Improvements or changes you would like to see in SFV

SFIV is a terrible example of a beginner-friendly fighting game anyways.
Even combo heavy games like Skullgirls are easier to learn in terms of damaging bread and butter combos than SF.
Beginner-friendly characters like Ryu got an insane execution barrier.

The game is kinda schizophrenic anyways in that regard.
They put in shortcuts for special moves and ultras to aid beginners, then pollute the game with hard as fuck bnb combos and unintuitive combo extensions which you need to learn to make ultras actually useful and all that “aid” for beginners also leads to an OS heavy system no newbie ever understands.

They should rather aid beginners by teaching them the game ingame via a proper tutorial system. That’s 10 times more constructive than designing weird gameplay mechanics that do not mesh well with one another.
Honestly if 3S had a fireball game, I’d rather play that since the game is straight forward and not as confusing as SFIV.
I hope they go back to basics with SFV and have option selects be an exception rather than a normality, make combos easy and damaging, reversals hard and anti airing a rewarding skill to have and fireballs should be fast and hurt.

A good tutorial system goes a long way and I hope that’s something Capcom put some emphasis on.

Notice I stated 2 to 3 combos, not 1 to 2.

I’m still iffy on two.

I would say 3 to 5 depending on archtype.

I think 3-4 would be good.

SF4 is also a pain in the ass to get in to because even at low intermediate levels you absolutely need to learn; at least a couple of OS’s, safe jumps and plinking. All of which are scaring away new players who wants to graduate from beginners to semi-competent players.

4-5 combos to kill is flat out shitty.

At that point, either the scaling is fucked up, or single pokes are just about meaningless.

When I said archtype I was referring to not only style of play but if v-trigger is activated. Which my assumption would be that if a character without v trigger takes 4 combos to win. With v trigger activated it would only take him 3 and so on. Which will introduce characters that could win with 2 to 3 combos. Throw in the mix that you cant win by a cheap hit. I would love this!

We just don’t have enough information at the time to just settle with what you think would work.

So when you8 guys say, “X amount of combos to kill” is that taking into account the other damage you would have to do with stray hits to earn the resources to do that? If so, then fine.

Or just the combos all by themselves doing enough damage to kill?

To me, 2 combos to kill (with no other damage whatsoever) is MAHVEL BABY!

I’d rather not have that in SF.

When I say 2-3, I’m usually referring to optimized combos, possibly with meter (with meter, Chun was a 3 combo killer in 3S, and many characters could kill in 2 combos in ST).

What most of us really want however, is just a game with good damage, unlike what we have in USFIV where everything feels shitty and underpowered. We want a game where fundamentals matter because of the risk involved, where a bad jump in hurts because DPs/AAs always hit clean and take a helluva lot of life. We want a game with fast, explosive pace that doesn’t get bogged down by people trying to do so many things just to deal a small chunk of damage.

That wasn’t caused by overly complex game mechanics. People were drawn to that just as much in the 00s but found it in different games like RTSs. I hope that people get into SF5 just because it is another SF, and it does have things both good and bad players can enjoy. I want the newcomers to have those moments where they do something perceived godlike and they don’t even know how they did it, or they go on to research how to replicate it. We gotta get out of the mindset where bad players will always be bad players, or newcomers need instant gratification. That’s what’s so classic about SF is you don’t have to be good to do something that works and does damage, but you do have to know how to play. And to avoid going back into the dark ages, it would help if the FGC was more the FGC and not a bunch of online warriors always looking for an excuse.

I’m betting there will be juggles of some sort. Maybe not everybody can do it like in SFxT, and maybe some characters can only get juggle opportunities on occasion, like as an anti air.

Yeah if backdashes didn’t work like that in 4, Grapplers would have way too strong of vortexes and damage output. And I do look at the entire picture. If everybody played Omega mode, OSs would rarely be a factor!

