Well, there always IS a way of adapting to changes in AI behaviour by changing one's own way of playing, but it definitely leaves a very bad taste in one's mouth...
What really ANNOYS me is the fact that this not just a change to AI behaviour (which I'd totally be fine with) but rather a change to AI's fundamental capabilities in combat situations. In ANY fair game the same rules should apply to all participants. Since in this game it is basically us (the community) fighting with our avatars (our champions) against Kabam's (AI) avatars, AI should not be able to do stuff with its champions which we could never do with ours. The list does not stop at AI being able to f##k us up during backdrafts after a hit into AI's block. There are lots of other issues that (at least to me) seem connected to the underlying problem of certain tweaks to AI's CAPABILITIES (not just behaviour!) having been implemented within the last six months.
Some examples for AI being able to perform combat maneuvers we cannot:
1. AI is able to parry us after finishing a full 5-hit combo (e.g. MLLLM) or after two successive Medium Attacks INTO OUR BLOCK! We as players cannot do this due to being stuck in block animation just long enough to get punished with five hits in our champion's face right afterwards! Back in the days it was NORMAL for us to punish AI after it had just finished a combo with a Medium Attack into our block - nowadays you get punished for your attempt to punish something which AI always WILL succesfully punish if you are still naive enough to try it yourself.
2. AI is able to block Special Attacks that you tried to chain at the end of a combo.
3. AI is able to drop and raise block at a ridiculous speed thus we have that very fun and interactive experience of getting smacked in the face with specials while hitting our opponent's block. Building up Analysis charges with Sentinel is a lot of fun these days.
4. AI is able to parry stun(!) our heavy attacks! While this isn't actually an issue connected to reduced recovery time it is still at least annoying since from a tactical perspective it is just plain stupid to try and parry a heavy attack with a mastery (Stand Your Ground) that has only a 50% chance to succeed at resisting a heavy attack...! No human player would actually try this - but AI does exactly that and succeeds at parrying heavy attacks regularly during my arena runs. However, I have to admit: Parrying a heavy attack is actually something you CAN pull of - but every time when I did manage to parry stun my opponent this way it was definitely NOT INTENDED...
5. And FINALLY: AI is now (since at least patch V22.0) able to INSTANTLY follow our backdraft move after being hit into its block - try to do the same thing to punish AI hitting your own champion's block. It won't work.
Apart from that Magik is not the only champ being gimped by these changes to the fundamental rules of MCOC's combat system. ANY champion had been able to utilize backdraft intercepting against unblockable or stun immune opponents - especially by provoking enemy attacks after hitting AI's block! Power Control Champions such as Vision, Psylocke and Hawkeye have all been nerfed the same way Magik has been affected by this issue. And as long as you were able to effectively bait out specials and do backdraft intercepts during those phases in which AI had no full bar of power you could perform backdraft intercepts to their full extend WITH ANY CHAMPION - but not anymore.
Which parts are you comparing @DTMelodicMetal? Watching both I just see one where it was safe to hit block and one where it wasn't. So you're saying the blocked hits being taken away is to counter ghost? I'm sure Kabam knows exactly why it was changed or taken away.
....I'm just wondering when the fix is coming. *checks watch* yep its September. we got so many comments on my backdraft video stating that people did NOT even know this was an issue. Folks were still trying to backdraft like they always could, for years, with no knowledge of any changes. Failing, dying, using items...for 6 months. Hey Kabam is that their fault you messed it all up and didn't inform them of it?
I could careless why they did it. We already proved they did. They already admitted it wasn't intentional. That's where we are now. What's being done about it? When is it being done?
@KerayZ I didn't know you were ilac lmao. About my Ghost comment, I was referring to how the AI is much more likely to not attack when players use a few basic strikes then back up to bait attacks. This was even more noticeable a few weeks back when players were posting tons of videos of AI countering Ghost when she phases, usually by backing up after having one of their attacks phased or parrying when Ghost would attempt intercepts in-between AI basic strikes. That bug was fixed to an extent, like the AI using special attacks when hitting into their blocks it still occasionally happens.
I'm glad you emphasized DV hitting into Void's block and then being able to back up and intercept Void's attacks. This gets at something I've had a theory about but haven't commented on. This something is not related to MCOC AI actually countering intercepting techniques, which is the AI's rate of recovering from attacks potentially being decreased. I can think of a few ways this could have been done - decreasing the amount of time the AI stands still after players stop attacking without finishing combos, speeding up basic strike animations of MCOC AI, certain champions (e.g., Magik, Doctor Voodoo) having the speed of their basic strike animation slightly slowed or delaying the timing of those basic strike contact points, etc. I don't have game developer experience, so attempts on my part to verbalize specifics of what I mean by "rate of recovering from attacks potentially being decreased" are likely to be written poorly.
I've spoken to other players who use intercept champs very well about this weeks to months ago, like @xNig. A few updates back it felt like the AI was recovering from corner intercepting significantly faster than they previously did. I noticed this because I use Doctor Voodoo almost every time 4loki runs Map 7, and I was getting caught by the AI a lot more than usual when attempting to use him as shown in the video I posted above. I've changed how I used intercepting strategies to deal with whatever differences have occurred over time on this topic.
