*LENGTHY POST ALERT*
OK, I suppose I should give suggestions for a moveset if you don't already have some SSB moveset or whatever. In a way, I end up just explaining what I would like the game to have, in case that effects your move-making decisions.
(Sorry if this sounds patronizing, I'm trying to be as clear as I can to avoid issues and further editing.)
(also some information may be incorrect as I've not really played UMvC3 myself, but I have played MvC2, which is also similar)
I. NORMAL ATTACKS
It mostly works like a Street Fighter-type game. The difference that instead of 3 punch and 3 kick buttons, you just have 4 attack buttons: Light (L), Medium (M), Heavy (H), and Special (S).
L, M, and H, are pretty self-explanatory, but S is a launcher move that will launch the opponent into the air (and spike them to the ground if you are in the air). S is able to be cancelled into a super jump if you connect on the ground.
In UMvC3, there is a such thing as a Magic Series, or a certain combination of attacks that always connects (well, if you start a combo with them, I suppose). The idea is that when you connect with one part of the chain, you can connect to any part later in the chain, but you can't go backwards.
The four Magic Series in UMvC3 are as follows.
- standing L, crouching L, standing M, crouching M, standing H, crouching H.
- standing/crouching L, standing/crouching M, standing/crouching H.
- standing/crouching L, standing/crouching L (but opposite of the last attack), M, H.
- standing/crouching L, standing/crouching M or H.
This isn't too important to know, but it can help for planning movesets. If your character is weak, you'd obviously want fast, weak moves that fit in with the first Magic Series. But if you had a strong character, maybe consider the second or fourth character, because it might be a bit unbalanced having six powerful, far-reaching, and not very risky moves that combo into each other.
II. NOT-QUITE-SPECIAL COMMAND MOVES
I dunno how to phrase this, but basically, moves that take a command to perform, but not a full command like if you were doing a Hadouken or Shoryuken.
For example, you might have your character do a longer kick than regular H if you held back and pressed H. Or maybe you want to have an extra move in your L->M->H->S chain, so you add an extra move you can do by pressing M again after hitting with the first M. Or you can add a grab by holding forward and pressing H when you are close to the opponent.
By the way, if you do add a grab move, they should always be forwards or backwards plus H. Grab-breaking would be done by timing forwards/backwards and H at the right time.
This also includes moves that would take two arrow keys repeated to perform (ex. down+down+S, fwd+fwd+M if you had a dash attack or something?).
III. SPECIAL MOVES
You all know these! Quarter circle forward plus attack, dragon punch motion and attack, etc.. You should have probably 2-4 special attacks. Also, none of your special attacks should require pressing two attack buttons at the same time. They should have different varations depending on whether or not you press L, M, or H.
A sample list of motions (If you see squares, you need a font that supports Unicode):
(These motions are all assuming that the player is facing right)
Quarter circle forward (Hadouken)- ↓↘→
Half circle forward- ←↙↓↘→
Quarter circle back- ↓↙←
Half circle back- →↘↓↙←
Dragon punch- →↘↓↘→
Reverse dragon punch (I think)- ←↙↓↙←
I dunno what this is called- →↘↓
The reverse of that- ←↙↓
Don't forget charge moves, either. These moves require you to hold a direction for a second or two before you press the opposite direction and hit attack. It's not recommended that you use this motion for a hyper move, considering a situation like that would need a more instant motion.
←(hold)+→
↓(hold)+↑
IV. HYPER MOVES
I shouldn't have to explain a hyper meter to you guys, but just in case *cough*Zay*cough*, I will anyways.
You start each round with one hyper meter. As you take damage, guard, or hit your opponent, you gain some meter, until it fills up, and you have another hyper meter! (Not like another gauge on screen, but you know.) It takes more points to get to the next level. The maximum is level five.
Hyper moves are executed in much the same way as special moves, but you hit any two attack buttons instead of just one. Therefore, it's best that your hyper move and special move inputs correlate! If you shoot a laser beam by pressing down, back, and attack, then your super laser should be down, back, and two attacks.
Hyper moves work best in combos, which is why you should try not to have any hold moves.
All characters have one to three hyper combos that uses up one level of hyper meter. These deal a good deal more than your special moves. Most characters have one hyper combo that uses up three levels of your hyper meter. They are significantly stronger than the level one hyper moves, but no one-hit kills or anything.
Also, if you want to make a level two hyper... go ahead.
You can also activate a Team Hyper Combo by pressing both assist buttons at the same time. It will call in all living players on your team, and each will perform one of their level 1 hyper combos at the same time. Which hyper combo depends on a choice that I will explain later.
You can also interrupt your current hyper combo and start another team member's combo by inputting the motion for their hyper combo while yours is active. This is called a Delayed Hyper Combo. You can DHC into a level 3 hyper, but not out of one.
V. ASSIST ACTIONS
So now onto the main point of why you have those other two guys on your team. By pressing one of the two assist buttons, you call in one of your teammates to perform a special move. Then, they perform a taunt, and leave. Once they start to leave, they are invulnerable.
