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And if you don't think constant fast spam is the topic of the thread, you clearly didn't read the OP.
Also, fast spam is only hard to counter when lower-skilled players are involved. I'm probably on the lower end of the competitive scene, but I'm good enough to understand high-level play better than most. Even without considering actual competitive play, a fairly good number of casual players are capable of shutting down fast spam in short order. It takes a bit of experience, and a decent amount of patience, but it can absolutely be done, and done reliably. You don't even need to be good, competitive, or consider yourself a high-level player. You just need a decent grasp of the game mechanics, which you can build up in short order if you really want to.
If you build a deck that doesn't have any fast or evasive openers, and fight someone with a deck that has all fast openers, you both have bad decks, but you both have differently-specialised types of bad decks, and your opponent's deck is the scissors to your paper. You absolutely deserve to get cut to ribbons by someone who wasn't necessarily better as a player, but who managed to exploit your incompetence at deck-building. They might have also been a better player, or they might have been worse, but in a case where your deck is terrible, even another terrible deck can leave you completely screwed if you happen to have only brought one trick and they brought a different trick that hard counters it.
I've built a deck before that was almost all evasive attacks. It was a horrible deck, and I was completely destroyed by skilled players when using it. But against the typical "fast spam OP" noobs, it made me an unstoppable hell-beast just by mashing my attack buttons because almost every attack was thrown into a place where I wasn't. It didn't matter they were faster. It didn't matter they could pressure guard. It didn't matter they could throw a breaking attack then shift into a sweep. Breaking attacks don't do much when they miss and you get hit before you can throw the followup sweep. And sweeps don't do much when they hit air and you get hit before you can goldlink into the next attack.
Again I should probably place a disclaimer I do not and will not consider myself "good" in any sort of competetive game. As I lack the "self sacrifice" neccesary to play in a certain way to win and would rather persue my own path.
But so far people have only been giving half-assed answers that amount to very basic things that have been said before (from "block" to "git-gud") to what basically amounts to "play like everybody else". That isn't to say there's no good advice, but advice only helps so much when it stands in stark contrast to the way you want to play the game.
I don't want to win, especialy in ways I don't like as I'm often rather picky of the way I play. But I want to have fights against fun, interesting opponents that kick my ass rather than enemies that feel obnoxious or straight up desperate (people that do running attacks every chance they get are uncommon, but not rare).
So now that the exposition is done. Which I hope will provide a clearer understanding on how I exactly feel about this subject, as to indirectly adress a part of your post in the other thread...
I don't think this game is inherently unfair, it's that people are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that often persue the path with the lowest skill floor but higher skill ceiling, while calling anything else "terrible". So my deck is hideous and unplayable just because it's not the most optimal way to win a fight? I was statisfied with the second decent unarmed deck I made, I enjoyed the pace, the style and loved using it in general.
But just because I didn't base my deck around the most optimal manner to play I get shafted. Ofcourse I expected it, but it leaves me sad because this means that any variety greater than "what fast/avoiding opening move shall I put here" and the like is completely omitted because you have no other choice to include them or get stomped by people that chose to include them.
I never said it was impossible to win with this deck, but I can't help but feel that I took a harder route just because I wanted to make something different while other people have a much easier time with the versatility and freedom of movement of a deck oriented around speed and optimal play. So I guess your verdict is "If you want to do something of your own you're not allowed to have fun", then? Because apperently the fact everybody plays the same easy looking pattern, and the fact I feel bothered about it while refusing to conform just means I have to "git gud" to have fun.
I've never been good with length discussions. so I'll try put it in a hopefully much easier ot read TL;DR.
I know I won't win everywhere I go and don't feel bothered about that. But I hate that people make it look as if getting better at the game is the solution to everything, especialy when the problem isn't about being bad or good but that most players are just annoying to fight and largely stick to the same deck archtype of speed, fast/avoiding initiators, while constantly trying to maintain pressure without giving the opponent a window to attack. Which beause of it's ease of use and overall difficulty to counter stiffles the variety and possibilities of customization to "what flavor of x attack do I want to initate with" unless you're okay with handicapping yourself or just plain stuborn.
