HD Remix in the SFII series: What have we learned?

Classic Fighting Games SSF2T: HD Remix
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It’s been the better part of four years since the release of the sixth iteration of SFII. Many of us have come from (and still actively play) ST, so the differences between the versions are that much more apparent. There are numerous times many of us have thought in the heat of a match, “Man, I’m so glad that got tweaked!” or “What the hell was he thinking?”

Well, the goal of this thread is to give you that chance. What is it you thought that was well-done or contributes to the health of the game? What do you wish had never been changed?

This isn’t a place to debate the changes; clearly we’re way past being able to change either version. The purpose here is to list and explain some of your own insights. If you do list something, please state why as well.

Here’s an example:

Likes:

-T.Hawk’s new dive. The ability to get some chip damage in, or even tick with it in the correct set-ups, makes it much better to me than his old one ever was. It’s especially helpful against Honda and Dictator, in particular.

-Dictator’s reversal Devil’s Reverse. This allows him an escape, yet it’s designed well enough not to allow any guarantees if you are skilled enough to play around it. Well done.

-Having the original colors to select from in Remixed mode is nice. If only you could have held Start to get the old alts…

Gripes:

-DP windows were made too wide. A little bit wider (10-12 frames) would have accomplished the same goal, but without overlapping a few key moves for several characters. Ryu’s super disapproves of this change.

-Chun’s air SBK. I like being able to pogo it, but because of the input, it comes out accidentally in the air far too often when you were looking to jump kick. Her old one was very nice for building meter, whereas the new one will land you right on a fireball in many of the same situations.

-Removing the old characters. Many of them were just weaker clones, but every one of them has at least one new or changed trick from their newer versions. Instead of tweaking them as well, they were just shelved. (Thanks for everyone who helps me get my O.Chun fix in Classic mode from time to time.)

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  1. Stupid SPDs motions.
  2. Stupid C.W motions
  3. Stupid Akuma selectable
  4. Stupid big windows for dp reversals
  5. stupid “original” sprites taken from idk, snes new challengers version?.
  6. stupid netcode on ps3
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The T-Hawk Changes were a double edged sword. I started playing hawk from HDR, so at first everything seems like a really good idea. It was much easier playing hawk on HDR then on ST. HDR hawk was just more accessible because the motions was easier and the dive helped to “get in”. But it wasn’t until I started playing ST seriously that I realized the HDR changes lowered the ceiling of how high you could take hawk. Once you take your hawk to a certain level, the changes only hold you back.

ST hawk is really good, but he is so hard to use that no one in the states plays him. HDR hawk is really easy to use and got more players to use hawk, but he will never be able to compete against other top players at the very highest levels.

Every thing changed to ken in HDR made perfect sense. ST ken had a bunch of execution obstacles that you had to get passed just to play normal compared to the previous versions of ken. The crazy kick motions crippled ST kens footsies. The DP’s knock down settings in HDR also felt right.

HDR ryus fake fireball. lolz wat? I didn’t complain when I was using ryu, but fighting against him fucking sucked.

The quick 3 button mashes helped honda and chun, but hurt blanka big time. You couldn’t reverse throw anymore because electricity came out instead.

I think HDR sagat is perfect. not over powered, not under powered.

HDR cammy is good. She needed all those buffs. ST cammy is super lame.

HDR fei is retarded. I think he is over powered, some people don’t, but one thing is sure, he is brain dead. Chicken wing into flame kick juggle takes off half life. That is not justified.

That’s all I can think of for now.

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I love all of HDR Chun Li’s changes she feels well balanced and I even got a few new trick to play with. I even like the new art as I was always put off buy ST’s SSF2’s original art changes.

I feel like only T. Hawk was hurt in this version of the game only because his whiff animation and the changes to his Hawk dive, that’s the biggest thing I noticed vs him in HDR. ST O. Hawk is much better but sometime feels over powered because of his throw loops =\

Akuma -is still over powered but not nearly as much as he is in ST. If they had fixed his normal hitboxes and DP to be more like Ryu’s he would have been fine.

Ruy - Didn’t need a fake Fireball but it’s not a deal breaker.

Gief - is a beast but I don’t think hes over powered just really good now. Remove the easy inputs and he would be perfect.

Fei - is just a bit too powerful but not because of the inputs just the damage he does is crazy.

All the other changes feel good to me both vs them and playing them.

I feel HDR overall is a better balanced game than ST even with the issues. It’s too bad they couldnt do one more small patch to fix the PSN net code to be just like the Xbox version and maybe tweak a few of the characters. But it’s still a very fun game and still has a lot of life in it even if it’s not gonna be at the major tournaments.

