I got in some more games as Zoey. In one of them I kept the opponent at range 4-5 for most of the game and just spammed her Tsunami Slicer super and Gale Blade over and over. I’m not fully sure why my opponent didn’t just move closer during his turn after a Gale Blade, but he’s still learning the game.
In the next game, we played closer and traded a lot more for a more even match.
We’re both definitely still learning and I tend to have the advantage. He tends to play defensively and usually draws instead of going for a strike. I usually strike, preferring the speed advantage and preventing them from activating their exceed abilities as Gabrek / Ulrik. Neither of us Force Move very much. We’ve never reshuffled or Force Drew cards. We go Exceed more often than not.
I am up for some Skype, but it would be next weekend? Will post a bit closer to the date.
I got some games in with Mei Lien, she was very different compared to the other characters. She has a great tool box of effects and ranges, but I could not get anything to go off exactly how I wanted. I also struggled with using her ability, which gives her attack +0-1 range if a copy is in the discard or +2 power if a copy is in the gauge. This has really intrigued me, I am going to play her exclusively to explore her options and abilities.
For anyone who complained that the character unique abilities seemed a bit bland compared to BattleCON’s over the top abilities, you need to sit down and play with the characters. In Exceed it is how all the effects combine that make each character unique. Has anyone else played with Mei Lien yet?
I’m not sure if this is directed at what I said earlier about characters feeling too samey (which I mostly take back now) or if it was me saying that some characters had boring EXCEED modes?
In either case I don’t think the characters have boring abilities in EXCEED. I prefer EXCEED to BattleCON for many reasons and one of those reasons is they have, imo, more exciting/cooler abilities with a lot less text. BattleCON UA tend to have a lot of text that isn’t proportional to the amount of fun they provide to the game for me. Also in BattleCON characters that came out later feel less interesting then the earlier ones. War still has the most unique and exciting characters. Each new set they release it just increases the amount of overlap between characters. I just hope EXEED doesn’t suffer from the same problem in a couple of years.
Even though I don’t like a ton of different characters in these types of games I’m still super excited for the next set. The main reason being that they’re are making the next set in their own IP so if it is popular enough they can actually make an online implementation.
Next weekend might not be the best for me. I’ve been having to do some roof repairs that are taking way longer then anticipated. Next weekend should be my last weekend working on it though. However, we are really far apart in time zone and I could play starting at 6:30pm (GMT -8) or any time later (but not too late). I believe 6:30pm on Friday my time would be some where around 10:30am Saturday for you?
I will investigate the time zone thing. I have kids so I am more flexible with staying up late or waking up early to play if that makes it easier.
My comment was not directed at you with abilities, but it was a big part of the early Exceed discussion with the BattleCON guys. They felt by comparison to BattleCON the Exceed abilities were a bit bland. But you just have to play characters like Mei Lien to realise how not true this is.
I am really looking forward to the new Exceed game. I love the character direction already, cannot come soon enough.
One thing that I was thinking about is that many BattleCon UA’s keep track of state in the game, adding an additional resource to gain or lose. It also has the discards, which are another unique dimension.
Most of the Exceed UA’s piggyback onto the state already there, like discards / gauge with Mei Lien. Also, Exceed has tons of more state and options that BattleCon doesn’t have, in the form of hand size / quality and boosts. It doesn’t need the complexity of ante’s, tokens, counters, markers…
Do you think Reese adds more randomness to the game? In my limited experience he really seems to heighten it. If he draws into a good hand to the opponent’s bad hand he can punish that way more then any one else because of all the “advantage” he gets. He can pile on a ton of damage in this situation and there can potentially be 0 the opponent can do to stop it. Anyone have thoughts on Reese?
One thing that makes Yomi my favorite game in this category is the way it handles the RPS. The vast majority of times when you lose a game of Yomi you had something in your hand that beats the card you lost to. In EXCEED checkmates are pretty common. Just lost a game with my 6 card hand checkmated by either of the two playable cards in my opponents hand. Where if I had my Ult I would have had the checkmate on her.
EXCEED does have a lot more getting the proper set up and position as opposed to reading the opponent (there is a bit of this but it isn’t near as important). So maybe this is desirable?
That is one of my favourite things in Yomi too, no matter how bad things are if you can guess correctly several times in a row you can have a comeback. This is very true to fighting games too, so that is awesome.
Reese can really pile it on, but I would not say it is randomness. I often find if I let my hand size shrink against Reese then my options decrease and he can have at it. Satoshi is also good at punishing an opponent who lets their hand shrink.
This is an important point, in Yomi each card has two different options on it, plus you can have a large 12 card hand size. In Exceed each card has a boost and strike, but you still only have 1 strike per card. You also only have a maximum hand size of 7. So it can be harder to keep a decent hand size in Exceed while maintaining your offense.
One thing I will say about Reese is that he does not hit as hard as the other characters. If he goes into Exceed that changes, but until then he is very soft. Compared to Miska, Alice, Morathi, Satoshi and Baelkhor he is a chipper. So I think this is something to consider as well, he is not overboard.
With the setup, I think this is a plus for Exceed because there is no single way to go about it. Miska is my favourite example. She can move Bear to her own space to increase her power and speed. Or she can move Bear near the opponent for a surprise attack. Or maybe she doesn’t give a damn and plays her stun immune big damage ranged attacks. Miska takes a lot of setting up, but there are so many cool ways to do things.
Only what was revealed on the Kickstarter page, have you seen it? They are going with an original IP. It feels like a cross between Helsing and the roaring twenties, but with that Lvl99 flair for original character design. I cannot wait.
