I think balancing across all skill levels is a noble goal, but it is also an unreasonably abstract one. When we talk about skill levels, beneath the top level of play, peoples’ abilities are all over the place. There is no one “intermediate play” group that you can jump a bunch of people into, because often times that intermediate level contains folks who are decently good with a half dozen characters, people who are pretty darn good with one character, but not in certain matchups, and even those who play many characters well, but suffer from bad habits that make them predictable. How do you balance it so that this “intermediate” play is balanced? It’s not really possible, because each of those players is at a different place in their game.
I don’t think there is a linear progression of skill from lesser to better. Every player builds their game out of pieces that they learn, as they learn them. All of this builds toward being a better player–the more pieces you have to work with, the better your game is going to be, but not everybody is getting those same pieces in remotely the same order. It’s only when we look at the top level that we see players who have accumulated enough knowledge and experience that the differences in skill are much more minute and measurable. At the top, where the playing field is at least a little more of a known quantity, we can start to look at things with an understanding of how they really affect the game.
i cant see how there is such a thing as balancing a game at an intermidiate level. top level play being balanced is the only kind of balance there is because it means no certain character is too strong, that the other characters (in the hands of a pro) dont have an answer for it. if intermidiate players have difficulties with certain things…it just means they have to get better to avoid, or get out of those situations.
if balancing the game for lower skilled players needs to be addressed, then the answer is they should play people at their own skill level. or maybe make online match play have some sort of skill level identifier. this way if beginners want to play other beginners, they can go to a room for that. pro rooms, mixed skill level rooms, etc.
also, it would kinda suck if all the matchups were even. maybe everyone should appreciate the fact that there are characters that make the game diverse depending on the match. if it were supposed to be even…they could have just made ken and ryu be the only characters, then it would be balanced. my hardest matchup as Ryu is vs Vega. william209 who has a great vega and almost always beats me, sent me a message once saying i taught him to respect the ryu matchup. i think he would admit that its definitly in vega’s favor, but it sure is rewarding to get a message like that, and to squeak out the rare win once in a while. plus i can always switch to blanka if i want to even it up…
Based on my experience at Devastation, this simply isn’t true. I think the turnout was around 40 (or 1/3 of SF4.) DJwheat quote during my match at Devastation.
“HDR definitely popular here and that’s awesome to see. It’s so sweet to see legacy Street Fighter remaining popular.”
As much as I respect Taira and his Dic (no homo), I strongly disagree with that. Being ranked 12th out of 16 is basically bottom tier. And how could he be ranked so low if he is the winningest character over a ten-month stretch, especially considering that there are really only two main Dics? (Taira and YuuVega.)
I’d say Dic is just below the top tier of O.Sagat/Claw/Boxer/Sim.
The best part here is that I could’ve answered your post, but a bunch of much better players who broke the game down and accurately explained why the fuck Bison having a reversal AND a better offense is just a bad idea did it instead.
I’ve always felt that Dictator was a guy who was pretty high up on the tier list for the entire reason that he has a few match ups where he’s really good, and then nothing PARTICULARLY worse than 4-6 or 3-7 at the very worst. His offense is too goddamn flexible and powerful in standard ST. Again, I don’t understand why he was made so much better in HDR, like it was necessary or something.
The information is out there, thanks to Nohoho. People just need to look for it. This idea that Sirlin propagated in his blog about Dic being a ‘lower tier’ character needs to stop.
He may not be the BEST character in the game. But, he is DAMN good and can win major events. He is not in the bottom 1/3 of the characters. Lets think about what is really being said here. Deos he really belong with Blanka, Gief, Cammy, Fie, and Hawk?
Actually, you need to stop and rethink what your argument actually is. The fact is that Dic is rated where he is by the entire community, minus a couple people, this is not a debatable issue. If you disagree, go through the proper channels and get the ranking changed, don’t post “I disagree so you guys have to stop with this ‘community standard’ nonsense, don’t you know who I am!”…
After this, how can anyone even post “we know so much about ST how could you not listen”, it’s more like “If the community happens to agree with me, then you weren’t listening, but here when you listened to the community, you were wrong and should have asked me personally”.