I watched a match of BlueEmblem vs some Dudley, third round, the Dudley got knocked down once, then he EX Yolo’d, got knocked down again. Then he panic backdashed and got hit out of that, then he got hit with an overhead for the dizzy. It’s like the way backdash works has its place in standard SF4, but it’s made people lose their defensive composure which is critical to really excelling at the game. Backdash is just another option to consider even if you can’t do a perfect “parry” backdash, and when you have one more option to consider, you don’t even really focus on what the other player is doing.

I hope focus attack is gone. It’s such a complicated mess that to my exists to undermine footsies. I understand that comeback mechanics will always exist now, but if there are dozens of sub rules that go along with it, you’re just alienating beginners AND veterans. Way too much damage to the game just avoid admitting that you’re trying to copy roman canceling.

I also hope the meter system is cleaned up. It seems clear to me that the supers were designed first and then the pressure for a comeback mechanic and more cinematic moves started later. Once again, I’m not just whining about comeback mechanics, but the fact that its such a mess. One meter for supers that you can cancel into but should just ignore because its not worth the meter, another meter for one of two ultras that you can use when the meter is halfway full but it only fills up when you get hit and you can’t cancel into it.

Anyone who can understand that doesn’t need a comeback mechanic. Honestly design is what made Capcom great in th 90s so I hope they are thinking about this stuff.

I hope that they make good on their promise that SFV chars will be unique. What I’d love is the concept of character specific unique mechanics like Guilty Gear and other anime games have but set in a Street Fighter style pacing of gameplay. In addition these unique mechanics should be strong aspects of the character not after thoughts to their design. These should be things that change how you fight as or against the character and should always be a factor in the match up.

I’d like to see more mechanics like Hakan’s Oil up stuff or Gen’s two stances or Cody’s knife and old dodge mechanic. Things that really bring the characters identity into their move set.

i posted this in the wishlist thread, i guess it applies here too
remove invincible backdashes, ultras, and make universal mechanics actually universal across the whole cast
as a not so edit edit, remove that garbage mechanic known as FADC, Ctrl+Z shouldnt be a thing in a fighting game, at least omega got it SEMI right with not being able to fadc on block unless its an ex dp

I strongly wish for a better ranking system… seriously. I know, most people dont actually care about ranking system or online play in general that is… but I like the grinding actually.

The thing is though…
Today I made the mistake to keep track of my points (instead of ‘just playing’)
14 matches, 10 wins, 4 loses, solid ratio of ~71% wins. Cant be bad right…?

The winnings rewarded me with 75 PP while the losing cost me 206 PP.

Getting rewarded with -131 PP with a 71% winratio just seems way off.
I dont really know a system that could work right, but this one just feels wrong…

Besides that:

  • no focus attacks, it discourages footsie play if you can get crumbled by throwing out a long range poke (that isnt cancelable)

  • no kara throws, I know I’ll get shitstormed for that one, but as I see it, it’s just another complexity layer that benefits veterans/ execution players over newbies and grants them an increased throw range that newbies dont have access to. Either increase the throw range in general or cut kara throws. I also have a problem with karacanceling ex moves into other stuff that somehow dont spend the ex bar but have the benefits of it (e.g. boxers/hugos ex armor cancels into whatever)

  • add universal overheads, I thing it’s really funny (actually: sad) that, in SF4 Dhalsim got an overhead but characters that actually can (/would) go offensive like dictator dont have that option.

  • quick get-up from everything (except the super/ultra/whatever-it-will-be-ultimate-move), as well as get-up “hops” or short rolls. So you either wakeup in place or little to the left/right from the knockdown place. That way, player could actually avoid having to block wakeup fireballs by “going in” and thus leaving the fireball behind them while advancing. So you either choose to block the fireball and remain farther away or you avoid the fireball but are closer to your enemy, the potential threat.

