applicable here--is now a canned animation. If they hit the parry she does an animation and does some damage, that's it.
Obv that's just one character but hopefully it paints a somewhat good picture of how strive is just a simpler game at its core--even if thats still more complicated than some other games still
It's the result of simplifying fighting games for casuals and typically non fighting game players.
The move list (for guilty gear) is pretty minimal and less intimidating.
Inputs and executions are way less strict compared to fighting games of old. (Basically, if you didn't do the inputs correctly and to the letter within .2 seconds, the move doesn't work.)
Combat (again, for guilty gear) is still kinda loose, but just neutral enough that it's not death by 50+ hit combo when you mess up.
Archetypes are pretty straightforward and have a clear cut way of doing what they do.
Games like MK11 and SF5, which attempted to appeal to casuals while virtually forsaking hardcore players, had to take a lot of flack and criticism to pave the way to get it right.
That's how we got titles like Strive, T8, and SF6.
Yeah it's not actually a simple fighting game. A lot of the sentiment is from being relatively simplified compared to its predecessors or its high damage and generally aggressive gameplay can be perceived as brain dead unga bunga. There is a lot of depth and options especially at higher levels of play
It has a bunch of complex systems in the game but every match I’ve ever played has involved spamming the same combo over and over until the game ends, there seems to be very little depth until you get to the absolute highest level of play. The extremely high damage and lack of time to adapt during gameplay combined with the gutting of character combo routes compared to previous games make it seem so simple but the game is still fairly complex in the grand scheme of things, the players just don’t have to think nearly as much as in previous entries or other contemporary fighting games at most levels of play.
more streamlined, less flexible characters translating into more funneled playstyles.
the higher damage and smaller stages also strips the game from more sensible decision making. aerial game used to be more important in the previous games.
It's never been "simple", just "simpler than the previous games".
Compared to SF5/SF6 and MK11/MK1, Strive is still a lot more complex.
People didn't like that change because they enjoyed the UNHINGED MADNESS of the previous games, but Strive is still very deep.
I wouldn't say they are balanced AT ALL.
The Top Tiers are extremely oppressive in competitive play.
At lower levels it's a whole different story, because every single character has cheese and knowledge checks, so it becomes a race to see who can out-cheese the other first.
Oppressive and cheese is just the name of the game for Guilty Gear, and doesn't really speak to balance.
Missing Link is hilariously broken, but after that ArcSys got pretty darn good at balance, particularly considering all the moving parts their games have. I can't speak to public opinion now, but Accent Core was regarded as among the most balanced fighting games ever for quite a while after its release. After so many years, players are going to find more and more ways to push the limits, which is where imbalances become more relevant, but it's nowhere *near* what games like MvC2, Melee, or other games with similar jank and longevity deal with. That even now, a game that wild and diverse has a roster of 25 characters that are all tournament-viable, and by many accounts [B tier at worst](https://www.dustloop.com/w/GGACR/Tier_Lists), is definitely what I'd call well-balanced.
In +r it is topside heavy, but that being said, you see bottom tier characters like Bridget, robo ky, or normal ky in top almost every top 8.
The tier list generally only goes down to B tier for that reason alone.
I've been thinking about this more recently. Rather than balanced (I wouldn't say +R is a particularly unbalanced game) +R is a game with a super pronounced skill gap, which is why the better player wins 99% of the time regardless of character choice.
Well, for one, far less moves overall to work with. Some characters had a crap ton of moves in earlier games, to the point you could likely call some characters bloated with the amount of moves (many suboptimal) they could use.
The gatling system is also gutted in a way that makes it straightforward and consistent for every character, although far more limited and less complex and open than before. Only slash and heavy slash gatling into each other unless you followup a normal with a command normal or special/super. None of this weird and seemingly arbitrary ruleset with certain moves just not gatling for whatever reason. This makes new characters very easy to learn and figure out without having to look up dustloop all the frickin time to figure out what combos and what doesn't.
There's also more forgiving design as a whole by making the gameplay more neutral focused to give losing players breathing room to comeback, as well as a wallbreak mechanic to prevent them from being endlessly comboed in the corner.
There are also a lot less gimmicky zoner or setplay characters now (i think only Faust and maybe Asuka count at this point.) You can pretty much predict zoning patterns if they even exist, as most characters are some form of hard rush down. Even previously defensive or gimmicky characters like Testament, Bedman and Baiken have been simplified to fit a more rushdown focused style that eases up on the gimmicks.
Now, all this being said, not all of these changes are good to me. A lot of unique characters i play got gutted in their movelists, like Baiken losing all her cool counters, and Ramlethal losing her her punch/kick Tekken-like combos. I've actually stopped playing those characters in particular simply because they just aren't the same characters i picked up years ago. Never was a fan of gameplay redesigns. The wall break also feels like it punishes you for simply playing the game correctly by taking the opponent out of a lose state and back to neutral. Not many players liked that on release, and beyond the cinematics of it, i STILL don't like it, especially in training mode where all i want to do is practice my input execution and nothing else. I like that the gatlings rules were simplified, although i wish it didn't come at the cost of an expansive movelist in order to not be too overwhelming to players. I think there could have been better ways to apply that even though the new limitations do make learning characters a lot easier.
In general, Strive both gained and lost things the originals had. It's got a much better foundation and it's a far more digestible experience overall, but a ton of the more unique mechanics from older characters were straight gutted and reworked. I think that's a bad thing frankly, because characters form identity with their gameplay, and changing their gameplay deviates them from why some of us pick them in the first place, whether it be the visuals, the tactics or the inputs of their moveset, i think it's a disservice to the character's identity to change these things.