I am really trying to work Mei Lien out, you are right and she is a perfect example. Do you go for range, or go for damage, or just do whatever and let your opponent over think it? How do you combine her boosts with her abilities? I need to get more games in, she is my new favourite character simply because I have no idea how to use her and I am trying to figure it out.
I wasn’t a backer so can’t see it. Maximum sadness. I wanted to be a back but reasons prevented it.
Where I was finding the randomness to come from is the fact that you’re stuck with your hand if he keeps getting advantage. Where as in Yomi you’ll always draw a card in between combat rounds and BattleCON will cycle you into new options.
If your hand happens to be full of Dives, Assualts, Spikes, and Ults you can’t use you could find yourself in a ton of trouble. And with no way to improve your position until Reese runs out of things that give him advantage or runs out of cards. If your hand is Focus, Grasp, Sweep, and your best special attack filled then you can trade/win pretty well.
Reese feels way more brutal to some characters then to others when playing Kaden I wasn’t bothered by him because my cards had natural Guard so I could trade well and my Ults were cheap and had good speeds. However, when playing Vincent I felt completely powerless. In order to get a trade I had to burn so much of my hand and then if Reese got advantage I would be in a lot of trouble. Also Vincent’s long range attack is 100% countered by Reese’s long range attack (Crimson Barrage v Ballista). Vincent’s Ults seem to help him a lot but I was struggling to even get hits so I had no Gauge for most of the game. This was the biggest blow out in EXCEED I’d ever seen (27 life remaining for Reese, lol). Vincent’s I want to have fewer but more meaningful strikes per game style gets hit hard vs Reese.
Then I switched to Nehtali and felt not powerless but not comfortable either. Speed 5 is a strong speed vs Nehtali if the opponent is the initiator. Reese is loaded with Speed 5 strikes that are pretty scary. It’s funny I always thought Reese’s Sovereign Glory Ult was a bad one. But against Vincent and Nehtali it was messing me up super hard. That speed 5 is hard for them to beat on defense, it gives him more cards for his offense, and it hits for most likely good damage. This game was a lot closer then the Vincent v Reese match. If I had Hell’s Salvation in hand I would have won, but if I did win it would have been because of a 100% misplay by my opponent (she was the initiator and she could have played EX Cross instead of normal Cross).
Maybe I can discover some stuff about how these slower build up characters deal with a heavy rushdown character in this game. Right now it feels like (with these build up characters) hope to have a hand of several of the following: Block, Sweep, Cross, Grasp, or Focus so you can survive his advantage strings.
It would be interesting to see a mu number chart for EXCEED but I don’t think any one is working on that. If we could get Skype play going maybe we could start putting one together.
I mean I’m no expert I just gave my quick thoughts after playing him a few times. It probably depends a lot on the mu too and I’ve only played two games vs Miska and one game vs Reese. But here is some general stuff, maybe some of it will be useful to you.
He is a build up character since he wants cards in his discard and he wants two copies of the same card either in his hand or discard. For this reason the Change Cards action (not sure why this doesn’t have a more thematic name. Drawing a card gets the title of Prepare but discarding cards to draw cards gets the title of change cards) probably has more value for Kaden then it does for most of the cast. This can let you get several cards in the discard and potentially draw into a second copy of another card you still have in your hand.
Having cards in the discard is very important for Kaden because of all his discard manipulation abilities. He’s got Double Charge Executioner, Recall, Dark Tide Summon, and Silence (seems poorly named, lol). So you’ll need to start getting cards in the discard one way or the other so he can start making use of these abilities. Silence or Dark Tide Summon into Double Charge Executioner bringing back Dark Tide Summon is a personal favorite.
Several of Kaden’s Specials are very mu/situation dependent so knowing when those cards are good seems important. I think His situational attacks are: Havoc Call, Chain Strike, and Calamity Bell. Havoc Call and Chain Strike are really good vs Miska with Calamity Bell being pretty bad. Against Reese Havoc Call and Chain Strike are pretty situational while Calamity Bell is strong. These three attacks all have really good boosts and Perfect Evolution and Recall are both good at setting up EX attacks.
Fusion Bane and Double Charge Executioner are great attacks and help him further set up his offense but at speed 1 they have a lot of counters. So knowing when they are safe to play is important. There are even quite a few normal attacks that will beat these moves but putting the opponent in the right position can take away some of these options.
One important point about Double Charge Executioner and Fusion Bane is both of their card gaining effects happen as an after effect. So even it they don’t hit as long as they weren’t stunned you’ll be getting some cards.
So the basic game plan is get cards in discard then use his abilities to get the cards he needs back to set up his EX attacks. The downside to this is the opponent knows what cards are pulled out of the discard so they’ll have a pretty good idea of the EX attacks you’re cable of. You can use this to your advantage or you can just play defensively so the opponent can never be certain you’ll play an EX attack.
That’s a lot of rambling. Hopefully something in there is helpful and makes sense. Try using the Change Cards action to jump start your game if you’re having trouble with that. Or just play a normal game and then use your Gauge for EX mode early to get cards in the discard that way or use EX Rising Host over and over to get your Gauge in the discard. Then Save the Insurmountable boost of the late game.
How have you been playing Kaden and who have you been playing him against? I’m curious what your experiences with him have been.
I have only 2 games with Kaden, against Lily and Eva. I both lost at those games. My friends also have yet to win using Kaden.
My problem with Kaden is that I can’t seem to draw enough cards to set up for an EX attack ( but I am not using the change action, which you recommend, which might be a factor).
I also feel Kaden doesn’t have enough guard and speed. But I’ll practice more
In using Miska, when do you spend force to declare that your bear is attacking?
Is it after you place your strike card? Or is it after reveal?
I’m a having a confusion in the term “normal strike”.
