Arranged version in Alpha Anthology?
New characters + crouch cancels = awesome! 
Crouch Cancels also make the game incredibly boring and stupid.
Which just reaffirms my belief that Upper wasnât a step-back, itâs simply the top 5% of players who didnât want to adjust their style to play a more balanced version because of what THEY think Alpha 3 should be (V-character generic infinite fest).
SIGHâŚI guess Alpha 3 will stay old, broken, and dead. :sad:
And see, well, itâs only certain peoplesâ opinion that crouch cancelling SHOULD be a significant aspect of A3.
And made the game a hideous and tedious mess to watch and play.
Not to mention the fact that we donât KNOW for sure that more characters arenât able to compete w/o CC and nerfed V-Ism because NOBODY gave Upper a chance.
Which also, coincidentally, happens to be the time when the game was the most popular and fun.
Once again, A3 in the present day is only enjoyable to the 0.3% of players who discover new ridiculous V-Ism combos and infinites to make their newest combo video.
Everybody else got tired of that shit and moved on to less tedious and better balanced games.
Thereâs a reason that many, many more people still play KOF 98â and 3rd Strike
than Alpha 3 even though they are all the exact same age.
People didnât really stop playing A3 until after Upper came out⌠And 3S wasnât really popular in the U.S. until like 2003.
A3 started dying down in the U.S. before infinites were really a factor⌠There were what, 3 infinites that we knew about at the time? Infinites did not kill A3 at all, though it may be off-putting to newer players now to go watch a-cho vids and see someone getting juggled 20 times in a row. A3âs popularity decline had more to do with it getting old and new games coming out (the oft-rumored by finally realized Capcom vs SNK for one), and was hurt by a lack of a good console port- PSX version was passable and sold a hell of a lot of copies, but wasnât really arcade perfect and so it was scoffed at by a lot of people. Saturn version didnât come out until like a year later was a lot better generally, but also harder to come by, and wasnât really perfect either. Dreamcast version was basically a modified PSX version. Itâd sorta be like having to choose between the PS2 and Xbox versions of MvC2.
With arcades on the decline in the U.S. in general, A3 just sorta fell by the wayside⌠Being dropped from the Evolution lineup (even when people still played the game) was real big, too. 3S had a strong cult following that was unafraid to play the DC version (sounds crazy, I know), and kept the game alive. Itâs popularity was boosted by the U.S. team getting smashed by Japan (with DVD evidence) at the U.S. vs Japan 5-on-5 @ Evolution 2002, and of course the whole parry deal Daigo did in 2k4. But for the beginnig of itâs life it only really got any love in certain arcades in southern California, Texas, Nebraska and NYC. For the most part 3S was less popular than 2I until years later.
About Upper, people donât play it for the same reason they didnât play A2 Gold CvS Pro or CvS2 EO or 3S arcade revisions. Well, first and foremost, they didnât play it because it was never released in America. Thatâs obviously huge. And you would think that since Japan was/is better than us at the game and found basically every infinite before we did, that they would have jumped on Upper, a version without themâŚright?
Other than that, Upper got released like 3 or 4 years after regular A3, and made a bunch of stupid changes, basically all of them to the benefit of people who werenât as good at the OG version. Not even characters- most characters donât have infinites, yet basically everyone can get some use from crouch canceling, so when broad sweeping changes were made to Upper, they affected more than just characters with infinites (none of whom were in the established top 4 at the time, to say nothing of the fact that many infinites were discovered AFTER Upper was released). It was absolutely a step backwards, especially considering instead of tweaking things, they just made big retarded changes.
The PS2 version of Upper on Alpha Anthology is actually a different game in some regards- PS2 Upper is the arcade version of the game, with Upper-like changes, including the new console characters being thrown in. From the little I know about it itâs already better than arcade Upper. But A3 players may not take the game as seriously as the regular version, for the same reason CvS2 players may not take a version without Roll Cancels seriously.
Letâs get some clarification here. Itâs one thing to dislike the infinites in A3 and hold the opinion that they ruin it and such (which I donât agree with), but itâs another to make the same judgement on regular CCs and its variants. How is it âincredibly stupidâ if you get caught in a non-infinite CC? One basic fighting game rule is still present here: If you make a mistake, you will be punished.
Of course. However, that opinion is founded on experience, both from the period before the discovery of CCs and after, where the most important benefit of crouch cancelling â the allowing for more of the cast to be competitive â is particularly compelling. CCs at their least potent (read: non-infinite CCs) act in the same as any ânormalâ combo in A3. With the inclusion of them in gameplay, all it adds is another method for one to land and set up combos. It helps everyone in some way, gives characters an extra edge (some more than others, but that can be said of other games), and make things more interesting.
But we do have a good idea of what A3 was like without crouch cancels. And, in that state, itâs obvious that there are more characters with bad match-ups; thatâs part of the reason why CCs should be (were) embraced.
I guess the more serious players felt the prospect of learning to play Upper was not important because it was, generally speaking, A3 without the more advanced techiques and strategies that went with CCs. It had nothing new to offer, and as described elsewhere, was a step backwards in gameplay.
AKA the serious players, the ones who realize that despite the presence of infinites, A3 is still not dominated by them.
What exactly is wrong with A3âs balance?
Since you can customize SFA3 Upper with the dipswitches on the PS2, why not make a default version that everyone can agree with? In todayâs day and age with the internet and what not, we dont have to really rely on the arcades anymore to set a standard version anymore. You can very easily set SFA3U with crouch cancels if you want, as well as adjusting some of the tweaks available in regualr SFA3. Essentially, you would end up with a version of SFA3 with the console characters, and stuff like fast building A-Ism and some of the more minute changes to SFA3. I really donât think that is really too much to askâŚ
Then again, the game is pretty much dead now:(
It seems people are now less tolerant of game upgrades as they were back in the SF2 days. It wasnât a big deal back in the day to go from SF2->SF2CE->HF->Super->Super Turbo==all of which were upgrades, not new games. Nowadays, if someone mentions going with the upgrades, they are burned at the stake as a heretic. The Guilty gear crowd seems to be a lot more lenient when it comes to this. As far as I understand, Slash never made it to arcades here, but it is the most played version so farâŚ
Totally agree with Lv.32 Z-Ism Rose.
The most important changes in Upper are the faster meter building in A and the smaller invincibility window of VCâs. Thatâs basically all it needed in terms of balance, and the reason why i think Upper is superior to regular A3. CCâs are fine, but not as important, imo.
Oh yeah, and i wanna see some Feilong and Deejay players :china:
By that logic though, there should be tons of people playing Alpha 2.
Alpha 3 is still relatively big in Japan.
And they are accepting Accent Core even though it looks more unbalanced and broken than Slash. And letâs not forget how many KoF games get released and played.
Imagine if Capcom released a new SF3 or CvS2 or MvC2 reversion every second year or so, where the only changes were maybe one or two new characters (with one or two new backgrounds) and a little gameplay rebalancing, much like what is done with GG and now MB.
I look at it like a subscription. SNK fans have annual subscription to SNK fighting games.
This is why I think patching is essential to newer console fighting games. You could address balance issues in frequent patches or introduce new stages, etc.
Although, with Capcomâs record of âbalancingâ things, I donât know if Iâd trust them to do it properly, but if they actually listened closely to user feedback, it would be very nice.
Iâd love a 3rd Strike with a nerfed Chunâ SAII and some Geneii Jin nerfs (shouldnât let him block during it, and it should cancel on hit like every other OC variation created beforehand). Plus it could use some kind of cool down. Like, have the bar disappear for a while or get Xâed out after using it.
Honestly, Capcom shouldâve known better than to try and add a juggle based custom combo super. They always break every game theyâre in.
The funny thing is, I look at GJ and I think to myself that they really added insult to injury when they gave him a command grab that he could combo after and the divekick that he could do during a neutral or forward jump.
What were they thinking? Who knows.
But looking at the GG series, rebalancing isnât exactly easy, even with play testing. The characters basically play musical tiers â the bottom tier gets buffed and end up being too buff to the point they are now top tier â and the top tier get nerfed and end up being too nerfed to the point they are lower-mid or even bottom. And the worst part about rebalancing is itâs sometimes hard to do without changing the way the character plays completely. They may as well just make a new character.
Honestly, developers need to find a way of re-balancing that doesnât involve essentially breaking a characterâs legs and making them walk to a hospital (ie. the next game).
Blizzard is often guilty of this as well.
It would be hard to disagree with turning PS2 Upper into what would essentially be normal A3+new characters, though you might have dissenting opinions on what changes to make/not make.
Well, as far as I understand, SFA3U has all the same dipswitches that SFA3 has, and the few exclusive to Upper. It would be possible to set the Upper switches to their equivalent A3 counterparts, and still have the other stuff inherent with Upper. Like for example:
1-14 (SFA3U) 1-14 (HSFA) Dee Jay
- It is impossible to block the Alpha Counter (another hit is decided before the opponent can recover)
- Can block
- Cannot block
1-15 (SFA3U) 1-15 (HSFA) ALL - This changes whether or not the gauge fills up for missed grabs.
- Increases
- Does not increase
These are some that can be changed for Upper only. DJâs should be changed for âcant blockâ, for example, since that is pretty whack. Nobody can complain since Upper never became too mainstream. 1-15 should be turned to on since everyone got used to it in regualr A3. Iâll try out the detailed list later.
A for who should choose what to turn off/on, well, we should. After all, we (people on these forums) are the ones that care the most for the game. Except for the standard A3 ones, the Upper ones should be pretty easy. Make it a sticky thread or something with a poll. It really is up to us now to set the standard. Arcades shouldnt set it anymore since they are a hing of the past. There will always b dissenting view on everything, so might as well try and see what happens:)
Yeah, that actually sounds like a good idea! Letâs do that!
Depends though. If you want to get overseas players interested in coming to big events like EVO, you need to play by similar rules to a certain extent. Vanilla A3 with new characters doesnât sound like too much of a stretch, but if you start changing too much, youâd lose any chance of people like VER, Crusher or Shinya ever coming to play here.
I mean you could play 3S with system direction, but then that puts you in danger of alienating the Japanese/whatever players. Thereâs some danger in messing around too much with settings because then if everyone from different regions starts playing by different rules, things are gonna be a mess, and arcades are anything but dead in Japan which just complicates things further.
Not that Iâm expecting A3 to have any kind of big revival here, but you gotta be careful with this sort of thing.
Well, that is why I propose the changes arent very drastic. We are just giving Upper as much of the broken A3 stuff enjoys: CCâs, whiffed grabs build meter, and canât remember what else. I already figured out most of the dipswitches, which are just the mirrors of regualr A3 (Juni and Mika knock down, CCâs, whiff throw gains meter, Rose unblockables, etc) switches. The game will have stuff like a nerfed Dhalsim, and A-Ism gains bar faster, but that is expected with this version. It isnt perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. With this, everyoneâs major complaints are addressed and solved. Of course, someone always likes to complain 
Not too worried about the Japanese at this time, though. Gotta make sure it even works out well. Even if by some freak chance it takes off, we can enjoy a nice resurgence of the game without the Japanese. after all, Alpha 2 and MvC2 are mad popular over here, while they have an âehâ status in Japan.