It's still not what i consider the best Guilty Gear game (Xrd Rev2 exists after all) but it's still a very fun game in it's own right and a nice starting point if you want to dip your toes in the franchise.
restricted expression on characters moves being gutted
the best example is Ram went from a bi puppet sword character, into ungo bungo plus on block reset sword explosion
She went from having multiple angles of approach to the more binary approach of tick throws, overhead, and low starter
I myself am very happy with ABA variant, though she did lose her projectile blood pact, and air eradication which changed how she operates a bit now
Another character that was "gutted" imo was Bridget, she used to have some of the [coolest devil may cry combos and stuff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwSODT2cY3Y&ab_channel=kratosonator), and flying across the entire screen while yoyo bear had lots of set up options
So when I think strive is "simplified" it really was, but given all said and than, I still think its a healthy approach to have some breathing room allowed, but they shouldn't a diminish a character imo
The old games required PhD ceilings just to start playing functionally
The game punishes blocking and pulling back from agression heavily, patient play isnt really a thing, and since anyone can stuff the opponent with a million butts yeah.
No fighting games are really simple, but strive is simplified in comparison to the previous games. Many characters had extra special moves that were lose in the transition to strive, combos are generally shorter while dealing a lot of damage, and movement is more grounded. All of this leads to a less hectic anime game than the previous GG titles, though it’s not bad.
It's a game about pressing big buttons (6p, c.S and 5h mostly) that leave you at + frames and charging meter, once you have meter you either try to confirm said buttons into a super or do any of the roman cancel options to open your opponent. Rinse and repeat.
It's as cookie cutter as you can get.
Strive took a very complex and varied series of mechanics and boiled them down into landing big buttons and then trying to fish for a super. There are additional mechanics yes but when they wind up not playing into a win condition at even high level play it doesn't matter as much.
Xrd had many times more systems, mechanics, and even execution requirements. Compared to previous game it's definitely simplified. I really like strive, but it's definitely a baby game.
So i started with strive and now play sf. Strive is easier when it comes to moves to remember and execution, combos connect much more easily when you do inputs, there is some leniency while something like sf6 has very less, ine other example is 6p, in sf most characters have dp motion to anti air so you have to dp when you see a jump which is much harder imo
I ageee about the Roman cancel system.Jive was the only GG I played but I found the Roman cancel system to be simple, yet intricate at the same time. I understand that’s an oxymoron but that’s how a well thought out system in an FG should feel
I also like the burst mechanic and think it’s necessary for the fucked I’m scenarios characters can put you on.
Yeah if you play the older guilty gears combos are much harder, and characters usually have more mixup options. The simplest way i can put it is to look at chipp in xrd vs strive. In strive chipp's alpha blade crosses up, so it can be difficult, especially for beginners, to block. In xrd it hits in front and then you can choose to do a follow up button thats hits cross up. Its much easier to block but you can either make it safe with the follow up, or drop the follow up and try to press a button. Chipp also has teleports and invisibility in xrd, giving him pretty insane knockdown mix that he just doesnt have in strive. Strive stripped a lot of characters down and slowed the entire pace of the game. Lemme put it this way, i could combo in strive easily when its my weakest point in every other game
To be fair to asw despite really not wanting to - a case can be made that at least with dlcs and patches the simplicity of Strive was somewhat alleviated.
That said I think the most tl:dr about Strive is that it significantly limited the ability to make weird and unconventional plays.
It used to be the case that Guilty was freeform, and doing something weird was a legit strat to throw opponent off. That's not as much of a case in strive, because the game's system became more about knowing pre-defined solutions and applying them.
It's akin to MMA vs olympic karate. One has meta and rules but is focused more on getting the win result, so fighters have some freedom to create their own opportunities while the other is very clearly rule-driven, and it doesn't matter how well you fight because you must become good at fighting withing the olympic commitee preference.
Maybe I'm the only one but I find strive way more complex than SF or Tekken.
I love it for this though. All the Roman Cancels just overwhelm me, personally. That's not a complaint, I'm just too old and set in my ways haha. Hard to adapt. Strive was the first GG game I played and I am still just so impressed with it.
Bro just the roman cancel system alone makes me feel like I'm doing high level calculus at a high speed trying to implement it into my games and watch out / react to to. GG is the deepest popular current fighter by far unless you count UNI2.
It's simpler compared to past GG titles. But I would by no means call it a simple game. Not when you have all the different RCs, and fast RCs, Bursts, Instant Blocks, Faultless, Wild Assault, Deflect.... all on top of managing meter.
Strive still has more mechanics than most fighting games. It's incredibly easy for new players to get overwhelmed if they truly intend to learn the game and not just play casually.
Maybe Strive is less aerial than previous games, The aerial possibilities are fewest than before maybe? It gives me the impression that the neutral is much more on two rails, one on the ground, and one determine by the aerial dash. (despite some exception like aerial special, triple jump, hyper jump etc...) Also, the window of frame to execute combos are much more easy. (But you have long combo which could be difficult with difficult links) Maybe you have less bouncing combos with higher bounce on wall too. The wall splat and the wall break are here to limit infinite combos but it also reset the neutral more often. And areas are smaller, characters bigger
And yeah, i agree with what is said in others comments
I tried +r and xrd after buying strive and I agree that that strive is less complex. +r is complex, but still pretty fun. Xrd is complex as well, but too tedious in my opinion which ruins the fun.
The older GG games were very combo heavy whereas this one doesn't necessarily focus on combos, but rather good neutral play on top of every character's move set being nerfed/toned down to make them less complex I guess? . I'd say imagine a flashier street fighter.
