Fights On the subject of Invincible Fullscreen Unblockables

[missingno]

From a user experience standpoint, it feels a lot better to lose at a 10k disadvantage when the opponent punishes my mistakes in blocking or reading.

Being at that much of a disadvantage should create a sense of urgency through knowing one screwup will lead to you being combo'd to death.

Losing because the fight lasted long enough for the opponent to get off a bb3 should not be what creates the sense of urgency particularly because there already is a lose condition with the timer.

This x1000. If a stat gap simply means I can't afford to make even one mistake because I could die off one punish, but everything can still be dealt with if I play my cards right, that's the kind of challenge I like. But when a stat gap means I can play perfectly and then just die to a wakeup unblockable because one of those is enough to kill me, that's not fun or engaging to deal with at all.

I think something that is forgotten when discussing the balance of mobage is you only ever play against the ai. Adjusting bb3 will only ever effect your personal experience in the game and not your interaction with other players.

This is actually something I've been meaning to get into, though it's perhaps a tangent that deserves its own thread. Right now we're only fighting the AI, but HV has said that they do want to add PvP in the future. So I've been analyzing every mechanic under that lens, asking the question "How badly could humans break this once PvP arrives?"

I feel like some things in this game are just counting on the AI not to abuse them, or tempting the player to take advantage of gimmicky strategies the AI will let you get away with when no human ever would. Coming from a fighting game background, I always try to play as if my opponent is an expert smart enough to do the former and stop me from doing the latter, even if my current opponent is not such an expert, because otherwise I'd end up developing bad habits for when I do face the real experts.

 

[guitalex2007]

Had a match this morning wih a Big Band, a Bella and a Valentine. I was at streak #8 (on the Gold Peacock event) so their strength was about 1.5 times my team. Didn't think much of it.

I go to beat Big Band, but he's too bulky and gets his BB3 as he is a sliver of health from death. Probably could've done something else but I figure "meh, even if he kills me with it he's a fraction away from dying so that won't be bad. Let's let him kill this character."

To my non-surprise, he simply tags out. Now there's a BB3 on deck that can happen after the tag in at any point and I can no longer predict or prepare for. But OK here comes Bella. Manage to get her good, but she has Grab Gag ready. At this point my character is low health so I don't feel bad and she Grab Bags it. I bring in my Bella and finish Bella. In comes Val, who has 2 of these things (the less powerful Checkmate and the DOA). She hits me with the Checkmate which meant I was still alive but barely. Manage to kill her just before she gets DOA. In comes Big Band, unflinches into Beat Extend to murder Bella, BB3 on my 3rd for the win.

I'd rather take the challenge of being able to survive 3 minutes against someone much stronger than me and lose horribly, than lose because of a single unavoidable attack (today I tried to preemptively backdash a BB3 using Filia's Flash Back; the opponent waited then hit me).

 

[tom641]

(today I tried to preemptively backdash a BB3 using Filia's Flash Back; the opponent waited then hit me).

Yeah, the AI reads your inputs. It's always bullshit and yet for some reason it's still accepted from fighting game AI.

Also on the subject of PvP i'm not touching PvP in this game with a 10 foot pole. This game is super easy to "solve" for the best options on every character and i'm already suffering through lag as punishment for not buying an overpriced iPhone, I don't need to also suffer through the armies of Cerebellas and ultra tanky Big Bands online, not even the Peacocks that have max cooldown on all three rarities of George's Day Out to just delete whoever they poke.
I will never play PvP in any mobile game that's based around twitchy skill or character builds. If it is added please don't make it required for anything because it'll just be Whale Hell.

 

[Quirkilicious]

I agree with OP completely, to be honest when I first played SGMobile and discovered Unblockables I was very upset. I thought coming from a respectable competitive fighter that there wouldn't be things with near zero counter play.

I just started but this game's AI is easy enough to read that I'm able to block, tech out of grabs and punish almost everything it does. That's what's fun, that's the fun part! Outplaying an opponent with double your FS or more is what's truly satisfying. I should never essentially get one-shot from a BB3 just because the match lasted long enough for them to build it up. That's straight up skill-gating.

I guess at the end of the day it becomes a question of, how far the developers want you to be able to get with skill before ensuring limits for grinding and/or throwing $$$ at the problem.

Still, if you come from any fighting game background you'll find a BB3 unsatisfying to use (easy, free damage) and fight against (no counterplay) It basically reminds me that at it's core, stat-stacking is more important than player-skill and I don't know if that's a healthy message.

It also tells me the game revolves entirely around just building BB's fastest. Why doesn't everyone just go Crits with Heavy Reign Parasoul and spam Unblockables all day? I'm sure there are other signature abilities for building BB's that I'm unaware of, that's just an example.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

Unblockable doesn't mean unbeatable, nothing is unbeatable if you simply git gud.

In fact, there are many different ways to easily beat unblockable blockbusters.

You can:

1. Have high enough damage per second to defeat them before anyone manages to fully charge their BB3
2. Use fighters like Armed Forces or Resonant Evil and max out their defence stat and signature abilities so you can tank it out
3. Use fighters like Big Top or Last Hope and max out signature abilities so you can revive after taking the entire BB3
4. Sacrifice one of your weaker or near dead fighters to the incoming unblockable
5. Have a Valentine on your team and equip her with Forbidden Procedure BB2 so you can revive a teammate who got killed by an unblockable
6. Predict the opponent's behaviour and combo them into oblivion before they get a chance to use BB3 if they've already fully charged it. Usually this works well when you have a BB1 or BB2 since they're faster to charge up
7. Enter or end Sekhmet mode at the right time to fully avoid an unblockable
8. If you git rly gud, do a back dash at precisely the right moment to fully evade the incoming unblockable, I've seen enemies do it a bunch of times before so I believe us players can too

Most of the things you mention as solutions rely on RNG to be successful. That can hardly be called "getting good". "Getting lucky", sure.
The Sekhmet point is actually quite good; I've made this work for me against Big Band's Strike Up the Band BB3. But not every character has a method that can avoid BB3's like Eliza, and not everyone has an Eliza. The Valentine idea would be more viable if a character didn't only res with 15% health. Even if you res a character with a regen ability, that's 1% per second for, what, 10 sec (post 1.3.0)? Assuming you don't take chip damage, that brings you up to 25% possible health after res; that's dangerous ground because another BB3 will definitely end you if you have <25% health. Your last point is interesting, because the game hints say this should be possible, but I have yet to see an opponent do it nor do it myself. And based on your wording, I'm going to assume you haven't done it yourself. So unless someone comes in here and claims to have done it, we don't know if this is possible.

 

[Barney]

If you've got a good streak going in Prize Fight it's going to get harder and rightly so but if you play well all match and never take a proper hit you should not be penalised with a loss because they've all got 1-hit unavoidable attacks. I should be feeling "damn, I made mistakes and need to try harder" after losing a match, not "how cheap, there is nothing to learn from this loss". Let the timer and your own skill level be the determining factor against higher level teams, not this.