Furthermore, I don't attribute misinformation on this topic from people who work on MCOC to deception or ill-intent. The game is so much more advanced than it was when I first started playing. The more the game evolves, the more likely something will happen that does not become common knowledge to most MCOC employees for a long period of time. Two years ago, an extra node accidentally being added to Map 5 was considered a significant bug. Now we have bugs like Namor reflecting damage when Ghost phases his attacks, Corvus taking coldsnap damage against freezerburn because freezerburn's code for coldsnap debuffs is probably different than code for other sources of coldsnap debuffs, and Iceman's ice armor being stacked forever when it's staggered by champions like Symbiote Supreme.
IMO the best way to deal with this thread's topic and others I've mentioned in the previous paragraph is to create a permanent type of group like how some Kabam employees have previously arranged as closed betas. Select a mix of knowledgeable and skilled players to test out bugs and fixes to bugs and give them a first line of communication with MCOC developers. I guarantee that kind of relationship between the community and MCOC developers would immensely reduce the average rate of ongoing bugs in MCOC.
I think i follow what youre trying to say. By them slowing down our frames a bit; it essentially buffs the AI's recovery time. By decreasing the time it takes for the AI to get "frame advantage" would also buff the AI's recovery time.
Like when you backdraft on the opponent while you are "hitting" them you have a frame advantage and it works all the time. Yet when you hit the block now you are now in "negative frames" and the AI takes its turn of "frame advantage" resulting in you getting hit.
This is actually pretty common in many Esport fighting games. The difference is none of those games use items, units, revives, potions, boosts...AW/AQ etc etc. They are just straight up fighting games meant to be competitive against real people in professional league tournaments.
That being said you can definitely create an argument/debate that the AI getting frame advantage in these situations is fair. The only problem I have with it is that it is not new knowledge. It's not some ground breaking fighting game thing. This has been out and known by developers in fighting games since the early 2000s. So to make a game and give the attacker frame advantage on blocked hits for 3+ years in a game designed around monetization. You need to stick with that.
Or announce that youre removing it....officially. TO EVERYONE....without this cat and mouse forum nonsense where we feel its being ignored or suppressed.
Could kabam benefit from a team of testers better then them. YES. Agreed. I bet there is a few CEO dollars with netmarble they could aquire for such a team and it would def benefit the game and their ability to stay on top of things.
That being said you can definitely create an argument/debate that the AI getting frame advantage in these situations is fair. The only problem I have with it is that it is not new knowledge. It's not some ground breaking fighting game thing. This has been out and known by developers in fighting games since the early 2000s. So to make a game and give the attacker frame advantage on blocked hits for 3+ years in a game designed around monetization. You need to stick with that.
The problem here is that this oversimplifies the situation a bit. "Frame advantage" is just a term used to describe something that isn't always implemented in the same way. Frame advantage is sometimes an emergent behavior. There are certain things that are done deliberately, for example the rhythm elements placed into the actions that prevent us from doing infinite combos - by adding action tailgates at the end of certain actions the game prevents us from chaining into another action for a short period of time, giving the computer AI a chance to attack back. That's why no 6-attack combos or 3-medium combos.
But I have a feeling what the players have been calling backdraft intercept isn't a deliberate part of the way combat works. It is a combination of how the attack timing works in general and how the AI reacts to certain situations. And those things are going to evolve over time. The question is whether the game has to make every tactic discovered by the players always work. And I don't think that's the case in situations like this.
Something like the way attacks are allowed to chain into combo sequences is fairly foundational. You can make the argument that this type of thing shouldn't be changed without explicitly notifying the players, and there's some persistence of behavior that's required. But backdraft intercept appears to be a dynamic tactic that wasn't built into the game's mechanics, and only exists because the players themselves popularized and discussed it. I would bet that there are lots of "backdraft intercept-like" tactics that currently exist in the game that aren't widely known or discussed, just because no one has yet popularized them. I was doing backdraft intercepts long before I knew anyone was calling them anything, and for that matter long before I knew it was even a noteworthy thing.
There's this thing where you can do a medium once into a target up against a wall and then slide back without holding block when the AI has three bars of power that seems to increase the likelihood that the AI will try to attack with regular attacks instead of using his special three. If I make a video for this AI behavior and give it a catchy name, does that mean that Kabam will no longer have the right to change that behavior in the future? Because the AI isn't scripted: it seems to use weighted potentials, so any change in those could make this behavior vanish simply as a side effect, because it isn't a hard coded behavior, it seems to be emergent.
I don't think it can be the case that just because players discover a pattern to how the game works that Kabam is then required to preserve that pattern. There have to be some things that are core mechanics of the game that players should be able to rely upon, and other things that are just situational dynamic parts of the game that could change over time. And I don't think backdraft intercept is one of those fundamentals. Whether players rely on something is one half of the equation: whether they should reasonably do so is another. Relying on the AI working in a very specific way interacting with the way the combat timing works in a very specific way for a specific tactic to work seems to be on the other side of the line from relying on light, medium, and heavy attacks being usable in a specific sequence.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
Thank you for finally commenting. People kept posting because it seemed to us that this thread was just siting here and no updates were being mentioned. A lot of of us
That being said you can definitely create an argument/debate that the AI getting frame advantage in these situations is fair. The only problem I have with it is that it is not new knowledge. It's not some ground breaking fighting game thing. This has been out and known by developers in fighting games since the early 2000s. So to make a game and give the attacker frame advantage on blocked hits for 3+ years in a game designed around monetization. You need to stick with that.