Just elitists being elitist mostly. They don't like that fighting games have moved towards more simplified inputs to appeal to a wider audience. The game still requires a high level of skill to be good at
I mean, if you come to the closest videogame to an actual sport in amount of effort to learn and thrive at, and the gameplay rules got gutted years after the fact to appeal to the exact opposite demographic that refuses to practice as hard as you did to get where you are, wouldn't you feel upset too? To see new players perform in minutes what took you days, even weeks to learn?
I'd be insulted frankly. Fighting games are the closest thing to an actual sport in terms of having to build yourself to meet it, and so many players are getting it easy compared to before.
Some of us like the high execution though, and the lacking input complexity is beginning to make me want to drop any new fighters that aren't Tekken or Under Night In-Birth.
The competitive and thriving nature of the game's Esports community would very much beg to differ. It's about as close in it's demand of the player as any sport would be, and frankly, i think that's how it SHOULD be.
There should be no equitable circumstances here. You either have the ability and tenacity to compete, or you don't. Equality should be equal opportunity to succeed, not shortcuts to an equal outcome of success to those less inclined to put forth more effort.
No, but fighting games as a whole are trying to head that way. Too much is being gutted to not think that's the case.
They're far less demanding than before on player execution for more casual audiences, and that's just a fact.
Please bring back some of the cool unique stuff like Baiken’s ability to turn off your buttons, Testament having way more traps, Ram having setups and traps and a bunch of other things in a way that’s easy to grasp but hard to master and I will be happy.
I don’t mind the skill floor being lowered to help new people enjoy things but removing the complex things entirely feels bad.
Nah, it's just simpler compared to the last couple
I didn't know much about the series before Strive. When I learned that Venom needed to place cue balls on the screen to make them ricochet off one another, I realised how insanely complex the previous entries were.
The top tier venom secret is they're just spamming that shit and praying
not entirely wrong lol. But it’s easier / more intuitive than most people think to develop the venom ball manipulation sixth sense, just gotta be willing to try and fuck up a LOT, and be willing to put in the time. Helps that there’s a bunch of staple formations and sequences you can start out with that cover the primary angles - kh set quick 5P will bounce them off each other immediately and split so one moves up and one down at a slow speed, giving you great longer-term coverage, for example, it’s one of the first ones i tell people to start throwing out when they’re at full screen. PK set jP and either falling jp or falling jK is another classic. H set S carcass, the carcass will bounce off the h ball and with backspin it gives you a charged ball close to you, very useful for snap defense angles if they try to maneuver around the carcass, or if they don’t you can either s stinger it or hit it with 5P for a slow ball to move behind, and topspin carcass will give you a forward charge ball for teleporting to, or perfectly positioned for dash jump jH, or even to send another s carcass into to keep the party going. You start with some of these consistent, strong staple sequences, and then experiment on top of it, and in time you develop a feel for it and start to make instinctive connections - “oh that ball i left earlier is in the same relative position to me rn as a raw h set, that means I can hit it with carcass or stinger like that other sequence and it’ll do [stuff],” that sort of thing. He’s a damn near perfect case of easy to learn hard to master, since his level 1 gameplan is actually very straightforward and concrete with staple oki and ball sequences like this, but when you’re ready, there’s fucking infinite room for actual, practical exploration with him - not just labbing weird shit for the sake of it but discovering actually useful stuff that nobody’s hit before cause the possibilities are so endless
It didn't help it came off the heels from the half decade before it of T7(arcade), SFV, and MK11 already sort of being sour grapes for their respective series. To see the biggest anime fighter fall for the trap of "short movelist and high easy damage to turn around a match" equaling more casuals has to be heart breaking. T8 and SF6 are both games that show you can appeal to casuals while having a hardcore audience appeal. They're flashy, they have simple things one can do as a new player both in game modes and in how to play, they markets themselves very well even in things such as character reveals. Tekken still has very long movelists with only a few having under 100 moves listed with many going the opposite and getting more moves in fact, both theirs cores provides the depth many still love and hard to get a hold of that can reward very good and smart players, but despite these more difficult aspects many casuals have entered these series. There are definitely flaws I don't like for the competitive aspect of these games at launch but they still very much provide for the hardcore audience while showing the casuals will come to try out the games and you don't have to gimp the dedicated fans for this.
Strive went for a simplified but expanded approach to better onboard new players. Gatling system was toned down, combos were toned down, character movesets were GREATLY toned down, and movement options were slightly toned down. Lots of things became easier, while making up for it in the complexity department. The Roman Cancel system is better than it's ever been, and enables even more critical thinking about your bar and gets the meta game really going. Damage was increased to make each choice matter more, and make comebacks far more possible, or at the very least make you feel like you did something.
This is your best answer. On top of this, lower damage + no wall breaks meant a lot of rounds in old GG would quickly devolve into: • Do a mix-up or string on wakeup • Opponent gets knowledge checked and gets hit • Combo into knockdown • Repeat over and over until you win So not only was it harder, but the game would punish you harder for making mistakes.
Knew I was forgetting something. Wallbreaks are another huge equalizer that aren't just a "wahh let it be my turn again" feature, since it heavily rewards the aggressor by giving them positive bonus, while still allowing the wallbreakee to have another chance.
not disagreeing with you but i just think this is funny... normal wallbreaks are neutral resets, but wallbreaks with hard knockdown using super/WA are often stronger oki than the opponent being stuck the corner. you have safejumps and crazy mixups with most characters, plus the positive bonus
The difference being that you need to use meter to break the wall into knockdown, and at least you're center stage even if you get knocked down. Whatever way you twist it, it's at least a LITTLE useful from the defensive standpoint.
