Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Series Catch-All

Man this game is fun. Combos are so much easier, making it possible to do some really crazy things.

3 hours till I'm home and can play this.

Despite spending a ridiculous amount of time pouring over guides and watching videos the past couple of weeks I still have no idea who I want to be my first team.

I find myself extremely confused by the game. Part of my brain thinks it's BlazBlue, and wants to be able to air-dash with everybody (part of this is likely because the base walking speed of everyone in MvC 3 is so slow). Another part of my brain thinks it's SF4 and keeps hitting the Assist buttons to try and throw out M. Kick and H. Kick. I'm sure it'll sort itself out, but for now I feel like I'm battling the slow movement speed combined with the fast combo speed.

I really like Dante, his available options are staggering. Wesker is also a lot more fun than I thought he would be, particularly since he has a wall bounce move and can teleport all around the arena. Chris has a great pressure game, but the lack of any kind of air dash or double jump hurts a lot.

Has anyone found a arcade stick button layout that is working for them? I have been playing around with it, but nothing feels quite right.

I put the attack buttons on the top row, and special and assists on the bottom. I find it easier to organize my thoughts that way.

L M H
S A1 A2

ahrezmendi wrote:

but for now I feel like I'm battling the slow movement speed combined with the fast combo speed.

You need to be dashing more, they added 2 ATK + direction for dashing which is much easier then double tapping the stick. You can also wave dash super fast across the screen by mashing down + 2 ATK.

I find myself hitting the same wall I did with SF4 in this, my hands just aren't fast enough for some of the more advance techniques, especially the ones in mission mode. =/

Thirteenth wrote:

I put the attack buttons on the top row, and special and assists on the bottom. I find it easier to organize my thoughts that way.

L M H
S A1 A2

This is the same setup I'm using, which jives well coming from other ABC style fighters like BlazBlue. I do find myself occasionally hitting an assist button expecting a kick to come out, but that's been rare enough.

I was initially afraid that the steps capcom were taking to streamline the control scheme across all the characters might leave them feeling too samey, but that has thankfully proven to be completely unfounded. The characters feel diverse and varied, but are also (for the most part) easy to just pick up and play.

Waiting for this to come in from Amazon. It'll be my first exposure to the MvC series.

Sinatar wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

but for now I feel like I'm battling the slow movement speed combined with the fast combo speed.

You need to be dashing more, they added 2 ATK + direction for dashing which is much easier then double tapping the stick. You can also wave dash super fast across the screen by mashing down + 2 ATK.

I find myself hitting the same wall I did with SF4 in this, my hands just aren't fast enough for some of the more advance techniques, especially the ones in mission mode. =/

Yeah, and I know about the dash, just need to get used to the whole thing.

Yeah, I hit the special button far too often expecting a kick, I really need to teach myself not to expect one.

I didn't know they removed the kick buttons.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I didn't know they removed the kick buttons.

The control scheme has been simplified to Light Attack, Medium Attack, Hard Attack, and Special (which is also the universal launcher button). It takes a bit of getting used to, especially if you're coming from SF4, but it works.

What's more, it works with the standard Xbox controller. Street Fighter 4 pretty much needs fight pads or a joystick, but MvC3 feels like it was actually designed with the standard controller in mind.

Oh boy. I understand I'm a noob, but I decided to try an online match and was completely beat down in less than 20 seconds. It was like attack, bounce up in the air, that full screen glitzy stuff, DEAD, next character pops in, barely comes into view and is DEAD and my last guy pretty much the same. I haven't gone back.

Here I thought there might be some other newbs to fight against. The multiplayer setup screen suggests the opponent I face will be of similar rank to me.

The 'training' is boring, but the Mission is actually more like what I expect training to be. Perform X move. Great. Now perform X followed by Y. Great. Now perform X, Y Z, bounce the guy up, do Y Z and a hyper move. Yeah, that's where I'm stuck, on virtually every character I try. I'm not sure if it's an issue of timing, not swirling the stick right, or maybe my distance from the opponent is too much (or too little).

In an actual battle (vs AI now), I can't seem to set up those combinations either. Well, I can do X Y Z or something like that, but the damage is so little, it just seems better to swirl the stick and try to launch one of the bigger moves.