The problem here is that this oversimplifies the situation a bit. "Frame advantage" is just a term used to describe something that isn't always implemented in the same way. Frame advantage is sometimes an emergent behavior. There are certain things that are done deliberately, for example the rhythm elements placed into the actions that prevent us from doing infinite combos - by adding action tailgates at the end of certain actions the game prevents us from chaining into another action for a short period of time, giving the computer AI a chance to attack back. That's why no 6-attack combos or 3-medium combos.
But I have a feeling what the players have been calling backdraft intercept isn't a deliberate part of the way combat works. It is a combination of how the attack timing works in general and how the AI reacts to certain situations. And those things are going to evolve over time. The question is whether the game has to make every tactic discovered by the players always work. And I don't think that's the case in situations like this.
Something like the way attacks are allowed to chain into combo sequences is fairly foundational. You can make the argument that this type of thing shouldn't be changed without explicitly notifying the players, and there's some persistence of behavior that's required. But backdraft intercept appears to be a dynamic tactic that wasn't built into the game's mechanics, and only exists because the players themselves popularized and discussed it. I would bet that there are lots of "backdraft intercept-like" tactics that currently exist in the game that aren't widely known or discussed, just because no one has yet popularized them. I was doing backdraft intercepts long before I knew anyone was calling them anything, and for that matter long before I knew it was even a noteworthy thing.
There's this thing where you can do a medium once into a target up against a wall and then slide back without holding block when the AI has three bars of power that seems to increase the likelihood that the AI will try to attack with regular attacks instead of using his special three. If I make a video for this AI behavior and give it a catchy name, does that mean that Kabam will no longer have the right to change that behavior in the future? Because the AI isn't scripted: it seems to use weighted potentials, so any change in those could make this behavior vanish simply as a side effect, because it isn't a hard coded behavior, it seems to be emergent.
I don't think it can be the case that just because players discover a pattern to how the game works that Kabam is then required to preserve that pattern. There have to be some things that are core mechanics of the game that players should be able to rely upon, and other things that are just situational dynamic parts of the game that could change over time. And I don't think backdraft intercept is one of those fundamentals. Whether players rely on something is one half of the equation: whether they should reasonably do so is another. Relying on the AI working in a very specific way interacting with the way the combat timing works in a very specific way for a specific tactic to work seems to be on the other side of the line from relying on light, medium, and heavy attacks being usable in a specific sequence.
Then there must be a guide made. An official guide with tactics and mechanics that can and will never be changed. Almost every other game has that. Backdrafting has been a thing ever since the inception of MCOC. Just because it is not specified under character mechanics doesn't make it okay for the company to do away with it. Ultimately we are at their mercy and they can change anything they want and the answer is "just adapt"? That kind of seems backwards.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
There are vids & explanations that clearly show the issue, but, it seems that wasn't enough since you don't have new information to give us.
What do you need from us now? More vids showing this or what?
Then there must be a guide made. An official guide with tactics and mechanics that can and will never be changed. Almost every other game has that.
That would be great, except I've never seen such a thing, ever, for any online game remotely similar to MCOC. Every guide I've seen that has even attempted to do such a thing has generally been horribly wrong.
Plus, how do you document all emergent tactics in a game like this? Somehow, I'm pretty sure there are tactics in the game that neither the developers nor the players have even discovered yet.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
There are vids & explanations that clearly show the issue, but, it seems that wasn't enough since you don't have new information to give us.
What do you need from us now? More vids showing this or what?
What do you say when you discover that a foundational rule of your game's design has been pervasively broken across the game? If this problem is tied to the fact that a lot of action timing rules that have been presumed actually aren't followed, you're not going to make a hundred special case decisions across the game. You're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out why those rules were not followed, what are the consequences to the game if they continue to not be followed, what's the pros and cons of abandoning the rule verses attempting to retrofit the rule back into the game, will there need to be additional development resources committed to either remedy, and are there special case pins that are immutable on either side of the problem, and how do you intend to communicate either decision to the playerbase, when either decision is likely to be highly controversial.
I suspect this isn't the sort of thing that the devs are going to decide in a couple hours, or even a couple days.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
There are vids & explanations that clearly show the issue, but, it seems that wasn't enough since you don't have new information to give us.
What do you need from us now? More vids showing this or what?
What do you say when you discover that a foundational rule of your game's design has been pervasively broken across the game? If this problem is tied to the fact that a lot of action timing rules that have been presumed actually aren't followed, you're not going to make a hundred special case decisions across the game. You're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out why those rules were not followed, what are the consequences to the game if they continue to not be followed, what's the pros and cons of abandoning the rule verses attempting to retrofit the rule back into the game, will there need to be additional development resources committed to either remedy, and are there special case pins that are immutable on either side of the problem, and how do you intend to communicate either decision to the playerbase, when either decision is likely to be highly controversial.
I suspect this isn't the sort of thing that the devs are going to decide in a couple hours, or even a couple days.
What you're referring to is developer choices that were made at the start of this game. In 2014. Not only are you talking about developer choices youre talking about commonplace fighting game mechanics that have been in e-sports for 20 years. Also those games have tutorials teaching you every single mechanic in the game and detailing such frame advantages. Kabam knew in 2014 what they were making. Kabam also knew what other fighting games focus on over the last 20 years. They chose to allow you to have frame advantage for over 3 years.
