Arcade ST vs. Remix

lol, you wanted ToD combos taken out completely? Are you sure you really like SF2 at all? Maybe you shouldn’t be playing it.

Do you also want infinites taken out of Marvel for its next gen iteration?

So I am curious as to everyone’s thoughts on this debate after evo2k9.

For me, three major things stand out in favor of HDR over Arcade ST after this years Evo:

1.) Character diversity in the top 8 was better than ever and made it more exciting than previous ST top 8s.

2.) Over 300 entrants, second only to Street Fighter 4. We can only speculate, but I would guess that if it was Vanilla ST, that number would have been lower.

3.) None of the bugs or glitches that people complain about so much in this thread occurred during any of the matches that were streamed.

I think the nit-picking over the game-play changes in this thread is pointless. Instead of this reply, I could have written an essay on my personal thoughts on all of the changes (I don’t like all of them, but overall I like the game-play more in HDR).

The debate needs to be shifted from endlessly discussing what changes you like/don’t like, and your personal opinion on how it should have been done, to: ‘Does HDR represent a better overall chance than Vanilla ST to last another 15 years and to continue to be a game played at major tournaments (like Evo).’

My personal answer to that question is yes…HDR gives Super Turbo a better chance than Vanilla or Arcade ST to last another 15 years.

You’re right. What was I thinking, questioning convention. It’s pretty clear I hate SFII, and have hated it since I started playing WW back in arcades in '91. I hate it as I play it almost daily. Thanks for waking me up to the facts.

What a flawed analogy between Marvel, the most unbalanced mainstream tournament fighter, and Street Fighter II, one of the most balanced and fine-tuned games in history. /trollbait

Personally, I don’t like the concept of dizzies at all in Street Fighter. Free damage is nuts. If it were a “real fight” simulation the match would be pretty much over by the time anyone was knocked silly. (That, and people wouldn’t be throwing fireballs and jumping fifteen feet in the air.) In such a high-damage game it’s just overkill. But dizzies are a part of the flavor of Street Fighter it seems, so hey, I can understand. The point made was that the extreme case, the 100%/ToD combo, is far easier for a much better overall character than T.Hawk and his loop of doom that was such a big deal it had to be removed. Do you not agree?

Marvel wouldn’t be Marvel without insanity in it; I hope they never even consider changing it. Fortunately, we’re talking rationally about SFII in here. I hope people never stop questioning it, tuning it, and most importantly, playing the hell out of it.

As a student of SFII games who waited patiently on further exploring ST until Remix came out towards the end of last year, it is extremely dissapointing for me to see that the community is having this much difficulty determining which game to play. So much so that it actually is significantly stifling my interest in even playing either version. I check back to this thread often, and every time that I come back I feel like the time I have put in to try and catch up with some of the beasts in my area has turned out to be a futile affair because the community appears to be on the verge of implosion for reasons regarding indecisiveness on which version to play.

This topic has been discussed to death by almost any two individuals who have derived even mild interest in this game by now, and aside from compilations of evidence promised by a few members in this thread (a few which have yet to arrive despite the urgent nature of this discussion), it is generally safe to say that almost all of the dimensions of this discussion have been touched on by now. If we can accept that previous statement as true, why then is the community still deliberating regarding which version of ST is truly definitive? It seems that this ordeal does nothing but actually harm some of the new players like myself who are in limbo awaiting confirmation on which game to put their time into for purposes of competition.

And so I come to wiser players than myself in this thread in hopes that a worthwhile solution can come up soon, because it is discouraging me and many such players in my situation from from even playing and giving us little reason not to move on to SFIV full time instead. I personally like both versions and could not care less which one people decide on playing, I simply hope that this discussion would give birth to the definitive answer soon so that the truckload of lower intermediate players of this game such as myself can become further unified in playing the best possible version of the game.

