I would Just take him the f*ck out of online play alltogether, or my preferred option, make the default for lobby searches as “akuma switched off”. He’ll never be balanced right by meddling with his move set, it’s just too complex a job. Akuma is just too god tier to be able to compete against in the right hands, and super-nerfing his move properties would make him into a totally different character.
There are so many issues with him and they’re so wide ranging that the potential for unforeseen consequenses is just too big to tackle based on the kind of time and budget that might ever be available for the kind of patch HDR could feasibly be given. He was originally designed by capcom as an uber-broke boss character, and well designed at that. Sirlin tried to nerf and rebalance him to get an additional (feasible) character in to the roster and by doing so in an incomplete/untested way he just raised a load more issues and opened up avenues for loads of new glitches and exploits. I don’t think it was fully his fault though, the job was just too extensive for the kind of time he had, and to do it right would have required specific changes not just to akuma, but likely to many of the rest of the cast that would have opened up all sorts of cans of worms elsewhere.
It’s arbitrary anyways, because capcom likely won’t fork out for another patch for financial reasons, but if we DID get a patch, rather than differently unbalancing akuma by changing different move properties, i would be happy with just making a few key changes to his big glitches and exploits, and adding a filter changing him to unselectable online = yes by default. Specifically i would nerf his damage, stamina, and stun even further, so that while not changing the way he plays, he can’t compete nearly as much as he can now, and also i’d remove all the obviously stupid bugs like inescapable raging demon etc. Like James C posted, i would even risk making him suck and not be able to compete rather than letting him fuck the game up any further. Easy to do nerfs like this where you dial down some numbers in some code to make him less competitive are the only way capcom’s bean counters would ever take on the job of trying to put him on the same level as the rest of the cast. Wide ranging changes would only cost lots of time and money and lead to more problems down the line as players find new exploits.
Anything that makes him less attractive to use in HDR is a good thing in my book. By leaving him as unselectable online by default (if you want to use him you have to change a filter option to ON for your search) it would mean that you would only play vs. akuma if you had opted IN to it : You would only find rooms with other akuma scrubs in them who had OK’d him (because they all wanted to use him too), and you would be staying the hell out of the way of all the serious players in normal lobbies who wouldn’t go near him with a 10 foot pole.
If you’re getting rid of my Ochio, get rid of the fake fireball, and do something to help fatass out with projectiles.
Point is, we cant even agree on whether or not to use decimal places in teir ranking charts (let alone the actual ratings) as a community. Community consensus (in this community at least) is a red herring. The only changes they should be making are bug fixes. But Thelo is right - it aint gonna happen anyway.
Oh you. . . well its possible that the ken vs honda matchup has an imaginary solution of 8-2 honda, but since we can’t play the game with negative values => no sqrt of a negative, the matchup will have to stay as it is. :wgrin:
People tend to lose sight of the fact that Honda already took some nasty nerfs in ST. He lost his best normals and was given stored (bugged) Ochio and neutral jumping fierce as ‘compensation’. Taking away stored Ochio with no compensation would be yet another kick to ST Honda’s already bruised nuts.
Personally, I’d give up stored Ochio for his pre-ST standing fierce (anti-air), crouching jab (cancellable), crouching strong (bigger hitbox), crouching fierce (trip) and standing short and forward (trips). If you strip him of his gimmick and give him back the solid fundamentals he was known for in earlier SF2 games, he’d be a much more fun and dynamic character.
Edit: I forgot about his old jump forward/back strong. That was yet another great move that was gutted in ST. Man, I really hate ST Honda.
If you play HD Remix, live in SoCal, and dont come for this, SHAME ON YOU!!! And dont give me that traveling excuse. I’m playing hooky from work and driving from SD.
We have an Ultracade machine here at work and I’ve been playing a lot of CE Honda lately and I agree. If I got all of that stuff and was still able to cr.:lk: XX HHS I’d give up the Ochio throw completely.
Standing fierce alone would be a huge buff because it would allow Honda to bulldog a fireball character without worrying about getting jumped at for free. ST Honda is jump-in bait the second he moves forward and loses charge.
No, because ST Honda’s normals aren’t what beat those characters. His normals are a joke in this game. Stored Ochio is the problem.
It allows him to advance without having to lose his only anti-air (lp headbutt.) Also the faster and farther range trip normals (standing lk, and standing mk) allow him to mixup his footsie pressure. Those would give him the chance to stuff a fireball from a farther range. Preventing him from being pushed back out easily.
Bulldogging as I know it is walking forward and blocking fireballs on reaction. Honda can do that up to a certain range. Once he gets in that range, his options are limited, but I’m not asking for Honda to become immune to fireballs. I just want his old normals back in exchange for the removal of stored Ochio so that he’s not such a trashy, one dimensional, gimmicky version of his older and better self. ST Honda is a miserable beast.
Yeah I mean if we’re going to start improvement threads it might as well turn into the SSF4 Wishlist threads which are all “We should do X,Y, and Z so we can totally pwn everybodyzzz!” I mean when people started a thread to IMPROVE SF4 Sagat that tells you all you need to know about improvement threads. We do not get wishlists. We have a game, lets talk more about building our game up and expanding the game’s influence because that is what this thread is supposed to be about… or at least not letting it die a slow tragic death due to irrelevance.