-At least 2 (out of 8) of your openers are fast attacks
-At least 1 ducking and at least 1 strafing attack as openers
-At least 3 sweeping openers, with a minimum of one high and one low
-Ability to cover every evasive hitbox from anywhere in your deck by switching between alt and sequence
-Either timing or parry side mixups to mess with forsaken
-At least one breaking attack, or at least 3 heavy enough hits to punish guard, preferably with at least one as an opener.
You'll notice 2 fast attacks is all that's needed. I mentioned there are 8 openers. This is because you can open an attack with any of your sequence attacks, but ALSO with any of your alternatives. Fast deck or spammy deck is entirely irrelevant. Going too heavy on those things will compromise your ability to fill the other important requirements for a deck.
The super-fast spammy decks tend to be heavy on jabs, and often have high/high and straight/straight breakpoints all through them. Sometimes they have several breakpoints that are high straight/high straight and you can freely duck OR strafe into them safely.
Getting better at the game IS a valid solution. And part of getting better at the game is getting better at deckbuilding. And part of getting better at deckbuilding is realising that you can't cap yourself at a minimum speed and not include any fast attacks and remain competitive. You ALSO can't afford to refuse to use any slow attacks or breaking attacks and expect to remain competitive, though, so you're not locked out of customisation, you're encouraged to have varied options you can use where needed.
The thread title is "Is this game about THE FASTEST DECK?" not "is this game about having lots of fast attacks?". The topic posted specifically backs this up, citing instances where every single attack the opponent uses is faster than anything the OP could try and counter with. Note that he also cites reaction times (with the game being prediction-based, not reaction-based, since it's a fighting game not For Honor) and sounds like he doesn't know how to goldlink or deal with sweeps based on the information in the first post.
Against inexperienced players, well put together decks with strong hit/block advantage synergy and RELATIVELY fast attacks can be used to maintain effective pressure on them, and when goldlinked effectively, will SEEM to be fast and spammy, because they don't (yet) know the game well enough to try and read the opponent, instead having to try and react to everything as it comes. This is not the right approach to gameplay, and will get you horribly murdered on a regular basis. Don't do it. Even though such an opponent is very definitely doing more than just "mashing M1" (or mashing X or square on a controller) you can't see their deck layout, and can't read what they're doing well enough to make an educated guess. Because of that, your best prediction is that all they're doing is spamming attacks into you.
The problem is not needing to use a varied move set, it's that some moves and playstyles are straight up pointless to use under the current average playstyle of the playerbase, where any attack that's slightly slower becomes an invitation to get jabbed in the middle of your string. Or maybe they'll use their defensive ability or a different move that will counter your slower move, where feinting is obviously an option, but you can only really feint when you start the attack while opponents will often wait at the last moment to pull of their parry, dodge, avoiding attack, etc. Sometimes I even end up succesfully feinting only to take the hit regardless because blocking didn't kick in yet, which means that even when I do prevent them form exploiting the slow move they still get the attack.
That aside, I heavily disagree that the game is prediction based in a manner where you can say this game is not reaction based, more often than not, it's more like a pause where people aim to bait you to attack, where based on your actions, they will either fast attack pre-emptively or react against your attack and use their defensive ability or a fitting move to counter. The only real solution in that situation is to not attack, which won't get you anywhere. Seeing the opponent maintains the initiative and can onctinue to do as they please.
Rarely will people conciously make their regular and alt attack go down the same direction, meaning even if you can predict that this stance will result in a vertical or sweeping attack, you will have to gamble and guess which attack will be used or suffer the consequences.