So is this what your goal is Kabam? Hide you saying it wasnt intentional so we can have back and forth debates with these people again? If you want to remove backdraft intercepts on block just SAY IT and then face the consequence of nerfing Magik. (because you know it's coming)
Anyone who has played the game for 3+ years know that they've changed the speed i which the AI can react on backdrafts and when they're blocking. The decision is if they're going to keep ti as is or go back to what it was like for 3 years.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
There are vids & explanations that clearly show the issue, but, it seems that wasn't enough since you don't have new information to give us.
What do you need from us now? More vids showing this or what?
What do you say when you discover that a foundational rule of your game's design has been pervasively broken across the game? If this problem is tied to the fact that a lot of action timing rules that have been presumed actually aren't followed, you're not going to make a hundred special case decisions across the game. You're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out why those rules were not followed, what are the consequences to the game if they continue to not be followed, what's the pros and cons of abandoning the rule verses attempting to retrofit the rule back into the game, will there need to be additional development resources committed to either remedy, and are there special case pins that are immutable on either side of the problem, and how do you intend to communicate either decision to the playerbase, when either decision is likely to be highly controversial.
I suspect this isn't the sort of thing that the devs are going to decide in a couple hours, or even a couple days.
What you're referring to is developer choices that were made at the start of this game. In 2014. Not only are you talking about developer choices youre talking about commonplace fighting game mechanics that have been in e-sports for 20 years. Also those games have tutorials teaching you every single mechanic in the game and detailing such frame advantages. Kabam knew in 2014 what they were making. Kabam also knew what other fighting games focus on over the last 20 years. They chose to allow you to have frame advantage for over 3 years.
That's sort of what I was referring to in a completely different post, but not the one you've decided to quote.
And actually, what' I'm trying to explain is that backdraft intercept is not a frame advantage direct tactic. The technical details of frame advantage, which are something every rhythm fighting game must have, might affect backdraft intercept but frame advantage alone doesn't create the tactic. The execution of backdraft intercept isn't a "sequence" in the technical sense because it is broken up by an AI decision: the AI must choose to attack immediately. If it is defensive, say, and doesn't attack or holds block the tactic fails. Frame advantage can't help there.
For backdraft intercept to work the player must be able to end a combo sequence and initiate a movement action that occurs simultaneously with the AI choosing to dash forward or attack at the right moment, and then provided the player exits his action tail gate he can initiate an intercepting attack. So the specifics of frame advantage can influence this, but any sequence that requires the AI to make a specific decision is not a combo activity that frame advantage is designed to explicitly allow.
This is, in fact, commonplace knowledge. So I'm not sure what's being debated here at all.
@DNA3000 sorry. I thought when you dashed back and the AI could hit you first that means the AI has frame advantage.....which is what this whole thread is about.. You hit the block and now they can hit you first. Just theorycrafting as to what's going on and why the AI all of a sudden, in the last 6 months, gets to hit you in this process.
That make sense? I mean there's plenty of videos showing it to you. Slow them down to frame by frame and you can literally see both characters attacking but only one character winning. The AI. Not you. You used to win.
It’s starting to look like there’s different A.I speed / frame rate depending on what fight you in ?
Can someone at kabam please explain ?
Should it not be 1 frame rate for all ?
* excuse the scrappy play, supposed to be working 🚽
See this is crazy. I just did the same path; Angela backdrafts into block worked fine. Same as you. Gamora...backdrafts into block worked fine. Get to King Groot and its all over again with a big fail. So now its champion specific? Would you like us to fight every champ in the game now too to figure out which ones its broken on and which ones it isnt?
If it was intended(which we know it isn't even though youre deleting that statement) you'll have to go in to every champ that it doesnt fail on and make it so it fails consistently....right? Sounds fair.
This pretty well ends the whole "they meant to do it" debate. If they meant to do it it would be across the board. So are you fixing backdrafts to work on block again or are you fixing every champ in the game to have it fail consistently?
The Plot thickens! Well @Markg25 it seems that we have an issue here....Happens sometimes. Doesn't happen others. So weird. Almost like an intermittent thing. I wonder if it has to do with the block stun reduction folks are talking about in the Specials through blocked hits thread. That doesn't happen all the time either. Just like this. hmmm....
@DNA3000 sorry. I thought when you dashed back and the AI could hit you first that means the AI has frame advantage.....which is what this whole thread is about.. You hit the block and now they can hit you first. Just theorycrafting as to what's going on and why the AI all of a sudden, in the last 6 months, gets to hit you in this process.
That make sense? I mean there's plenty of videos showing it to you. Slow them down to frame by frame and you can literally see both characters attacking but only one character winning. The AI. Not you. You used to win.
That's why I said I think it is more likely an interaction between the AI and some timing element to the attacks. From a theorycrafting perspective that seems to make sense, but is is also relevant to the question of whether the devs can directly fix it quickly or not. If it is really an unintended interaction, then they probably broke it while adjusting something else entirely different and it might not be trivial to reverse. They could try to engineer a way to put it back, but then that might be problematic for different reasons, which is why they might be silent at the moment. It isn't that they need more evidence that the problem exists, they need time to discuss what to do about the situation where a player tactic doesn't involve an explicit mechanism put into the game but rather a more situational advantage. I'm also concerned that this might be entangled with the She-Hulk related information that combo into heavy wasn't intended but incorrectly introduced due to other timing issues. If this is yet another timing problem - as in, the designers of the animations did not follow all the design rules for timing correctly - then that would also delay their response to the players.
