No objections here
The open beta of Guilty Gear Strive has perhaps attracted more interest from the wider fighting game community than the series had ever really gathered in the past, and although it partly made the game delay a few months again, we don’t have to wait that long to play.
Arc System Works stated during its New Game + Expo presentation recently that the team is considering running a second open beta to help solve the problems of the first.
“We are currently exploring the possibility of a second open beta test,” said Strive director Akira Katano. “Of course, we were not only able to examine the problems we had with the server, but also the possibilities to improve the lobby experience.”
This may point to something that many in the community had guessed in the previous beta, that the player count exceeded ArcSys’ expectations and what their servers could support, which led to downtime and connection problems with other players at times.
Strive’s lobbying system is the biggest blow to the game that most players took after this year’s beta and in 2020, but the team seems to be focused on spending the next few months trying to redo its current design, with two months not being almost enough time to make substantial changes to what they’ve already done.
“Of course, we’re reviewing everything that happened during the open beta test, including data collection and everyone’s research, so thanks for filling it out,” said Katano. “Be patient with us, and we are working hard to improve the experience.”
“At the moment, we are exploring the possibility of a second open beta test. There, of course, we could not only examine the server problems we had, but also the possibilities to improve the lobby experience”
Some details they talked about how to fix for a second beta / full release was the need to make the pace of the matches better, although many would probably be happy to have a quick repeat button next time.
They also want to solve problems in their own lobbies, where players would not be able to connect with certain other users or would not be able to tell when / if they were or not.
“1 [issue] for example, it is the pace of the matches that we understand is not in agreement, and that is a combination of certain bugs in the game, as well as the flow of the game itself, “said Katano.” So, we are looking for ways to improve this. “
No possible window was provided for when we could see the proposed second open beta, but looking at the time of the last one compared to the previous April date, it is suggested that early May would be the most likely place to put things online again. .
ArcSys confirmed that the overall balance level in Strive’s open beta was a rough estimate of where they would like the game to be at launch, so Katano warns that anything crazy found in the previous betas will probably not be in the next hour of playing the game. .
In addition, a second open beta could open the door to allow everyone to experience the last two members of Strive’s top list in Anji Mito and I-No who were not ready enough to participate in the first.
We couldn’t even see their big Overdrive Supers in game breakdowns because ArcSys says they weren’t ready yet.
Guilty Gear Strive is scheduled for release on June 11, 2021, although players can gain access to the game a few days in advance by pre-ordering the deluxe editions with the bonus content.
During the same event, Katano also confirmed that ArcSys is in the process of finding out if they can add reversion netcode to more of their older fighting games as well.