On a relate note to the OP:
Last night I fought 14 Ryus online. In a row. I had to turn the game off.
It coems down to why your doing what your doing.
There is “I’m trying to get better at this game. PL:AY TO WIN!”
and then there’s
"Hey I want to actually have fun"
I loved thsi game at first, now I almost phuking HATE it, simply because I’ll come home, grab a V8 juice sit down o nthe sofa, shoo the cats away while the 360 boots up, play 20 matches and fight 15 Ryus in there. I know the match-up. I’ve fought Ryu since SF2WW when I was always Chun or Blanka. thee is no mystery to Ryu’s gameplan, and its no longer fun in the slightest. Hell I hardly play as Ken/Ryu as I hate shotos in general, but I’m pretty solid with both just because I’ve SEEN EVERYTHING those guys do 
. Your not going to ‘surprise’ me with a new tactic or anything. I’m not going to learn anything or get better fighting a Ryu player, and frnakly its just not FUN because its SO many of them. Its worse sicne the average joe has learned that Ken isn’t GOAT and lag tactics only work so long…so now the Ken and Akumap layers are playing Ryu. Everyone is playing Ryu. Its to the point I have friends who main ryu…sick of fighting Ryu.
Then of course you finally fight someone who’s not Ryu and compeltley srub it up because your locked into ‘Ryu-mode’. You know what I’m talking about…where your fighting an EF and it isn’t until the first slam that you realize “oh snap its not Ryu!”
- :bluu:
Oh yeah, in regards to Sagat. The whole skills to win thing is another overstatement. Its a half-truth. Sagat has a % of like .9 on my console…I love him, but refuse to play as him simply because of what he’s capable of. To say he has weaknesses is a joke when his strengths completley destroy his weaknesses. So he’s slow…when does he need to be quick? If your getting hit while spamming Tiger’s then your just being dumb about it, but not being dumb doesnt’ equate skill. You don’t even need to abuse 2xrh ultra to be mean with him. He keeps EVERYONE out, he maintains the flow and speed of the game better than any character, your only lying to yourself if you think Sagat isn’t an easy win. Sure if your fighting someone who is as good or better than you, you will more than likely take the L…he isn’t an automatic victory from that stand point of brokenness, but he is the EASIEST person to get victories with.
- :bluu:
Yep, I agree, he needs to be nerfed a bit, i’d like to atleast see his fireballs going a bit slower, and it shouldnt be so easy to combo into ultra, no FADC involved at all, just two frickin HK and bam there you go.
IMO the only nerf should be the number of juggles. If Gief can only land one hit after a juggle, why can Sagat get two? I’m not going to sit here anymore and say he needs nerfing he needs this taken away blah blah blah. He’s supposed to be a coutner pick to Gief, yet I win my fair share as Gief shrugs, so while I don’t like all that he’s capable of, all characters have something I don’t like their capable of. Crossing up Cammy? HA. Fighting against Balrof with lag? HA. Escaping from Dhaslim’s c.fp? HA. I can go on and on.
I just think its people not being honest with themselves when they act as though Sagat takes as much or mroe skill than other characters to be good with, when I work ten times harder as Gief for a victory and Gief is considdered top teir by most.
- :bluu:
Like Parabellum explained, it takes much more work with Viper to get anywhere. Someone picking up Viper WILL struggle far more even with the “Basics” than Ryu or Gouken because she doesn’t have quick answers to everything. She requires a lot of dedication to play effectively, and yes, any noob can figure it out after watching some “My Viper totally owned this guy” video and trying to replicate what was done in said video. Anyways, you don’t have to agree with the way I see things, but to think that Shotos are more popular than Viper amongst newbies because they appear on the cover doesn’t really seem very thought out of an explanation.
Or pretty much any competitive player? Welcome to SRK >_>"
/end
[/quote]
lol i was one of the balrogs on saturday
You guys said it well. We’ll really see if SF4 has any staying power once some competition comes out (KOF, BlazBlue).
There is one thing you are forgetting Parabellum, and that’s BlazBlue’s (and MvsC2’s) single player potential.
Arcade mode (or any other single player mode) in SF4 is a terrible bore. I mean really bad. It was torture going through the game a million times to get the characters and some colors unlocked. One main reason SF4 is back in its case (and may get traded) is that single player is a complete failure.
I can’t wait to start learning the characters in BlazBlue. I’ve only played a little Guilty Gear but I liked what I saw. Same goes for KOF. I am going to be all over MvsC2 on and off-line. I’m good, but I’m no Marvel master. I know that playing online might get ugly. However, that’s when you play with your friends and start picking random characters. With over 50 to choose from, it stays fresh. Even though the roster is lighter in BlazBlue, I hoping balance will be better.
Even against friends, SF4 gameplay is a chore. These other games have more variety for casual and individual play and that is golden. :tup:
Not if winning is a boring chore. I play to win, but never at the expense of fun. If you have to sacrifice enjoyment to get wins then it’s not much of a “game” is it? I have hobbies that involve work (effort, REAL training, building/setting up devices) but that “work” is part of the fun and I accept that. Fighting game “work” is ok (studying, practicing, etc), but that work should not be free of enjoyment.
J
if this game was not attractive to the hardcore “winning is everything” crowd, no one would play it.
“Fun” is relative. Some players do enjoy camping and running the clock.
That’s a good point. But, if Capcom keeps sitting on their asses, twidling their thumbs about new ways Sagat and Ryu can combo into ultra, meanwhile people like Vega are missing key FUNDAMENTAL elements to making the competitive, this game WILL only be played by the “winning is everything” crowd. And with stiff competition coming out in the next couple of months (2d and 3d), Capcom won’t have a leg to stand on.