DNA, the above sounds like a reasonable explanation of a possible issue.
Kabam, I'd like to respectfully suggest that you let us know if the above or something similar is happening w this. I can sympathize if this is an issue that is going to require specific champ timing reworks or whatever. I can accept that it will take time to fix. I can then patiently wait for said fix. In the meantime, I would continue to monitor this thread for updates, even if it's just you guys saying "We are making progress on this, thanks for hanging in there." I would feel so much better if you guys could officially acknowledge this as a bug, add it to the Known Issues thread, and give us assurance that it is being actively worked on.
As it stands now based on Mod comments not directly addressing this thread, I can only GUESS that you, Kabam, recognizes this is a bug?? If so, I would also assume you are actively working on it. And I would imagine that you probably have plenty of examples to work off of here in this thread without us having to continue to provide examples of this interaction. Maybe you guys are still deciding the cost/benefit of implementing a fix for this? Or was this change intentional?
All many of us are asking for is some communication from Kabam regarding this issue. I would think that at least letting us know if it is an intentional or unintentional change would be an easy question to answer. Digging into the reasons why this is happening and figuring out the fix seems like the hard part. I'm sorry, but the longer this goes on without a definitive statement from you guys, the more it reflects poorly on the company in my opinion. I feel strongly about this because I enjoy the game, but it has been less than enjoyable since April and I'm hanging on by a thread.
Thank you for your time and your consideration in this matter.
@DNA3000 sorry. I thought when you dashed back and the AI could hit you first that means the AI has frame advantage.....which is what this whole thread is about.. You hit the block and now they can hit you first. Just theorycrafting as to what's going on and why the AI all of a sudden, in the last 6 months, gets to hit you in this process.
That make sense? I mean there's plenty of videos showing it to you. Slow them down to frame by frame and you can literally see both characters attacking but only one character winning. The AI. Not you. You used to win.
That's why I said I think it is more likely an interaction between the AI and some timing element to the attacks. From a theorycrafting perspective that seems to make sense, but is is also relevant to the question of whether the devs can directly fix it quickly or not. If it is really an unintended interaction, then they probably broke it while adjusting something else entirely different and it might not be trivial to reverse. They could try to engineer a way to put it back, but then that might be problematic for different reasons, which is why they might be silent at the moment. It isn't that they need more evidence that the problem exists, they need time to discuss what to do about the situation where a player tactic doesn't involve an explicit mechanism put into the game but rather a more situational advantage. I'm also concerned that this might be entangled with the She-Hulk related information that combo into heavy wasn't intended but incorrectly introduced due to other timing issues. If this is yet another timing problem - as in, the designers of the animations did not follow all the design rules for timing correctly - then that would also delay their response to the players.
So how long is enough time. It's 6 months now. Think they need another year? two? ...what is comfortable for you so that Kabam can get away without talking about it or taking any definitive action. If it was something they are trying to fix it would be in their "known issues" thread. Last time they talked about it they said they fixed it, didn't, then disappeared for a few more months.
Remember while all this is going on and YOU know about the issue. Its ok for YOU. For the players who are clueless to this issue in the game...well those people are dying. Using items. Wasting resources...all so these guys get more time?....I dont buy it.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here. The issue I'm addressing is the question of whether or not this specific problem might be entangled with other problems that have come up more recently. If that's the case, then that's a situation that really starts from now, not from six months ago. If you want to make the case that this specific problem should have been addressed long ago, fair enough. But then it doesn't matter what the cause of the problem is, and there's no point in discussing the cause. The cause only matters in terms of moving forward, not discussing what went wrong with addressing the problem in the past.
Regardless of how we got here, here's where we are. Kabam isn't going to discuss the problem with players if it turns out it is entangled in other problems more recently uncovered. No reasonable people would. But I assumed from discussion that it was important to figure out where we are now and how the process might move forward from here. But if your position is they took too long before, so they don't get to spend time now, I'm not sure who you believe would accept that position.
I'm not saying they were not too slow addressing this problem. I'm simply saying there's nothing you can do about the fact they were too slow addressing this problem. The only meaningful thing to discuss is what might be done about it now.
I think i follow what youre trying to say. By them slowing down our frames a bit; it essentially buffs the AI's recovery time. By decreasing the time it takes for the AI to get "frame advantage" would also buff the AI's recovery time.
Like when you backdraft on the opponent while you are "hitting" them you have a frame advantage and it works all the time. Yet when you hit the block now you are now in "negative frames" and the AI takes its turn of "frame advantage" resulting in you getting hit.
This is actually pretty common in many Esport fighting games. The difference is none of those games use items, units, revives, potions, boosts...AW/AQ etc etc. They are just straight up fighting games meant to be competitive against real people in professional league tournaments.
That being said you can definitely create an argument/debate that the AI getting frame advantage in these situations is fair. The only problem I have with it is that it is not new knowledge. It's not some ground breaking fighting game thing. This has been out and known by developers in fighting games since the early 2000s. So to make a game and give the attacker frame advantage on blocked hits for 3+ years in a game designed around monetization. You need to stick with that.
Or announce that youre removing it....officially. TO EVERYONE....without this cat and mouse forum nonsense where we feel its being ignored or suppressed.