  • this one may sound weird: add stationary invincible move, something like a sidestep and reduce general invincibility of moves in the game. Part of why Dhalsim, for example, is so awfully bad in this game is because every character ‘seems’ to have at least one invincible move that gets them closer (e.g. shoulder moves/ tatsus/ armors go through fireballs ‘for free’, other stuff like ex greenhand is entirely immune to hit and projectiles), a “sidestep move” would allow avoiding fireballs or longrange pokes while not at the same time give the advantage of moving you forward, isnt it rewarding enough that you dont have to block and can actually walk yourself in? Do you really need to avoid that one fireball and leave 3/4 of the screen behind you just in one move?

  • normal move buffers, basically you allow normal moves that link to be 2-3 frames “off” inputwise. You still have to get down your combos, but isnt as unforgiving as droping 1 framecombos (which usually leave you with either an unsafe move or eating a mashed invicible move… see the above point I made about inv. moves). It’s just generally way more beginner friendly and that is what lets the community grow. It’s only fun when you actually succeed in what you try. When you see Abel combos with stepkick->hardpunch most people cant get it down even in like 10 tries, that is sad, especially since it is so eccential for his gameplay)

  • simplifing inputs carefully, what I meant with simplifing directly relates to the above Abel ‘problem’. Sure, after a while you can pull that off. But you dont want your customers to feel discouraged when trying out a new character. Viper is a great example for that. Two of my friends and I myself were really excited about Viper, we really wanted to play her, since she looked really cool, canceling stuff and superjumping all over the place with crazy mixups and stuff, but the execution barrier kept us in check and basically told us to “f*** off, this is restricted area, only executionerds allowed”. I know, I’m overexagerating, but the point still stands. People are scared away from Viper because she’s difficult to learn, especially if you have to learn the game itself too.

  • reduce special move leniency and move priority, it’s frustrating when you play a shoto and walk forward and do an hadoken motion just to see your character fly in the air uppercuting

  • and last, increase damage, especially from anti airs. I dont want to see ANYONE jump in one me 4 times in a row just in hope that I will screw up my anti air once and than comboing me for more than what I did to him in these 3 (succesful) anti airs in damage… and yes, it happend to me, I eat a counterhit on my 4th anti air attempt took 470 damage, while blocking him off with 300 damage total in anti air “punishes”. He basically screwed up 3 times, I screw up once and I’m the one suffering… I dont get it. Also, anti air moved are specifically designed to either to less damage on later frames or do less damage the more upwards they go… the hell?

I’d like for stages to be smaller and overall screen size to be smaller (less zoom out ability). Would speed up the pace and force the game designers to make turtle characters be more dynamic.

Of the changes commented here, I disagree with the complete removal of hard knockdowns as they spice up the game: if someone lands a powerful blow he deserves to get a nice setup from it: it is much better to give a move 150 damage and the potential for more damage on the incoming mixup that give it 250 damage with no possible followup.

The way I see it, real problem in SF4 is that hard knockdowns are universal on all characters for throws and sweeps, leading to similar ways to set opponents for all of them, and the ability to use HK moves as combo enders, leading to the unpopular vortexes (also, unblockables… let’s expect them to disappear completely in SF5). Giving unique hard knockdowns for each character that can’t be comboed into is enough to keep them good and enjoyable for everyone.

The problem is that hard knockdowns gave stupidly long amount of time for setups. You should not be able to taunt and still have time for a safe jump. You shouldn’t have enough time after a hard knockdown to jump and land TWICE before the opponent gets up.

Is that an argument against HKs as a whole or merely against HKs ala SF4? Agree that they were too long there, but quickrises out of everything like Omega mode is a terrible remedy, way worse than the disease. To state my preference:

Shorter, more sporadic HKs (enough time for a single jump) > SF4 HKs > No HKs at all.

50 frames of HK time. You could alter that a bit for certain things like supers and maybe command grabs. But 50 frames from the moment you’re on the floor to back on your feet.