Over all I think the lesson here is if you’re gonna Remix a game and include player input, first you better include their input and second, you’re gonna have haters no matter what you do cause you can’t please everyone.

I guarantee if this was exactly the same but an official Capcom release we wouldn’t have had the backlash we had. I’m sure a few people would have been upset but over all it would have been accepted as the new standard especially if the Japanese had an official Arcade Release. I also think the fact that Sirlin was involved and there are people that didn’t care for him much even before the game came out it sure didn’t help much either.

I guess if you want to make a console release of St and make it stick it needs to be Arcade Perfect or at least GGPO Perfect. I for one welcome the new changes and I’m thankful that HDR was released because if it hadn’t I would not be part of the community at all. SFIV surely would not have brought me back nor ST on GGPO sadly.

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This seems good to me with the exception of adding O characters, I think the point there was to combine the best attributes into one cast. I’d also add that along with the DP windows, the 360 windows get fixed so I don’t accidentally get DPs with Hawk when I’m trying to SPD.

It’d be nice to get Honda’s Roundhouse sumo smash to have hitting frames on the way up (like in HF) but that’s probably wishful thinking.

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Changes I’d make:

Ryu - remove the fake fireball. He’s already an amazing zoner.
Cammy - give her knuckle a real use.
Ken - longer recovery frames on his super.

That’s it. Generally a fantastic game.

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-Remove Honda’s stored Ochio.
-Give Fei Long the short CW recovery back.

Otherwise everything else is golden. Even the net code (Xbox 360) stomps ass.

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Ken’s jab fireball annoys me a lot more than his super does. It’s a long way down from the apex of that second uppercut - a lot could happen to a fellow before they land!

I’m not sure how to make knuckle not suck without making Cammy imba.

I suppose you could make SK a two part command - HCB to spin, another HCB/QCB/QCF/whatev to knuckle. The spin shouldn’t be totally safe, I strongly recommend leaving enough recovery on the spin so that she can be punished.

Then there’s the matter of Chun and Ken’s big fat slow fireballs. Either they would have to have their hitboxes nerfed, or Cammy’s SK hitboxes would have to be tweaked. I’m uncomfortable with either proposition.

Rather than shrinking her SK hitboxes more, I think a good solution would be to add property tags to certain moves - say, make fireballs have projectile tags, and make the spin part of spin knuckle invulnerable to moves with projectile tag, but still vulnerable to non-projectile attacks.

Yeah. 2 part SK + property tags.

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I was going to make a new thread but I’ll just add it here. I’ve been playing HDR for a while now (when no one’s playing Classic that is, as I still prefer ST). Certain things in life are just hard to touch, like ST, or that classic Whitney Houston song. Unless your name is Jessica Sanchez or Hollie.

Good points about the game would include how transparent the development of changes and features was progressing- esp. compared to most games or most fighting games with lots of detail about what was in the works leading up to release. For hardcore players in the know (that Sirlin was working on this pre-release), I think he did more than a fair job of reading community’s comments and I’d give him the benefit of the doubt for taking it into consideration, to whatever extent. That’s not to say that it was all used, however there was likely a ton of input and at some point he probably had to say, ok I hear what you’re saying, but I think THIS is the way it should be/I’m doing it the way I see fit. He had stated more than once the importance of testing it thoroughly (which actually still turned out to be not enough, or possibly not done quite well enough eg Akuma). Also, I think he made it quite clear that even slight tweaks to the properties of one character’s move or jump arc/whatever could have drastic consequences in gameplay. Because he seemed to understand this so well, I also wonder why he made some decisions to the extent that he did in rebalancing so much, e.g. Zangief.

It is useful to play a close enough experience to ST on a modern console via Classic mode. I don’t even use new graphics, I have mine set to Classic so the backgrounds and no shadows for characters are there but the biggest distinction is the speed difference in either. Even the DreamCast’s ST port didn’t get the gameplay speed perfect though. The new art looked alright I guess- a bit big/chunky compared to old, but I am more interested in reconstructing the original flow, so nice to have that option. Including hitboxes in the training mode is noteworthy.