Could kabam benefit from a team of testers better then them. YES. Agreed. I bet there is a few CEO dollars with netmarble they could aquire for such a team and it would def benefit the game and their ability to stay on top of things.
I was thinking didnt the backdraft issue come at the same time there was the issue with perry? I mean I could be wrong but there is definitely something different with Perry and it has been like that for a while but kabam kind of brushed it under the rug even dorky Dave made a video on it
I think I've been patient. I've been following this forum for a long time but had to join so I could voice my frustration. We need an update other than "we're looking into it". Kabam has known about this since April and my 4* and 5* Magik have been sitting on my bench for almost as long. Put some priority on this or please give me magik rank down tickets so I can put those resources into a champion I will actually use.
EDIT: Please remember that Gold and ISO are also valuable resources that we have to grind to get so please refund that as well as the catalyst, unlike what you did for the She-Hulk rank down tickets
I think I've been patient. I've been following this forum for a long time but had to join so I could voice my frustration. We need an update other than "we're looking into it". Kabam has known about this since April and my 4* and 5* Magik have been sitting on my bench for almost as long. Put some priority on this or please give me magik rank down tickets so I can put those resources into a champion I will actually use.
EDIT: Please remember that Gold and ISO are also valuable resources that we have to grind to get so please refund that as well as the catalyst, unlike what you did for the She-Hulk rank down tickets
They give you ISO and gold back for shehulk. Just on a later date
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
There are vids & explanations that clearly show the issue, but, it seems that wasn't enough since you don't have new information to give us.
What do you need from us now? More vids showing this or what?
What do you say when you discover that a foundational rule of your game's design has been pervasively broken across the game? If this problem is tied to the fact that a lot of action timing rules that have been presumed actually aren't followed, you're not going to make a hundred special case decisions across the game. You're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out why those rules were not followed, what are the consequences to the game if they continue to not be followed, what's the pros and cons of abandoning the rule verses attempting to retrofit the rule back into the game, will there need to be additional development resources committed to either remedy, and are there special case pins that are immutable on either side of the problem, and how do you intend to communicate either decision to the playerbase, when either decision is likely to be highly controversial.
I suspect this isn't the sort of thing that the devs are going to decide in a couple hours, or even a couple days.
Well, it hasn't been a couple of hours or days, it has been 6 months. I respect what you are trying to say, and are trying to get into the mind of kabam, but, Kabam said they were going to be more transparent, and, sadly, you aren't Kabam.
From a developer point of view, the source is under revision control, and they certainly have the capability of bisecting the code to find the faulty commit(s). Simple enough to look at all the vids of before & after so the devs know exactly what is up, so, the issue here is, does Kabam want to spend the resources to fix this bug (and yes, it is a huge bug), or, do they just want to leave it be, and sweep it under the rug?
They should just come out and say what the issue(s) are. Saying no new information leaves everyone hanging, are the looking into it at all, or is it just not worth the resources to fix it?
It's been almost half a year, yet it's still bugged, anything that helps the player though is a gamebreaking bug and gets fixed immediately, I only got to play Magik for a month (rip magik), but if this never gets fixed they need to hand out rank down tickets to every champ affected (y'know like every champ in the game)
Comments
What really ANNOYS me is the fact that this not just a change to AI behaviour (which I'd totally be fine with) but rather a change to AI's fundamental capabilities in combat situations. In ANY fair game the same rules should apply to all participants. Since in this game it is basically us (the community) fighting with our avatars (our champions) against Kabam's (AI) avatars, AI should not be able to do stuff with its champions which we could never do with ours.
The list does not stop at AI being able to f##k us up during backdrafts after a hit into AI's block. There are lots of other issues that (at least to me) seem connected to the underlying problem of certain tweaks to AI's CAPABILITIES (not just behaviour!) having been implemented within the last six months.
Some examples for AI being able to perform combat maneuvers we cannot:
1. AI is able to parry us after finishing a full 5-hit combo (e.g. MLLLM) or after two successive Medium Attacks INTO OUR BLOCK! We as players cannot do this due to being stuck in block animation just long enough to get punished with five hits in our champion's face right afterwards! Back in the days it was NORMAL for us to punish AI after it had just finished a combo with a Medium Attack into our block - nowadays you get punished for your attempt to punish something which AI always WILL succesfully punish if you are still naive enough to try it yourself.
2. AI is able to block Special Attacks that you tried to chain at the end of a combo.
3. AI is able to drop and raise block at a ridiculous speed thus we have that very fun and interactive experience of getting smacked in the face with specials while hitting our opponent's block. Building up Analysis charges with Sentinel is a lot of fun these days.
4. AI is able to parry stun(!) our heavy attacks! While this isn't actually an issue connected to reduced recovery time it is still at least annoying since from a tactical perspective it is just plain stupid to try and parry a heavy attack with a mastery (Stand Your Ground) that has only a 50% chance to succeed at resisting a heavy attack...! No human player would actually try this - but AI does exactly that and succeeds at parrying heavy attacks regularly during my arena runs. However, I have to admit: Parrying a heavy attack is actually something you CAN pull of - but every time when I did manage to parry stun my opponent this way it was definitely NOT INTENDED...
5. And FINALLY: AI is now (since at least patch V22.0) able to INSTANTLY follow our backdraft move after being hit into its block - try to do the same thing to punish AI hitting your own champion's block. It won't work.
