Bradygames VF5 Official Guide

I surely hope this isnt the same dr dogg who did the doa4 guide it suckde n so do u

 

It's not Dr. Dogg. Read the post more carefully.

 

I'm not sure why people care whether or not Dr. D would have gotten a commission. He worked hard on the guide and if BradyGames wants to reward him in that method, great! I, for one think he, Kamui and Srider should all get commissions.

The next time I am in the U.S., I will definitely pick up a copy.

Support VF!

 

Anyone pick this up yet?

 

I got the guide. It's better than I expected. The first 15 pages cover most of the game's basic concepts. Each character gets about 10 or so pages where it talks about the fighter's fighting style, some of his/her core moves, then complete movelist and some combos for that character. At end there's about 100 pages talking about quest mode and items. Overall it's pretty nice, I think everyone who plays VF5 in America will find it useful one way or another, even for people who have've read everything here. It's not perfect though, there are some pretty obvious errors in the concept section, and like this funny one: akira combo: d/f,b+k CH > f,f+kk. have fun, but this guide is a sure buy regardless.

 

Wow that's great news. Probably snag that today or tomorrow.

 

I got the black book delivered today (as well as VF5 and hori pro 3 stick all from different dealers was a very busy postie!) and thanks again as its worth it for the dvd. Watched 2hours already and not even bothered opening the game.

Going to order the USA guide tommorow as well and get it slow shipped over to UK /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

 

Anybody know where this book is for sale? I cant find it.

 

Anyone going to explain the drama behind the changed thread title + the deleted posts?

I picked the book up today - gamestops have it in. First impression is that it is way better than any other bradygames guide i've seen. Someone who picks VF5 up cause it looks pretty and actually reads the first 15 pages will have a better understanding of the game. Even if you've got better movelists at vfdc + in the black book, this is useful for capsule summaries of each character, the list of quest opponents, and the item lists.

Like shang said, there are typos (probably b/c of less than a month to write and edit it) and some weirdness in the concept section. E.g. it claims that the algorithm for determining which move wins if both are in hit frames is

fastest move (less startup) wins
then most damaging
then . . .

which is a little confusing considering basic situations like at +2 a 14 frame elbow will beat a 12 frame /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/d.gif+/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif . . .

 

if both moves have the same execution time, then the winner goes to the move that does more damage.

so in ur scenario, at +2, ur 14 frame elbow becomes 12 frames, with a higher damage value, it will beat a 12frame low p.

 

I also just picked up a copy today. It's definitely geared more towards the beginner or the beginner-intermediate player, and I think those folk will find most of the value in the system sections. The character sections IMO are a little sparse, but should have enough to get people started. There are a noticable number of minor mistakes in the guide, unfortunately, but even the Black Book contains mistakes.

 

Re: -

I picked up a copy of the guide a few days ago along with an HRAP3 in wait for the game. I got into Evo pretty heavily a few years back when it was released but kinda let VF fall to the side. This guide seems to have exactly what i need to get me on my feet again. and got me even more excited about the game than I already was. Good stuff guys! Thanks for all the hard work!

 

Yeah, I know how the system works in that respect (although i'd say advantage / disadv doesnt change the actual number of execution frames, it just changes when they start . . .) but the way the bradyguide phrases it is confusing. It'd be real easy to read it and say, 14 frame elbow and 12 frame dp hit at the same time, dp has less startup frames so it wins.

Would have been clearer stated as
first to reach hit frames
more damaging
. . .

 

Since I'm already in the asshole seat around here...

I also purchased this guide recently, because I wanted to go through it and see how it all came together. I think that this is probably the best thing yet published in English about playing VF, and it's a handy resource command-list-wise for beginners/people who don't have the Black Book handy/can't read Japanese. There's a lot of solid advice and info here, and I'd probably tell someone who's new to VF that they should get this because it's portable, there's a lot you can learn, and you don't have the internet on the toilet.

If you're new to VF, and want to learn some basics, this book is probably a good buy at this point, because there isn't a ton of VF5 strategy/info on the net YET. In general, I agree with Shang/Ice-9's opinions on this one (see above).

