1.4 is off the charts in terms of complexity and brain-usage requirement, which 1.3 was devoid of; on the other hand 1.4 is extremely casual player-unfriendly, while 1.3 was probably the easiest system to grasp in all of mb2's history.
Having both at the same time is a nice goal but also a dream that is just about impossible to attain.
I completely disagree. I'm totally casual in 1.4 and stomping people. Why? Because pblocking for me is a natural reflex, and I no longer have to think about timing my counters during their combo, or mind games. I just have to pblock a few times, and then nudge spam them to death. 1.4 is unbelievably easy for me, and I find it boring. The only mind game is which side to spam your swings on in nudge, and when your opponent will spam slap to try and stop it.
I've actually begun to use Red more than cyan, just because it kills people in 10 seconds as opposed to 10 minutes.
In 1.3 if you were slapped by a red user, you were dead. If you were staggered by a staff user, you were dead. If you allowed a blue user to retain ACM, you were dead. If you let a purple user counter freely, you were dead. If you made a timing error against a dual saberist, you were dead. If you couldn't defeat the timing on a cyan user, you were dead. If you attacked first against a good yellow user, you were dead.
Here in 1.4, there is PLENTY of room for mistake and recovery, enormous room. I've had moments where I screwed up my offense so bad that I had 2 BP left, and I just turtled and came back for the victory.
I don't see how you people think 1.4 is 'pure skill' with so much room for error, and so little diversity in styles.
Here is the primary issue with styles acting virtually the same: Nudge. Half swings and combos, are all the same speed, across all styles. A red combo is the same speed as a cyan combo. In 1.3 the difficulty of fighting against blue with red, was always on that first swing. Which is precisely why against fast styles, you were counter centric. In 1.4, there is no such difficulty, as all the styles might as well be the same with the exception of perk, damage, and number of swings. You get close to them, boom, everything fights at the same speed, and it is up to the defender to pblock to get the instant counter (which is way too hard to time in nudge, I might add, which is where all offense takes place anyway), or spam slap, or he dies.
So as a Cyan user, against Red, you know he only has a 3 hit combo, so you do a 4 hit combo. Then, your ONLY worry, is slap, whereas the red user, your only strength is slap. So Nudge fights are literally just slap fights, who can swingblock slightly better than the opponent. THAT IS BORING.