Apart from that Magik is not the only champ being gimped by these changes to the fundamental rules of MCOC's combat system. ANY champion had been able to utilize backdraft intercepting against unblockable or stun immune opponents - especially by provoking enemy attacks after hitting AI's block! Power Control Champions such as Vision, Psylocke and Hawkeye have all been nerfed the same way Magik has been affected by this issue. And as long as you were able to effectively bait out specials and do backdraft intercepts during those phases in which AI had no full bar of power you could perform backdraft intercepts to their full extend WITH ANY CHAMPION - but not anymore.
I'm glad you emphasized DV hitting into Void's block and then being able to back up and intercept Void's attacks. This gets at something I've had a theory about but haven't commented on. This something is not related to MCOC AI actually countering intercepting techniques, which is the AI's rate of recovering from attacks potentially being decreased. I can think of a few ways this could have been done - decreasing the amount of time the AI stands still after players stop attacking without finishing combos, speeding up basic strike animations of MCOC AI, certain champions (e.g., Magik, Doctor Voodoo) having the speed of their basic strike animation slightly slowed or delaying the timing of those basic strike contact points, etc. I don't have game developer experience, so attempts on my part to verbalize specifics of what I mean by "rate of recovering from attacks potentially being decreased" are likely to be written poorly.
I've spoken to other players who use intercept champs very well about this weeks to months ago, like @xNig. A few updates back it felt like the AI was recovering from corner intercepting significantly faster than they previously did. I noticed this because I use Doctor Voodoo almost every time 4loki runs Map 7, and I was getting caught by the AI a lot more than usual when attempting to use him as shown in the video I posted above. I've changed how I used intercepting strategies to deal with whatever differences have occurred over time on this topic.
Furthermore, I don't attribute misinformation on this topic from people who work on MCOC to deception or ill-intent. The game is so much more advanced than it was when I first started playing. The more the game evolves, the more likely something will happen that does not become common knowledge to most MCOC employees for a long period of time. Two years ago, an extra node accidentally being added to Map 5 was considered a significant bug. Now we have bugs like Namor reflecting damage when Ghost phases his attacks, Corvus taking coldsnap damage against freezerburn because freezerburn's code for coldsnap debuffs is probably different than code for other sources of coldsnap debuffs, and Iceman's ice armor being stacked forever when it's staggered by champions like Symbiote Supreme.
IMO the best way to deal with this thread's topic and others I've mentioned in the previous paragraph is to create a permanent type of group like how some Kabam employees have previously arranged as closed betas. Select a mix of knowledgeable and skilled players to test out bugs and fixes to bugs and give them a first line of communication with MCOC developers. I guarantee that kind of relationship between the community and MCOC developers would immensely reduce the average rate of ongoing bugs in MCOC.
Like when you backdraft on the opponent while you are "hitting" them you have a frame advantage and it works all the time. Yet when you hit the block now you are now in "negative frames" and the AI takes its turn of "frame advantage" resulting in you getting hit.
This is actually pretty common in many Esport fighting games. The difference is none of those games use items, units, revives, potions, boosts...AW/AQ etc etc. They are just straight up fighting games meant to be competitive against real people in professional league tournaments.
That being said you can definitely create an argument/debate that the AI getting frame advantage in these situations is fair. The only problem I have with it is that it is not new knowledge. It's not some ground breaking fighting game thing. This has been out and known by developers in fighting games since the early 2000s. So to make a game and give the attacker frame advantage on blocked hits for 3+ years in a game designed around monetization. You need to stick with that.
Or announce that youre removing it....officially. TO EVERYONE....without this cat and mouse forum nonsense where we feel its being ignored or suppressed.
Could kabam benefit from a team of testers better then them. YES. Agreed. I bet there is a few CEO dollars with netmarble they could aquire for such a team and it would def benefit the game and their ability to stay on top of things.
But I have a feeling what the players have been calling backdraft intercept isn't a deliberate part of the way combat works. It is a combination of how the attack timing works in general and how the AI reacts to certain situations. And those things are going to evolve over time. The question is whether the game has to make every tactic discovered by the players always work. And I don't think that's the case in situations like this.
Something like the way attacks are allowed to chain into combo sequences is fairly foundational. You can make the argument that this type of thing shouldn't be changed without explicitly notifying the players, and there's some persistence of behavior that's required. But backdraft intercept appears to be a dynamic tactic that wasn't built into the game's mechanics, and only exists because the players themselves popularized and discussed it. I would bet that there are lots of "backdraft intercept-like" tactics that currently exist in the game that aren't widely known or discussed, just because no one has yet popularized them. I was doing backdraft intercepts long before I knew anyone was calling them anything, and for that matter long before I knew it was even a noteworthy thing.
There's this thing where you can do a medium once into a target up against a wall and then slide back without holding block when the AI has three bars of power that seems to increase the likelihood that the AI will try to attack with regular attacks instead of using his special three. If I make a video for this AI behavior and give it a catchy name, does that mean that Kabam will no longer have the right to change that behavior in the future? Because the AI isn't scripted: it seems to use weighted potentials, so any change in those could make this behavior vanish simply as a side effect, because it isn't a hard coded behavior, it seems to be emergent.