BUT, I can't help but turn a critical eye (and I'll try to make it a constructively critical eye) towards some points that I feel aren't so minor.

Before that though, I'd like to thank the people who worked on the guide for doing an admirable job; they didn't have to care as much as they did. And, I think any mistakes they made were made honestly. That is, I think they really thought the answers they are providing were correct and the best choices for the given subjects/ammount of time they had/ammount of space they had for the book. I think they did a lot of research, and a lot of hard work. Also, I'm not interested being critical of typing/grammatical errors, or similar tiny mistakes.

I want to offer what I feel would be a good approach to making these kinds of guides better in the future, since at least one of the big companies always steps forward to make a VF guide for console release. We've read and seen that Srider was consulted in the making of the guide. After a moderate read-through, I noticed that the Lau, Wolf, and Pai sections are IMO the most well balanced in terms of the specific moves/strategies discussed, and have the best "Overview" sections to my mind. I have no idea if Srider plays Pai, but I know he plays Wolf and Lau: is it chance that these sections turned out to be some of the best?

This is to Srider's credit, and to the credit of those writing the book for listening, but in a case like this, wouldn't more help be better? Specifically, I'm wondering why writers don't openly turn to large forums like this one for help? It would seem that OPEN and COMPREHENSIVE discussion of the aspects being covered could only help lead, through the weeding out of false info, to the best results. Essentially, you'd have a big group of knowledgeable people who were willing to do much of the work for free. A simple example, a thread could be started with a title like "BradyGames wants to know: What are Kage's 10 most important abilities?"

Maybe I'm crazy, but let's assume I was given the job of writing a guide for Tekken 6. I know a little about Tekken, but not much. The first thing I'd do is read as much as I could at Zaibatsu, then start making threads with questions, openly saying what I was about, and that I merely wanted to make the best product possible. I'd probably have to wade through a lot of BS, but in the end I'd know that the good players info would come through, if for no other reason than that they usually get off on correcting people. Just my suggestion, I think this approach would help.

Another thing to think about is: how seriously do people take these things? As VF freaks, we go into it basically looking for mistakes, but I know when I buy books for other games (or VF books from Japan), I'm looking for HELP, not errors. Small errors can be confusing, but larger errors/omissions can really be misleading. Among several I found surprising (like no real discussion of Kage's TFT in his section), this one stood out as potentially bad news for people looking for hard info:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">pg. 14

Open and Closed Stance:
.... Closed stance is ideal for landing juggle combos because the characters' bodies stay closer together in general. Open stance is the opposite- each character has an opposite foot forward. Since the bodies don't align as well, juggle combos can be more difficult, or not possible at all. </div></div>
this is corroborated in the Glossary section:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Closed Stance: ....This stance is usually best/required for combos and juggles, as the characters' bodies are closer together....

Open Stance: ... Increases the difficulty of some combos...</div></div>

Experts right off will know this isn't right. I'm not sure about every character, but for the characters I use, Open (that is, once the oppt is airborne/flopped, and your launcher is finished) is usually BETTER. To prove my point: There is only ONE combo in the list of Black Book combos for Akira that cannot be done in Open Stance (the obscure El Blaze only /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/b.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif-> /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif-> DLC), and a good number of them can ONLY be done in open stance, usually the longer/more damaging ones at that.

Again I want to stress: this is an HONEST MISTAKE, NOT THE RESULT OF BEING LAZY OR NOT DOING RESEARCH. It's mistake lies in trying to give a simple answer to a complex question. There's no real logic to the stance thing, it's just a mechanic of the game that requires a lot of study, unfortunately for beginners. This might sound like a small error. I think the larger problem, as I see it in the context of the book, is that the mistake is verified elsewhere in the book, AND that in combination with the combo lists that don't talk about stance, even though MANY of them are stance specific, it could be REALLY problematic for beginners who are wondering why the hell these combos in the book aren't working. Example:

the area that discusses Akira's /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/b.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif says, as does the combo list, that

/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/b.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif ->/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/k.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/k.gif is a combo that works on everyone. A beginner, reading this, and having read the stance section, might try to do this combo and wonder why it's not working: "It says twice it works on everyone, and I'm fighting Pai, a lightweight, in Closed Stance... surely this should work."