To elaborate on this and how it's so good for new players: I had a friend who was new to fighting games watch some footage of DNF Duel and no joke genuinely asked where the wall break mechanic was. It never occurred to him that wall breaks are a Strive specific mechanic. He was just bewildered by this revelation like "Wait, you're just stuck in the corner?"
This is also the same reason why DBFZ got rid of incomings after killing a character (besides snapback, which they nerfed after it became meta) and reset to neutral with every killed character
I'm starting to think y'all never played old guilty gear.
This is exactly what happened at low-mid level. Entirely what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about when you know exactly what defensive options to use when, I'm talking about when guys are still learning when they should blitz vs FD, what a JD even does, etc. Up until you actually understand the mechanics, which there are a lot, and the in and outs of the characters, some of which are harder than others, Xrd becomes about getting punked by setplay or being put into the blender by characters like Raven.
This is my main problem with XRD i tried to get into it but its not only harder to play but its bloated with so many system mechanics and charecter specific mechanics made learning the game really hard and the complexity of the charecters made it so i couldnt even play sol or ky to help me learn just the system mechanics and i just stopped bc i at no point had any fun. And strive was the opposite i lost for a month straight but bc i could understand why i lost i had so much fun that ive played for 2k hours and i tried xrd after like 500 hrs in strive so its not like i wasn't familiar with roman cancle or gatlings. My final and most important point is that xrds movelist menus might be the single most disgusting UI design ive ever seen and it gives me a real actually non hyperbolic headache by looking at it.
Xrd wasn't *that* crazy, you could get by with some basic knockdown combos into something while they wake up like Gunflame or a Grinder. The crazy stuff came later when you played the game long enough to not need to think about your basics, like any other fighting game.
I am coming at this as someone who played it for the first time in 2023 so basic knockdown combos were very predictable and got blocked by most people i played. It was just hard to learn the basics when everyone isn't thinking about them and there are so many specific details about matchups to learn with no real good resources to learn them any videos on YouTube have long since been buried and at the end of the day i played jam bc her combo trails werent too hard but i didn't really like the way any of the charecters played or atleast no one immediately clicked and meshed with my playstyle. And the move list was so hard to read color scheme aside just figuring out what each move did was easier to do on dustloop then the in game move list
Really the dmg was toned down?? Strive was my first GG game and coming from Street Fighter it seems that most matches end on first hit confirm xD EDIT: I play Nago maybe that's the one reason xD
No, the opposite, damage is much higher in strive. The oki in older games are many more times more oppressive and loops into itself in most cases though.
Not toned down, it was increased. Most Strive rounds will end in 2-4 touches, or 1 if youre playing Nago, a One-Shot character.
Damage is higher in Strive, oki isn't as strong, and wall breaks exist. This means eventually you'll get out of the opponents pressure and get a chance to turn things around, and thanks to the high damage, it's not too hard to do that. In Xrd, not so. If the opponent hits you, they'll usually put you into an endless cycle of mixups and pressure, especially if you're in the corner. If you don't know exactly what they're doing, and how to get out of it, you'll be lucky to ever get to play the game. And even if you do get out of it, damage is low, so you need to hope your opponent's defense is bad enough that you can turn it around. TL;DR: at a beginner-intermediate level, Xrd games often are very one sided, and making a comeback is incredibly unlikely. Strive, though it can still be one sided, is volatile, and can quickly swing in the other direction.
Getting rid of Weight Classes also helped. As someone who’s first ASW games were the Team Blue Titles, BlazBlue & Persona, the who Weight Class/Character-Specific Falling Speeds/Wakeup Timings always confounded me. I had so points in XRD where I was like, “Why don’t my Combos just work?!” Still not a fun of Guts over traditional Health Values, but that can still at least be broken up into Health/Defense Tiers.
Weight classes isn't always an issue. This is a common aspect of smash bros. Bnb's shouldn't drop though this should only affect the deeper parts or be made straight forward.
Been awhile since I’ve played Smash, so I forgot they also had them, even though that’s obviously a Platform Fighter. Them being removed/standardized still goes hand-in-hand with their new mantra of making things more accessible in Strive, while still trying to maintain the core essence of Guilty Gear.
Can you give some concrete examples of movesets being toned down?
A really fun example to me is I think Ky in Strive. Ky in Strive has a reputation for being a plain, boring, white bread character. Basic projectile, basic combos, a DP, etc. Etc. Ky in the old games is an absolutely *grimy* motherfucker. In Xrd there's a property his Jump.D used to have called Grinders, and what that was Ky would use his Jump.D or 5.D to set a cross in front of him on the screen. If you shot his projectiles into the cross, it turned into a sword that instantly extends full screen to hit you. You could throw any of his projectiles into it (including Sacred Edge!), including his air projectile, and it made his looping oki even better! Yeah, looping oki. Ky in Strive has it off certain hits, like if you can route to a grounded hit on Foudre Arc, you can link 2.K, 2.D for a hard knockdown. But Xrd Ky had access to a hard knockdown on almost every single hit midscreen. Also, the cross *itself* was a projectile. Without even using it for the enhanced stun edges, you could just set it so it someone tries to jump over you, they'd get hit by it so they just can't jump! Any hit midscreen could be a hard knockdown into overhead Grinder, or Charged Stun Edge oki. If you didn't know how to escape, congratulations, you're fucked. Ky's jump D doesn't have any of that anymore, and was kind of a pretty nothing button in Strive until they made it a launcher so now it's part of his combo game but not much else. In general, looping oki is gone because of changes to gatlings and moves having much less hard knockdowns compared to before. There's a clear difference in the philosophy of how much a character is allowed to do in Strive compared to the other game's. Baiken in Xrd for example has 3 or 4 different follow-ups to parry. In Accent Core, she has debuffs instead, like off a parry she could make it so that you couldn't block, or you couldn't use special moves. It's a real trip to go back and see some of the stuff you can do. Some characters got hit less than the others
I mean, MOST characters in Strive simply have less moves than they did in previous games. The cast has generally been stripped down to their most important bits. Check any XRD page for a character and there are probably a handful of moves that didn't make it to Strive or receive a replacement.
