Long post. Pretty much finished now.
Stuff I didn’t do:
• All light normals to +4. This increased the damage of Gouken’s light combos a lot more than I was comfortable with and also provided a hit-confirm from c.LK which I don’t think Gouken is “supposed” to have. ~250 damage meterless BnBs are a little too much for the big guy. Rufus has that but he also doesn’t get big punishes without Ultra.
• +6 frame advantage on far MP. Gave him c.HP from some characters, especially in the corner. Also felt a little inbalanced in footsies, unfortunately. Far MP is a pretty good button as it is right now and the blockstun and range meant you could just fish for far MP->Sweep at a certain range whenever you wanted. I tested these changes with a few people in online training on Steam and they complained about it endlessly, frankly I agreed with them. There’s not a lot most characters can do at that range with only a 5 frame gap.
• c.HP for stand; I found other ways to address the problems we were having with c.HP, so this is not needed.
• Reduced recovery on air parry: i finally tracked down the value needed to fix this one (I think) only to find that the recovery is already pretty low, it’s 8 frames. I messed around with it as is, and the new crouching jab and close MK (3 frame combo normals) make utilizing this a lot easier than it was before, so for now I’m going to leave it.
• Tatsu recovery, command grab recovery: I wanted to fix this but I couldn’t do it without breaking them with my current set of tools. The lower recovery on air tatsus allows you to use those safely now in the corner as a combo ender, though!
It seems like I ommitted a lot of stuff, but please try the mod if you can before you jump to conclusions. There are a ton of great improvements here, more than I wanted to put in to begin with (will be uploading a new version of it today, or tomorrow). I’m still taking feedback though.
Final? Detailed Change List:
• Close Standing Medium Kick:
o Now activates at a farther range (Close MK and Far MK Position Restriciton Distance from 1.2 to 1.4
o Damage reduced to 60 from 70
o Stun reduced to 90 from 100
CONTEXT: Allows Gouken to extend his light punch combos into this move so that he can have a plinkable BNB and gives him a few new (suboptimal) combos. If the opponent is standing, he can use Medium or Heavy Tatsu to end it; if they are crouching, he must end in Light or Medium Palm. This change is probably the only damage increase I gave him, but the reduced damage and stun keeps things within a reasonable range.
**• Crouching Light Punch: **
o Frame advantage on hit has been increased from +3 to +4
CONTEXT: Crouching Light Punch combos have been made 1 frame easier with this change. Currently, Gouken’s light punch link straddle an uncomfortable line between chaining them together and missing the link and flying up into the air on block; this is here to alleviate this problem somewhat.
• Crouching Medium Punch:
o Start-up increased to 6 frames from 5
o Recovery increased by 2 frames
o Frame advantage has been increased to +5 from +3
o Pushback has been reduced to .4 from .5
o Advantage on block is now 0 from -2
CONTEXT: Crouching MP combo repurposed for use as a poke. Cancels into fireball are still not a blockstring or even close to it, but opponents can no longer jump between the medium punch and Hadoken. Start-up and extra recovery balance its new purpose; it is easier to whiff punish and counter-hit.
• Crouching Heavy Punch:
o Pushback reduced to 0.6 from 0.7 on hit and on block
CONTEXT: Pushback has been reduced a little bit to assist Gouken’s specials in connecting when cancelled from this attack.
• Crouching Medium Kick:
o Start-up increased to 5 frames from 4
CONTEXT: The new crouching light punch links into this attack at 4 frames. This attack’s primary use is as an anti-air, so given the choice between reducing its damage and increasing its start-up by 1 frame, the choice seemed pretty clear. Simply put, crouching medium kick’s animation looks very strange when used mid-combo and increasing its start-up by 1 won’t make it less desirable on the rare occasion when it is preferred over another option. At 4 frames it is a damage increase from jab that is likely a little too strong.
**
• Close Standing Medium Punch:
**o Hitbox width increased from .35 to 1 so that it will no longer whiff vs. reeling hitboxes
o Pushback on-hit reduced to 0.5 from 0.6. Pushback on block remains 0.6
o Damage reduced to 55 from 65
o Stun reduced to 90 from 100
CONTEXT: Pushback has been reduced a little bit in order to make Gouken’s normals connect better afterwards. Because Gouken has a lot of advantage on block after this normal, the pushback reduction was not extended to blocking opponents. Its hitbox was expanded by a healthy amount to ensure it doesn’t whiff against Balrog and friends. It is worth noting that the size of the hitbox doesn’t really matter as once Gouken is far enough away (Position Restriction Distance is 1.2), he can’t use it anymore anyway. Because of the reduction in pushback, Gouken can now sometimes get two close medium punches, especially after jump-ins, so I’ve reduced its damage and stun as well. If you get two MPs, the damage on most combos will be only a little higher than it is now. If you can only get one, it will be only a little lower.
• Tatsumaki Gorasen:
o Pushback on first hit of all Tatsus on air opponents reduced to 0 from 0.8.
o Hitbox height of all hits after the first set to 0.4 (mostly from 0 or 0.2). The final hit of Heavy Tatsu has been increased to 0.6 from 0.2.
CONTEXT: The Light, Medium, and Heavy versions of this move will no longer drop smaller characters after EX Senkugoshoha, except Adon (this drop is a problem with Adon, not Gouken). In addition, The Light, Medium, and Heavy versions of this move should link more reliably after back throw. There are a few cases where you still lose hit, but in all cases, the final attack should connect.
• Air Tatsumaki Gorasen:
o Light, Medium, and Heavy Kick Air Tatsu now recover in 10 frames, down from 19.
o Light, Medium, and Heavy Kick Air Tatsus’ height restrictions have been reduced to 0.3, from 0.5.
o - Light, Medium, and Heavy Kick Air Tatsu now inflict less blockstun. It’s still a blockstring while the attack is active, but will remain punishable at the end. This change was made to ensure that the lower recovery time didn’t make Instant Air Tatsus safe on block. Because EX Air Tatsu is mostly unchanged, this change was not applied to it.
o All Air Tatsus’ chip damage has been lowered to 10 per hit for Light, Medium, and Heavy, and 15 per hit for EX.
o Light Air Tatsu’s float raised vs air opponents only: pushback distance has been lowered from 0.8 to 0.6, Y Velocity raised from 0.05 to 0.09, X Velocity lowered to 0.6 from 1.
CONTEXT: These changes are designed to bring usability to Gouken’s normal air tatsus. The only change to EX is a heavy reduction in chip across the board, which affected the normal versions as well. All normal air tatsus will lag less, incur less blockstun (to ensure they are still punishable), and are easier to perfom with a tiger knee motion. Light Version’s float state has been made usable, too; you can now juggle into Super or Ultra 2 with Light Air Tatsu. This is primarily a flash maneuver, though, as it rarely offers higher damage or meter efficiency compared to other options…. it’s just really cool.
• Senkugoshoha:
o Forward velocity on EX Senkugoshoha increased to 0.13 from 0.12.
CONTEXT: EX Senkugoshoha should connect better after a crouching heavy punch now, and will move slightly faster across the stage.