Confirmed patch

Classic Fighting Games SSF2T: HD Remix
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This is great news, and if What Jimmy Rey is hinting at (further rebalancing) ends up happening, even better.I would have liked the audio glitch to be fixed ASAP too, but as far as i can see, this patch is just covering the majorly gamebreaking shit quickly (desynchs, start disconnects, fake wall dive BS, life bar glitch, etc) and letting them look at the less serious (albeit annoying) stuff second.We can whine about all the minor tweaks we all (myself included) would have liked fixed, but at least this means that one of our fave games will be playable again without the maddening stuff that has been happening.I i would rather they fix all that stuff first, and if they come out with a second patch to address the rest if they ever get round to it, great.I might be being overly gullible hoping for patch #2 on a $15 game, but even if it never comes i’ll be happy to be getting this one.

Let’s face it, capcom don’t often go to this much trouble on a 2 year development cycle game that cost $15, and it’s clear they’ve been listening to the fans as usual, so well done to them and to SRK members for posting bugs.

Thanks Jimmy & co at capcom, well done.My suggestions for patch number 2…

-Fix the No Music bug, and the sound bugs generally
-Give us access to the game lobby from spectator mode, including a “GTFO” option
-Nerf the “remixed ken stage” music on the menus
-Both players need to hit “ready” in the lobby to begin a fight (like in SFIV)
-A “kill the menus” option in training mode(so we can see hitboxes clearly on pause)

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I’m not, but before I thought there was a 0% chance there would be gameplay changes. Now there seems to be a non-zero chance (that’s still very small).

I feel like the changes are both overdone and incomplete. If Sirlin made minimalist changes throughout (ie, Ryu/Dictator type tweaks along with universal super nerfs/obviously broken moves), that would have been one thing, but he experimented and while most things came for the better, there’s still work that should be done.

HDR does lots of good but it’d be a shame for it to be ignored in favor of VST because the bad (imho).

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Since it looks like they might decide to eventually implement some more balance changes, I thought I’d put out my solution to the Akuma problem:

Air Hadoken-

1.) Make it cost super meter: The move is simply too strong to allow Akuma to use all the time. The air hadoken allows Akuma to safe jump on a number of occasions where it would be totally inappropriate for other characters to do it. Additionaly, the air hadoken allows Akuma to turtle with them all day at virtually no risk. This move is too strong to allow Akuma to use it all the time. I reccomend making it cost maybe between 1/6 and 1/4 super meter. Some would argue that this would make the move useless, but I beg to differ. You can still use the hadoken as a trip guard, a crossup, to turtle, and to safejump, just not as often. Remember too that in using the air hadoken, Akuma might also build super meter by following it up with something

2.) Give it the 1 landing frame that almost every other arial move (or non-move) has: This would allow other players to walk under the air hadoken and throw Akuma if he air hadokens too close among other things. This isn’t too ground breaking.

Regular Hadoken- Get rid of the invincibility frames: This is just another silly buff that Akuma doesn’t need.

Raging Demon- Fix the inescapable bug

Normals- Make them the same as ryu and Ken: There’s no reason Akuma needs an invincible foot on his jumping rh.

What are you left with? A strong projectile character with high damage combos and the ability to occasionaly do some air hadoken shenanigans. Downside is his poor health bar.

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No idea if this is where you got the idea from, but if you read sirlin’s HDR changes blog, he actually mentions that Akuma’s air fireball was like this at one point, and that it made him totally fucking terrible as a result. The end result is that his tricks are still ridiculously unfair, but you can only do them so often and he might as well not have a super because you’d never get to use it because of this. Sirlin mentioned that there was essentially no reason to pick Akuma instead of Ryu/Ken in that situation.

This has already been thrown around so I’ll make it brief… The air FB is what makes Akuma be Akuma. Without the air FB he is just another shoto without any trademark style. Right now the problem is he has a massively powerful air fireball PLUS a mix of moves that are as good as / better than the best of Ryu’s and Ken’s moves. This makes it really difficult to justify picking Ryu/Ken over Akuma. Only real differences I see are that they have more life, and Akuma doesn’t have a fake FB, but he also has a teleport that neither of them have. I suggest that the rest of his moves be toned down to be more like a mix of Ryu’s and Ken’s moves. For example, his DPs are way too good, maybe even better than Ken’s, (I believe they ALL hit on the first frame!) and he should have Ryu’s set instead.

