SF4 had too many characters so I will give Capcom a pass but there really ought to be 3 completely different CArts IMO. I know we won’t get this on launch but it ought to happen with each expansion. SF4’s Double Ultras was a cop out so I would prefer none of that.
Why 3? Because 2 is poverty and 4 is wasteful. Also Jesus. Praise!
Only thing i know is that this
will look glorious on SFV, current Ryu concept is about steal years of life expectancy with every punch landed 
Two are more for sure. That’s what killed SFxT for me…doing the same ultras over and over again got stale fast.
The difference is Critical Arts didn’t replace Ultras, but Supers. It depletes the Ex meter completely and you can cancel into them from normals. Thus each will serve in combos as well as stand alone unique attacks.
We won’t see CAs that frequently, I expect, as we will want to do ex moves.
And if you also think about how the new system changes, V-triggers and V-skills give already incredible variety and sense of uniqueness to each char, I think one CA per char will really be enough.
Don’t you mean V-riety?
I would prefer 1 useful CA over 3 useless ones.
What about 3 useful ones but only against different characters? This is the way I hope it would be. Gives characters new tools against certain match ups that are useless in other match ups. Or only useful with a certain playstyle in mind.
I’d prefer the latter. I don’t want to see more tools that destroy fundamentals. I mean like giving characters full-screen projectile punishes. Or dive kicks that nullify footsies. I don’t mind stuff like in alpha where Ryu could do Shinkuu Tatsu/Hadouken because they usually just ended up being combo tools. But if there’s not much to distinguish between them other than looks then I don’t really care. And generally, even in cases like this they are hard to balance because 1 generally ends up giving favourable positioning or whatever.
Well 1 will always end up being more used than the others but that’s also affected by the meta game and how well the CArt fits into it.
I just wanna see Psycho Punisher return, but make it so that when v trigger is active, Bison just teleports behind you immediately. :trollface:
Not necessarilly. Depends on what you get out of CAs. For example Super Arts and saving meter for them was very important in 3rd Strike where one wrong move meant you got hitconfirmed/option selected into Super Art for half your life.
And how would you create just 3 critical arts around a 16 character roster? What, one art for 6 chars?
A super move should be universally useful for landing maximum possible damage when given opportunity
It’s the other character traits like normals and specials that should be their tools for finding ways around in certain matchups, that’s how you make the chars balanced against each othet
If you think of this in terms of games that had multiple supers, such as the Alpha games and CvS2, EX moves in later SF games actually do as much damage as the level 1 supers did from those games. So EX’s for the most part have taken the role that some supers have in older games. This is why you see some old supers, such as shinkuu-tatsumaki and shin shoryuken turned into EXs.
I’m all for variety, but I’d rather have all CA’s ready for use than choose one before each match. One CA always ends up being used more than the other(s) in the latter case (although USFIV might prove me wrong).
Lots of ultras actually never get to be used as they are mostly impractical or can’t be combo’d into. One of the best examples is Fei Long’s Ultra 2 - NOBODY uses it for that exact reason - it’s impractical, you have to be certain that there’s an attack incoming and if you guessed wrong - you waste your ultra and get rekt. It’s also very situational. Ultra 1, on the other hand, can be used as a punish, and can be comboed into from juggle state either via the Flame Kick or Chicken Wing
So yeah…
Well SF3 had 3 selectable Super Arts since the first one (New Generation), and the utility of each super is always debatable. I’d prefer people having to choose a “critical art” over having a variety always available. And I think I’ve read that V-skill costs meter, so that’ll be the big decision maker whether or not to v-skill or save for super.
No it does not.
3s had multiple supers, several of which you would change depending on the matchup. Characters with more than one viable super off the top of my head:
Ryu
Hugo
Oro
Necro
Makoto
Remy
Q
Yang
Dudley
Elena
That’s more than half the cast, and usually the decision was based on playstyle or on matchup. Fighting vs Seichu Mak is a different experience from fighting vs Tosa Mak for example.
If you set it up as they have to pick a critical art before the match, it works. The important thing in that case is they should function differently and make the character play differently as a result. It’s not nearly as cool if they’re both just extra damage you can take onto a combo or whatever.
I’d like to see 2 or 3 for each character, preferably all access, but I can work with the choosing per matchup setup. I just don’t want there to only be one per character like how Vanilla SF4 started.