As a “remix”, it has often not been so clear for us to even distinguish HDR from ST as our game of choice. Instead of presenting the community with more options, the game of HDR itself wound up being too similar to stand on its own from ST amongst us at tournaments etc. and this split us on more than one occasion. Many of us would show up to play either, yet there was still lingering doubts afterward and feelings of inauthenticity-- kind of like, if you went to Burger King, and you expect to be able to order a Whopper Your Way, but they don’t exactly serve you a Whopper Your Way, ya know? HDR wasn’t designed from the ground up as a new game, so much as it was taken outright from another and so wasn’t unique enough to stand on its own. Also by intent, it was made to be more approachable to new players. On paper this made sense, however I think in the actual implementation, wound up doing a disservice because it went a little too far. Tiger Knee motions were harder to do before, and yeah Zangief has some accident-prone moves if you’re not careful, but there are also good reasons for those things and the ST crowd got pretty used to those over the years. The ultimate question is, did it wind up attracting and retaining many new players? How many of HDR players for the most part played/stuck around because of the easier inputs, I wonder? Some but I don’t think that many when it’s all said and done.

BALANCE

Moving into my criticisms of balance, Zangief stands out as the worst example. He went from near the bottom to the top. Similarly for Fei Long. Both characters got several buffs that “over-” balanced them. Zangief is all about getting in to SPD, but all his approaches are improved to the point where he is quite dangerous and I feel the best tactic gets myself cornered pretty quickly. It’s funny though, I used to play like low hard kicks were my secret weapon, but lately I’ve been beating Zangief players by doing like 5 to 6 low roundhouse sweeps in a row per round-- ie it’s so good I don’t think people want to stop using it. The SPD motions don’t require up?? The hop/less recovery on green hand can be scary too, though not quite as much as the lariats on startup. It’s just no where near as difficult for him to get in to spd anymore. Fei doesn’t need to juggle flame kick after chicken wings. The little tweaks add up.

The best rebalancing is probably Chun Li. She had a lot of cheap stuff in ST and it was good to see her upkicks toned down so much- and her new stuff looked really creative, like (ST) Blanka, just new stuff to mess around with.
Blanka’s remixing seems a little too good, though not nearly as good as Zangief/Fei. Less recovery ok, but also faster 'lectricity? After playing Mithos I bet some good players could go to town with him. Oh and the whole thing about charging his meter by hopping back at fullscreen away from opponent- like THAT was ever a problem in ST??
Sagat is not so bad, though I still hate the juggling knee, AND it’s now a DP motion I think?. Just one of the changes would probably have been fine, but why both.
Ryu doesn’t need a fake fb. I get this by accident all the damn time- it even comes out as negative edge. You want a fake fireball? Standing strong. That’s your fake fireball. If the opponent crosses me up esp. lag it may come out when I meant tatsu/spin kick. It came out when I tried to tick throw.
DeeJay’s Machine Gun Upper and Honda’s jab headbutt beating fireballs? That’s just strange- makes little to no sense at all for DeeJay who has like, so many other options in general anyway, yet understandable for Honda but projectile players can catch on quickly enough. Seems out of character though for each.
I’d comment more about the other characters, but to be honest I wonder if I have been challenged enough to really get a good sense.
Akuma is broken of course, however I suspect what makes it so bad from the games I’ve played was simply Akuma in_lag. As for ST Akuma, the angle on his air fb (from what I remember) seems to be a little easier to penetrate with ground fireballs (if you are playing as ryu for example) but of course, both overpowered.

BUGS/POLISH
-crashes/freezes quite frequently for an approved title, requiring restarting console
-Damage quirks- occasionally moves take off little to nothing (in a zang mirror match, bunch of ppl on Live saw this, SPD took off like 5 pixels, stuff like that)
-menus a little inconsistent eg to refresh lobbies/rooms list. I like the Beacons in XBL’s new updates to deal with that to at least let friends know I’m there
-cannot QUIT the game too easily- e.g. can’t quit between rounds; corollary to that is, CAN quit during rounds
-Help screens for the moves are only available when you are expected to be playing (you can spectate and hope someone chooses your character but…)
-gamertag avatar often mixed up with others’ in lobby
-tournament mode unfortunately turned out to be useless
-problems in Ranked matches (buggy or possibly manipulative leaderboards, incorrectly awards wins/losses)

XSPR (that’s not a bug, that’s just me signing off… unless you have a problem with the best player)

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:rofl: I never thought I’d live long enough to see these words written in earnest. Has a patch been released on XBL that I’m not aware of? I want this 50% life bar juggle that you’re referring to. Does it automatically launch opponents for a free juggle? Is there an input code at the character select screen that I should be entering? I haven’t experienced any of these phenomena.

I’d gladly exchange HDR’s CW for Fei’s old Flying kick and LK Flame Kick. I think the designer was on the right track when he decided to simplify the input. Even Fei Long God Noguchi regularly flubbed that old CW–with often disastrous results.