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Actually, David Sirlin already offered suggestions on some things he would change to balance Akuma:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=5860632&postcount=233

To try and paraphrase:

  1. Fix the problem where Akuma gets a guaranteed Demon when his opponent blocks an air fireball low, and the problem where Akuma can occasionally land the demon after a blocked air fireball even when standing. I’m not sure exactly what Sirlin had in mind for this, but he did suggest increasing the startup time for Raging Demon, which currently has “around 9 frames of startup”.

  2. Get rid of Akuma’s invulnerable startup for fireballs. I’m not exactly sure if the thrust of this suggestion is to remove those frames altogether (which would likely give him the same amount of startup as Ryu), or to keep the startup as the same amount of time, but just make the beginning not invulnerable.

  3. Revert the hitboxes of Akuma’s normals back to old ST Akuma’s hitboxes (which were similar, if not indentical, to Ryu’s and Ken’s). Sirlin didn’t mention anything about Akuma’s standing fireball hitbox, but ST Akuma’s fireball hitbox was much larger than HD Akuma’s, so I would cross my fingers for that nerf as well.

  4. Sirlin said this about Akuma’s Jab Dragon Punch:

“I think it turned out to be a really good idea that only Ken’s medium dragon punch is totally invulnerable on the way up. If Ken wants to do his safe jab dragon punch, he can at least be hit by well-timed attacks somehow. But I forgot to give Akuma that same treatment.”

I’m not exactly sure if this means “change the Jab Dragon Punch to be like Ken’s” or “change the Jab and Fierce Dragon Punch to be like Ken’s”, but either way, there’s definitely a dissatisfaction with inulverable Jab DP.

  1. A few extra recovery frames on his ground fireball.

  2. Sirlin mentioned this:

“Everyone was afraid of things like Guile’s super or Ken’s fierce dragon punch, or T.Hawk in general, or 5 or 6 other things, while Akuma was generally rated one of the worst. I even reduced his damage penalty at one point try to get him rated higher, and maybe shouldn’t have.”

I can’t say for sure what he thinks, but I’m guessing that Sirlin thinks that making him take more damage isn’t a pressing issue.

The only thing I’d add to this is maybe a few extra recovery frames on his air fireball, too. I think this, combined with a slower Demon startup, would almost certainly get rid of instances of inescapable Demon traps.

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If I were personally going to change Akuma, I’d tweak some different things:

  • I’d make air fireball build NO meter. This way he can still spam it to zone people out, but he doesn’t get a free super meter for doing that. Which gives him some incentive to do other things.

  • I’d make the hitbox on the air fireball MUCH smaller. This would help make it a little easier for people to get around and also make it reasonable to throw projectiles that pass under it.

  • I’d change his hitboxes for normals back to the way they were. The current ones are nuts.

  • I’d add a hitbox at the bottom of his feet for the raging demon. This way, you could still catch people on jump-ins and could still go through fireballs, but reversals or sweeps would beat it if you see it coming.

  • I’d slightly lessen the dizzy potential of his hurricane kick. Random move into hurricane into shoryu for easy dizzy seems a little too easy.

  • I’d make him take LESS damage than he does now. I think with the above changes he’d be much less of monster. Maybe he’d still take slightly more damage than Ryu, but not a ton more like he does now.

I dunno. I might be missing a small thing here or there, but I think these changes woud make him a much more interesting character.

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I seriously doubt that making the air fireball cost super meter would mkaeh im terrible. Do you really trust Sirlin’s assessment? He did a great job with the game, but he also thought that Akuma was balanced and fei got alot better.

I do agree though, the air fireball is what makes Akuma Akuma. That’s why I’m not calling for its removal, I just don’t think Akuma should be able to throw it all the time.