However, spamming assists can end up badly for you. Assists take twice as much damage from attacks as they would if they were your active character. This can lead to a situation where you and your assist are KOed in the same combo, known as a "happy birthday" to Marvel players.
Assists are still useful for keeping opponents away, or even starting combos, depending on the assist. But you can only use each assist once in a combo.
So what if you want to control which special move your assist performs? Well, when you first pick the character, you would have three options. In UMvC3, they are α, ß, and γ. I dunno if I will change it, but whatever.
Those options change which move the character does when called for an assist, and when called for a team hyper combo.
There will also be a way to call in your assist mid-aerial combo (called a Team Aerial Combo) by pressing one of a second set of directional keys (4 directions, but you can only press fwd, up, or down). This can be countered by the opponent if they press the same direction at the same time you do.
By holding the corresponding assist button for a certain amount of time, your active character and the assist will swap places. This will remove all of that assist's red health (explained later). To avoid this, you can use a TAC or DHC.
VI. HEALTH, DAMAGE SCALING
So, do you want to give me how much health your character should have? That's reasonable. Here are some references.
=<600- "what the hell" health
700- low health
800- "normal" health
1000- high health
>=1100- "what the other hell" health
When you are attacked, half of your lost health will turn into red health. This can be replenished gradually through something explained slightly later, or by switching out your character. When your assist takes damage, all damage will be converted to red health.
So, do you want to give me how much damage all your character's attacks should deal? That's... quite unreasonable, how un-lazy do you have to be to do that??
But, should you choose to do so, damage values should obviously be based on facing a character with 800 health. Here are some other pointers on damage values. Obviously, it depends on the character and strength of the attack. These are very very rough estimates, and your attack may fall below the number if it is a multi-hit attack.
Normal attacks/grabs- 25 ~ 65
Special attacks- 45 ~ 105
Lv. 1 hyper- 180 ~ 260 total
Lv. 3 hyper- 380 ~ 520 total
Another factor that may influence your damage-labeling is damage scaling.
The way it works is that L, M, H, and special moves all scale the damage by hit by a certain amount.
L- 75%
M- 80%
H/S- 85%
Special moves- 80%
Lv. 1 Hyper- Always does 90% in the middle of a combo, 100% otherwise*
Lv. 3 Hyper- Always does 100%
*It will still scale the damage afterwards by the number of hits with the same scaling as H. So, if your hyper is only one move, and you hit with it, the next move will do 85%.
I don't really know how to say it, so here's just a little example of a combo.
L- does 100% of base damage
M- does 75% of base damage (75% of 100)
M- does 60% of base damage (80% of 75)
H- does 48% of base damage (80% of 60)
S- does 41% of base damage (85% of 48)
Does that make sense? Okay, here's the same thing but with some damage numbers. Unrealistic damage numbers (a light attack that does 50 damage? yeesh), but these are just for the sake of example.
L- 50 (50 * 100%)
M- 45 (60 * 75%)
M- 36 (60 * 60%)
H- 34 (70 * 48%)
S- 21 (50 * 41%)
Total- 186.
Now what if we just take away that first light attack?
M- 60 (60 * 100%)
M- 48 (60 * 80%)
H- 49 (70 * 64%)
S- 27 (50 * 54%)
Total- 184.
You can see that that first L heavily affected the rest of the moves' damage. The idea is that you stay away from light moves until later, when damage scaling reaches its maximum. The minimum amount of damage an attack can do is 10% of its base damage. However, this minimum can be raised with another thing that I stole right out of UMvC3 like the rest of this is! X-FACTOR!!! When activated (pressing a specific button), there is a period of time where you will regenerate red health, your character will become faster, and damage will be boosted. These all increase (as well as the length of time) the less characters are remaining on your team. You can cancel any move by activating X-Factor, except for level 3 hypers. So, you can use a lv. 1 hyper (it might do 200 damage), then X-Factor, and use it again (which will do more than 200 damage).
If you block or get hit, red health regeneration stops until a little bit after you get out of stun.
VII. MOVE PROPERTIES
Some moves can hit characters off the ground (OTG), or when they are lying down. An OTG attack is very good for extending combos, but you can only use three in a combo.
Some moves will hit characters that are crouching, even if they block. These are called overhead attacks.
Some moves will hit characters that are standing, even if they block. These are called low attacks. You can air block both of these attack types, though.
Some moves cannot be blocked at all. Obviously, unblockable attacks. These should be somewhat difficult to land. Technically, grabs are unblockable, but there's no need to label them as such.
Some moves cannot be performed in the air (Ground-only), and some cannot be used on the ground (Air-only).
If your normal move causes chip damage, do label it.
Some L moves can be chained together, called rapid-fire attacks.
Moves that hit the opponent into the air a little are soft launchers.
Moves that hit the opponent into the air a lot (like your S move) are heavy launchers, and are cancellable into a jump.
Moves can cause groundbounces and wallbounces, but only one per combo.
Any other specific stuff should be mentioned (like if it dizzies the opponent, if it causes a long hitstun animation, if it has super armor, if it freezes the opponent, if it's a counter move, etc.)
*END*
ask if you have questions
