So I guess the patch is only for the PSN?
It got released first. XBL will probably be really close.
Yeah, I meant the one people were talking about.
He actually talked about this before. It was one of the main things Gief players asked him to do, so he added this in an early build. But remember how he always says you have to beat him to prove something’s broken?
Well, that’s exactly what Graham Wolfe did with the HF kick lariat Gief, so Sirlin axed it and gave us this weird compromise version instead.
Anyway, glad to hear the patch is on its way!
Straight from Sirlin’s article on Zangief:
"Kick Lariats Invulnerable Feet
Many people requested a kick lariat that was like Hyper Fightings, in that it has invulnerable feet. I tried many versions of this, and it was extremely powerful in the ecosystem of this game. Many, many times during the course of development, someone claimed that something is too powerful. My usual response is to say, Ok beat me with it, or at least make me afraid of it. I can count on one hand the number of times anyone really did this. Graham Wolfe certainly did in this case. He told me to pick whichever character I thought could beat the HF lariat most easily. He then proceeded to absolutely destroy me by mixing up punch and kick lariat while not even really paying attention to the match. I had to counter them in different ways and guessing wrong meant knock down, then facing SPDs.
The final version works like this. The kick lariat is the same as ST except it has a different sound effect and the feet are invulnerable during the first rotation only. You can use it for some footsie tricks, but a careful opponent can still counter it by sweeping you, as long as he sweeps late, toward the end of the lariat."
Oh so apparently some people are downloading the patch already. Gonna go check my PS3 right now. Anyone else got the prompt to download the update for HDR yet?
hmm … i havent been promted to download a patch … wierd. its on startup ?
or is this only for the PAL version right now , and the US version will come later ?
James,
I just came across a post you had in the Vega Desync thread that says what I’m getting at a bit more coherently. 
It’s the whole major changes thing with very little, if any knowledge on how some characters intricacies work, that now that this game has been out, and in essence, me, you, and the other 99% of everyone here became the real play testers on this thing, there’s a lot of things that just make you go “WTF could you possibly have been thinking?!?!” that are coming along a lot sooner than later.
Gief to me is the epitome of this, as he was given so many changes to make him “better” (ie. now Sirlin can play him in a way that caters to him), and the combination of all of those things make me go “WTF!!!”, just as some other people here have issues like that with other characters. I don’t think it’s an unsafe assumption to say that Sirlin was probably a piss poor Gief player at best just by taking a look at the changes he made to that character. And putting in a move that uses audio confirmation, which doesn’t even fall into the context of ST, is a prime example of “WTF!!!” to me… it’s not like he’s never played ST before, and even if people do or don’t agree with his changes, letting this one by seems a prime example of not knowing when to leave well enough alone, and maybe even explains why so many other changes in the game are completely whacked out also.
You know what’s kind of funny about the whole thing… back in the day, SF2 lost popularity after a while for the tweaks between each game being pretty minimal, and people complaining that they’re just playing the same game over and over again. Seems Capcom had the formula right all along… if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and god forbid, dont OVERLY fix it! I think “vanilla” ST sticking around for 13+ years was a testament to that… but now we’ve got this HDR thing. Yay? Anyway, it seems we agree overall about the approach to the games changes, and like I said, I used Gief as a specific example as people were mentioning character specifics in this thread.
Yeah, the problem was that it was implemented EXACTLY how Lethargy is worried: it didn’t look any different, slid just as far as the PPP one, and had the leg invulnerability. It didn’t spin faster, it didn’t slide shorter, and at the time, I don’t even think there was any audio cue! So I think it was waaaaaay better than the Hyper Fighting Kick Lariat.
- James
Yeah, I totally feel you on that one. I guess the place I disagree in is that I still think Gief is pretty bad in this game. I don’t think he’s dominating at all by any stretch of the imagination. Haru Teyjo would probably beat everyone in regular ST as well. He rarely uses anything new that Sirlin put in the game. So I actually believe Gief NEEDED all these things to be competitive, 'cause I still don’t think he’s good enough. Hahaha.
I mean, do you really believe that a great Gief is better than a great any other character? Or do you think he’s like top tier now?
- James
That took about 4 and a half months :sad:
Sure, the patch was late and sure it only addressed half of the things we wanted, but maaan is it ever better than just plain not getting a patch.
We’re really fortunate that we’re getting one at all. It’s an expensive endeavour for Capcom and they are not going to sell any extra copies of SFHD because of it. One can easily make the righteous argument that the product was so bug-ridden that we customers DESERVE this, but in the end it’s a huge showing of how they actually do care about us as fans.
Barring the very unlikely chance that the patch accidentally introduces more glitches and problems than it fixes, it would be foolish and pig-headed to feel anything but thanks and gratitude.
Imo 
As previously, I’ll be checking and verifying all the bugs fixed as well as adding more to the SF Bugzilla. Gotta keep 'em honest, right? 
I agree that we should be grateful, but there is a very high probability that this patch **will **introduce new issues. Such is the nature of game development.
Also, I think the patch could sell more copies for them, as people turned off by all the bugs could be enticed into finally downloading it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful, but I’m also fairly perturbed that not only did this game take WAAAAAY too long to come out, but that Capcom had the audacity to sit on the problems HDR had for as long as they did.
If Jimmy Rey came out a week after launch and said “hey guys, we are seeing the same problems everyone is reporting and are working on it, rest assured!” I would’ve been completely satisfied. But no! It took TWO FUCKING MONTHS for Capcom to even officially acknowledge a patch was in the works. Seeing how this game pretty much means diddly to anyone but the hardcore, I took this as a proverbial slap in the face.
But hey, you’re right deadfrog, at least we are getting a patch. Look at UMK3 and HF for shit that had some serious issues that never got addressed.
Oh I see, people outside of Europe didn’t have the patch at the time of my post and before. Thanks to chun li’s thighs for clearing that up.
In Capcom’s defence, you have to understand a few things.
Patches take a while to create. It’s not easy tracking down bugs and squashing them, especially when they weren’t seen originally by the development team. That’s easily a month or two alone. Once the bugs are fixed, they have to go through internal Capcom QA. The average time for that is about a month (if all goes well the first time around). Once they pass, they then get shipped off to Sony/Microsoft for testing and certification, which takes about another 2-4 weeks (again, if all goes well).
Normally the team would start working on the patches before the game would originally be certified the first time around (November 08), but remember that Capcom weren’t even remotely sure that there was even a market left for SFII, so they wanted to wait and see how the sales went first.
It’s also standard practice to not announce that a patch is coming out until the patches have been submitted or approved by Sony/Microsoft.
While I know playing the bugged version wasn’t as fun as it could have been, I hope this explanation can help you to understand the reason for the long delay.
I know it takes awhile. I just thought it could’ve been handled better. I mean we ST faithful spent two years going over scrimps and strands of info from 3rd parties. It’s like Capcom purposefully tried to derail any official information until like a month before release. Then it released and the bugs were more or less immediately apparent. Then silence. For two months!
It’s just weird. I personally think things could’ve been handled differently. But what can you do?
Yeah, again, it’s standard practice. Almost every game company learns very quickly that you don’t announce patch details until the patch is about to be released… otherwise, you just further piss off the fanbase each time it gets delayed.