I should add that the popularity of this particular game at the moment has skyrocketed as a result of Street Fighters comeback in general, and a surprising number of newer HDR players are expressing a great deal of curiosity in how it compares to ST. I think now is the perfect sweet spot time in which to arrive at a definitive conclusion about this. Nothing should ever be rushed, but I personally feel like this topic has been deliberated enough, and now something needs to come of it before the community lets this golden opportunity pass by and ultimately collapse resulting in the fall of ST back into obscurity as far as American high level play is concerned.

Really? I don’t see the problem in figuring out what version is the standard anymore. There’s no way the community is going back to vanilla ST unless something truly stupid is discovered that breaks the game. For all intents and purposes, ST seems like a dead game outside of Japan and whatever online play community that is fooling themselves into thinking ST is still the standard. HDR is the present and ST is now a side game, like how HF was when ST came out and Alpha 2 in relation to Alpha 3.

I wanted to address the following as well:

  1. How is that? Honda, Fei Long, Zangief, and DeeJay players have all made top 8 in the past at Evo. The only new character I saw in top 8 was Cammy, which Sirlin may have used as a counter pick (and lost). The more accurate statement would be player and play style diversity, as much of the old guard didn’t make it to top 8 this time around.

  2. Fair enough, but I would say that in proportion to the number of people there for Evo overall, ST likely would have gotten in the same ballpark of entrants as it was always something that people entered ‘just because’

  3. I don’t know what was part of the stream or not since I was actually there and not watching it, but I personally had my match start delayed about 6 minutes while my opponent and I kept having to reconfigure buttons because the changes wouldn’t stick. I don’t know if this is a documented bug, but it’s ridiculous regardless.

You should be able to see the problem actually, because you are in it. It is this thread, and the many like it, where the community is brutally split in half regarding which game they would prefer to be the competitive standard. In case you have not been reading, even many intermediate players (and newer players to boot) have respectable opinions about which game they prefer.

You also bring up another interesting subject I think about ocassionally. I have only been playing 2D’s for a short while, but I do recall reading about the history of various fighters, and it seems the community has made many questionable decisions in the past to stick with newer versions of fighters that were clearly inferior to a previous version (A3 over A2? really? And then A3 dies for a lot of other reasons leaving the alpha series in a state of complete irrelevance? awesome). I am not saying that HDR is inferior to ST, what I am saying is the competitive community for these games owes it to themselves to thoroughly think more closely about blindly moving on to a new game just because its the latest version, especially when hours of their time has already been spent mastering the intricacies of the previous version. As Mr. NKI said earlier in this thread, if you are playing a fighter because it is the newest/latest version or for any other mundane reason, than you are probably playing it for the wrong reasons, and a lot of great fighters in the past have moved on to complete obscurity in favor of a crappier newer version that people became infatuated with.

And ST a side game? Really? Maybe at Evo it was, where administrators there blatantly decided to go into HDR just because it was new (and other reasons Im not going to speculate about and/or discuss here), but at the Midwest Championships last month, ST was way more hype than HDR was and while Im not positive, I seem to recall more entrants to boot. And after both tournaments there was only one screen in the darkest corner of the venue playing HDR with a bunch of people casually playing on pads whereas the ST machine was packed the whole day, and the day after the tournament. With due respect, I think you need to rethink that statement before you count out ST as a mere side attraction.

According to the MWC results thread, HDR had a few more people than ST. Though for the most part the same people played both games, there were some who only played ST, and vice versa.

Of course people were on the arcade ST cabinet. Midwest is primarily an arcade tournament.

I’m 100% positive he’s right unless you want to re-ignite the shitstorm that was “which console version of ST should we play.” The dreamcast version is thought by some to be the superior version but you must not have been @ evo or else you would’ve seen one of the Cannon’s destroy a dreamcast with a mic stand (which has hilarious btw) and then have Mr Wiz sell all the remaining dreamcasts Evo for $10. Every other console version of ST is mad garbage.

HDR in the new ish.

I don’t think anybody will go back to DC ST anymore besides for some old-school get-togethers. It’s just too much of a hassle for a normal tourney. But HDR classic vs. remix is still a very alive question, even though remix is certainly the featured attraction for the foreseeable future thanks to strong Evo results.

