Multiple crouch techs/throw escape attempts aren’t new either. This is common in older games as well. A lot of this stuff has been around, it’s just that SF4 has a lot of issues resulting in throws being terrible.
If “everything was known” as you say it was then how come “os delay crouchtech” became all the rage during console and blew up the way it did?
Anyways, me blowing up kryojenix stand tech at 0:15 circa 6 years ago pre console pre plinking pre delay CT OS “mash” at v94:
Otori nailed it. Meter management and meter economy is very character dependent. Even in just how they gain meter is different. A character like Guy mostly gains his meter from normals so the opponent is always gaining 50% as much as he is, while a character like Juri is using specials so she pulls ahead since the startup of specials doesn’t gain any meter for the opponent, plus she can gain meter at full screen easier. However I’d say as a general rule the majority of characters fell into the category of “3 bars is the most important amount to have” because most characters had an EX move they could use to get in (or as a reversal) and make safe with 3 bars and often could even convert into more damage. Plus many EX moves were simply more useful to have right now than building for a super, as long as you are building for a super you are choosing not to utilize EX moves.
One of the things I liked about SF3 was a lot of characters had multiple super stocks. One issue with utilizing a super in SF4 is there is that until you use that super you are effectively only building meter for the opponent and reducing the meter advantage with no gain on your part. In addition the moment you use that EX move you instantly gave up the threat of your super. The other thing I liked about how SF3 supers were handled was the variable cost factor, you chose to give up more ex moves but you got your super sooner. Not every characters super is created equally and neither are their EX moves.
The entire super arts system in 3S is beautiful. In every way it was such a master stroke to create different pacing and more diversity per character. I don’t even mean the specific supers, I just mean how that choice impacts your access to those supers and EX. They squeezed so much into that system. Length of bar and stock is so elegant imo. If any of you are professional or amateur/hobbyist game developers/designers, you must appreciate the 3S Super/EX system.
I like that in 5 they separated the v-trigger cancel ability from super meter. It’s going to make characters with short v-gauges, v-triggers that go off immediately and end (not a ‘mode’ or countdown) and v-skills with good utility totally different from characters with the opposite. Since those characters are potentially going to have v-trigger loaded multiple times a round and that means multiple chances to v-trigger cancel. Lots of flexibility there.
I wonder if we will get a character who can trade resources somehow, via a special of some kind of something.
So we can’t really take anything from SF4 on meter to SFV.
Well, with no Ultras and Supers being a larger part of the game, how should meter management work as a general rule? There’s basically 4 uses for meter; neutral (raw EX moves), making a string safe (cr.mk xx EX fireball), ending combos (doing EX Scissor Kicks for more damage + hard knockdown), and CA. While there is definitely a large amount of character specificness to the balance between them all, how should these four factors interact? If your raw EX moves are great should your CA be stronger or weaker to encourage it’s use. If you have way better EX combo enders than regular how does this affect how strong your CA is? If your CA is your only real reversal or has other great uses outside of combos this should make it do less damage or have other meter uses stronger I’d assume.
Usually the idea with EX is that for each special it changes it in some meaningful way.
So like EX shoryu is full invulnerability during startup where as normal is not.
Supers should likewise be the same. They should offer something EX cannot, like a range or speed that makes it possible to connect differently. That way if you have super loaded you can threaten in different ways. Damage shouldn’t be the focus imo.
If there’s a general rule on meter management, it should be to make every option strong enough that meter usage actually becomes a decision. SF4-Ryu is actually a good example of a character with interesting meter management-choices, because he gains something significant for each stock he’s saved up. In contrast you have certain characters where it’s painfully obvious what you’d want to spend meter on, so when to use it becomes a more important question than what to use it on (see 3S Yang).
I don’t quite agree, but that’s why I’m trying to break it down into several variables you can balance against each other. You can have a character who is really scary when he has full meter but has to struggle his way there a bit as a deliberate design choice. Every meter is a choice should be the default decision but you can adjust from there.
However the bigger question I’m trying to ask is that how much more damage/positioning should you get from spending an extra meter in a combo? From spending 2? From blowing your bar? Should you have increasing or diminishing returns to your investment?
I forgot everyone is lame and wears headphones now.
When you’re surrounded by a lot of shit going on like people and other games, both are very important and it differs from person to person which they are more keyed into. For me it’s sight, right now I can see the slide in of the counter-hit thing but I would really prefer different color hitsparks or something. Other people mentioned the same.
Also I don’t think the difference in sight/sound reaction is at all relevant to street fighter. You’re talking about a difference of like maybe a quarter of a frame…
Yes. It was one of the things that intrigued me about Omega mode was they did that, sadly not for my boy Cody.
The hardest part is balancing EX moves vs CAs IMO. Metergaining can be tweaked and fiddled with to get the right balance. Some cases you even want a character to more easily gain and spend meter than others as you touched on. It makes characters more unique. The hard part is making CAs good enough that they are worth 3 EX moves AND the time it takes to build it. Either via the options that the CA offers that EX moves don’t or simply massively out damaging them. That is what high damage CAs had going for them, if they didn’t make a super offer big utility like Yun’s Geneijin, Ryu’s SF4 super (an extremely fast move and massively + on block), than they should offer big damage. If 2 EX Moves as a juggle is offering you similar damage + adding stun that CAs don’t add, and is offering you similar or possibly better positioning while being just as easy to confirm into if not easier, than why would you spend that extra pip of meter? If a character builds meter easily and their EX Moves don’t provide enough utility or additional damage options than saving for super might be better, that is how it looks like it’s shaping up for Birdie as far as I can see. His EX Moves only really shine in V-trigger so it’s easy for him to decide to simply save up for the easy to confirm and big pay off of sMP - headbutt - super which works everywhere instead of just in the corner.