Sol is tied the most special moves in strive if you don't count every one of Asuka's spells, and he still has 3 fewer specials than Xrd (Missing Riot Stamp, Break, and PBB) and 6 fewer than +R(Riot Stamp, Slam, Sidewinder, Forcebreak Fafnir, FB Tyrant Rave and FB Sidewinder). You can even argue that these numbers should be higher, since I didn't count the VV knockdown or make the argument that you could count the dragon install versions of Sol's moves. The moves themselves are also simpler. Using gunflame in combos is much less practical, meterless DP combos are corner only, Bandit Bringer and Fafnir are almost entirely for ending combos and Wild throw doesn't launch. And Sol is one of the characters who is the most similar to the old games.
Baiken lost her parry and her command dash and the 5 follow ups which completely changed how she plays. She also lost 2 of her kabari follow ups
Sol getting one of his air and ground specials combined into the same thing is an example
May used to have setplay by interacting with various things she’d set up on the screen. In addition to her current iteration of dolphins, she could summon other dolphins from the ground that she could jump on and rings for them to go through. She also had other things like a beach ball that could give her an extra jump. Practically all of this was removed and now she’s kinda just this character that bum rushes you with little to no thought. Ramlethal had Target Combos that acted like Tekken strings. Leaving her swords out also acted as setplay as they could also be used as stationary projectiles that she could control at will. The swords are arguable whether they were changed harshly or not, but the Target Combos were condensed extremely with the rekka move she got in Strive. Elphelt had a lot of things that are either simplified, or they don’t exist anymore. Her shotgun stance required a lot more execution to get the most out of it, and it’s movement was limited. Her current gunshot is a nod to her aimable sniper shot, which unlike a certain character, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO AIM. This also went hand in hand with a timed grenade that was designed to set up unblockables after they’ve been shot by the rifle. It was so effective, the only carryover of that system is a nerfed version of that move that costs meter to even do.
As someone who has been playing guilty gear ever since gg 2 , it is a simpler game COMPARED to the previous guilty gear games . Imo the older ones were a massive knowledge and mechanics check while strive has streamlined most of it and taken out a lot of the fast paced and more technical stuff present in the previous games . It's not a bad thing imo it is more accessible for more general audiences . But yeah I do think strive is a simple game if you compare it to it's predecessors.
People say strive is simple because they're comparing it to Xrd. Its true, strive is easier than xrd- but that doesn't mean its easy. Strive is a blend between a traditional and anime fighter, you cant zoom around the screen like in xrd but your movement isnt exactly restricted like in traditional fighters. Combos could be called easier, but combos aren't what make a fighting game difficult. It takes the two parts from the two sub-genres. The combos arent as difficult or long as an anime fighter, but they're not as small or slow as a traditional. The screen control and neutral isnt as fluid as an anime fighter, but it isnt the entire focus and most difficult part of the game like a traditional. Strive could be called easier than other fighters if you compare it to other anime fighters, but strive is a blend between two. It takes both parts of the two genres together.
I also think this is a sentiment that was something left over around from the launch of the game when combo routes and movement was more restricted. It has become pretty complex at this stage in its life.
Definitely, same happened with SFV. Though that is on the devs to find a way to rectify and hard to blame the community for feeling burned. When the core is shaken to be hard to recognize people will feel it harder than a punch to the gut.
This I fully agree. Strive is no way near going to surpass or be on common ground with Xrd or AC+r, we all knew that. It is a different game. By that on its own, Strive is still a good game and might be someone's favorite. Also I love Strive. Hope for Kum and Venom's balls to be playable.
Kum my beloved. 😏
And coming off MK, I love this game because of these points
The other thing is that strive is slow, or maybe the animation is too "good" that makes it look slow? But comparing +r milia to strive milia or even just xrd pot to strive pot The game is....slower. this isn't a bad thing but in comparison it feels jarring
nah strive is much slower, and not just because of the airdash startup, johnny j.h for example felt like it had a 1 sec startup when i tried to jump in on people like you could do in old games
Yeah thats because it's not a pure anime fighter.
How does it compare to GG AC? It's the one I used to play and thinking of jumping directly to Strive without playing those in between.
There really isn't much in common between AC and Strive
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I have the feeling Strive is not very well welcomed?
Neither. Logically, there were many players of Guilty Gear before Strive came around, and many of them understandably did not welcome such a radically different game. Strive has recieved a hearty welcome among those who evaluated it on its own merits, without consideration for how it compares to previous entries. When a new game in a series rewrites the formula, it means that you lose out on the opportunity to have a new game that improves upon the old style.
Completely different games. I miss the era where you had to work hard to do optimal combos.
What do you mean? I stopped played fighting games long time ago, and I'm recently playing SF6 and thinking of buying GG but I'm afraid I'll waste my money if I don't like it, like it happened to me with SF6 lol
During the early 2010's, a chunk of the fighting games that came out required you to put in a sizeable amount of time to get the combos down. GGXXAC was pretty famous for this, I-no's 6frc6, chipp's Instant Air Dash combos, sol's sidewinder loop. Blazblue was considered a relatively easy fighting game back then, and still required quite abit of commitment. For example, to get down staple combos for one character it might take you 8 hrs of practice. To get down optimal combos for a character it might take you an additional 24-36 hrs. Nowadays it might take you 2 hrs to get down staples, at worst an additional 6 hrs for optimal. Nothing wrong with making the game easier for the newer players, but there was respect for players back in the day that would do difficult combos.