However, the “solution” to this problem (along with the Typhoon Slam “problem,” the SPD "problem etc.) was a mixed bag. The designer sought to open the game up to people who weren’t necessarily hardcore gamers and didn’t want to buy a cumbersome joystick board simply to play a video game. To that end, he succeeded. I know many people who played (and still play) this game on a controller who admitted that they never would have bothered if the series’ esoteric and exclusive mechanics were firmly adhered to.

In HDR’s case, the execution barrier was lowered but has led to “spammability” of certain moves (Hundred Hand Slap, anyone?). In Fei’s case, I’ll often see players opt for the LK CW in lieu of his fine pokes; this is usually to their detriment and not some sort of Easy Win Button. This is due to the counterbalance that the designer included to even the move out: the recovery and the startup.

I have no problem with Fei having recovery for the LK CW which was designed with fireballs in mind. If you want to close ground on a fireballer, you should have to risk something–that is the essence of fighting games: risk vs reward. However, changing the dynamics of the other versions is inexcusable. A slow, low-priority close-in move with enormous recovery to boot? This leads to the common gribe of hitting your opponent with a MK/HK version of the move yet seeing them recover before you do. Being punished for a hit never makes sense. I’m sure Blanka players concur. Ha!

I would have loved to have seen a SFIV solution to the CW…and God knows I hate detest most things about that game. The move was simplified just slightly compared to ST (one less joystick motion) which makes it simpler to perform but not overly abusive.

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Glad nobody beat Damdai with Cammy, or I suppose she’d be top tier too.

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The fei combo I’m talking about is the 4 hit juggle were you catch someone in the air for 2 hits with the CW, then combo another 2 hits with flame kick. That takes ridiculous damage. It’s a no brainer, too easy to land to justify that much damage. I’m ok with the easy CW motion, but the short kick invulnerability makes this move over powered imo. When you get to that point blank range, the mix up is too strong. You either rekka straight in, or do that lk CW for a delayed effect which throws off the defenders timing. But I digress.

Anyway, I think that fei is that secret top tier that no one found out about due to the short life of HDR. I suspect there are a few other characters like that as well. A buddy of mine said that HDR bison is a secret top tier. But then again, HDR might have that marvel effect where “if everyone is broken, no one is broken”…

… except for cammy. lolz, sorry miles, cammy is a character that will NEVER be top tier in any sf2 series. even if they gave her the lead pipe from final fight, she would still be low mid at best. lolololz.

And anyone that beats damdai is using a broken tier character, not top tier. That’s “White Daigo” we’re talking about here, lets not get that baby zone twisted.

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If you change an old game, old people get mad that it isn’t the same game

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I like topics like this a lot. I love this game and i like to discuss anything about it. I wonder why we never see the top players discussing this kind of stuff? Is they too “og” (lol) that they cant comment on what would make the game better because this gives them a scrub mentality?
Anyway,i didnt played much HDR since i dont own a modern console (the last one i bought was a ps1 10 years ago), but i think i know enough about the engine and general balance of this game so ill leave my comments (but other than the gief related comments, i think ill say some retarded shit, since i dont play HDR for years so i may have wrong memories)

Zangief: I dont agree that he is top tier in HDR, if he didnt had the simplified SPD motion he would still be a underused character. The new green hand is a welcome buff against guile and dhalsim, but when sirlin decided to tweak it he didnt noticed that the quantity of time you advance with that move is exactly the same if you walks, this is a key detail because it doesnt gives gief a locomotion buff. HDR green hand had a 4 frames smaller recovery but the same locomotion, that was a bit too good in my opinion. I would make it this way: jab is like hdr but covers less ground (worse by exactly the quantity you walk during 4 frames), strong advances the same as it is in ST, and fierce has better locomotion but added recovery. One of the uses i had in my mind for the fierce GH’s covering more ground is to punish blocked Cammys DP’s (which if i tweaked this game, they would not been changed from how they are in ST). Different damages and maybe a make the fierce version a 2 hit could be tested as well.
As for his lariats, i think the changes are lame, the biggest mistakes on the HDR gief design are for sure the lariat changes and the new SPD motion, restore these and HDR gief is legit. I would change only 1 thing about his lariats: make his head hitbox 1 pixel smaller to beat hondas Heabutts cleanly.
I like his new hop, i sincerely think the ones in ST are just shit, maybe they didnt needed to be that good, but buffing his hop is like a must change IMO. In HDR Its just a bit unfair against ryu, but its nothing worse than a 6 - 4 mu imo. It helps agaisnt guile,chun,list goes on. it helps more on shitty mus than on good ones so i think it was a good decision by sirlin.
I like the normals changes, imo are one of the most smart changes, i would change some other normals as well to deal with some other shitty situations, but nothing too radical of course.
One thing that i would do for sure is make all Suplex versions have the Rh range, and make his super have that range as well, his super range being so shitty is a mistake by capcom.
I would also remove his strong aerial headbutt (since its useless) and make the fierce one like in the jap version of St, which dizzies instantly.

