I’ve had SF2THDR since release day. I don’t know why, but it seems like its been losing steam over the years. You only see side tournaments at EVO if that and online is all but dead. What’s going on?
The community has largely dwindled due to a vast majority switching over to more modern fighting games (especially SF4), or they’re playing ST primarily in tournaments, or they simply don’t hold anymore events.
ST is still being played pretty competitively, especially within the past two years, but there seems to be little interest from both players and TOs in organizing offline HDR events.
The games needs another update to get interest going again. Releasing a remake for PS4 would definitely get things running smooth for a while.
It’s possible, although I don’t think it will. Re-releasesof old games on newer consoles don’t really generate much of a sales buzz OR an increase in casuals or tourney players. An update would be neat, but it wouldn’t be enough in this day and age where there’s no less than 15 fighting games all fighting for the same playerbase, with SF4 and UMVC3 clearly taking the lead.
It’d be better just to make a new Street Fighter game that stays true to the old-school design of ST, CVS3, 3s, Alpha, etc… which makes the old-school gamer fans happy, but also brings in newer players to try it out. Similar to what SF4 did, except give it some more hardcore elements, as a way to retain the current boost of players.
Right now I am enjoying GGPO for SSF2T. Experimented with frame delay setting and 0 frame seems to work best for me.
Game is smooth as butter as long as I limit my opponents to those with 250ms ping or less.
People are really nice on there too. Some even stuck around for many matches even after wiping the floor with me so I can learn to play the game.
I am very impressed with the online play of GGPO for ST. Very fun!
I do think a rerelease would get new players involved. HDR is what hooked me, after all. It may not make too much of a splash, and I certainly don’t see it happening immediately but perhaps for the 25th Anniversary.
Think about it; adding 3D, trophies (with Platinum), glitch fixes, additional modes likes team battle/trials, and making it free-to-play would definitely get the online scene going. That’s not even considering adding in a possible rebalance, and all the cool features the PS4 itself will add to the experience (recording and uploading fights to YouTube quickly easily from the console, for example). There’s definitely room for improvement and further modernization.
Now, not that it will happen, but it certainly should, and each of those features would draw certain people (trophies for trophy whores, free-to-play for cheap skates, ect,). If only for a while, I’d be willing to bet it would be just the shot in the arm the game needs. Maybe call it Street Fighter II Final or Street Fighter II 25th Anniversary Edition or something…a man can dream!
HDR players either left for SFIV or ST. The players made the decision to stop supporting HDR and a re-release isn’t really going to change anything.
The glory days are long past, but you can still find strong players haunting XBL. They mostly come out at night.
Mostly
PSN also has a lot of good players on there.
I thought the whole purpose of HDR was to revive ST and make it more accessible by adding ease of execution to some special moves (SPD without buffering for me) and balance. Did these changes drive hardcore players away? I like play SF4 I really do, but I find it painfully slow after I’ve played ST for a while. I have played on GGPO on and off, but I mostly use GGPO to get my KOF fix. I was hoping that when I got HDR so many moons ago, that people would always be on. Believe it or not, some people find it difficult to set up GGPO, so I thought this turn on and play ease for HDR would have really taken off.
The purpose of HDR was to release ST to a new generation, but the original designer, as well as probably Capcom, thought it needed a lot of changes. Some changes were good, some were bad, some were good on paper but poorly-executed or thought out.
Ease of execution actually hurt certain tactics, since moves tended to overlap a lot more. Making consistent uppercut windows was a good thing, Ken’s crazy kick motions changes were a good thing, but allowing anyone in the world to do walk-up SPDs with Gief is pretty ridiculous. That move is SUPPOSED to be difficult to do, because it’s an extremely good tactic. Once you lower that bar, it bumps Gief’s options in the footsie game significantly. Two-button lariats also made piaoning SPD impossible, which turned away a lot of old-school Gief players.
GGPO is a pain in the ass to run, but it’s the most commonly-accepted form of online for ST. I’m lucky to have an offline scene for the game, so I roll with that, but the online systems is terrible for ST. HDR Classic in XBL is the easiest method of getting games in, but strangely enough, very few people play it.
I attribute this to the fact that the majority of ST players don’t regularly use, or even own, an Xbox.
The is a community of Australian players playing this game at a pretty decent level. (search for Camberra Fighting Game League)
I don’t think any game should rely on difficult input for balance.
It’s a factor to consider though. You have to always keep in mind “required skill to perform” versus “strength of options” versus “risk v. reward.” There’s a reason uppercuts require a complex motion to perform, instead of just having a one-button move be assigned to it. It’s a powerful move that requires a honed set of skills that’s difficult to obtain.
Same reason why charge characters have restrictions on their special moves. These could be considered a subset of ‘difficult inputs’ since it requires you to develop a finely-tuned sense of how to build charge, knowing when you have it, knowing when to use it, and knowing when to lose charge in order to focus on mobility.
You can’t build game mechanics in a vacuum. You have to take into consideration their part as it pertains to the whole system. You can’t dismiss anything as bad without delivering context with it.
Once you reach high levels of play, SRK is easy. In SF4, anyone can churn them out reliably. So, now we just have the last two coming into play (as it should be, IMHO).
The charge character topic is interesting. I pick chargers since most are easy, and I thought that was the general consensus.
Within the genre, some good and popular games have been without the difficult inputs, like SSB and SC, hell, even Divekick is looking good. I think it’s up to personal taste, but I believe accessibility is good for everyone; we can focus on the tactics and forget the convoluted input.
Outside of the genre, we see that easy inputs and tight controls are good. Super Mario is still praised for its simple inputs and solid mechanics, nearly 30 years later. Fast forward to today, to a completely different game; Call of Duty. It’s the Mario of FPS.
I’ll stress that it’s personal preference on these issues, some people prefer to wrestle with controls (Ghosts & Ghouls) so Mario isn’t the best for everyone, so I think that translates across genres. I do prefer accessibility myself, though.
At high levels of play, even SRKs aren’t easy. Nobody can ever claim 100% accuracy with uppercuts especially in regards to clutch moments. During tense matches, especially in tournaments, hands tend to freeze up and people tend to panic. If it was a simple button press, the nature of the game would be completely different, and more watered-down.
The genius of charge characters is that it technically lowers execution requirements of select members of the roster. If you’re bad at doing command motions, as some people naturally are, they are given a whole new set of characters that have generally lower execution requirements in terms of left-hand dexterity, but in return, they’re forced to make smart decisions as to how to utilize charge times.
Call of Duty isn’t even remotely the Mario of FPS games. It’s the joke. Any hardcore FPS gamer who still remembers the inception of the genre doesn’t give an ounce of respect to modern CoD games. The game peaked at Cod 4, and since then, each iteration has watered down the series with more casual-core elements. Even Mario games still haven’t even come close to it’s peak era with Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island series.
Besides, comparing platforming against fighting games is a rather difficult stretch to make. Tight controls, solid mechanics, and good level-design is all that’s really required to make a good platforming game. Multiplayer games have considerably more facets to consider, since high-level competition serves as a sort of magnifying glass that will highlight every element of a game, both the good and the bad.
Accessibility is fine as long as it doesn’t affect negatively affect the meta-game at the intermediate and higher levels of play.
I agree, nothing is 100% accurate, least of all SRK or (at least for me) 360 motions and supers. I don’t agree that the game would be watered down, though, as that implies other good fighting games with easy inputs are. It would be somewhat different, though, which may or may not be bad in some regards. If you compare HDR to the original SF2 it is significantly different, but better IMO.
True, the trade-off for charge characters is nice, providing a type of medium in regards to input.
I have played my share of FPS, from Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Turok to CoD, Halo and Battlefield. I’m not huge into the genre but CoD is by far the best in terms of sheer mechanics. It’s so silky smooth, and everything just clicks. I still get my ass kicked by 12 yearolds online but I can’t blame the gameplay.
CoD: W@W was great, too. After that it started slipping but it still sells for a reason, it’s good.
Gotta completely disagree with you on Mario’s peak, though. SMB3 set the standard. It seems there’s two camps, one for SMW and also SMB3. I stand firmly in the latter but acknowledge SMW is good.
I wasn’t directly comparing FPS nor Platformers to Fighters, just showing how lowering the bar of entry is not necessarily a bad thing unless the skill of the game suffers (Brawl, anyone?). Inputs don’t need to be what seperates the boys from the men. My example showed how a Mario game can still provide ample challenge with solid mechanics; the principle translates well. Same for CoD/Battlefield. BF controls like a brick compared to CoD, but it still draws its own crowd. Why? As I mentioned before, personal preference.
My main point is that stricter input is unnecessary, and even SF has moved away from it. That doesn’t make it bad, but I still don’t like it. Others do, which is fine. I deal with it, obviously, I still play. I just wish I could do what I know I want to (and feel as if I should be able to do) with shotos, but the input restricts me.
Hypothetically, let’s say they patched HDR to let anyone input easily. Do you think we’d see nobodies at EVO 2014 taking 1st place? Of course not. The metagame would evolve, focus on defense would increase (especially at lower levels of play, jumping at someone recklessly would go extinct), and new tactics would emerge. Without a balance patch things would be super unbalanced though since HDR was crafted with difficult inputs facored into the balance. I don’t see it negatively affecting play, though change would occur and that in itself scares people. Hell, I’d be scared at first and find new complaints, lol.
puts on nerd glasses
Ahem. HDR was actually one of the rare console SF2 releases that DIDN’T force a two punch/two kick lariat. Sirlin even mentions this on his changelog for Gief, which is why he changed the easy 2 button lariat input to lp/lk and mp/mk where they would be pretty damn hard to do accidentally.
HDR buffed Gief too much
They pretty much did this with the 3DS port of SSF4. Touch screen Guile was too strong with his instant Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks. Game got really defensive because no one could do anything without the fear of instant, easy punishment.