EXVSFB PS3 Interview Translation

>Apparently, the most-requested feature was online co-op play. That was why implementing it in the PS3 version was so critical. The idea was that in a pure versus environment, new players would find themselves holding back more experienced teammates in player-on-player battles and the ability to teach someone the ropes was difficult as well. With online co-op play for Arcade and Mission Mode, you are playing versus the computer on a selectable difficulty level. It's easier to bring new players up to speed, or for veteran players to enjoy teaming up to conquer more challenging aspects.

>The problem with EXVS's online system was that it was their first attempt at such a system. As such it intentionally had limits, and it was clumsy both in matchmaking and room creation/searching. This time around they've listened to all the critiques as well as analyzed their internal statistics from EXVS and created an online system that should be able to take full advantage of PSN's capabilities, as well as being much more user-friendly and combat-ready. (I hope this means that beyond just the few changes we've seen so far there'll also be some internal changes to netplay...)

>The comment someone posted above about 'updating every month' was taken out of context. They weren't talking about PS3 EXVSFB, they were referring to the updates to the EXVSFB arcade game that came out every month. The paragraph containing this tidbit is informing the reader about just how much refinement has gone into the EXVS series since its original inception to create EXVSFB on PS3.

>The reason for moving to DLC for just about everything this time around was that they basically transplanted the 'final' edition of the arcade game onto PS3. So what you play out-of-box is the final arcade game...at home. Anything not present in the basic arcade setting--customization, PS3-only suits, etc--is thus optional via DLC. Otherwise you essentially have a pure arcade environment. This is also why the game does not have "DX" or "PLUS" in the title.

>Unlike Trial Mission Mode, which limited you via a map which missions you could play and had a fixed difficulty... this time around you can pick whatever mission you want, at whatever difficulty, and you also have online co-op as an option. It's simpler, and hopefully more fun and less frustrating than before. (Yay!) On top of that, there are missions designed specifically for online play. They've prepared between 40-50 such missions for people to enjoy.

>There's no difference in routes for Arcade between online/offline play. However, they do have some routes (in general) that have certain requirements to cause special scenes to occur. (Cool!)

>Part of the reason for the online pass system--besides curbing the 2nd-hand and DLC sharing markets--was to discourage players from hiding their power levels by using sub-accounts, therefore hopefully making matchmaking more fair. If you're required to pay 1000 yen per account, you may be less interested in having an account that makes you look less threatening than you actually are to newbies.

>They understood that the burden on the room host was pretty heavy, sometimes enough that hosting a room meant you couldn't actually join a game. As host you had to kick players who didn't read the room rules, check connections, etc etc etc... Now most of those things are implemented in the room creation and enforced by the network rather than the user. In addition you can message the entire room at once, so that situations like killing the room without a word no longer need happen. Now you can at least give some warning beforehand in a simple way. These changes, they hope, will make hosting a room less stressful so that the host can enjoy more gameplay.

>Instead of starting an online battle the instant you go to select a mobile suit, you select your mobile suit ahead of time in the room screen. Then once there are a group of four who are actually ready to play, the match starts. This is done to curb the unfortunate scenes where people go to select their MS thinking there's a 2v2 about to begin only for one or more to drop out instead. (HELL YEAH THANK YOU BAMCO.)

>The whole reason for customization stuff not being free and built-in was decided so as not to screw arcade players. While you may think such things are 'free' in the arcade, they're actually tied to the fee mobile service. So because there's a fee to use the customization system in the arcade, there's a fee for customization. Go ahead and whine all you want about Bamco being jews, but at least they're covering their bases here.

>Customization stuff won't all be available at launch, and their reasoning is that releasing every single customization thing they have on hand would make selection ridiculous. So instead they'll be pulling from iM@S's hat and doing a catalog system which will be updated once per week with new content. This way you have bite-sized chunks of content to sift through rather than hundreds all at once.

>The customization system is designed specifically to not give any advantage or disadvantage to any players. It's all 'fan items', meaning they don't care if you want them all nor do they expect anyone to actually buy everything. It's just for changing things as you want. There's no gameplay advantage to buying any customization item. (Obvious, but restating this anyway)

>The recolors of the default gauge are free, and they have several free campaigns lined up for future designs. While most custom gauges will as announced be paid, it's not like the gauges right now are the only free ones that will be available. There will be more.

>The decision to remove custom titles was indeed because they are made up of several layers of animation each, and while that may not seem like much--and it isn't in offline play--online that can actually affect the gameplay experience. Since getting custom soundtrack to work online and making improvements to the underlying network play code was significantly more important, the decision was made to remove custom titles. Note that titles are the only custom items with animation beyond what's already part of the game. (Okay, that makes sense then.)