Doing a super after a normal combo frequently involves canceling the normal into the super, which means you input the super while the normal is still going on. Here's an example with Zero:

QCF (quarter circle forward) + H -> DP (dragon punch) Super

To pull this off you input the Super such that it stops the animation of your fireball move and then both hit. My recommendation is practice just the Z into Super part of what you mentioned, then go back and add in the X and Y. This helps you understand better the flow of the moves.

The setups in an actual match are a whole other kettle of fish. My approach is to learn a few simple combos in training mode that start with an easy and safe move (like s.L or c.L). Then when you're in an actual match you can start your offense by pressuring with that move, and if it hits you can turn it into the combo you've practiced. That's probably the best way to start off, the rest can get complicated (with things like overheads, crossups, OTG moves, assists, etc.)

Anyone else have some weird things going on with achievements? It claims I have 0 out of 47 or whatever, when I did finish without using a continue and when I try to look at the list, it only shows one achievement available.

LupusUmbrus wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:

I put the attack buttons on the top row, and special and assists on the bottom. I find it easier to organize my thoughts that way.

L M H
S A1 A2

This is the same setup I'm using, which jives well coming from other ABC style fighters like BlazBlue. I do find myself occasionally hitting an assist button expecting a kick to come out, but that's been rare enough.

I was initially afraid that the steps capcom were taking to streamline the control scheme across all the characters might leave them feeling too samey, but that has thankfully proven to be completely unfounded. The characters feel diverse and varied, but are also (for the most part) easy to just pick up and play.

That is working for me now as well. I had tried.
L M A1
S H A2.
That wasn't cutting that. I may put that on the fight pad as well if I want to kick back without having to deal with the stick and just put x factor to one of the bumpers.

I got a chance to play for about half an hour tonight. Looks nice but so far I find there to be way too much visual and audible stimulation. It's like they took every game in a typical arcade, combine all the noise and flashing into one game. Then mix in some fighting and SUPER HYPER MEGA C-C-C-COMBOS. This is that game. I'm sure it will grow on me but thus far I'm a pretty 'meh,' maybe I'll go play Team Fortress 2. Please note that I haven't read any guides or instructions or anything. All my information in it has come from this thread and my previous experience with Marvel vs Capcom in the arcades years ago.

It's a very complicated game. Unlike SFIV, which is very much about the nitty gritty of frames and footies, MvC leans towards broad-scaled planning. Like Homer said, the sight and sound of the game is a lot of stimuli to take in, but I also think that there are many complexities to the game play. Even with the attack buttons halved, I don't think each character is less complicated than their SF counterparts. On top of trying to learn three characters at once, the player has to think about how they interact with each other. Add in considerations of lifebar management and the classification between point, battery, and assist characters and the various little tricks like advancing guard, flight, and snap back, we're looking at a game so complicated that it may be beyond any casual player's interest. My advice is to start by throwing a lot of fireballs and go from there. Certainly worked for that Dark Phoenix player I met yesterday. No, I don't think my experience with SFIV helps a teensy bit. Last thing I remember, Dr. Doom was throwing photon arrays everywhere like it's the only thing he knew how.

Just watched a tournament streamed over the net with a bunch of the pro heavyweights playing (Justin Wong, Mike Ross, Marn, etc..) was pretty crazy. Was nice to see JWong absolutely destroy everyone without using Sentinel at all.

EvilHomer3k:

They're overloading on detail, and the animation frames are super-fast. This makes the action feel incredibly frenetic. BlazBlue requires at least a similar amount of finger speed, but the details on each character and supermove are less so it's a bit more understandable. Games like this could use some simplification in character display when the fighting really gets going.

Thirteenth:

This game is not at all like SF4, except that it's also a fighting game. It's a VS. game, which is somewhat like Tekken Tournament related to Tekken, only moreso. There's a lot of game in the assist uses and changes, but it's very classically a VS. game. I think the simplification of the control scheme cleaned up the design a lot without sacrificing any of the essential design complexities.

Some gamers talk smack about "newb mode" but I think it's a fantastic addition to the game. If nothing else, everyone using newb mode levels the playing field by lowering the ceiling of skill, and that's always a good thing when you're not constantly surrounded by fighting fans.

Hell, I'd even recommend this to Mr. Sands. Newb mode is that newb friendly.