T.Hawk: the biggest mistake from sirlin, for sure. I second everything DSP said. If i would tweak T.Hawk, i would make it a O.Thawk with super, and only 1 additional change: make his diagonal jump RH hit very low, so you can beat Dics low kicks from far. T.hawk would be a solid mid tier in the hands of a dedicated player if he were like that. he would still be underused since he requires excellent execution.

Bison: People complain too much about his new DR. Imo i think its fine, but just like giefs GH, if sirlin had more knowledge about the engine, he could have done it better. IMO it would be better this way: Jab DR is like in HDR but gives almost no super meter.Strong DR would have invulnerability only to “red htiboxes”, so he could still be thrown during startup (I didnt tested this but i assume DR is invulnerable to throws right?), and it would give like half of the meter it gives. Fierce would be like in ST but give like 2 px more meter. I think this would make it a more interesting design because: when bison is in the corner and with no meter, he is fucked. He got a new move that helps him get out of that situation, but is nowhere good like his super, so having his super is still better. In HDR he can attempt to escape and at the same time build meter for super… in my opinion i think this is wrong. If he is trapped, he can gamble with DR to escape, but with less super meter just to make him think about what he is doing, otherwise reversal DR is like always a good option. Fierce DR giving more super meter is just to reward the one button reversal.
His new Standing Jab is a bit too good, only the horizontal priority should have been buffed (to beat Honda headbuts and etc), but his vertical priority was buffed as well which made it a chunli like anti air, I dislike it. His new neutral jump strong is retarded, i would remove that. Im neutral about his command slide.

Ken: I agree with DSP as well. I would restore his knee bash range though. Ken is for sure one of the best rebalances done by sirlin.

Blanka: Another sucessfull balance. I would estore the electricity button presses to how it is in ST and remove the double damage thing in his rolls and i think its very good. Maybe make his Low rh with more respectable priority (better vertical priority which low strongs wouldnt be able beat it anymore, but with the same horizontal priority).

Ryu: I would only change one thing from how he is from ST: i would make his j.Strong (aka stevetren special,LOL) a little worse. I think it has just too much range and priority for a attack with such damage potential and ground cover(since you can corner an opponent very easily with it). It would be nothing too radical, if i changed it it would still beat stuff like T.Hawks air jab and stuff like that, if you look at the hitboxes you will notice that its a bit retarded. I would remove his fake fireball, imo it makes HDR ryu a retarded character.

Guile: I like his overhead, i would keep that. I would make his super cover a lot more ground though, i would make it an actually good super or atleast useful like ken’s or deejay’s. HDR’s rh flash kick looks very weird and i would restore that, maybe only give it some more range in comparison to how it is in ST, but nothing too radical like it is in HDR. Also i would change the input for his knee attack so you can charge for booms and use the st.Short.

Fei & CAmmy: I dont play them and i dont face them enough so i cant comment on them. I do think that cammy really needed great buffs though. I would make the CW style motion as a yoga flame motion, same quantity of directions (so you will not be able to execute the move faster than in ST, but would not be a hard move to do). Up left and up right diagonals in special moves are retarded.

Deejay: I dunno about this character man, i think he is very solid as he is in ST. I think i would only give his super mid body invulnerability till the second hit to pass though fbs easier. This would change his super from descent to GOOD, but not too good like some other supers.

Sagat: I would only remove his juggles in the tiger knee because imo its retarded. I would also lower the stun on his J.RHs. Other than that he is perfect in HDR.

Honda: He definitely needs help against projectile chars, and he didnt received enough in HDR. I would buff him even more, but i just dont know what… Im sure Honda mainers have the right ideas.
I would make his Throwable box (white box) a little bigger so T.Hawk can throw him in a safe range easier. Nothing too radical just something like 6 pixels worst, he would still outrange all the cast minus the grapples with his oicho anyway, i belive this is one of the obvious changes that should be made. If you look at his hitboxes you will notice that he has a very little throwable box for a character of his size. I would remove his stored super and oicho because its too good (oicho) and retarded (both).

