Melty Blood Discussion

[Ratman]

Which Melty version is this? I've only got AACC on Steam any more, the old versions all got thrown out with the bathwater.

The steam version is technically the latest version (Current Code 1.07), but it's kinda hard to play if you're looking for anything but arcade story. It takes inputs in a slightly different way, it doesn't have some pretty cool features of the netplay client. Most importantly, it's basically impossible to play online on it unless you live in Japan, and even then it sucks. The ccaster recommendation thing was basically spurred by Kamone playing the steam version for a few hours and becoming sufficiently frustrated to just recommend everybody to play on the community version instead.

In Japan, Melty is commonly played on arcade machines which have ~four frames of innate input delay, which is a completely different videogame. If you watch fighting game footage and heard a commenter wonder why GO1 reacts to things in Dragonball FighterZ that were designed to be unreactable, that's why. The game was designed to actually be played as a PC game, though, in which case there is supposed to be no input delay. PC netplay tries to replicate this, except that it fails horribly and is stubby even within Japan itself, much less something like France to Russia or East Coast to West Coast. That's because it's delay-based netcode, which basically means everything that happens in the game is slowed down by how long it takes for data to get over, and god forbid you're on wi-fi any of the data gets lost, because then your move might not register at all.

ccaster, like the more common GGPO used to play old pixelated kusoge, uses rollback netcode. That means that the game assumes ahead of times what happens, and then adjusts itself when it finds out something different happened. This is a lot better to play with. Ccaster is currently being updated all over the place (it's been in the process of steady improvement for the last two years or so), a few community versions exist, especially right now it's kind of a mess. If you want to learn and play, you can go to meltycord and check out Announcements, it has the latest versions. 3.022 is the experimental version that's being played, but 3.1 is generally a better base. We're hoping to get their features together at some point.

Can't you at least give some hints so we know if it's worth our time to look for that doc? Please?

It'd be more interesting to you if you played melty, I guess, don't bother. I kinda thought pretty hard about whether to even bring the whole ccaster thing up, since Kamone-san could get heat for it.

[SpoonyViking]

Oh yeah, I'm far from a competitive MB player! Thanks for clarifying.

[Ratman]

Basically what I was trying to say, I guess, is that now is a better time than ever to get into Melty, and you are unofficially endorsed by the maker to do it for free if you must.

That, and I guess it kind of feels like you guys don't really grasp how special Melty is, separate from the context of Type-Moon. It's the poverty game. There is no fighting game that old with an active playerbase that big besides Super Smash Bros Melee. And that's because it's a really good videogame, plain and simple. TM also doesn't seem to understand that their disinherited child grew up on its own in the gutter and is now an entirely self-sufficient adult, that by proxy keeps the Tsuki dream alive, with minimal acknowledgement from the side of TM. In the context of the game's tournament history, being a major event every year at so many different stations, the Mugen screenshot is that much more of an insult. To a Melty player, saying something like 'we want to replace the designs in new Melty with Tsuki designs' just sounds like they'll take something that is already amazing, and replace it with something more acceptable to the masses than those old shoddy designs with clashing pastel colors, you know. A flavor extension of the business dream of late, 'The beginner friendly fighting game'.

There can be nothing such as a beginner friendly fighting game.

[Crown]

I kind of want to play Melty now. Still have the original AACC pc version. It was bundled with a Carnival Phantasm BD, I think?

[Ratman]

That's the final version of the game that everybody plays. Steam version just changes some UI things. You just paste this into the directory to get the community version.

If you want to learn before actually playing people(melty discord here), it's probably a good idea to check out the mizuumi wiki for Melty. It has been locking everyone out from editing it for a while, but recently it's gotten updated quite a bit. There's also some pretty good guides for specific characters here, and a match footage repository here.

I've taught melty to plenty of people over the years, so don't be afraid to ask stuff of me, or anybody else up there in the meltycord. Plenty of people getting into it right now.

[Mcjon01]

I don’t want a beginner-friendly fighting game so much as I want a pro-unfriendly fighting game. One that actively punishes you for trying to get better at it because I’m bitter that I can’t

[Ratman]

That's actually UNI. The way it's supposed to be, you're figuring a system out, and fighting games much like say Devil May Cry or a complex platformer like Celeste or something are more fun the more you get it. UNI, on the other hand, is a game that's progressively more infuriating the better you understand it. Just look Spinach's twitter.

By the way, the composer of Frenchbread games, Raito, has recently been uploading some official remasters of Melty Blood tracks on YT. Those are pretty cool.

Spoiler:

[Crown]

I might try it one of these days. I'm tired of playing vs CPU and a few friends that I don't see anymore.

[aldeayeah]

I never quite adapted to anything after ReAct Final Tuned. I badly suck at MBAC, and MBAA is even worse - fighting styles are all Greek to me, but most of all I'm not used to all the stuff that works different to MBR. I play on a keyboard, and muscle memory for the input chains is pretty much set on stone (it's like writing one's favorite password)

Same thing happened to me with GGXX - got used to Reload, could never adapt to Accent Core and its hellspawn.

[Ratman]

Then you haven't missed anything, because Accent Core vanilla is completely busted and unplayable at high level. +R is where it's at. It might get added to GGPO one day. Might. SNK titles are already there.