All this does is continue prove the issue was never about the ST community, and more about each ST player in the community (and their fanclub) having their own vision of what ST was, and what SFHD should have been. Ultimately people are not giving a ST vs SFHD argument, they are giving a personal opinion, i’m fine with it, but what needs to stop are people making these opinions out to be more authoritative than they actually are.
So who exactly is the ‘entire community’? For years in the US, the generally accepted top tier was boss characters + Ryu + Dhalsim. I’m sure this is somewhere in writing, either on the newsgroup archives, old SRK threads, or both even. In Japan, I believe they consider Chun Li and O. Hawk as A-rank or above. So who is right and wrong here? Too much assumption going on here, so I’d rather side with results since those are fact. Dictator is winning ST tournaments in Japan now, has won large tournaments in the US in the past, and just now placed 4th in Devastation in HDR. That means more to me than Sirlin’s thoughts or anyone else’s for that matter.
Sorry, you were right, 4th was a dictator. I thought Wong was 4th. I need sleep.
John Choi (Ryu/Boxer)
Watson (Ryu/Boxer/???)
me (Honda)
Pete Talley (Dic)
Justin Wong (Sagat/Chun)
I normally don’t chime in on these, but I agree with you, he doesn’t belong there. I know for sure that the Honda match is drastically different now that he has DR has invincibility and Honda’s Ochio bounces back. I think he’s close to even with Honda now. I’m not sure if he’s top, but he’s certainly up there.
I agree he’s up there, but I don’t have enough information to agree/disagree that he’s at the top. However why would you downgrade Sagat? Tiger shot speed?
Ah my mistake, I thought Pete got 4th. Then he got 5th, which is practically the same in this case (they both lost to Watson back to back). Great job, btw. It was fun to meet you and play a bunch over the weekend.
CWheezy: do you play this game or are you going strictly on opinions of others? Just curious, cuz that seems to be the trend on this topic.
Actually, I think Pete and Wong may have tied for 4th. But yeah, either way a good showing. Also, NKI won using Dictator at MWC last week.
I think it all depends on how you view tier charts. When you add up all the points in a match-up chart it may look like one character is WAY higher/lower than other characters. But you have to also consider how many lopsided match-ups they have.
Honda in ST is a good example. He’s really strong against many characters, but gets brutally raped by a few others. Dictator may have less advantages across the board, but he also has fewer awful matchups. So…where does that leave him? I think it’s a matter of perspective.
Personally, I think tiers are more effective if they are a rating of how likely you are to win a tournament. In that light, I think Dic in ST is better than he might look on paper based on point totals from match-ups.
I’m inclined to agree with this. While his DR has been talked about a lot, I think people forget that he got other buffs too. And while Sagat is still good, I don’t think he’s the wrecking ball he used to be.
On a side note, what does Dictator’s tier placing have to do with ST vs HDR?
I dont agree with you guys at all, Yes bison combo make him evey effective but, his down falls makes him very noticeable ineffective.
Lack of Anti-air, gets bison killed all the time facing Blanka,Gief,Honda,T-Hawk,Chunli and so on
He needed his New DR to get out of the stupid corner firball traps that ryu ken guile and dj were able to put him in.
and 3, just genaral fighting aginst people like Chunli, even a mid chun plyer will give the seasoned bison player a run for his money same goes with vega but not so much thanks to the DR but, lets not froget honda, gief and t-hawk with thier SPLASH with they can trap you and the stupid DR can not get you out of because its only so many frames so you get hit and, you back in the corner trapped again now if you don’t Believe me just play aginst Jodim and his GIEF on 360 cant think of his GT but, you will think diff after you see just how easily DIC is stoped
I have not ever seen any ST tier list that had Dictator lower than high tier, be it of japanese or american origin, so to suddenly see so many posts come out of the blue claming Dictator is in the bottom half of the cast for the sake of playing devil’s advocate for HDR is pretty strange to say the least. Im not a great player by any stretch, but even in practice it never seemed remotely true that Dictator was weak enough to be placed in the bottom half of the cast. Such a statement strongly feels like a stretch by any standard.