Balrog: he deservers to be nerfed more, for instance i would make his throw range fixed like all the rest of the cast, this would remove his range advantage against blanka and honda normal throws (which makes no sense at all) and would buff his throw range aginst sim and gief, which is fine imo, since it his 2 worst matchups. I would also make his super unsafe on block against everyone and remove his ability to crossunder after his grab, its just too cheap, he doesnt need that shit to win.

Vega: His ground game is legit imo, the only retarded shit he has is his dive loop. But i dont know how to really fix it, i would try this way: keep the knockdown, but make it unsafe on block, but just for 2 frames or something like that so only throws would counter it. I also think his anti aerial special move is too good but im okay with how it is.

Chunli: I would remove her stored super because in my opinion its retarded… This would be a radical change i know, every chunli player would be pissed off, but face it, that thing is retarded. So i would make her super a bit more invulnerable otherwise it will be too shitty. Maybe invulenrable till the second hit or something like that. I would also fix her throw damage because its just unfair, its does as much damage as a jab SPD… some other stuff should be nerfed as well but i just dont know enough about her so i wont go further cuz anything i would say now would be wrong…

Dhalsim: I dont think he derserves to be too nerfed, only a little. He is the best char in the game, i know, but he is so hard to be used at the highest levels so i think he deserves to be at the top. From a ST stand point, its natural to think that him being able to reversal super is too good, anyone will agree with that, but what if he could be thrown during the startup? That would fix the inbalances that it would cause agaisnt t.hawk and gief… I cant think of a better solution for making his super being far with reversal ability.

Akuma: Would be a secret character, he is just too dumb, we already got 2 shotos, we dont need a 3rd.

Old characters: i would remove them, i find no reason for them to exist. In a perfect balanced game they have no place. O.Ken’s jab dps are retarded, O.sagat is retarded, O.thawk would already be in my rebalanced thawk, and the rest is jut inferior to the new version and uninteresting. The only O character worth keeping in my opinion would be O.Honda since he is very different, but if he is kept then all the other 15 should as well, so i would just remove them all.

Lol i spent like one hour typing all that stuff, which is time that i dont have!!! Im too adicted to this game, damn.

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But that’s how it was marketed, as this old game that was new. When you “remix” it there’s the problem that it isn’t distinctive enough to stand entirely on its own because so much is exactly the same or hardly any different, and what IS new, risks messing with what was so good about the original. So you wind up attracting a lot of old people, and if the new players are there mostly for the more approachable controls, that tends to ignore the factor of not only getting the moves out easier, but ALSO risking getting a bad/ undesirable move (with longer startup time for example). HDR isn’t exactly to the extreme of, “ok let’s just have a DP button macro” but the small adjustments add up and you move in that direction anyway.

Fei Long being able to juggle is like having Akuma juggling all of his specials or with each other. It’s bad rebalancing for the same reason. Same with hdr Sagat’s tiger knee. Noguchi is a CLAW player but even forgiving that, I would not say he regularly flubs chicken wings.

Never?? That is a dangerous blanket statement and threatens the fine ecosystem of the flow of exchanging hits (and frame advantage? if that’s what you can call it). I think I know what you are saying though, as I remember feeling this way, e.g. when Alpha 1 came out, you could get punished for hitting things but not being able to recover quickly enough before they’d attack after taking the hit (I think it was something like, close up super, standing mid punch or low roundhouse?)… it’s just the particular design of the game. However if you think about it, it’s just something to get used to and accept as part of the game itself and you can’t just throw out any old move to connect; you have to time/plan/set it up properly and it plays directly into the anticipation game- and this phenomenon is in all good fighting games.

Yeah the bosses claw and boxer were left as too good, as I think most people understand. I’d agree that there are probably quite a few HDR characters that never really had their potential exploited fully (although I don’t quite see it with Dictator, have your friend 'splain that one please). But does anyone ever factor in the fact that all of these rebalancing decisions were made and played by people that never really exploited the original ST characters to their full potential, for that matter? Nobody asked the real masters in all this did they?

XSPR

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I’d like to add that gief is not over powered at all. No one actually thought gief was over powered until they saw Snake Eyez play gief. But that guy is just a gief prodigy, You probably won’t see another gief at that level for another 10 years. Just look what he’s doing in SSF4 and SFxT right now. This is just a case of people misjudging the character as being strong when it was actually the player. Gief’s buffs helped, but he still isn’t on claw, rog or sagat, or ryu’s level. I wanted to add sim to that list too, but I kind of feel like sim got left behind in HDR due to everyone else getting so much better.

Rog, the thing with rog is that online he will always be over powered. Its just the way his moves are. You can’t react to his dash punches online, but offline its not too bad. So I don’t know if I would nerf rog anymore then he already is. I think maybe just make his super not charge so fast so that he can only build one super per round?

