played last blade 2, garou, eternal fighter zero ever since 2003,and still gunning them. As other said, As long a game is well designed. Pactehes or updates are not unnecessary.
Patches and updates are a double edged sword. They can be beneficial if used wisely, but often they are not.
This is because for successfully updating a game you generally need extensive knowledge on how it plays at high level, why thing work the way they do, and a proper balance philosophy. You can’t do that in six months or a year (unless there are really obvious gamebreaking glitches/dumb stuff), and the game will end up being worse if the balancers aren’t very experienced or have wrong approaches to balancing (ie. nerfing everyone who feels even slightly powerful a la SFIV).
On the other hand, they might work well if a good game (such as KOF XIII) has some gamebreaking bugs that end up greatly reducing its quality. In the past, games like Ninja Master’s would have greatly benefited from the ability to quickly patch them. With some bug fixes that game could have been an all time masterpiece, but instead it ended up being a broken mess. Same goes for Last Blade 2.
Sloppy work on updating a fine old game can work against it. Best example would be Super Turbo. The game has some silly stuff in it, but overall it’s one of the most balanced fighters ever since everyone has powerful tools, even the low tiers, and the game is pretty unforgiving so any slip can get you instantly dead or in a very disadvantageous situation. It would still definitely benefit from a well done rebalance, carefully crafted by knowledgeable top players and tested by the community. Instead of that, we got HDR. Which solved some of the issues (though often in a lazy, harmful way), but added countless others, rendering low tier characters like Hawk completely useless, “fixing” moves based on wrong matchup knowledge, giving buffs but compensating by taking away other tools that end up making the buffs irrelevant, etc… and worst of all, it ended up dividing the ST community for a good time.
tl;dr: with proper knowledge, time and balance philosophy (only tone down extremely dumb skill less stuff from the tops, give them new tools if fixing that leaves them too weak, buff the low tiers; in general focus on making characters stronger rather than weaker) , updates can be very helpful. But they also can hurt the game balance and even its community if done carelessly.
Oh, even SFIV benefited from some patches. Namely, the early ones that removed Fei Long’s infinite on Seth and Juri. Fixing the unblockable ultras was probably a good idea for a game like SFIV too.
Fixing obviously dumb shit is one thing.
Fixing shit just for the hell of fixing it is another.
A lot of people were able to take advantage of unblockable ultras in SF4.
Not many can do Urien’s or Oro’s correctly, and there IS actually a way out of them.
That said, I agree with your post.
Personally, I think that the SF4 model is a pretty decent way to handle patches - have them come in only after long periods of time (1-2 years). It’s the content of those patches that I don’t like.
It’s sad that with all of these patches and revisions to SF4 that it’s largely the same game. I’d love to see a complete 180’ change to SF4 and it’s mechanics much the same way 3S was handled but less like Alpha 3 was handled…
Well I would say SF3’s mechanic change was more of making them less broken/powerful.
3S added 2 button throws, added universal overheads, changed air parry command, etc. Just the first alone changes alot since it adds kara-throws.
2I had UOH as well, not sure about NG.
3S also added 4 new characters. Completely different soundtrack. Completely different stages. Completely different voices for all characters. Added Red Parries. And radically changed the current set of characters. It’s a different game.
While 3S-like changes would be pretty much impossible given that it’s Capcom, I’d be up for some BIG changes to the mechanics of the overall game. But I doubt it will ever happen and best bet is SF5 is more of a step forward.
smaller reversal window
no auto guard
replace the priority engine that leads to so many OSs
more pushback on block
faster walk speed
faster throws
bam I just made SF4 more fun. this is the 2I to 3S style patch that SF4 deserves.
Significantly nerf ultras and make them faster and less like a cutscene and you’re done.
But no autoguard was done because of red parries, therefore to fix SFIV that way, the game would need parries… and I am fine with that.
Make 3S with the SF4 roster.
That’s how you make SF4 better.
No, that’s how you make 3S worse.
Hmm… Suppose you’re right…
Well fuck it, just add Juri to everything. The rest of the SF4 cast can kick a can.
Most of the OG cast might suffer, the new challengers might stand a chance if tuned right.
Edit: Here’s a serious suggestion for SSFIV 2014. Increase the damage of supers. Right now, they’re pretty pointless as everyone uses meter for EX instead.
An in the middle game would of course make sf4 better and 3s worse. Because 3s is a much better game than sf4!
Sakura in 3s would be cool though. Replace twelve with her.
Or…just convince everyone to drop SF4 and go back to 3S.
Nah, dont’ replace anyone. Leave 3S alone and just add some characters to it. Juri could be some kind of Elena / Remy hybrid or a zoning character with her butterflies. Hawk would be hella fucking broken though… Condor dive… parry that shit, eat a cyclone? No thanks.