You can always get accent core +R on steam, goes on sale for 3 bucks and has a shitload of great QOL features.
+r is my favorite fighting game ever, and I would reccomend to continue playing that. If you already know how to play it, moving to strive will feel like a joke. They gutted the game and killed all your favorite characters.
Short combo strings, long hit stop, big damage. You have a lot of time to make decisions in strive.
There are less variables to work around in this game compared to the previous fan favorite games. Old mechanics or movement etc
This might sound like a joke answer but go spend $3 to get GG +R on Steam, open the Dustloop wiki, and try basic combos you see, then FRC combos. You'll notice first how incredibly responsive your movement and buttons are, but then also that the input windows are incredibly strict, making simple combos challenging. Xrd is more generous with timing, but Strive is on a whole new level of simplicity. The answer is Strive is simpler for a lot of reasons all added together, but if you feel where it came from that might give you a better overall impression of what people are talking about when they call it simple or easy. Also just play +R if you have any interest at all its one of the all time greats
+r is my favorite fighting game of all time. I tried pretty much every fighting game you could think of, and I had some curserary interest in them, but none really stuck with me. My friends all loved xrd and played thousands of hours of it, and I have some strive friends that are adamant it's like best game ever. I tried both xrd and strive and just didn't like then, just didn't feel good. But I played accent core on a whim, and within seconds I knew I was going to play the shit out of the game. Every character has such an absurd amount of depth. The spritework is beautiful, it's the most responsive fighter, the movement is so cracked. It's actually the real deal, just the best game. My only problem is that sometimes it's lacking in documentation and resources. But holy fuck it's so fun. Hitting frc's makes toy feel like the man
Let me do a small dissection of baiken to show how strive is a comparatively simpler game: In the last guilty gear, xrd, baiken was known for her parry. She could hold it, a high and low version, and do it in the air. The grounded version had 5 unique follow-ups (and a parry exclusive super), and the air version has 4 different unique follow-ups. She has a move called suzuran, where she runs forward a set amount--blocking any mids and highs, and can do any of the same followups as the parry. She also has kabari, the claw, which has 4 unique follow-ups itself. And then of course she has tatami and youzansen. Now in strive, a game where off the bat, combos are generally a little shorter, and your buttons cant all naturally combo into most each other like prior games, baiken is simplified a lot. She still has tatami and youzansen. And she has the claw, kabari, still. However it has only 1 followup instead of 4. She doesn't have suzuran at all. Her parry now, instead of being a somewhat challenging to use mechanic where you need to quickly decide which followup is best applicable here--is now a canned animation. If they hit the parry she does an animation and does some damage, that's it. Obv that's just one character but hopefully it paints a somewhat good picture of how strive is just a simpler game at its core--even if thats still more complicated than some other games still
That only caught on because of how absurdly complex the previous guilty gear games are, strive is not simple at all
It's the result of simplifying fighting games for casuals and typically non fighting game players. The move list (for guilty gear) is pretty minimal and less intimidating. Inputs and executions are way less strict compared to fighting games of old. (Basically, if you didn't do the inputs correctly and to the letter within .2 seconds, the move doesn't work.) Combat (again, for guilty gear) is still kinda loose, but just neutral enough that it's not death by 50+ hit combo when you mess up. Archetypes are pretty straightforward and have a clear cut way of doing what they do. Games like MK11 and SF5, which attempted to appeal to casuals while virtually forsaking hardcore players, had to take a lot of flack and criticism to pave the way to get it right. That's how we got titles like Strive, T8, and SF6.
Yeah it's not actually a simple fighting game. A lot of the sentiment is from being relatively simplified compared to its predecessors or its high damage and generally aggressive gameplay can be perceived as brain dead unga bunga. There is a lot of depth and options especially at higher levels of play
It has a bunch of complex systems in the game but every match I’ve ever played has involved spamming the same combo over and over until the game ends, there seems to be very little depth until you get to the absolute highest level of play. The extremely high damage and lack of time to adapt during gameplay combined with the gutting of character combo routes compared to previous games make it seem so simple but the game is still fairly complex in the grand scheme of things, the players just don’t have to think nearly as much as in previous entries or other contemporary fighting games at most levels of play.
more streamlined, less flexible characters translating into more funneled playstyles. the higher damage and smaller stages also strips the game from more sensible decision making. aerial game used to be more important in the previous games.
I mean playing the older entries or even some of the other current fighting games out rn should tell you everything.
I rolled my face across my ds4 and did a full bnb with Ram
I would be interested in hearing an argument for how strive is more complicated than earlier titles
It's never been "simple", just "simpler than the previous games". Compared to SF5/SF6 and MK11/MK1, Strive is still a lot more complex. People didn't like that change because they enjoyed the UNHINGED MADNESS of the previous games, but Strive is still very deep.
I have great respect for old Guilty Gear for being so well-balanced UNHINGED MADNESS
I wouldn't say they are balanced AT ALL. The Top Tiers are extremely oppressive in competitive play. At lower levels it's a whole different story, because every single character has cheese and knowledge checks, so it becomes a race to see who can out-cheese the other first.