Again It seems like something must be repeated. The subject was never decks with all fast attacks, but rather that speed trumps almost anything in terms of ease of use while being more difficult to play against. Some avoids are faster than other, some sweeps are faster than others, some attacks come out more suddenly and in a deceptive pace. Meaning that if you hone your deck to use all of these moves you might end up with a deck whose moves are faster than the moves equivalent of the other player's deck.
What is the point of taking the slower, more damaging attacks when every single one of them is but an oppertunity to get hit by a slightly faster attack or avoided because fast attacks allow you to recover much quicker for a follow up, meaning that jab that jsut whiffed can suddenly turn into a goldlinked strafing/ducking attack.
To be frank though, I will not be continuing this discussion because the issue is clearly more so an "idealogical" disagreement rather than an issue that can be explained and talked out with acceptance of the results. Considering most of your advice are things I myself already know or
just flat out refuse to resort to because I personally detest them. I fully understand that this means forgoing victory, but that was never my desire eitherway, as I'm happy just using my own deck and try to make my own thing. In the end however that doesn't prevent me from losing my mind seeing more or less the same decks with the same old tricks where the only significant difference becomes what "3 sweeping attacks" they might use to open with or what defensive ability they're using. Which is the primary reason I ended up posting.
I don't need advice, I just wanted to rant and finaly get these things that have been bothering me while playing this game off my chest.
So I hope you will continue to enjoy the game and try to give advice to players, but it'd probably help if people used less cookie cutter replies when the post alludes to fast attack spam because this game does seem to have a problem with decks that tend to rely on speed to prevent their opponent from retaliating, where it's much harder to get the initiative while it's very hard to maintain it. While providing lots of options for high skill players to dominate in a manner that becomes impossible to beat unless your use a similar speed oriented deck.
In every game before ACV, that will result in an AC that is incapable of completing any mission in the game. In ACV, there will be missions you can't complete because you didn't equip weapons. Does that mean that those games are also "stifling creativity" by not allowing you to go into battle unarmed? On a very strict letter of the term technical level, you can argue "yes". But in realistic terms, no, it doesn't. It means that not every possible build is viable. And that's FINE.
You can custom-design your own fighting style. But it's entirely possible to create a style that SIMPLY. DOESN'T. WORK. And if you want to be competitive, you need to consider important factors about how you design your deck.
And the question was EXPLICITLY if a super-fast all about speed deck was superior to the alternatives. Against EXTREMELY WEAK PLAYERS, such a deck can shut down their attempts at fighting it. Against anyone with even a moderate level of skill, understanding of the game mechanics trumps raw speed EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Without fail.
There are high-level competitive players who I run into, in whose deck ALMOST EVERY ATTACK is slower than more than half my deck. I am a decently competitive player. And yet those people will, literally, win 3-0 in most matches, and 3-1 in a rare few when I play at my best. Because guess what?
SPEED
IS
NOT
A
MAGICAL
TRUMP
CARD
When I build a half-decent SLOW deck that is INTENTIONALLY built to ignore the "need 2 fast attacks" condition I listed above, but fills everything else, I can build a deck that's still viable in casual play against anyone but a competitive player. It has an obvious, exploitable weakness, and sometimes an opponent will spot that and take advantage, but even then, you can play around the weakness it has unless your opponent is legitimately better than you.
If you are losing, it is, quite simply, because your opponent is doing something better than you. And for whatever reason, you are playing to that strength instead of using the tools you have available to counter them, or finding new tools which can.
There are a WIDE variety of tools available to solve every problem. If you somehow can't find any of them, that isn't the game's fault.
However, I have done what I can to make a deck that considers not leaving myself too open to the way how people play, ducks and jumps combined with an easy to access stopping attack, guardbreak and stagger for it's versatile ability, while making sure my heavier attacks are not on the forefront of my deck. So if having that means my deck is akin to having no weapons. Then it means that they way you're describing is most likely one of the only few ways to play if you don't want to get stomped by a thousand strikes.