I started playing melty in the good old days in /jp/, Act Cadenza was more my time. You're not alone in the keyboard thing, though, if there's a keyboard fighting game, it's either Melty or Hisoutensoku. For sessions and tourneys I literally lug around a mechanical keyboard alongside my stick for melty purposes. There have been times when grand finals of a tournament had to be played on netplay, because both guys were keyboard native.

[aldeayeah]

+R is where it's at

that would fall under the aforementioned 'hellspawn' category (I do have AC+ for PSP and AC+R for PC)

[Ratman]

+R is just Accent Core but it's actually a game you could play and not hate life as Potemkin 2S vacuum busters you from half a screen away. Now, Xrd, that is also a game that becomes more infuriating the better you are at it, and St4ive thus far fulfills the ramifications of being hellspawn. I can't defend either of those, except that Xrd is really fun and pretty when you're just learning it. St4ive is not even pretty. Why

- - - Updated - - -

Reload was a broken mess too, but it's not like we knew when we were 14. Slash, Isuka and Overture never happened.

[TheSkipRow]

I don’t want a beginner-friendly fighting game so much as I want a pro-unfriendly fighting game. One that actively punishes you for trying to get better at it because I’m bitter that I can’t

Ah, one of my people.

[Cypher Attic]

Is there any specific technique to performing the more advanced combos? (I call them combos 'cause I newb.)
For example: 41236C
In the above example I keep missing the diagonal inputs.

Note that I use the standard wasd, e, and cvbf controls.

[pinetree]

That means that the game assumes ahead of times what happens, and then adjusts itself when it finds out something different happened.

Pardon my ignorance regarding fighting games but that's what rollback netcode actually does? And it's the optimal option for online matches?
That seems like some actually absurd tech to me, considering the amount of possibilities that (seem) to exist at any given moment in a match. Is it actually this impressive or do I not understand fighting games enough to see that it's much simpler?

[Hakuno]

Pardon my ignorance regarding fighting games but that's what rollback netcode actually does? And it's the optimal option for online matches?
That seems like some actually absurd tech to me, considering the amount of possibilities that (seem) to exist at any given moment in a match. Is it actually this impressive or do I not understand fighting games enough to see that it's much simpler?

Yes, it simulates all possible inputs to try to make smooth actions when the player presses the buttons or not. Unlike delay-based netcode where the game waits directly for those inputs (connection stability and distance between the players matters the most here unless you want some really choppy gameplay)

Most people from FGC can say that even bad implemented rollback is still better than a good delay-based

[Ratman]

I guess it should be said there is a big difference in predicting inputs and predicting game state. Truly simulating game state ahead of time would be a huge drain on the CPU. Rollback predicts inputs, which isn't really that jarring - what you see is fluid until there is a lagspike at which moment the game usually assumes what's being held stays held, and can roll back a bit more if it's not. The trick is that rollback netcode only rolls back very rarely, while delay-based netcode is delayed always, to account for something that only happens rarely.

Another thing that can throw a wrench into rollback is RNG, like Faust's/Peacock's/Hisui's item throwing for a simple example. Usually the way these things work is that a rng seed is determined ahead of time, and the game already knows what Faust is going to throw in what order, and so the client knows too - but it can be the case that the rng is something determined at the time of doing the thing, in which case the game would have to give unfair advantage to the person throwing the item as the opponent will never be able to see the first X frames of the throwing animation, because the client would have to rollback to it every single time.

-

Is there any specific technique to performing the more advanced combos? (I call them combos 'cause I newb.)
For example: 41236C
In the above example I keep missing the diagonal inputs.

Note that I use the standard wasd, e, and cvbf controls.

CVBF is kind of stupid because W and F are way to the side. Later on you'll have to learn to do something like 2369 and that's going to be pretty hard on those bindings. ccaster lets you set controls, by the way, you can do it even ingame by pressing F4.

For half-circle, you'll get used to it. Try this: Go to training mode, and open the menu - > Training Display, and turn Input Display on.
For 41236c:
1) Hold left,
2) press down,
3) let go of left,
4) press right,
5) let go of down,
6) press C

The input display on the left side of the screen will tell you when you're missing a direction, and how long you've spent holding a direction. Then keep fanning it faster until it works - if you can get the whole thing in ~15 frames total you should be good. Also make sure your keyboard is not ghosting and making it impossible to hold two of those keys together I guess.

[pinetree]

Okay I didn't think about differentiating between game inputs and game state, that makes more sense to me.

[Ratman]

Oh yeah, by the way, Elegant Summer Concerto begins today.

Since there's no EVO this year, or many other tournaments in any other fighitng game for that matter, melty community got together to make best of its netplay capabilities and run a big tournament in every region around the same date - today and tomorrow. If you're interested in seeing some good melty, you'll be able to see a tournament stream in your area this or tomorrow's afternoon and evening, if you can care to find your directions and times here.

There's a tournament in every region, including SA and Japan. There's 251 people total, which is why NA has to be split into east and west coast, and SA has to be split into Brazil and the rest.

[Cypher Attic]

CVBF is kind of stupid because W and F are way to the side. Later on you'll have to learn to do something like 2369 and that's going to be pretty hard on those bindings. ccaster lets you set controls, by the way, you can do it even ingame by pressing F4.

So is there a better control scheme that still allows for easy local play?

For half-circle, you'll get used to it. Try this: Go to training mode, and open the menu - > Training Display, and turn Input Display on.
For 41236c:
1) Hold left,
2) press down,
3) let go of left,
4) press right,
5) let go of down,
6) press C

Ok, I probably should have tried something like that first. Lol.