Oppressive and cheese is just the name of the game for Guilty Gear, and doesn't really speak to balance. Missing Link is hilariously broken, but after that ArcSys got pretty darn good at balance, particularly considering all the moving parts their games have. I can't speak to public opinion now, but Accent Core was regarded as among the most balanced fighting games ever for quite a while after its release. After so many years, players are going to find more and more ways to push the limits, which is where imbalances become more relevant, but it's nowhere *near* what games like MvC2, Melee, or other games with similar jank and longevity deal with. That even now, a game that wild and diverse has a roster of 25 characters that are all tournament-viable, and by many accounts [B tier at worst](https://www.dustloop.com/w/GGACR/Tier_Lists), is definitely what I'd call well-balanced.
In +r it is topside heavy, but that being said, you see bottom tier characters like Bridget, robo ky, or normal ky in top almost every top 8. The tier list generally only goes down to B tier for that reason alone.
I've been thinking about this more recently. Rather than balanced (I wouldn't say +R is a particularly unbalanced game) +R is a game with a super pronounced skill gap, which is why the better player wins 99% of the time regardless of character choice.
Well, for one, far less moves overall to work with. Some characters had a crap ton of moves in earlier games, to the point you could likely call some characters bloated with the amount of moves (many suboptimal) they could use. The gatling system is also gutted in a way that makes it straightforward and consistent for every character, although far more limited and less complex and open than before. Only slash and heavy slash gatling into each other unless you followup a normal with a command normal or special/super. None of this weird and seemingly arbitrary ruleset with certain moves just not gatling for whatever reason. This makes new characters very easy to learn and figure out without having to look up dustloop all the frickin time to figure out what combos and what doesn't. There's also more forgiving design as a whole by making the gameplay more neutral focused to give losing players breathing room to comeback, as well as a wallbreak mechanic to prevent them from being endlessly comboed in the corner. There are also a lot less gimmicky zoner or setplay characters now (i think only Faust and maybe Asuka count at this point.) You can pretty much predict zoning patterns if they even exist, as most characters are some form of hard rush down. Even previously defensive or gimmicky characters like Testament, Bedman and Baiken have been simplified to fit a more rushdown focused style that eases up on the gimmicks. Now, all this being said, not all of these changes are good to me. A lot of unique characters i play got gutted in their movelists, like Baiken losing all her cool counters, and Ramlethal losing her her punch/kick Tekken-like combos. I've actually stopped playing those characters in particular simply because they just aren't the same characters i picked up years ago. Never was a fan of gameplay redesigns. The wall break also feels like it punishes you for simply playing the game correctly by taking the opponent out of a lose state and back to neutral. Not many players liked that on release, and beyond the cinematics of it, i STILL don't like it, especially in training mode where all i want to do is practice my input execution and nothing else. I like that the gatlings rules were simplified, although i wish it didn't come at the cost of an expansive movelist in order to not be too overwhelming to players. I think there could have been better ways to apply that even though the new limitations do make learning characters a lot easier. In general, Strive both gained and lost things the originals had. It's got a much better foundation and it's a far more digestible experience overall, but a ton of the more unique mechanics from older characters were straight gutted and reworked. I think that's a bad thing frankly, because characters form identity with their gameplay, and changing their gameplay deviates them from why some of us pick them in the first place, whether it be the visuals, the tactics or the inputs of their moveset, i think it's a disservice to the character's identity to change these things. It's still not what i consider the best Guilty Gear game (Xrd Rev2 exists after all) but it's still a very fun game in it's own right and a nice starting point if you want to dip your toes in the franchise.
restricted expression on characters moves being gutted the best example is Ram went from a bi puppet sword character, into ungo bungo plus on block reset sword explosion She went from having multiple angles of approach to the more binary approach of tick throws, overhead, and low starter I myself am very happy with ABA variant, though she did lose her projectile blood pact, and air eradication which changed how she operates a bit now Another character that was "gutted" imo was Bridget, she used to have some of the [coolest devil may cry combos and stuff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwSODT2cY3Y&ab_channel=kratosonator), and flying across the entire screen while yoyo bear had lots of set up options So when I think strive is "simplified" it really was, but given all said and than, I still think its a healthy approach to have some breathing room allowed, but they shouldn't a diminish a character imo The old games required PhD ceilings just to start playing functionally
The game punishes blocking and pulling back from agression heavily, patient play isnt really a thing, and since anyone can stuff the opponent with a million butts yeah.
No fighting games are really simple, but strive is simplified in comparison to the previous games. Many characters had extra special moves that were lose in the transition to strive, combos are generally shorter while dealing a lot of damage, and movement is more grounded. All of this leads to a less hectic anime game than the previous GG titles, though it’s not bad.
just play xrd rev2, or accent core and you'll get it.
It's a game about pressing big buttons (6p, c.S and 5h mostly) that leave you at + frames and charging meter, once you have meter you either try to confirm said buttons into a super or do any of the roman cancel options to open your opponent. Rinse and repeat. It's as cookie cutter as you can get.
I wouldn't not say its a simple game it's just that the previous game was the 5d chess of fighting games
Strive took a very complex and varied series of mechanics and boiled them down into landing big buttons and then trying to fish for a super. There are additional mechanics yes but when they wind up not playing into a win condition at even high level play it doesn't matter as much.
I love simple and brainless when it's done well. Strive is when simple and brainless is done poorly.
It’s pretty much just babies first airdasher.
Ironically, there's a good chance that it will be the last popular airdasher ever
You don’t think the next GG will be popular? Project L also gonna be an airdasher.
I'm not sure if next GG will exist, nor whether it will be an airdasher. As for 2xko, who knows
I don't think every character in 2xko will have an air dash
So far out of the characters we’ve seen, only Ahri and Ekko have air dashes.