You're really stuck up again on the "all-fast spam deck" part which already has been declared not the problem by OP himself in the latter posts, I might be assuming things because he didn't say much in it but his agreeing with my post that states only-fast attack decks are not the problem while overall speed is a bother. Otherwise it's more or less semantics now because the OP probably exagerrated the title out of a "salt filled rage", I know I would with the way how everybody plays. If the OP could give more clarity on the subject we might know the case more exactly though.
You speak of your experiences but that's again meaningless, because this was never a discussion about the skill of individuals but rather the overall ease of use but difficulty of countering a deck oriented around speed. Ofcourse a good player can kick the ass of a player that plays like a ferocious cat. I was never arguing with that and there will obviously be people that can deal with just about anything regardless of the tools in hand.
But why do you always make such a heavy handed distinction between "bad/terrible/weak" and "good/competetive"? You act as if decks used in "lower level" play suddenly become worthless in high level play, even though it's almost the exact opposite, as a deck's effctiveness can vary wildly based on the person that uses it. Don't act like a deck with only fast attacks is meaningless because much like any other deck, it's effectiveness HEAVILY depends on what the user does with it. Which isn't the subject because this is not
But that comes close to what exactly the problem is.
Fast attacks aren't a magical trump card, I never made that allusion, but it's a rather risk free, hard to react to attack that is capable of absolutely shutting down slower attacks. It doesn't have to be just an attack who's only defining quality is speed as you seem to be so obsessed over, it can be any attack that's slightly faster than it's alternatives. Because if the attack is faster you can much more quickly move into something else.
If you miss an attack and are about to be attacked by a slower move, it's 100% possible to goldlink into another attack to stop them, wether it's an avoid or simply an attack that straight up comes faster than the other's attack. Even though you messed up and should have taken the punish, you got out of it scot free.
You get severely handicapped and punished for using an attack that's slower because even though it delivers more damage it's meaningless if it gets interuppted and take several hits in the progress. Now your only choice is to use that move rarely or to not use it at all.
Decks where you hit faster in GENERAL are easy to use while hard to counter, not impossible but it's annoying as hell to do so. Especialy when a good player is using something easy to use with little oppertunities to counter.
THAT, is the real problem. You could pit a player with a slower deck against one with a faster deck, both the same skill level. Who knows who might win, but I'd guarantee you the slower deck will have a significantly harder time, where attacks are more risky to use and less forgiving than a faster attack that could be goldlinked into a counter when needed.
But I believe that's exactly where our opinions differ on the situation of this game. I seriously so no point in resuming this as you focused on the idea that there's not a problem where I think there is a problem. Who's to say I'm making the deck I like or just building a wrong deck, or making a more challenging deck or a weaker deck.
The "obvious" solution is to just give in and change my deck and playstyle to what's "competetive" if I don't want to be stomped. But to me it's the worst solution, as the problem isn't winning or losing, it's just that I don't find fighting against the playerbase fun and don't want to play like they do.
There's seriously no point in continuing this discussion because neither of us will come to an agreement on this and I doubt it helps others. I won't change the way I play and will try my best to adapt and survive, all the while loathing my enemies.
You're missing the point of my comparison if you think that's what I was saying. In 5th-gen AC, you can go without weapons and still deal damage. It becomes MUCH harder to inflict damage to many enemies, and some are impossible to hurt as a result. But you do still have options to fight in a machine which has no equipped weapons. That is exactly the same as avoiding the inclusion of *ANY* fast attacks in your deck in Absolver. You're cutting out a key important element you need to be competitive. You can still beat enemies you dramatically outclass in terms of personal skill, but you're lacking an important tool which is important to have when you're on an otherwise even playing field.
