Disorganized Thoughts About Offline Play
I finally got to play offline TFH with more than one person! I want to share some of my initial feelings about playing offline.
Very quick: If the only question you have is "Does offline play differ heavily from a good connection at zero delay?" The answer is "not by much." It's a little smoother & you can play with more confidence. I'm sure it's skewing some interactions that I'm not seeing, but for now this is the main takeaway.
My primary observation is how much "looser" everything feels in neutral. Everyone we playing a lot faster, and I think we all felt comfortable moving. Neutral was speedier, but the speed at which someone won it was generally slower than I expected. There isn't as much of a need to commit when you can move with less effort and twitch react to the things you're looking for. It actually reminded me a bit of BlazBlue... but everything in this game reminds me of BlazBlue.
Defense felt different too, I actually had a really hard time adjusting my instant block timing in the first few sets. I had to do it way earlier than I was used to, and it stuck out against the players who were really good at varying their offensive tempo (Icebound & Zale). It became easy with practice though. The "netplay overheads" would still hit me here and there, but they basically always depended on my mental stack, which made it a lot more exciting when something actually did hit.
Fun moment: Zale got really annoyed trying to open me up during Fred and just committed to raw 22B 6C without a Fred move. It hit me and we all started laughing.
A side effect of more reliable instant blocking is having more meter available. It's a little hard to quantify without scanning the replays in more detail, but I'll get back to you on that. I'm like 90% sure the meter economy will subtly change with more offline play. CC uptime might be even higher! Lovely.
Pushblock really stuck out to me. I'm not sure if it was the offline play itself or a side effect of everyone being more confident, but it genuinely felt like pushblock wasn't doing much against solid pressure structures. As the defender, the tradeoff rarely felt worth it (except against Tian where it's sort of a necessary evil). As the attacker, I genuinely felt like the opponent was just giving me more blockstun. I think it's still okay to use pushblock as a first layer, you just have to be very attentive on how to adjust it. Pushblock heavy defensive styles were already quietly fading out of play in NA, so it wasn't a huge adjustment for me. I think this one will catch people off guard though. It's way easier to take advantage of the blockstun, meaty people out of it, time your mixups after absolute guard, etc... it feels like a much smoother mechanic, even if it's a worse one.
Throws were... interesting. Honestly, it's hard to evaluate them because I didn't find going for them appealing against this specific playgroup (minus Zale).It was easier to catch backdashes. I think I missed one meaty timing the whole set. Tian's 6A felt a lot nicer... I think that's the majority of it. Let me share more character specific impressions.
Arizona:
I actually... think she might be stronger offline? Her offense remains really good despite the netplay shenanigans being worse. You can lean a little more into your twitch reactions rather than having to commit as hard to stomp/rope. Not sure if this is Arizona specific or if it's just offline making players cleaner. Either way, that's good! Also it's way easier to super people mid string.
Velvet:
I need more time with this one. Both of the system counterplay options (dash blocking and instant blocking) are a little snappier, which is nice. I think she's mostly the same, the counter play is just easier.
Pom:
Also need more time with this one. She might be better on the virtue of being such a nightmare to netplay with... but I also think her reactive neutral tools are better than I was giving her credit for. Dealing with jC is a lot easier, though.
Oleander:
While Zale and I spent most of our set shitposting with level 2 ash and 6C, Oleander feels the most different by a long shot. She's a bit easier to defend against both in and out of Fred, and I felt like staying in threat range was easier for Tian. That said, I think she has great reactive neutral tools & her lack of good defensive options might get rounded out by how much easier it is to use the system.
Tian:
lol superjump
Ultimately, I think if you're keeping offline in mind- you're fine. If most of your matches are playable at zero delay, it shouldn't be a hard adjustment. It feels good to move with less restriction in neutral & lean on the system a little more. This game is great.
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