Both pieces of info here are given to the player TWICE in the book, so at this point, the beginner must assume he's doing something wrong. The other big issue with this example is that the subject of "Stance" in combos is really mysterious to people who are coming to VF for the first time (IE it doesn't exist in Tekken, SF etc), and is exactly the kind of thing a Guide should be getting right. In this case, it explains almost the complete opposite of the truth.

My larger point is, this could have SO easily been avoided if more people were given a chance to look these things over. I'm not making this point to criticize, I'm making it to point out what I think would be a good way to approach writing these things in the future.

The only other concern I have is about plagiarism. There's a lot of it in this book, which I don't particularly have a problem with; but Srider was given credit as a source, thrice in fact, as he should be. Shouldn't all the writers over at Aracdia be given credit as well?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">we found through Enterbrain that it's their IP - they compiled the frame data. Hence, copying the fruits of their labor is technically plagiarism, a risk Brady is not willing to take. Copying it from HK-VF is identical to copying the Black Book since that's all they did.</div></div>

This book would be about 50% thinner without info taken from the Black Book, before he deleted all his posts, Dr. Deelite even wrote something about "...sitting with the Black Book in my lap...". In the future, I think credit should be given to everyone who contributed, or who's hard work was used to make your job easier.

Bryan

 

I have no problems with what you stated Bryan. I will just have to say one thing though. Due to various reasons, there just wasn't that much time to make it live up to the expectation of the vets.

Also, the more people working, the more likely there is for disputes. Problem is also that people had no access to the game, there would have been no way to verify stuff. It seems like it would have been easy to just discuss about stuff openly, but you can try it now and see what happens. Do you think we can have a complete break down of key moves for any given character within 2 days by discussing them on the forums? The game has been out for weeks and where are the discussions even from the vets?

I had to respect the fact that it's not my project, and I'm not the lead writers. There are things that's beyond all of our controls, but everyone worked hard to deliver something that we feel should be able to expand the scene.

We even made it VERY clear in the guide that it's only a start, the BEST info will come from resources like VFDC. So please try to make it so.

 

In regards to this, when they do Tekken Guides they actually consult alot of players on tactics and strats[T5 has a stupid amount of chars too ] but I assume guides like these take far longer to produce. I think the T5 guide book for europe came out months after the game was released. I think it's important, if next time bradygames can do the same for a new version of VF.

 

What you are overlooking in your little box is that over 50% of guide sales for any given game (including VF5) happen on the very first day of the game's release, and if the strategy guide isn't available for purchase on that day, the percentage of people who purchase it drops drastically (read: to an unprofitable rate).

Trust me, if they spent six more months after both the PS3 and X360 version had dropped to write the highest-quality game strategy guide and THEN released it, there would NOT be a drovel of VF players in line fighting to buy it, because a drovel of VF players does not exist in America. The authors of this guide KNEW that this hypothetical drovel of players did not exist, and thus made the aim of this guide to introduce the game to new potential players. It would actually be retarded for BradyGames, a company that would like to make some money, to release a guide as much as a single day later than the actual game. Plus, there are deadlines to meet--the writing and editing has to all be done by a certain day so that it can be sent to press and have the final product ready in time for shipment. Combine this with the fact that not just Sega but ALL companies are extremely slow to send playable copies of their games to reviewers and guide-writers, and you'll only begin to understand the intricacies in the insdustry.

The authors of this guide and all high-quality fighting game guides went completely out of their way and put forth a 120% effort in producing the best possible guide they could under the circumstances--and they knew it wouldn't be complete. They knew their would be mistakes. That's why they pushed to point out external resources like VFDC.

Wake up dude.

 

Fubarduck doesn't just win MvC matches, he wins forum threads too /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

 

WTF...

Come off your high horse, because I don't have any problem with the guide at all. All I used was an example that guide that come out after a game has been released...

I actually know someone who wrote a guide and explained to me the problem of writing one especially as the game was in an incomplete state.

My point was to next time gather some other players input to help with the guide. [Like the Tekken Guide, which I'm sure will happen with the next VF guide.]

 

There was nothing to win...
/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif