The assertion was that a low level player could go toe to toe with a mid level player in ST which, by comparison, was claimed impossible in SF4. I don’t think it’s really possible in ST, and far more feasible in SF4. It’s a bad example. My grandma would get crushed, she wouldn’t be “mildly competitive”, lol. But my grandma might mash out a lucky Ultra that gets her back in the game.
SF4 has input shortcuts, a comeback mechanic, slower walk speed, and training mode. ST, Third Strike, they don’t. They’re strict on inputs, have very small buffer windows, have no comeback mechanics, faster walk speeds, and no training mode at all. It’s easily much more appealing to new players, especially with a significantly larger cast.
The fundamentals of Street Fighter are simple but obscure. A new player is not going to inherently pick up on what’s going on underneath the hood in the neutral game. They won’t understand footsies without some research or study. Most people are not playing games to research or study them, they’re playing for fun. SF4 is much easier to just “play for fun” than ST.
gets her “back in the game” that she was never even in to begin with. If a player is relying on an Ultra to “get back into the game” then hes already lost.
It’s true, that’s why it’s a bad example. I don’t really think that someone who has little idea of what they’re doing in a fighting game is going to stand much of a chance against someone who has an idea of how to play, regardless of the edition. But at the very least she has larger buffer windows, input shortcuts, ultra system, etc.
Another issue that even competitive players struggle against is platform equity. Sf4 and other newer fighters are more or less the same in any platform (arcade, computers, consoles). Differences are minuscule and can be easily overcome.
But ST, 3s and Alpha? Depending on the platform, differences are huge after the arcade version. For 3s and other games Capcom added online and made them a second standard after the arcade version for competitive play.
Even though for Darkstalkers there is a speed difference between GGPO and Resurrection.
But for other games? An ancient version of Final Burn is the only option.
Eg for ST, training there and changing then to newer Mame versions or Shmupmame, feels like night and day. Dreamcast version is even better, apart for some changes in Dee Jay.
So for a newcomer in ST, only option is GGPO, meaning problematic emulation. Or a Dreamcast emulator of a ported arcade game.
That’s about the bare minimum you can call meter management and it’s really not even close to what I am talking about. Because when I talk about meter management I mean having to consciously think about how you are going to use the meter. You’ll get Ultra if you use focus attacks or not. There’s very little to think about half the time when it comes to building that meter.
The reason I say you don’t need to manage the ultra meter is that if you use the Ultra and fail, it doesn’t hurt you going into the next round unlike the way blowing super in round 2 when you have round 3 to go will hurt. None of your EX moves rely on ultra meter which both means you can’t drain the meter before you get ultra and losing the meter does little to effect your game plan.
For instance if I use super I lose access to my EX moves and FADCs, which may be critical in certain match ups. Therefore it may be in my best interest to save some meter going forward. On the other hand there is very little incentive to not use Ultra if you are given the opportunity where as there are incentives to not use super even if you might be able to land it. The only exceptions are things like Akuma’s U1 that gives the opponent so much bloody meter that using it might be a bad thing. Hell I would even say the way ultras are set up they give you a “use it or lose it” motivation.
Nonsense.
In the case of Rose this is complete hogwash. If you even remotely watch any high level Rose they don’t need any special set up. They will throw out U2 as soon as the opponent isn’t close enough to snipe the start up.
Rose activating U2 raw as I’ve said in the worst case scenario forces you to have to deal with it and even if you successfully defend it against it, half the time you just gave up a huge amount of space in doing so.
As for say Juri, yea using U1 full screen is intimidating because Juri now has a half screen forward dash you have to deal with and failure to deal with it results in you having to block a really obnoxious mix up.
Why I really dislike those ultras because for how much benefit they can give there are no real consequences to using them.
The assertion that a low level player could be competitive against a mid-level player in ANY game is ridiculous. There are too many gaps in skill & knowledge alone that will make it an uphill battle for the beginner. And just because an Ultra is present doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to put themselves into a position to actually land it, as you yourself said.
There’s a lot less minutae to deal with in SF2. Combos are overall simpler, there’s no awkward FADC mechanic, the hitboxes are what they should be for the most part, and there’s no meter management to speak of unless you could ST (which I don’t.) The shortcuts in SF4 muddle the motions and make it difficult to perform the move you want to sometimes (how many times have you tried to do an Ultra and got an EX SRK or Super?) and IMO the game controls like shit compared to the previous iterations. Stuff like that is precisely why it’s NOT beginner friendly and why SF4 makes learning “the basics” more difficult than it should be.
What you’re describing isn’t appealing to new players that want to learn the game, it’s appealing to noncompetitive players: people who just want to throw some fireballs and fire off some cool super moves with some friends without ever taking the game seriously.
And as someone who started playing fighters with SF4 and then went on to discover and fall in love with the old classics, I completely disagree that the things you mention make the game more accessible. A major part of why I enjoyed (and still enjoy) ST and 3S so much are because I felt everything in those games was so much simpler to get into than in SF4.
It’s quite possible that the noncompetitive crowd prefers SF4 to ST, but I’ve seen them have enough fun with both.
When I was learning 3rd Strike it never felt frustrating because everyone had an overhead, combos were not hard to do, no stupid ass ultra meter and every character felt equally powerful to me (on a noob level) unlike in SF4 where some characters are just stupidly overpowered and hard to deal with as a novice and some characters just lack the right tools making them undesireable to play (no overhead, shitty anti-air, no fireball or DP, 1frame link BnB combos or no combos at all, no reversal at all).
I see why USA is 3rd in the world at the moment in tournaments. Unlike the other regions instead of adapting and moving forward. We are too busy bitching and complaining that todays Capcom fighters dont play exactly how they did 20 years ago.
This is so wrong on so many levels. Marvel games never receive updates in the first place… until MvC3. Regardless, Marvel 2 couldn’t got one since Capcom lost the license to the Marvel series after 2. When it got re-release, there was no point in updating it since everyone got use to the game for 9 years. 3rd Strike did receive a revision but most players shot it down with the quickness since it just made the game boring.
I’m not understanding where you get this idea that a game that doesn’t receive updates sold poorly. By your logic, KoF XIII and Tekken Tag 2 sold poorly, yet their communities are still active.
Thats why I said tournament wise. I do feel overall pools we are stronger but in winning the big ones we come 3rd. Hopefully this year an American will finally win EVO.
That has more to do with timing than anything. They were released in a time where Arcades were dying in the west. The fact that people still play and love them 15 years later should be a testament to how good they actually are.
Others already commented on how this is untrue. Is like to add that even if you were correct, it still happened. People are dropping sf4 as soon as possible whether it fits into your logic or not.