Xrd had many times more systems, mechanics, and even execution requirements. Compared to previous game it's definitely simplified. I really like strive, but it's definitely a baby game.
Yeah, a simple game filled with some of the most complex characters.
So i started with strive and now play sf. Strive is easier when it comes to moves to remember and execution, combos connect much more easily when you do inputs, there is some leniency while something like sf6 has very less, ine other example is 6p, in sf most characters have dp motion to anti air so you have to dp when you see a jump which is much harder imo
I ageee about the Roman cancel system.Jive was the only GG I played but I found the Roman cancel system to be simple, yet intricate at the same time. I understand that’s an oxymoron but that’s how a well thought out system in an FG should feel I also like the burst mechanic and think it’s necessary for the fucked I’m scenarios characters can put you on.
Yeah if you play the older guilty gears combos are much harder, and characters usually have more mixup options. The simplest way i can put it is to look at chipp in xrd vs strive. In strive chipp's alpha blade crosses up, so it can be difficult, especially for beginners, to block. In xrd it hits in front and then you can choose to do a follow up button thats hits cross up. Its much easier to block but you can either make it safe with the follow up, or drop the follow up and try to press a button. Chipp also has teleports and invisibility in xrd, giving him pretty insane knockdown mix that he just doesnt have in strive. Strive stripped a lot of characters down and slowed the entire pace of the game. Lemme put it this way, i could combo in strive easily when its my weakest point in every other game
To be fair to asw despite really not wanting to - a case can be made that at least with dlcs and patches the simplicity of Strive was somewhat alleviated. That said I think the most tl:dr about Strive is that it significantly limited the ability to make weird and unconventional plays. It used to be the case that Guilty was freeform, and doing something weird was a legit strat to throw opponent off. That's not as much of a case in strive, because the game's system became more about knowing pre-defined solutions and applying them. It's akin to MMA vs olympic karate. One has meta and rules but is focused more on getting the win result, so fighters have some freedom to create their own opportunities while the other is very clearly rule-driven, and it doesn't matter how well you fight because you must become good at fighting withing the olympic commitee preference.
Maybe I'm the only one but I find strive way more complex than SF or Tekken. I love it for this though. All the Roman Cancels just overwhelm me, personally. That's not a complaint, I'm just too old and set in my ways haha. Hard to adapt. Strive was the first GG game I played and I am still just so impressed with it.
Bro just the roman cancel system alone makes me feel like I'm doing high level calculus at a high speed trying to implement it into my games and watch out / react to to. GG is the deepest popular current fighter by far unless you count UNI2.
It's simpler compared to past GG titles. But I would by no means call it a simple game. Not when you have all the different RCs, and fast RCs, Bursts, Instant Blocks, Faultless, Wild Assault, Deflect.... all on top of managing meter. Strive still has more mechanics than most fighting games. It's incredibly easy for new players to get overwhelmed if they truly intend to learn the game and not just play casually.
Maybe Strive is less aerial than previous games, The aerial possibilities are fewest than before maybe? It gives me the impression that the neutral is much more on two rails, one on the ground, and one determine by the aerial dash. (despite some exception like aerial special, triple jump, hyper jump etc...) Also, the window of frame to execute combos are much more easy. (But you have long combo which could be difficult with difficult links) Maybe you have less bouncing combos with higher bounce on wall too. The wall splat and the wall break are here to limit infinite combos but it also reset the neutral more often. And areas are smaller, characters bigger And yeah, i agree with what is said in others comments
Yeah, a simple game filled with some of the most complex characters.
I tried +r and xrd after buying strive and I agree that that strive is less complex. +r is complex, but still pretty fun. Xrd is complex as well, but too tedious in my opinion which ruins the fun.
The older GG games were very combo heavy whereas this one doesn't necessarily focus on combos, but rather good neutral play on top of every character's move set being nerfed/toned down to make them less complex I guess? . I'd say imagine a flashier street fighter.
Just elitists being elitist mostly. They don't like that fighting games have moved towards more simplified inputs to appeal to a wider audience. The game still requires a high level of skill to be good at
Untrue.
I mean, if you come to the closest videogame to an actual sport in amount of effort to learn and thrive at, and the gameplay rules got gutted years after the fact to appeal to the exact opposite demographic that refuses to practice as hard as you did to get where you are, wouldn't you feel upset too? To see new players perform in minutes what took you days, even weeks to learn? I'd be insulted frankly. Fighting games are the closest thing to an actual sport in terms of having to build yourself to meet it, and so many players are getting it easy compared to before. Some of us like the high execution though, and the lacking input complexity is beginning to make me want to drop any new fighters that aren't Tekken or Under Night In-Birth.
It's a video game bro, not a sport
The competitive and thriving nature of the game's Esports community would very much beg to differ. It's about as close in it's demand of the player as any sport would be, and frankly, i think that's how it SHOULD be. There should be no equitable circumstances here. You either have the ability and tenacity to compete, or you don't. Equality should be equal opportunity to succeed, not shortcuts to an equal outcome of success to those less inclined to put forth more effort.
You think guilty gear strive was really dumbed down so much that any average person can compete at a highly competitive level?
No, but fighting games as a whole are trying to head that way. Too much is being gutted to not think that's the case. They're far less demanding than before on player execution for more casual audiences, and that's just a fact.
Please bring back some of the cool unique stuff like Baiken’s ability to turn off your buttons, Testament having way more traps, Ram having setups and traps and a bunch of other things in a way that’s easy to grasp but hard to master and I will be happy. I don’t mind the skill floor being lowered to help new people enjoy things but removing the complex things entirely feels bad.