Kaospider: Sorry if I offended you with my fei comments. Not trying to take anything away from you as a player, you’re a great player. But that’s really how I feel about his changes though. Maybe I over did it by calling him over powered, but definitely top tier in my book. In fact, when I start playing HDR again, I will probably main fei.

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He is. His lariats are where it all starts. It lets him get in and apply pressure he didn’t have before. When you look at other gains with green hand/hop it’s just more.

I thought gief was overpowered before I saw SnakeEyes. He’s a good player in HDR and I wonder if I’d lose any less if I ever played him offline but the last time we played (2 or 3 months ago), I whined about how good hdr gief was in, and how it wouldn’t happen to me in Classic. So we set it up in Classic and I won. It’s really night and day. I can understand wanting to improve a character perceived as being very weak but the changes just added up and it went too far, esp in gief’s case. Re: not on so and so’s level- this ignores his potential… I know the game is targeted to be more friendly to newer players but the potential is there, whether players utilize it or not.

Yeah lag definitely plays into my view I guess, but where there any weakening changes made? In ST he and Chun Li are really annoying in the sense that you can often tell what’s about to happen, it’s just hard to deal with it. Anyway if he’s weaker now in some ways I haven’t noticed it.

XSPR

EDIT: BTW I played a few more games in Ranked with MyRealGamerScore or whatever it is- that guy definitely has a consistent way to force the game and manipulate the leaderboards. When others quit just after you win, it usually at least counts it as a win for you however with him, it never counts it as a win.

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What we learned is that anytime you add a new game to a long running series there will always be people who complain about it. Happened with every other version with SF2 as well. I’m old and hate change but I’d been playing to ST for years and years and was happy to finally have something new yet still familiar to play. And who cares if some old ST heads didn’t want to play HDR, that also has happened throughout SF2’s history. Tomo Ohira was the best SF2 HF’ player there was (sorry Watson) but he never really moved on to SSF2 and ST, but we got plenty of other players to come in and take his place. So what if some old school ST pros didn’t want to move on, we got guys like Snake Eyes, Voltech, etc. It wasn’t the grumbly ST heads that caused HDR’s numbers to go down, it was SF4 (the young new kids like “flashy” over fundamental).

Anyway, I think overall HDR is a step up. Yes it has some dumb stuff, but overall the new dumb stuff of HDR is much more tolerable than the dumb stuff from ST (I’ll take HDR Gief over ST Vega and ST Balrog 10 times out of 10). Most of the changes I think were 100% for the better. As for the “easier” inputs, for one they just made the input times for special moves consistent instead of random like in ST, it’s still the tightest input windows of any other new FG out there. Reversals are also still only 1 frame. As for the easier motions I don’t have a problem with them. Sirlin was right to make things easier for people to do on a controller and I’ll take slightly easier motions for a couple of moves over something like SF4’s lenient input windows every time.

As for the characters some I think are right on:

Sagat: Perfect, I think Sirlin nailed this one
Ken: Also perfect, agree with all the changes
Guile: Good changes without overpowering the character, OH and HK Flashkick are good improvements
DeeJay : Great, I think adding anymore would have been too much since he was already pretty solid.
Dhalsim : I like the motion changes (overlapping motions for specials is dumb) and reversal Super. Still feels solid without being over the top.
Bison : great changes lead to super solid character.

Some were close:

Balrog: I think he could still stand to be toned down some (but not too much), but overall not bad
Vega: Still is somewhat annoying, I think Claw Dive and Suplex should be different buttons so he can’t option select.
Gief : Maybe a little too good (KKK Lariat is pretty boss) but I still don’t see overpowered.
Blanka : He probably could have used a little more though I don’t know what.
Honda : Overall I like the changes, I play HDR Honda much more aggressively than ST Honda, he’s much more fun. It’s only very slightly easier to get in, though, and once you do your options aren’t as powerfull. I have no problem with him losing stored Ochio (I only ever used it for reversal throws usually anyway) as long as he keeps negative edge Ochio and gains his super being safe on block (makes it more of threat to all Fireballers if he can throw it out randomly).
**T.Hawk : **I think his changes are actually pretty good, yes ST Hawk is more powerfull if you put in the work but ST Hawk’s whole game is centered around his throw loop and option select, which makes him one-dimensional and kinda boring. I think Sirlin tried to make the character diverse to play and that was the right direction to go (though Hawk could have been giving more)
Fei : I think Fei is better, he just went from relying on CW in ST to Rekkas in HDR (the difference in range between ST Rekkas and HDR Rekkas is much more than I thought).
Cammy : Like Fei she just went from relying more on Drills than Spikes. More of threat than she was in ST.

