I’m not at all saying casuals should be able to compete with pro players. There’d be no point in having a competitive scene if that was the case. What I’m saying is, SF4, in its current iteration at least, requires a massive investment of time to get to a high level of play. And it’s not even time spent on fundamentals. It’s time spent on bullshit stuff like learning matchups for obscure characters and getting 1 frame links down.
In other words, I think you would get more people involved in the scene if you took out some of those aspects. There are lots of people out there who could be good SF4 players, but don’t get involved because of these ‘barriers to entry’ if you see what I mean. Essentially it comes down to making the test of skill in this game be about individual intelligence and ability to play footsies/read opponents, as opposed to knowing all the options of 40+ characters and being able to plink consistently.
And I get what people are saying about variety. It’s good in a way that there are so many playstyles to choose from but at the same time there’s a lot of fat that could be trimmed from the roster. I would rather have 25 characters that are as well designed (both in terms of playstyle and art style) as Yun, Rufus, Sagat, Cammy, Hugo, etc than pointless rush-job/palette swap characters like E. Ryu, Decapre, Gouken, Elena, etc.
I’ve heard this a billion times on this forum yet have yet to ever meet someone in real life that could do Ken’s 3S target combo into EX fireball yet couldn’t do Ryu’s SF4 jab jab, strong into fireball. And I have met a lot of people on both sides of the execution barrier. Shit, SF4 Ken even has the same combo and nobody cares, they either think it’s no problem as they usually do, or they think it’s an impossible obstacle as they usually do. It didn’t make anything easier. It’s not until you get to one frame links that any of that matters and if you got to the point in the game where you need to learn that then you aren’t casual.
absolutely, just like being good AT EVERYTHING ELSE IN LIFE requires plenty work. You think basketball players don’t do oblique excercises in order to get to the point where they can easily score buckets? What about artists who sketch constantly in order to refine their craft? You want to take the dexterity out of a video game and make it more like real-time theory fighter. “I see you jump, so I dp fadc ultra ftw” instead of reacting and requiring a mix of twitch reaction and calmness under a high pressure situation.
good players who can’t get past the execution barrier obviously aren’t that good. Knowing and doing are two different things, and just because you know the inputs for combos or know what punishes a move, it doesn’t make you good. That’s like all those armchair quarterbacks/point guards/EVO champs saying they could do exactly what those players are accomplisging. Talk and action are two different things, and when someone says that they could be good if only there wasn’t something as arbitrary as execution, then they show how little they truly understand about the game as a whole.
You talk about how the game should be about intelligence and knowing this or knowing that, but don’t care to learn the matchups or about the individual tools each character has and can use against the cast. So what kind of intelligence should people have? Intelligence in spacing? Zoning? Footsies? Because all of those are character dependent…but you don’t want to research that because it’s too much and too difficult. That makes no sense.
have you even PLAYED those characters you just called useless?
This type of complaint happens so many times, and I’m honestly so tired of players being butthurt because they aren’t as good as they think they are in their minds. I would be a great basketball player if height and athleticism were taken out of the equation. I would be a great skateboarder if I didn’t have to actually do the tricks instead of just saying how to do them. I would be a great artist if I could just describe what I want to paint instead of actually having to paint it.
I’m well aware it takes practice to be good at things, but putting 40+ characters and 1 frame links in a fighting game is the equivalent of giving basketball players beachballs to play with and then telling them to score some points.
Actually, learning matchups is like…learning matchups…against hundreds of different types of players and more than 30 team defenses. And one frame links would be more akin to learning how to shoot a 3-point shot since no one NEEDS to shoot them unless it’s for a clutch moment and that it’s a little tougher to make than a regular basket, but with practice, it’s not impossible.
And will you please get off the crying about 1-frame links? They are a product of animations actually requiring frames for startup, activity and recovery, and not something those mean programmers did to make sure Daigo gets top 8 and you don’t (your mentality did that).
You’re upset that you actually need to do research and posses timing, dexterity and execution to be good at something…it looks like someone needs to come to grips with the fact they are a casual, and not a genius unfairly shackled by unfair game mechanics.
I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff from. Where did I ever suggest I’m a ‘genius’ at this game? My goal playing this game isn’t to beat Daigo or get top 8 at Evo. It’s to have fun, and the only point I’m making is there are things they could do to make this game more fun, without taking the skill element out of it.
More fun to who? You? More fun how? By making it easier?
No one’s stopping you from having fun, and no one is making you use 1-frame links or learn matchups to play against your casual friends. You’re complaining about things like matchups and tight links because they are “too difficult” and thus not fun. You want to lower the bar so you can win…and have fun. I get it.
You have to learn 1 frame links if you want to play Rufus or Akuma or a dozen other characters on the roster, and you’re going to get bodied constantly online (and in tourney for that matter) unless you learn your matchups. So, yes, they are effectively forced on you, once you get past a certain level.