I don't think it can be the case that just because players discover a pattern to how the game works that Kabam is then required to preserve that pattern. There have to be some things that are core mechanics of the game that players should be able to rely upon, and other things that are just situational dynamic parts of the game that could change over time. And I don't think backdraft intercept is one of those fundamentals. Whether players rely on something is one half of the equation: whether they should reasonably do so is another. Relying on the AI working in a very specific way interacting with the way the combat timing works in a very specific way for a specific tactic to work seems to be on the other side of the line from relying on light, medium, and heavy attacks being usable in a specific sequence.
We are still looking at this but don't have any new information to share at this time.
Please keep the thread on topic and refrain from posting without adding any constructive information related to the issue just to bump the thread. Those types of posts will be removed according to the forum rules.
Thanks for understanding.
What do you need from us now? More vids showing this or what?
Plus, how do you document all emergent tactics in a game like this? Somehow, I'm pretty sure there are tactics in the game that neither the developers nor the players have even discovered yet.
I suspect this isn't the sort of thing that the devs are going to decide in a couple hours, or even a couple days.
So is this what your goal is Kabam? Hide you saying it wasnt intentional so we can have back and forth debates with these people again? If you want to remove backdraft intercepts on block just SAY IT and then face the consequence of nerfing Magik. (because you know it's coming)
And actually, what' I'm trying to explain is that backdraft intercept is not a frame advantage direct tactic. The technical details of frame advantage, which are something every rhythm fighting game must have, might affect backdraft intercept but frame advantage alone doesn't create the tactic. The execution of backdraft intercept isn't a "sequence" in the technical sense because it is broken up by an AI decision: the AI must choose to attack immediately. If it is defensive, say, and doesn't attack or holds block the tactic fails. Frame advantage can't help there.
For backdraft intercept to work the player must be able to end a combo sequence and initiate a movement action that occurs simultaneously with the AI choosing to dash forward or attack at the right moment, and then provided the player exits his action tail gate he can initiate an intercepting attack. So the specifics of frame advantage can influence this, but any sequence that requires the AI to make a specific decision is not a combo activity that frame advantage is designed to explicitly allow.
This is, in fact, commonplace knowledge. So I'm not sure what's being debated here at all.
That make sense? I mean there's plenty of videos showing it to you. Slow them down to frame by frame and you can literally see both characters attacking but only one character winning. The AI. Not you. You used to win.
If it was intended(which we know it isn't even though youre deleting that statement) you'll have to go in to every champ that it doesnt fail on and make it so it fails consistently....right? Sounds fair.
This pretty well ends the whole "they meant to do it" debate. If they meant to do it it would be across the board. So are you fixing backdrafts to work on block again or are you fixing every champ in the game to have it fail consistently?
Kabam, I'd like to respectfully suggest that you let us know if the above or something similar is happening w this. I can sympathize if this is an issue that is going to require specific champ timing reworks or whatever. I can accept that it will take time to fix. I can then patiently wait for said fix. In the meantime, I would continue to monitor this thread for updates, even if it's just you guys saying "We are making progress on this, thanks for hanging in there." I would feel so much better if you guys could officially acknowledge this as a bug, add it to the Known Issues thread, and give us assurance that it is being actively worked on.
As it stands now based on Mod comments not directly addressing this thread, I can only GUESS that you, Kabam, recognizes this is a bug?? If so, I would also assume you are actively working on it. And I would imagine that you probably have plenty of examples to work off of here in this thread without us having to continue to provide examples of this interaction. Maybe you guys are still deciding the cost/benefit of implementing a fix for this? Or was this change intentional?
All many of us are asking for is some communication from Kabam regarding this issue. I would think that at least letting us know if it is an intentional or unintentional change would be an easy question to answer. Digging into the reasons why this is happening and figuring out the fix seems like the hard part. I'm sorry, but the longer this goes on without a definitive statement from you guys, the more it reflects poorly on the company in my opinion. I feel strongly about this because I enjoy the game, but it has been less than enjoyable since April and I'm hanging on by a thread.
Thank you for your time and your consideration in this matter.
Remember while all this is going on and YOU know about the issue. Its ok for YOU. For the players who are clueless to this issue in the game...well those people are dying. Using items. Wasting resources...all so these guys get more time?....I dont buy it.
Regardless of how we got here, here's where we are. Kabam isn't going to discuss the problem with players if it turns out it is entangled in other problems more recently uncovered. No reasonable people would. But I assumed from discussion that it was important to figure out where we are now and how the process might move forward from here. But if your position is they took too long before, so they don't get to spend time now, I'm not sure who you believe would accept that position.
I'm not saying they were not too slow addressing this problem. I'm simply saying there's nothing you can do about the fact they were too slow addressing this problem. The only meaningful thing to discuss is what might be done about it now.
EDIT: Please remember that Gold and ISO are also valuable resources that we have to grind to get so please refund that as well as the catalyst, unlike what you did for the She-Hulk rank down tickets
From a developer point of view, the source is under revision control, and they certainly have the capability of bisecting the code to find the faulty commit(s). Simple enough to look at all the vids of before & after so the devs know exactly what is up, so, the issue here is, does Kabam want to spend the resources to fix this bug (and yes, it is a huge bug), or, do they just want to leave it be, and sweep it under the rug?
They should just come out and say what the issue(s) are. Saying no new information leaves everyone hanging, are the looking into it at all, or is it just not worth the resources to fix it?