Let's Talk Balance #2: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 TAC Infinites

       Overview: Not long ago, a glitch was discovered in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 that allowed players to perform combos that lasted indefinitely. Using this glitch was frowned upon by the majority of the fighting game community, yet it has not been patched and it is allowed in tournament play. I'll break down the glitch and explain why some players consider it to be balanced.

A “Team Aerial Combo (TAC) infinite” is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a combo performed in the air by multiple characters and is capable of lasting indefinitely. This means that a TAC infinite can kill any character in the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (UMvC3) cast at full health. In order to pull off a TAC infinite, one must perform a counterable move called, not surprisingly, a team aerial combo. The opponent being hit as a 33% chance to guess either up, down, or side and prevent the team aerial combo with a team aerial counter. If the opponent guesses correctly, the entire combo ends, otherwise the player performing the combo can then infinitely combo the enemy character to death.

In the following video Dr. Doom performs a TAC infinite on Ryu, killing him with over 100 hits. Without the TAC infinite glitch, a typical Dr. Doom combo wouldn’t last longer than 25 or 30 and would only cause Ryu to lose about half of his health bar.

Video by: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aziik21 Used with permission.

A TAC infinite is a glitch in the game's combat system (see “Glitch explanation” below for details). TAC infinites have plagued the Marvel vs. Capcom community for years now, and top tier players have become extremely efficient at executing them in a competitive environment. Only a specific subset of the cast is capable of performing a TAC infinite, but new TAC infinite combos with new characters are being discovered all the time by members of the fighting game community. TAC infinites are considered to be risky because they are capable of being countered and are difficult to execute flawlessly. 

            In UMvC3, there exists a concept called “hitstun,” which is the duration that character A is rendered uncontrollable due to character B's attack successfully connecting with your character A. If character A is hit again while in hitstun, that attack continues the combo. Hitstun duration normally deteriorates the longer a combo lasts, until the character being hit can recover from the previous hit so fast that they are then able to block the next attack. The whole point of hitstun deterioration is to prevent infinite combos and require that a character be combo’d more than once in order to die.

            Once a TAC has been performed, all hitstun is reset until one player touches the ground. During a TAC infinte, the player tricks the game into thinking that neither character ever touches the ground, meaning hitstun does not deteriorate and the combo is capable of lasting infinitely. Players often repeat certain combo loops each time after glitching the landing move to prevent hitstun from ending the combo.

The takeaway from this is that an unintended action is being unfairly exploited in competitive play and it is skewing the results. TAC infinites take away from the excitement and fun of the game, and ultimately lower the skillcap of the game. They destroy multi-dimensional, creative play and simplify the combat system to a basic flowchart:

Start Combo à TAC Infinite à Repeat x3 à Win Game

 So, should bugs as prominent as these be patched? I believe so. While performing TAC infinites is fun, any glitch that decreases the skillcap of the game being played should be removed; this applies to all genres on all platforms. What do you think?