>The bit about the Premium G Sound was to give the game the largest option of Gundam themes and BGMs possible (to go with the 'Ultimate Evolution' theme of the game, haha), as well as because they were aware not everyone had a collection of Gundam OSTs laying around or the free time to go edit every single track. So here you go, an optional set of songs pre-cut and ready to be used featuring popular Gundam tracks as well as tracks that were changed between the arcade versions of EXVS and FB.

>One of the tracks on the Premium G Sound--a remix of the boss theme from EXVS--was actually performed by an overseas orchestra. Due to various circumstances it ended up not making it into the game...but thanks to this edition it finally gets to see the light of day.

>The 35 tracks on the Premium G Sound are representative of Gundam's 35th anniversary.

>Ex-S is, as said before, a long-range shooting type with only moderate speed. The idea is to throw as much incom nonsense as possible to keep your opponent occupied or stunned then go in for some punishment. It has the beam smartgun and counter to protect itself in a pinch, and during EX its melee gets serious buffs (think BD-1).

>Ex-S even being in is something like 4 years' worth of effort by the fans whose chants got louder and louder over the years about wanting it. After all, it'd been in other games so why not EXVS? They do mention however that due to 'various circumstances' the unit has no pilot which normally would take it out of the running...but the fans' desire was so strong that they decided to make an exception and toss it in as the preorder bonus. They figured there've been other suits in the Gundam metaverse without pilots, so why not let this happen? As mentioned before however, this will only be for the first-print edition and will not be offered as DLC down the line.

>Lacus's IJ is basically just Athrun's with less HP and mobility (due to being a 1000), no transformation mechanic and its special melee and burst replaced by Strike Freedom summon. Though it's a 1000, among the 1000s it has one of the best balance (in their opinion) and thus should be fairly simple to use. It's their opinion that while 1000-cost suits often leave newbies as easy targets, this one's balanced enough to be useful either to learn to manage 1000-cost suits in general or as a stepping stone to getting into Athrun's IJ.

>Ridden's High-Mobility Zaku, unlike the Zaku Kai with its bombs and traps and 1000 cost, is designed to be an 'easy to use' Zaku that series fans can enjoy featuring primarily its machinegun and bazooka as weaponry. A perfect fit for someone who wants a manageable '0079' Zaku to play with.

>Both--and all future additional--suits feature cutins, voice and all that good stuff as expected of an ingame suit (as opposed to Ex-S). As mentioned before they are free DLC instead of on-disc to preserve the 'pure arcade' nature of the on-disc game. So these are indeed your 'console exclusives', just in DLC form instead.

>As soon as they're ready--which they assume will be quite soon--they'll be announcing the first batch of paid DLC suits. There are big plans for additional suits for the game which they hope you look forward to. As mentioned earlier in the thread each additional MS will be 400 yen.

>They've confirmed that out of the box there is no fee associated with playing online whatsoever. The only additional costs are if you want to purchase another online pass (to authenticate a separate account) or purchase DLC. Online play itself is still just as free as it was in EXVS.

>The interviewer asks about any neat 'easter eggs' in the game. Examples include that if you're using the Kapool, whichever version, and send a team message Sochie/Corin pops out of the unit to shout it. (Heh, and here I thought that animation was idle/random!) Also when Big Zam uses its burst, though the cutin does show Dozle with the machinegun...he's also on the actual 3D model itself doing the same thing.

>The interviewer asks what they fussed over the most with the PS3 version. They reply that the most important part was listening to the ridiculous amount of feedback they got from how popular the original EXVS was, as well as during development and test play of the FB arcade game. The point was that in and of it being a sequel to EXVS, it had better actually improve on the original. They believe that this game is in fact better in every way than EXVS was (and I am inclined to agree even having not yet played it). They admit that with the online part they can only try so hard and it'll still be imperfect due to infrastructure changes and individual user environments... but they believe this is the best they could do at this juncture. They insist that all people who buy the game test it to its fullest then fill out and send in the survey that's in the package so they can improve the next title even further.

>As a message to all those with preorders, they apologize for how long it's been since the last release but insist that with all that time has come serious improvements in the game, not just in the gameplay itself but also in fixing all the complaints people had with the original--especially the online play aspect. Arcade and home game development occur in parallel (told ya), so they insist that anything that comes from this will make its way into the arcade, and lessons learned from the arcades do make it into the home game. While they want honest opinions without holding anything back, they do request that such opinions are given with as polite phrasing as possible (Hahahaha).

>As a final message, they remind everyone that 2014 is the 35th Anniversary of Gundam, so it's only appropriate that in its very first month they lead the charge with a brand new console release for Gundam VS. Of course they're happy about being able to bring Maxi Boost to the arcades as well, so with both home and arcade covered they hope that all Gundam fans have a wonderful--and exciting--2014.