1 I don’t like:
Chun : It was right to tone down the damage on her Super if they left in being able to walk forward charged, but I still don’t like her SBK changes, she needed something slightly better added.

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Gief is sort of like Honda: it is very easy to screw him up by allowing him to get in every round. I believe the changes may make him more fair against the big 4, but if you remove Ryu’s fake fireball, he will have nothing against Zangief. Both shotos have trouble against ST Gief, even though Ryu is mostly fair. Dee Jay is fair. If Gief is faster in every way (hop, SPD execution, green hand, green hand after knockdown), these matches will get lopsided. I honestly do not know how to balance him, since he does need help against Chun and Guile. Otochun said Gunze was unstoppable in HDR, so he is definitely not bottom tier.

I would remove Ryu’s fake fireball, cos I hate it. And it hurts other things, such as kara-cancel from short.

O.Chars are half the cast: removing them was a big turn off. Only O.Sagat is too strong, and he is easy to fix. I does not matter if some are still not very strong: the game will have more balanced characters, which means a better game. In the end, the amount of viable characters is what makes a good game, not the amount of bad ones. O.Ryu, O.Ken, O.Rog, O.Guile and O.Sim are fine, they just do not get played as often. Unblockables should be fixed, not cos they are too strong, but cos they are stupid.

Ken, N.Ken and HDR.Ken are all fine. Removing just N.Ken seems OK.

The rekkukyaku and Hooligan Combination motions are not hard: they are bugged. Just fix the damn motions. Tiger Knee has a too short input window, just increase it. Having TK as a SRK motion sucks, since you can not walk up low Tiger anymore. O.Claw’s wall dive should be fixed, and head stomp should have a wider input window.

Special windows should be fixed just by having the timer reset until you leave the first direction. No other change was needed, but shortening some windows and increasing others.

Gief should have a sort of short throw window, but no need to mash to get throw attempts. 5 frames seems good. That is just dumb and does nothing but help cheaters online.

Vega’s ground game IS strong. Very strong. But I believe not much is needed to fix him. Removing the stored flip kick helped. I think his cr.RH is too spammable and mostly safe against dodges (flip kick right after), so that could be nerfed a bit. Tiny bit. His wall dive has five very good things: 1) knocks down, 2) does high damage 3) is very fast, 4) has very good priority from the front and 5) is steerable. I believe at least one thing had to go, since he already has other options with such properties.

Dhalsim does need something: he shuts down several characters, and when they get close, they have to deal with his great throw range. Some moves should be made less spammable, so I believe simply increasing the recovery of a few attacks would do. He is also easy to screw up, so care is needed.

Boxer should get his damage nerfed, or his recoveries increased. His super should also be punch-only: every super can be baited and punished, his should be too.

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Not to get into an internet pissing match but this is what I’m referring to: http://streetfighterdojo.com/superturbo/feilong/feilongmatches.html. If there’s a better Fei, I haven’t seen him…though I wonder what ever happened to Jumpsuit Jesse.

I heard Noguchi went full-time Claw but that’s when he died to me. I’ll remember him for the sublime Fei Long…kinda like I remember Michael Jackson for Thriller and not child molestation.

Yes, I just likened playing Vega to fondling children.

At any rate, I don’t have time to go back and link to every one of his matches but I can assure you that he dropped that move fairly often. When I say often, I mean ~15-20% of the time which, for Japanese players, is a pretty high failure rate. Compare it to his execution of Rekkas and it’s inarguable that the

Anyway, I would gladly do without the Flying Kick to Flame kicks and take the faster startup and lack of recovery. But then people might complain that comboing the CW is too much. Whadayagonnado?

As far as being punished for hitting, how many special moves have that problem? Like two or three? Ken’s Tornado Kick (sometimes), Blanka’s Roll, and Fei’s Flying Kick, if I remember correctly.

That’s far from equitable. Balrog’s Rush Punches, for example, are almost totally devoid of risk or hit or block but a handful characters have to “get over” being screwed over WHEN THEY CONNECT? I’m no proponent of everything being safe on block but safe on hit isn’t unreasonable.

Risk/reward ratios define a game for me. Of course, some characters will have advantages but a slow-moving, slowly recovering move that’s punishable on block is hardly worthwhile. What if other characters had “get over these sorts of things?”

I’ll hyperbolize and suggest that Ryu’s tornado kick take one second to come out and leave him vulnerable for a second afterwards…and doesn’t knock down. It wouldn’t be worth doing would it?