LarryC wrote:

Some gamers talk smack about "newb mode" but I think it's a fantastic addition to the game. If nothing else, everyone using newb mode levels the playing field by lowering the ceiling of skill, and that's always a good thing when you're not constantly surrounded by fighting fans.

Hell, I'd even recommend this to Mr. Sands. Newb mode is that newb friendly.

I think "newb mode" is fantastic. I don't use it, but my wife will play when she can just enjoy herself without being any good at all. All of my friends hate 2D fighters, (none of them grew up playing them, so learning all the moves is a bit annoying) but when I told them about this control scheme, they are interested in trying it. We'll see how that goes tonight.

The only thing I hate about newb mode is that my friends will be beating me until I learn some of the finer points. While this will actually keep them playing for more than the 10 minutes they usually humor me to play a fighting game without the words "smash" and "bros." in the title, I still don't want to be fireball spammed to death because of the repeated push of a single button =)

oilypenguin

[fightingwords]If you can't beat a fireball-spamming newbie, you ought not to be using advanced controls.[/fightingwords]

I kid, but only just. The most enjoyable play in SF4 and similar fighting games only starts once you get all the moves down pat. There is something to be said for that kind of design philosophy, but there's also something to be said about giving fireballs to newbies right off so that everyone can enjoy the game on the interactive tier.

That Shoryuken guide is amazing. However, I suck. Even with an arcade stick, I cannot pull off simple "sweeps" like Hulk's gamma charge with any sort of consistency (<50%). This SF4 stick I got with the Wal-Mart deal (MadCatz SF4 Arcade Fightstick)...How crappy is that compared to the pricier sticks? It seems like the square bracket around the stick is problematic. I love the idea of finally learning the ins and outs of a fighting game, but I just don't know if it is in my 40 y/o fingers.

MisterStatic wrote:

That Shoryuken guide is amazing. However, I suck. Even with an arcade stick, I cannot pull off simple "sweeps" like Hulk's gamma charge with any sort of consistency (<50%). This SF4 stick I got with the Wal-Mart deal (MadCatz SF4 Arcade Fightstick)...How crappy is that compared to the pricier sticks? It seems like the square bracket around the stick is problematic. I love the idea of finally learning the ins and outs of a fighting game, but I just don't know if it is in my 40 y/o fingers.

I haven't used one myself, but word is that the stock buttons/stick on the FightStick are pretty bad compared to what else is on offer. That said, you can easily swap the stick and buttons for the best ones made by Sanwa (which are the same ones used in the TE). When I built my stick I bought from... Lizardlick? I actually don't remember, but there are a few arcade part suppliers who sell the Sanwa buttons and stick, hit up Google to find them if you want to upgrade the parts.

The square bracket vs. octagonal is really a preference thing. If you aren't liking square (I do, it makes hitting the diagonals easier), then I recommend seeing if you can find someone who has an octagonal bracket to try first.

oilypenguin wrote:

The only thing I hate about newb mode is that my friends will be beating me until I learn some of the finer points. While this will actually keep them playing for more than the 10 minutes they usually humor me to play a fighting game without the words "smash" and "bros." in the title, I still don't want to be fireball spammed to death because of the repeated push of a single button =)

Are you sure we don't have the same friends? That I'd the only fighting game they will play. I usually can get 10-20 minutes out of a new fighting game with them. I'm hoping this mode will make that last a bit more.

Well, got this from gamefly last night, fired it up, got a few cheevos, heard the wife say 'damn, that music really takes me back', got completely frustrated on the missions trying to get even the simplest of combos, mailed it back to gamefly this morning.

Fighting games are just not for me. I couldn't even master a Hadouken back in the day on SF2.

I'm not good at this game. I can't seem to do anything. When I win, which is rare, I feel like I was mashing rather than out-thinking the opponent. I think I'm relying on normals too much.

1Dgaf wrote:

I'm not good at this game. I can't seem to do anything. When I win, which is rare, I feel like I was mashing rather than out-thinking the opponent. I think I'm relying on normals too much.

I've actually had far more success relying on normals than on specials. Specials have their place in combos, but most my damage comes from chaining together normals to command normals. Like with Zero, s.L -> s.M -> s.H -> f + s.H is a simple and very damaging combo all comprised of normals.