The super hardcore players, the ones who will play regardless of whether or not it is fun, are a very small minority.
As I have said before, for SF4 to last it is going to have to start being fun on a more broad level.
I don’t play SF4 any more, but I am here because I’m a fighting game fan and want to keep up with it. I am seeing more and more posts from people who are getting burned out on SF4 because of it’s flaws and the fact that it is just not fun for them anymore.
With comp from other games coming up, CAPCOM is going to be put to the test. SF4 is not the revolution they are making it out to be. If one of these other games blows us away, CAPCOM’s aura of invincibility (honestly, they act like they are the only fighting game developer) will be shattered.
J
I’d say I’ve had about the same number of Ryus just now (15-20) I don’t mind whether I lose or win, I just want to get better and have fun while I’m doing it. But I can’t do that when I’m constantly fighting the same character over and over and over again, I got about 50% win rate against Ryu with my main Fei and alternates Chun and Gen
Yet, while I’m sitting there getting frustrated at the amount of monotony this game has to offer, I can’t help but feel that on the Ryu end of the gameplay, the other player is getting excited because he’s fighting against this new guy called Fei Long he hasn’t seen online before. :looney:
I am seriously thinking about retiring online play, I don’t enjoy it as much as when I get to play local console tournaments, the one I go to has two beastly Guile players, both with a head for charge management, an aggressive Honda player, a couple of Cammys and just the one or two Shoto players. It almost seems that the anonymity of online play charms you toward the Gi.
Now I dont really have anything against the people who always pick Ryu/Sagat/Akuma/Ken. You pick who you want to pick, though I hope its cause you enjoy playing that character and not cause of the fruitless win. But damn, I really hope Capcom implement a filtering system or some way to give more variety to online play. Otherwise I see KOF and its three character matches becoming a winner.
what i meant by my post is that the game is balanced and competitive.
there is a reason for serious gamers to play it.
no game like this will be balanced across all characters.
that fact is actually important as well.
having underdogs and top tiers gives the game more texture.
great players pick a character because of its attributes against the field.
scrubs like me pick a character because it looks cool.
scrubs DONT like it when their character gets owned by top tier!
what was i talking about?
GOUKEN IS FUCKING AWESOME CAPCOM TURN HIS TATSU INTO A PROPER REVERSAL K THX FUCK ZANGIEF
:arazz:
How irrelevant is it to blame a lack of diversity on the game rather than the players? SF4 was a game designed for competitive play. Championship mode wasn’t meant to replace real life tournament nor is it trying to emulate it. If you guys quit because of lack of online diversity, then you just don’t know :D~
KOFXII and BlazBlue are fast-paced offensive fighters with a heavy focus on link combos. BlazBlue doesn’t even have charge characters. Until something comes along that mixes offense and defense, SF4’s only real competition will be HD Remix.
I wish SNK would have given Samurai Shodown the HD treatment. Make it a throwback to Samurai Shodown 2 and it’d the perfect alternative to SF4 for those of us who prefer tactics to twitchy dexterity tests.
Very relevant, actually. There are several accounts of players SRK alone that have switched their mains due to the way they are misrepresented in the game. And not misrepresented in a “man I wish [insert low tier character] move was unblockable and a instant win”, but just in a conceptual way. Guile, Vega, and Rose are the characters I hear the most complaints about. These aren’t new characters, they are well established in some Capcom franchise or another. This begs the question among their fans, “How could Capcom fuck them up so badly?” Naturally, when these characters can’t match up to other members of the cast, they look to find new characters. There were many Honda, Guile, and Vega mains looking to move on to better character like Bison, Balrog, and Blanka. I can’t really blame them. Like you said, SF4 was designed to be played competitively. Nothing fun about characters that can compete (unless you win with them:lovin:) . How does this rant prove that the game can be responsible for a lack of diversity? It’s quite simple. When you abandon your main in search of a better one (like those discribed above), the cast is being weeded out. This decreases the likelyhood of running into any of those characters in competitive play. But the time we get to some really high level play, half the cast can be weeded out for one reason or another. But I can garuantee this, Ryu or Sagat won’t be one of those unlucky few.
I am one of those players who started maining Guile but had to pick up other mains for two reasons:
-
Guile does not have the tools to handle certain situations and is more or less forced to turtle it out. I hate that. A prime example is against sagat…if he chooses to throw nonstop tiger shots and force you to come to him, Guile is at a tremendous disadvantage. Walk, dash, or jump…you have to go face first into a wall of standing roundhouse, tiger knee, or ultra.
-
Guile has a small but effective toolset and his play is less dynamic because of that. You have to outplay your opponent by a large margin in matchups where your opponent has a diverse toolset (Sagat, Dictator, Seth, Gouken).
I picked up Dictator and never really looked back, as he is one of a handful of popular characters that are popular because they have the tools to handle almost any situation.
Of course its true that the players choose who they use…but the way the game is tuned and balanced is going to go a LONG way to determining those choices.
At this point, 3300 matches later, I use these characters in order of frequency:
Dictator
Cammy
Chun
Rose
Guile
Ken
(everyone else, the only characters I never use except for randoms are Gief and Sagat, fuck them).
You just highlighted a problem present in EVERY fighting game in existence. Tiers exist, tiers matter, tiers dictate character popularity more often than not, yet said fighting games still do remain competitive and are still played on a massive scale. That’s just a reality you have to deal with. Welcome to the world of fighting games.
man, you cant help but have respect for hardcore dan players.
they pick because they KNOW.
no excuses, no cries for buffs!
just more taunting and more AWESOME.
if they dont win, fuck it.
they will punch the next guy in the teeth and yell SAIKYO! then run away and cry then jump and yell “yahoo!” then shake their fist and run around some more.