Yes, SF is pretty rough on beginners. Yes, there probably should be some in-game tutorials or libraries where you can figure out what you’re supposed to be doing.
Yes, there should probably be more characters like Cody with very effective bajillion-frame link BnBs (with the option to advance to 2-framers and 1-framers in time, of course).
But they were already strapped for cash by this point. We’ll probably have to wait until SFV for all that.
If they think about it.
Probably not. (Why fix what ain’t broke?)
Anyhoo. If you haven’t already noticed, SF is a game where you put on the shades and deal with it. Not everybody gets to climb Mount Everest.
I’m not so sure that’s good game design (there should at least be some sort of bridge between casual and pro that doesn’t even need to be about changing game mechanics, but rather providing information) but I can’t exactly criticize 2K entrants at EVO.
I will say this - the evolution of SF4 is a testament to the fact that Capcom really has no idea what they want to do. Or all they really want to do is make $$$. Either way the design philosophy is inconsistent.
I’m tired of repeating myself but you always the option of not picking characters who have 1f links in their bnb, and that’s more than half of the cast. I’m not sure why you think that 1f links are an absolute necessity, a lot of times they are used to maximize damage, that is until you’re at a level where stuff like that matters.
Better work on your fundamentals before worrying about 1f links. Most of the time I get beat by players who have great fundamentals not training mode monsters, those players a lot scarier.
While we’re at it. Guize LoL isn’t friendly for beginners either. Man you see dem champs with skill shots? I have to aim that ffs dats not easy for da casualz. eSports just as bad as fgc
FPS stupid, I have to aim my Sniper in like EVERY GAME WHERE OTHER PEOPLE USE FULLY AUTOMATIC GUNS WTF
RTS STUPID, I CAN’T CONTROL MORE THAN 1 UNIT
This is not a Capcom issue, this is a problem from video game companies worldwide. I’d like to address ALL companies, PLEASE THINK of the casuals. I repeat, PLEASE THINK of the casuals.
I can sort of empathize with OP. there is sort of a wall that new players will run into trying to do combos with tight timing. for a good number of combos that others have figured out on yt and from the trial mode, I know how it can seem arbitrary and dumb to only have a split second window to link stuff together.
On the other hand, people dive in to learning those timings bc they really like the character/the game, and in this way putting in the time sets you apart from other people and is rewarding if you’re going to be spending a lot of time on the game. 1 or 2 years of playing every day is plenty of satisfaction from spending time in the lab. you’ll never lose your approach to basic combos and footsie’s though.
look on the bright side with the 40+ character thing. If they wrecked one character then there should be another character somewhere else that you like. you’re only gonna see 5 characters online once you get out of scrubville. at some point, if you want to keep casual hours on the game, you’ll have to stay in scrubville, realizing the ceiling is actually pretty low, or just stay in offline modes. i’m not being a jerk i’m just telling you how I play the game. if capcom did a horrible job then we all wouldn’t be sitting here at chatting about it on srk.
I agree but only regarding the Windows version
the trouble you need to get to run the game smoothly, is for experienced players who like to tinker with game settings.
hence a lot of complaints about dropped input
casual players would be better off with the console versions.
there’s always p-linking when it comes to 1f links. it’s not that hard. you press two buttons almost at the same time. takes like 5-10 minutes to get down. only Ibuki really needs jab 1f links AFAIK. it is a pain in the ass though that you can’t just play the game like SF2. there’s a lot of homework to the SF4 series. endless option-selects, match-ups galore, plinking techniques, etc…
the only really easy parts of the game are the slow shitty speed so you can react to a lot and easier inputs for specials.
USF4 is more accessible to returning bad players. It was never meant to be accessible to new players. New players who do take the long amount of time to do input have a higher chance of getting the next game of the series compared to if the input was easy.
yeah this is really not true at all. there are less than 10 good players on GGPO, about the same on XBL, and one good player on PSN. and those good players on XBL generally play each other in private lobbies, you won’t find them messing with ranked or public lobbies that often. everyone else playing 3s online is really bad. I started 3s right when OE came out, and was able to beat 95% of XBL players within three months of playing the game semi-regularly. the vast majority of online 3s players are casual FG players who like 3s, play it online once in a while, and aren’t looking to improve. the people you’re talking about, really good players who’ve been playing for years and will completely shit on you, are either
playing at arcades in Japan
spread across a few small pockets of offline groups across the world.
it’s unlikely you ever ran into anyone good online. more likely is that you hopped online for some 3s, got randomed out by other guys who also didn’t know what they were doing, but had that idea in your head of “this game is so old and everyone playing it will be so good” and perceived it through that lens even though it’s not really true.
on topic: SF4’s accessibility is weird. at low levels, it’s quite accessible. you can tell the game was designed with shitty players in mind. in your first few months you will get more mileage out of mashing uppercut, mashing jab, bad jump ins, and crutching on random sweep than you will in any other game. but once you get past that point I think the difficulty curve ramps up a lot. it may be the least accessible of all the SF games that saw long term competitive play.