As skankin garbage suggested, it might be a good idea to give it more recovery frames. Given enough recovery frames, it might be ok just to leave it alone. I actually wouldn’t mind it if once Akuma landed, he went into his crouching animation for a bit before standing back up. It’s be like he had to brace himself after landing. I dunno, just some thoughts.

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Making the air fireball use up meter seems so extraordinarily unique I just don’t know how it would work. It seems complicated and very un-ST-like. I think adding landing frames to it would be the easiest solution. It would prevent him from combo-ing off of it (ie, wake-up air fb crossover), corner lockdowns, etc., and make him more vulnerable on landing.

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Yep, I agree with all of that. But to make it more simple, I think adding more recovery frames on his Air Hadoken will fix a lot of what is broken with Akuma. That, and less damage and dizzy off his Shoryukens and Tatsus will help. Plus slower startup on his Super.

Akuma’s Super should be invincible cuz it’s a throw Super. But with additional recovery off his Air Hadoken AND slower startup, it will allow ppl to easily escape it. Whether you’re Guile or Zangief or whoever.

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One thing I would change about Akuma almost immediately would be to make his Air Fireball come out slower. Take a few more frames after you enter the code for the Fireball to actually come out. Too many times I have seen people jump up into the air to meet him and hit him, but they end up losing or trading, trading almost being just as bad because you can’t stay in on him. Also, that weakens the corner traps he can do to people because the Fireball will come out later in his Jump, making it so that doing that Tiger Knee trick with Akuma won’t work as well.

Reducing the damage dealt and the dizzy dealt by his DP and Hurricane Kicks would also be good. And giving him a slight delay upon landing from the Air Fireball would help. Nothing big, like 3 more frames or so.

Raging Demon needs to lose at least Head and Feet invincibility after a short period. Invincible startup, yes, but not the whole way through. And fix some hit boxes on his normals.

  • James
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I generally like your changelist, except I feel like if you fix the bugs with the Raging Demon you might not need to add a hitbox to the legs. You’re supposed to be able to jump out of so long as you’re free to jump, so once that bug is fixed I don’t see why you would need to be able to hit him out of it. How long is the recovery on the move though? Maybe you could add more recovery to make whiffed RDs more punishable.

Also maybe give certain characters a move that is invulnerable specifically to the air fireball. For example, Zangief’s lariat already goes through ground fireballs, it would make sense to make it go through air fireballs too. He could really use some help in this matchup.

I still might think that, even if air FB builds no meter, Akuma might still have incentive to use it just as much because of how powerful it is. He doesn’t really need his super to win. I think you might still have to change something about the actual air fireball.

I mean, it’s not just Sirlin’s assessment, but he also had a whole crew of Evo tourney players to help him out. I generally trust his assessments.

For those too lazy to find the link (not saying you are), here’s his article on the Akuma changes in HDR:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/street-fighter-hd-remix-akuma.html

I think you have to change something about the actual move in order to make it work.

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I personally think this would make the Air Fireball useless unless it’s done as a meaty, and that would basically kill a lot of his individuality. Having his quick air fireball would make it still useful in normal situations. On the other hand, giving him more landing frames gets rid of the demon trap AND nerfs his ability to pin you down for long periods of time, while still allowing Akuma to use his air fireball in many situations (and keeping his TK Fireball fun to do). This would also help against his godly low/throw option select if he actually lands a fireball.

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Doesn’t having an air fireball at all make Akuma individual enough?

With the exception of very few characters, an early air fireball from Akuma makes him almost completely safe in the air. He still has THE BEST recovery on his fireballs, the best normals in the game (between the priority and hitboxes), invincible SRKs that juggle at all strenghts, ggod-dizzy juggleable hurricane kicks, ANOTHER fireball that is great for chip damage, a teleport, and a COMPLETELY INVULNERABLE SUPER. But oh no, he takes a little more damage!

Broken? No, not yet anyway…but then again, tournament season’s coming, so the verdict is still out on it.

Overpowered? HELL YES. So what if a few characters have decent options against him? The majority simply don’t. (Most of those who do, like Boxer and Sim, are top tier themselves, go fig.)