Did you notice how long and careful the button checking was? Ever wonder why the players would go a whole round and oftentimes 1 player would just kill off another? That’s because if they went back to the title screen, the buttons might just reset back on their own. Besides controller and online glitches, I don’t recall anything else ever being brought up besides questionable design decisions.

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter which game you pick right now. If you’re good at 1 game and then spend a month learning the nuances of the other (as some players in the top 8 did…), you’ll be set on both.

Since you mentioned MWC (and it’s a good example since it’s one of few tourneys with both both games), just look at the results there with little difference in placing. How did that happen? Because the minor changes aren’t really a big deal when you know everything else about the character (except maybe for o.Sagat).

So don’t worry; just go with whichever is most accessible for you right now and pretty much all of your skills will convert over.

Except there was twelve+ console stations? Its true that there were for SFIV, but after the main tournaments were done there was very little interest in setting up a few stations for Remix. Although to be fair there was a couple of groups of people playing Remix in their rooms over at the Red Roof during the night of the first day, but still. And just as a disclaimer Im aware they really had no choice but to go with the staggering amount of console setups they had because 1) it’s SFIV and few places even have one SFIV cabinet obviously and 2) obviously there was a ton of entrants for it like every other tourney for SFIV in these last 5 months or so but despite this Im just pointing out that there wasn’t all that much enthusiasm to get a good section for casuals for it after the bulk of the SFIV related events were finished whereas ST still had relatively strong enthusiasm periodically even after the ST tourney had concluded. The reason I am pointing this out is to illustrate that the enthusiasm for this game is quite strong still, unlike what others have said previously in this thread. Not to mention the thread itself has many examples indicative of the general love many players have for ST.

And people were way more hyped about the ST tournament, and I can at least say Justin and a couple of others didn’t bother with the Remix tournament. The point is that ST was nowhere near “side tournament” status.

You’re not getting the point. From a logistics standpoint, ST is done. No major tournament is going to bust out a dead system (Dreamcast) just to play one game, especially since Marvel is no longer going to be played on that system either. Can we agree that DC was the only console to properly (more or less) bring ST home? And arcades is not an option. We’re living in a console world outside of Japan and maybe wherever you are and the only option available now for the masses is HDR on next gen systems. There’s nothing ‘blind’ about it. THIS IS IT. It’s take it or don’t play SF2 at major tournaments, unless it’s a side game.

Bernie, check your PM’s when you have a moment if you would. Thx.

BL Pancho and others,
honestly if you are sharpening your skills for ST only, or are considering ST over hdr, the only realistic tournaments you are likely to find are outside usa, maybe just japn even. you will find comp, but probably on ggpo only, and maybe arcade only, because if you log onto psn or xbl, you won’t find any1 playing classic mode st. the people who are good on ggpo, at least the names that i have heard or have been spoken of around on the forums, i don’t believe number more than 15-20 people… at the most (and i find that, in regards to the best players… many do not want to bother wasting their time battling you if you are considerably weaker than they are - and i mean battling on a regular basis, of course they will battle you if you run into them, but for the most part they want to stay sharp also, and they’ll usually spar with players on their level). and although there are alot of weak players on psn/xbl hdr, you will find more than a good amount who are good or are improving

is hdr inferior to st? in the end, it doesn’t matter because it isn’t about a game being inferior, bad design, etc… it’s about the competition. for example, in japan/asia, people play alot of vf, but the popularity here is nowhere near what it’s like over there. i think more even play dead or alive than vf as far as usa, yet vf is considered to be 1 of the more balanced/superior fighters as far as gameplay. then you have games like mvc2, which isn’t balanced at all, and where you have some character matchups that are just impossible. utterly ignored in japn, yet the mvc2 scene was/is pretty big in usa.

in the end, you don’t need people on this thread or any forum telling you what is better and what we should practice. you should just play the game you prefer, and then play the game with competition so you can improve (assuming that is your goal). now, say you choose game A over game B, but there is no competition or the scene is very limited… that’s like me saying “party over here” while everyone else is at another party enjoying themselves… really, will you just stay where you are or go to the “bigger party”? some of us seem to be content to stay at their own party, regardless if nobody is showing up. but then again, that might be more fun anyway, so who knows.

