Street Justice has a non-directional combo system and so, it should be easier.
Differences:
- DB has you chain specific attacks to get specific effects. StJ lets you fire off any three combo builders you want, and finish with any finisher you want. If you hated that you needed to take very specific attacks in DB to get certain combos, StJ may be an improvement, as any builder attacks can feed into any finisher attack. Hell, you can fire the same builder three times in a row and then close with a finisher, given enough recharge.
- With DB, if you miss a part of the combo, you blew it unless you have enough recharge to fire off the missed attack again before the combo timer wears off. With StJ, a miss doesn't break your chain. Just fire a different builder.
- Related to above: missing a finisher on StJ doesn't wipe out your combo points. If you whiff a finisher, fire another one.
- Finishers benefit even if you don't have a full three combo points. Each point adds some damage, and the third point adds or enhances a secondary effect.
Cheers! Good news all round then 
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Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
This is good news. I didn't outright hate the way Dual Blades worked, but it was admittedly a little annoying sometimes. The idea that you can throw attack chains in any order for Street Justice sounds easier and in fact makes sense for a powerset that's supposed to be chaotic and undisciplined in the first place. 
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Yeah, I was just thinking about that, it is kind of rough-and-ready.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
in fact makes sense for a powerset that's supposed to be chaotic and undisciplined in the first place.
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It's the main reason I LOVE Street Justice. Dual Blades seemed very limiting and too frustrating to me. Whereas Street Justice makes it so it does not matter which direction I go in to achive the little gold circles. Sure, when I miss with a Combo level 3 punch I get sad, but it's usually there still (the gold circle) by the time it recharges. So much better.
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I have both, and SJ is a better design. Several of the finisher powers don't even require a full buildup to 3 in order to have additional effect, so you could just poke buttons at random and still get some effect from the combos.
It certainly makes SJ an easier powerset to play, and I am definitely having fun with it. But I think it rather waters down the whole idea of "combos". In essence, there are only two components to SJ combos: builders and finishers, and the effects you get from finishers is unrelated to which builders were used. Very simplistic, almost to the point of not really being a "combo system" at all. DB, while frustrating to the casual player not accustomed to fighting games, is potentially deeper in terms of the tactics available to players who really master the powerset.
Having said all that, I am admittedly a very casual player who likes the simpler SJ approach over the more sophisticated DB scheme. But I don't fool myself into thinking everyone prefers "simple" like I do.
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Well just to state the obvious:|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
But I don't fool myself into thinking everyone prefers "simple" like I do.
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If you like a more detailed combo system then play with Dual Blades.
If you like a less strict combo system then play with Street Justice.
This game has both bases covered now.
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I believe the opposite to be true. DB railroads the player into attack chains and power choices if they want to use the combo system. Compare to StJ, which allows for decision making on the fly, and permits greater player choice in building combos. I believe that the flexibility afforded by StJ's open combo system leads to more tactical options rather than fewer. |
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
DB, while frustrating to the casual player not accustomed to fighting games, is potentially deeper in terms of the tactics available to players who really master the powerset.
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DB forces the player to take certain attacks and use them in a certain order to gain benefit from the combos. Additionally, at or near cap, the only two really worth using are AV/Sweep, and I have seen some decent arguments for not needing Sweep. Mastering DB means accepting that Empower and Weaken are not useful at the high end of play, and learning to love BF->AV. A DB player might start Sweep, have a teammate melt most of the spawn partway through the combo, and then find his Sweep now hitting only a boss. The StJ user, in the same situation, can switch out his finisher from Spinning Strike to Crushing Uppercut and finish off the boss that was left standing. The DB user has to abandon his combo and start anew, or waste endurance on an AoE attack that hits few targets or even just one.
That all said, my main and favourite melee character is dual blades and I love him for it. I would never call DB a bad set, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
Street Justice combos function pretty much the same as Fury: bunch of little attacks followed by a big attack.
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@Starflier
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Well this is what combo systems generally are, aren't they? Pre-designed chains that produce different useful side effects. Console fighting games pioneered this idea, and I thought those were pretty non-open, at least in the sense that it's not like the player gets to create an arbitrary combo on-the-fly; players are bound by the combos as defined by the game designers. DB is no different in this regard, no?|
Originally Posted by Emberly
DB forces the player to take certain attacks and use them in a certain order to gain benefit from the combos.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Emberly
Additionally, at or near cap, the only two really worth using are AV/Sweep, and I have seen some decent arguments for not needing Sweep. Mastering DB means accepting that Empower and Weaken are not useful at the high end of play, and learning to love BF->AV. A DB player might start Sweep, have a teammate melt most of the spawn partway through the combo, and then find his Sweep now hitting only a boss.
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And obviously it is incumbent upon the devs to make combos that are useful at all levels of play. If DB isn't, then it needs to be fixed in specifics; I don't necessarily agree that eliminating the dependency graph between combo effects is the right way to "fix" the deficiencies you mention.
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Originally Posted by Emberly
The StJ user, in the same situation, can switch out his finisher from Spinning Strike to Crushing Uppercut and finish off the boss that was left standing. The DB user has to abandon his combo and start anew, or waste endurance on an AoE attack that hits few targets or even just one.
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Nevertheless, I really like SJ. A lot. But I wouldn't call its combo system very interesting or sophisticated, merely flexible (to the point of blandness even).
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That was exactly why I didn't get on with the powerset. I felt like it was telling me how to play. Now I am not going to pretend there is a great deal of thought required for playing this game beyond "click the most powerful attack you have ready" but I felt DB reduced that even further.
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Originally Posted by Emberly
I believe the opposite to be true. DB railroads the player into attack chains and power choices if they want to use the combo system.
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Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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I find this a bit curious because the CoX game system is built upon one structure after another that dictates to you how to play, and in order to have fun with this game at all we have to find a way to accept, if not enjoy, the boundaries of these structures.|
Originally Posted by Jagged
That was exactly why I didn't get on with the powerset. I felt like it was telling me how to play.
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For instance, we have archetypes that channel play style into narrow team-oriented roles (DPS, tanking, buffing/debuffing, crowd control). Power sets deliver powers in a fixed order. New enhancement slots are delivered according to a fixed schedule, interleaved with the acquisition of new powers according to a fixed schedule. ATs have only a limited list of power sets to choose from (though, granted, power proliferation stretches the waistband a little bit with every update). Incarnate abilities are unlocked according to a fixed tree-like structure. Some power effects have no corresponding enhancements (e.g., there is no Res or Regen debuff enhancement). There are arbitrary mph limits on travel powers. ED narrows the list of effective enhancement strategies, etc., etc.
The idea that special secondary effects only proc if you successfully execute a particular chain of attacks is hardly paradigm-breaking, or any more restrictive than much of the rest of the game, IMO.
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Quick question: if you didn't enjoy the dual blade powerset because the combos made you feel like the game was telling you how to play, will you have the same issues with Street Justice or is it totally different?
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Jagged Reged: 23/01/04