A few simple things could tweak him pretty well and still allow him to be unique. Most everyone who has posted here has listed a few of the same general ideas that make a bit of sense. As mentioned before, smaller hitboxes on his normals and air fireball would be a good start. A super with immunity to only fireballs (and possibly sweeps) would still be powerful with his setups, but at least directly counterable with something besides jumping out of the way. Toned down recovery times, even by a few frames, on his specials would even him out as well. If he’s an invincible juggling machine part of the time, the offset should be a better opportunity to counter such attacks when he slips up.

Hell, we all may be way off; some mix of part of these “ideal” fixes may balance him much better, or they could completely neuter him. (Even neutered, he’d still be better than low tier!) The point is that more time is, or would be, necessary to get it right. I have a gut feeling that this argument will end as theory only though…do you really think Capcom’s going to employ more resources to re-rebalance the “final” version of Street Fighter II? Just a few final tweaks to polish the best version yet of a true classic, the flagship of its genre. Dare to dream…

Don’t get me wrong; I would love to see a “balanced” Akuma as the true 17th playable character as Sirlin intended. The current iteration, alas, is not it.

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I’m fine with Akuma’s air fireball. I just want his demon toned down a bit by making it move a bit slower and adding some recovery. He can miss a demon and his recovery is so fast that he is ready to counter-attack immediately afterwords.

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My thinking is that if you added a hitbox to his feet, even during startup, then you wouldn’t need to “fix” the demon at all. Being able to reversal his tick attempts just feels right to me. Afterall, you can’t jump out of Gief or Hawk’s super. You need to reversal those. I’d make Akuma’s work the same way.

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See, I just always saw the raging demon in a different light. You weren’t land it by tick-supering someone with it, you land it by catching an opponent when they’re locked into a move.

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Agree on each of these, except giving him more health and nerfing his Super.

I am glad to see Gief/Hawks supers fixed, but wish they would also allow 720s to do them instead of just the remix motion.

Change Hawk back to his O Hawk + Super. This Hawk is horrid. I loved the way the old Dive worked better. If they must, make the new Dive D+KKK and the Old dive D+PPP. 90% of the time id rather the Old dive.

Put the knockdown back on Claw’s walldive. All they did was make him less accessable for newer players. Wall Dives should not open up combo potential.

Change Chun Li’s Spinning Bird kick back, or at least limit the upward arc version to just RK. It is neat but stupid after you have seen it a few times.

Fix Fei’s chicken wing. Let the new motion do the new CW and let the old motion work and do the old CW. Fixed. Each has advantages over each other, and he will play like he used to with benefit of being easier for newer players.

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They arent fixing Hawks super which is hilarious. They’re fixing gief’s

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I think you’re looking at it in the wrong light.I land it when they’re locked into a move, or when they’re blocking one of the myriad of tricky attacks akuma has like air FB, occasionally i string it in as a whiff combo after a meaty, or even sometimes use it as an anti-air cos of it’s overly useful startup benefits.It’s really a VERY versatile super, and how it was balanced by sirlin gives it loads of advantage he clearly hadn’t contemplated.

This seems to make the most sense of a lot of the posts i’ve read here.This and putting the hit priority on some of his normals on a par with ken and ryu’s.On the SGS, if you add hitboxes to his super you risk going the other way with it, not downgrading it, but nerfing it completely, a-la SFIV versions of it.You don’t want to completely negate it as a move, where all you need to do when you see it is mash cLK, (or press UP like in IV), but if you make his moves a little RISKIER to pull off, and a tiny bit easier to punish on failure or missed timing, like a few extra frames on recovery or startup here and there you change the balance totally from a character that literally has so many safe special move options that he’s lethal on rushdown to one that has to be used a little bit more cautiously because if you f*ck up you get crucified for it every time.

As an akuma player, i would have to look very carefully at my rushdown strategy if i knew i didn’t have as many safe options to harrass and play his “get in, damage, get out” game with, especially if every time i mess up i’m a sitting duck for a combo.

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**

I dont have this game yet.
Explain how T. Hawk’s dive is different.

I know the old chickenwing is better, but what advantage does HDr’s have over the old one? Besides being easier to execute.