Welcome to one of the foremost ideologies within my gaming complex. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, hereon referred to UMvC3, is probably the game I play most right now. It's one of those really good games that comes along and endlessly eats your game time. It's the perfect blend of speed, control, gameplay, chaos, order, character roster, and visuals for me. Easy enough to pick up with a little execution, damn hard to master.
I don't know quite know why I enjoy the game to the point I do, nor why I obsess over trying to find my complete center mentally when it comes to it. Some days I feel like it's my dream come true, others I absolutely hate the game and never want to play it again. Such is the ebb and flow of a competitive fighting game. Nearly all my youtube outings are tourney footage of UMvC3, combo videos, tactics, protips, character analysis, you name it.
You see, I have this insatiable urge to get better at this game. My understanding of the game, and fighters as a whole, has really increased while playing this. I grasp how certain universal concepts to fighters work in their respective games much more thoroughly during gameplay on UMvC3. I'm constantly watching videos and sifting through forums, try to pick everyone's brain and find which characters I like work best on a team. The conflicting sections of my mind have a hard time coming to an agreement, mainly the cheap / fanboy / uniqueness vs. team synergy / utility factor in team.
Sometimes it's hard to pick. "I want to use ____, but everyone and their Mom uses ____. Though I could really have an easier time online using him." Or, "Damn, I really want to incorporate _____ into the team, but they lack stamina / power!" Or more recently, "I swore I would use _____, but I can't. I can't get in with _____." With UMvC3, picking the right team is extremely difficult at times, if you're looking for victory. One must balance your allegiance to a character, how comfortable you feel with them, their play style, their stats, their assists, their synergy on a team, how well you can use them, how easily they can open peoples defenses, and whatever other faculties you apply to roster choice.
Herein lies one problem though. I'm stuck in the stage where I'm trying to find my team. Others have moved on and started learning higher level play with said team, or have kept moving after original MvC3. I'm trying to find a team that's good, but won't shatter my notions of who I am as a person somehow. Trying to balance all the above without violating my anti overpowered character usage clause is tough. It may not seem like much to others, but to a gamer, it's rough.
My other problem lies with my own personal drive to play this game, or lack thereof. I'm no slouch at this game, I'm much better than any casual player that picked this game up, but definitely not higher rank material. UMvC3 does little to raise one's spirits to keep playing. Online play is good, but if your connection suffers even slightly, you'll find yourself unable to move during a match, pinned down my the fear of taking damage and the knowledge that the button you press probably won't make the motion come out in time. The matchmaking system seem kind of busted in my opinion. I can understand putting the 4 lowest ranks in one bracket (Amateur, Rookie, Fighter and 9th Lord), but after that, I think it'd be better to keep numbered brackets together.
When one searches for a match, or creates a match, you can choose Any Rank or Same Rank as a filter. But somehow, me being a 9th Lord and doing Same Rank, I'm pitted against people far above me. 8th and 7th Lords! How is this fair or a good idea? Each number has a few ranks to it, so why not place me against a 9th Scout or 9th Ranger? So after I get my face raped in a few times, I'm not exactly feeling the drive to keep going. Improved matchmaking can really help new players try to get ahead in ranked mode.
The way one's ranked is calculated is also pretty fucked. While one does seem to accrue points via victories online, a lot of it also has to do with one's Win / Loss ratio. You are actually able to go down a rank if you start getting whomped on for too long. Ok, to me, that seems to be a bit much. What kind of message does that send to your players if they shuffle from a 9th Lord down to a Fighter? Why would you even bother programming the ratio into your calculation formula? I ranked down from a 9th Ranger to a 9th Lord a couple times, it shatters your will sometimes.
As such, I'm at an impasse. Caught between my intrinsic need to improve upon my game, and my shattered will to go online and test it. I decided to reshuffle my team and am trying to learn a little synergy with them, but it's proving annoying. Simply because I have no idea what to really look for, you know? I lack to knowledge of what makes an A-List team, or rather, how to form one. I'm trying my best though, I think it just takes a little more understanding of the finer things.
I used to use Dr. Doom / Spider-Man / Vergil, but completely shuffled my stuff. Doom is absolutely great at what he does. He can either shut and opponent out and provide excellent defense, or completely entrap them and keep them under a barrage of weapons fire. I can never seem to penetrate defenses with Doom though, a lot of people use him, so everyone knows how to shut him down. Spider-Man is excellent at moving and keeping the proper distance for attacks, he's also capable of some lengthy solo-combos. Problem is, under laggy conditions, Spider-Man is nigh impossible to use because he require strict timing and execution to use. Vergil is amazing: staggering mixup, great pressure, good moveset, but he takes damage like a little girl, and has really unsafe normals.
So, I changed it around to people I like to use, and know my stuff with, mostly. Right now it's Wesker / Nemesis / Firebrand. Wesker is a god, plain and simple. He has absolutely nothing wrong with him, and is the most overpowered character in the game. I got past my cheapness filter decided that since I was a Day 1 Wesker user in original MvC3, I earned my right. Nemesis is slow, but powerful. He has a command grab, and the resets to use them, so I think he'll pan out well. He's tough to use simply because he's huge, and his normals come out really slow. It'll be ok though. I learned some longer ground combos for him, so hopefully it'll give me an edge. Firebrand is a fast little bugger, great mixup, decent assists and a total nightmare in Lv3 XFactor. If one were to activate Xfactor and use his Luminous Body hyper, he becomes fast enough to do a nearly endless loop of down+heavy into a Fireball.
I am taking a break from it all, kind of. I'm mainly using Training mode to get a feel for how I can use my team, nothing online though. I finished Dead Space 2 so I kinda need a new time consuming game. As such, I'm trying to hunt down a copy of Tales of Vesperia that won't rape my bank account. I hear it's a fantastic RPG, so I have my fingers crossed on that one.
Til next time!
talesoftheabyssisstillbetter (cough)
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