The big difference though is SF5 took out a HUGE variable in the equation which may be good. EX FADC was such a strong utility option that it almost always provided more than a super. It provided similar damage, hit confirms off of a raw special on occasion, ability to make things safe normally not safe, ability to use a move to get in on the opponent and start pressure if the attack was blocked, and was often the only way to combo into an ultra.
This is why I really hope that they return the damage on CAs to a respectable amount, I’d like to see them even higher than most SF4 supers which were usually only 300-350ish when done raw.
Right now I’m leaning towards the idea of, for an average character, that their EX moves should scale up alongside the usefulness of their CA. Basically as you said, every pip should be a decision.
I’d say that even Birdie has a useful way to spend meter in his EX charge move which gains armor. Bison has two great EX moves and his VT. Cammy’s got her EX divekick and DP, Ryu has EX Fireballs and DP, Chun has her EX SBK as a reversal, and Nash only has juggles into VT.
So you have two characters that basically just have meter for either a bit of extra damage on the end of their combos (Chun, Birdie), two characters who can use the meter as they get it or store it fairly well (Cammy, Ryu), and one character who loves both his EX moves and his CA (Bison). Nash is the only character who really doesn’t have a great use for meter; he can spend a bar in VT combos but there’s not much point otherwise. This is of course, only the beta characters.
I do find it funny in that day 1 of the beta I was wondering what the point of Bison EX moves was and now have come to see the glory of EX SK and EX Blast.
Looking at the pre Rashid build, it seemed pretty clear to me that supers and damage in general was reduced. I think that stun has also been brought down too but i’m not certain about that one. The damage and stun in the beta were both pretty high but a good and fun way, so naturally i’m pretty disappointed about these changes.
One thing I really didn’t like about the beta was how safe some of the supers were, regardless of if they were blocked or not (this has allegedly changed in the latest build). With meter so high, I was seeing a lot of just straight up random supers at the end of rounds (even from mid to mid/high level players).
Perhaps instead of reducing damage, why not reduce meter build and actually buff the damage on ex moves? Lets make the ex bar actually mean something. That way, ending a combo with an ex move could give you damage and stun comparable to the beta, whilst at the same time it would make the fact you’ve built up enough bar to execute a super actually mean something.
Having said all that, with Capcom catering to new players quite heavily on this game, I very much doubt they will reduce meter gain.
So you want to make EX moves do more damage than they currently do, while making supers significantly harder to get by reducing meter gain. Do you see how this would make supers, even if returned to the beta level damage, less common? The more effective the EX moves are and the harder it is to get a super the more that you’ll have EX moves overshadow super. Look at how Yun’s replaced Genei Jin with LP Shoulder - EX Red Focus since it provided similar effectiveness at lower cost and added stun on top of it all.
SF4 Yun probably isn’t the best example though because of ultras. Would people really use Lp Shoulder, Red Focus, Hp Shouder, Hp Lunge Punch over Genei Jin if there was no ultras in the game? It doesn’t matter though because I know what you are getting at and I totally agree now that I’ve thought about it.
Perhaps maybe it would be better to put greater emphasis on EX moves unique properties rather than give them high damage? For example in Street Fighter 4, EX tatsu sends your opponent right into the corner from nearly half screen. I’m not sure if that type of thing is as prevalent in SF5. Even if it is, quick get up makes it a lot less obvious. Apparently some of Bison’s EX moves cause hard knockdown, so maybe it’s already in there and I just didn’t play the game enough to fully notice it.
Capcom wouldn’t make meter gain too low because supers are a big seller for new players, so even though it was something I brought up in discussion, I’m aware that high meter build is likely to stay.
EX and super seems fine, they would have to go insane and throw out many years of history to mess it up. The only reason 4 had any kind of weirdness was (imo) ex fadc and how it changed the value since many supers didn’t offer the value ex fadc does. making v-gauge it’s own thing and having v-trigger as a sort of ex fadc solves all of that.
in 3S EX only usually do a bit more damage, not a huge amount. The difference is often startup and the specific properties.
Shakunetsu is safe on block, hits twice, fast.
Tatsu hovers in place hits multiple times and is off the ground quickly (so can be used to deal with throws).
Shoryu has full invulnerability and quick startup.
Joudan wall bounces.
That’s what EX should be and usually are. You sacrifice the longterm benefit of building to super in favor of the short term utility.
Supers offer special ways to add damage or take advantage of things which even EX specials cannot. However… because you need to always trade super for EX…
It makes things limited. I kind of wish that 5 had the SFIV style 4 EX stock super gauge, but that the trigger for super could vary from 2-4 EX. So everyone could hold 4 EX just the same, but the threshold for super was different from character to character. In 3S supers vary dramatically in damage and what they do. I wish 5 could follow that trend but I think that’s more what the V system is handling. At least V system stuff is varied and there is some interesting stuff going on there.