This is a known problem with HDR. Button configurations reset or swap controllers with little reason. Sometimes it is a controller port issue (that only HDR suffers from), and sometimes HDR because it has such atrocious programming, the button configurations will remap themselves with little warning.

If it keeps failing just quit out restart HDR and make sure that both controllers are in ports one and two. Usually works fine from there. Thankfully HDR has smart button mapping which saves more time than the bugs create.

It’s actually amazing that Super Turbo lasted as long as it did at Evo (and other places) without a proper console version. I think people eventually got tired of it though.

I saw your PM, but I want to repost my response here as well if I may:

I really don’t know anymore. Regrdless, I think it’s kinda irrelavent how good or bad the non-Remix version of HDR is at this point.

I think shockwave sums up my point quite well.

If we’re taking about gameplay, I’ve posted several times in this thread about my thoughts on HDR and how it’s a step back from ST. I love ST and I wish some of the changes never happened, but it is what it is and we all need to account for it if we plan on playing SF2 with a lot people going forward. It fits in almost perfectly with the HF vs ST argument that I’ve heard for years.

I’m at the point where I’d rather play remix than ST simply because I’m used to the new game changes.

TODs are just another aspect of game tuning for a game component…
In the case of a true 100% TOD, that tuning slides the bar all the way
in terms damage.

I support tuning IF it:

  1. doesn’t destroy the playstyle “theme” of the character. (ex. make
    Zangief’s SPD worthless [say full screen bounce back and reduce damage by 90%], and Zangief loses his playstyle personality)
  2. creates a more long-term fun/compelling play environment.
  3. creates a wider pool of playable characters at both high and medium level.

I played Dictator in Hyper Fighting and enjoyed him.
He didn’t have any combos that did more than trivial damage.
Most considered him very low tier.
If I were serious about HF tournament level play, I would drop Dictator.

Dictator in Champion Edition was a monster, and he also had a re-dizzy.

If I were serious about HDR (non-team) tournament level play, I would STOP playing Dictator and start playing Boxer and probably Claw… unless I start seeing some Dictators performing well in non-team tourneys,
(NOTE: my going with Boxer and Claw is based on their power level, matchups, and my own inability to play certain other characters)

Referring to the 3 criteria above, if people find Dictator’s TOD to be
a major problem, then removing it would have to improve the 3 things in an overall better way.

  1. would it affect the playstyle/theme of Dictator?
    Yes somewhat for playstyle. If his combos effectiveness were materially reduced, players would spend less time trying to set them up. However, I think Dictator would still have a similar feel to his gameplay and just be moving from a combo set-up to a poke/turtle/throw playstyle.

  2. would it create a more long-term fun/compelling play environment?
    It sounds like many players believe they would enjoy their experience
    more if Dictator’s TOD were not in. Dictator players would moan, but that’s gonna happen for any nerf.

  3. would it create a wider pool of playable characters at both high
    and medium level? No for high, I think likely yes for medium level.
    Medium level players are especially vulnerable to Dictator’s TOD
    combos because they leave so many more openings.

I don’t get the complaint over TODs in terms of overall power level if the character doesn’t perform at the high level.

Maybe it’s because I cut my teeth on World Warrioe, where re-dizzies were common.
Dhalsim in WW didn’t have a re-dizzy in WW, but he was still 1st/2nd best character in that game.

If people don’t like TODs on a “fun” level, then I understand the outcry against it.
But for now, my desires for HDR nerfs at a character level would largely await more top tournament data with an eye on Boxer and Ryu.

I do see Dictator perform well in team tournaments in Japan, and he is likely top tier/broken in those tournies.
But in 1-on-1 tournaments with counterpicking, Dictator doesn’t seem that big to me relative to other characters.

I would’ve been moaning if Dictator lost his ToD’s. Its still amazing damage though. I’d get by.

^^ But its okay for hawk to lose his loop?