If you want to build a deck that ISN'T A FAST DECK, that's fine. But include at least two attacks - maybe make one an alternative attack so you can avoid using it unless you need to - which are fast enough to break into an opening. You can build a deck with 2 (out of 16) attacks that are fast, and still avoid it feeling like you're spamming or rushing or relying on fast attacks. You can keep yourself feeling like you're fighting at a careful, measured pace. In fact, by the time you get enough experience that it starts turning into skill, the game tends to feel a lot slower in general while you're playing it.
You are currently going "I built deck out of paper. Scissors is OP" right now. Your experience doesn't reflect game balance, because you are actively avoiding the tools which would give you a semi-competent balanced deck and blaming the game for that decision.
And It's not like I avoid fast attacks like the devil, as in, there's still most definitly some relatively fast attacks in my deck, so it's not like i'm completely slow in every attack I do. But I am often locked out from certain attacks because they're not fast enough for the opponent to not intercept them with a fast attack. Even worse is that I'm sometimes unable to do the very moves that are supposed to counter faster attacks but get intercepted either way. Repeated jabbing has locked me out from using stagger's defensive left/right ability or a ducking attack. While if all I can do is blocking at that, I'll get nowhere because they won't just leave an opening for me to fight back and actualy do SOME damage while they wittle me down.
It's not like I'm losing every single fight, the decks I'm bothered about can vary from easier to beat than the weakest NPCs to almost impossible based on who's using them and possible variations to the moves. So it is counterable, but I still feel like a bother to do so if the opponent knows what they're doing. Because I firmly remain convinced, that a faster more nimble deck is flat out much easier, and less riskier to pull off than more hardhitting but slower attacks.
This makes me disagree with your "scissors OP" analogy. Mostly with it's simplicity. Because rock paper scissor, almsot regardless of the situation is a game of guessing and absolutes, where you lose simply because you decided to go paper and the other used scissors. This detracts from the thought that Absolver is a skill based game where individual performance and deck building (within reason) can beat cheese tactics and slimy deck building.
But this forgets to include the biggest problem, which is not that one beats the other, but that one beats the other and is much easier to pull off in general. It'd be closer to saying that rock doesn't even exist and that even though paper is much harder to do it doesn't mean alot against the much easier to use scissors. Because the center of my argument is that a deck based on speed will win out on a deck oriented around slow but decisive attacks even if the skill levels are the same. Fast decks aren't a magical trump card, not a guaranteed victory. But the way how it's easier and much more rewarding than an playstyle with slower moves makes it impossible to play a slow bruiser as I've always wanted to from the start.
I've said this before but I'm not blaming the game or the developers for this, but the playerbase itself. Since several months, in other games aswell I've grown frustrated with the way how people always stick with what's easy and effective while forgoing anything else. I'm avoiding those attacks because I'm not the kind to "fight with fire". If there's something I see as unfair or annoying I don't use it. As simple as that.
Because who are you to say the difference between doing bad and taking something that's harder to do but coincides with their desires? Frankly if people are realy competetive and out to prove they're good with the game, or generaly want to challenge themselves and try become better and better, why is almost everybody going down the same easy road while calling alternatives bad because they're not optimal, where "optimal" largely overlaps with easy/reliable ot use but effective.
I've made the decision to stick with the way I want to play, in spite of all that's happend in the time I've played. I'll accept the consequences and say my prayers. I feel natural playing the deck I've made and am capable of holding my ground, I don't care if my playstyle isn't competetive, that I lose, etc.
all I wish is that people weren't so annoying to fight so I woulden't be bothered regardless of the outcome.
If your opponent is frequently countering a move you have by throwing a fast attack to interrupt, start alting out of that attack, and throwing something which has different coverage, and different speed, so they can't. Or block for a moment when they think you're going to attack. Or manually stance-switch to throw a different attack. Or step-cancel into a different attack. Or feint the attack and change things up that way. Make them stop expecting you to actually use the attack. Once you've got them thinking you can't use it any more, when you DO throw it, they won't know it's coming and won't counter.