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Man, the way you guys go on and on, Capcom is damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I pretty much agree with what Az said several pages back.

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Capcom is responsible for the design of SF games, so Capcom is responsible for absolutely everything regarding it. No questions asked. I don’t want to get into the SF4 discussion. For now, let us assume it sucks. Furthermore, we shall assume it sucks because it was (supposedly) made in accordance to new players’ wishes. So we take this (for now) fact that Capcom made a piece of shit SF sequel, and make this question: who is responsible for Capcom releasing a crappy game? Well, the answer will be clearer if we ask a longer question: who is responsible for Capcom releasing a crappy game that appeals to the kids rather than providing them another option, a game that is good the way classics like ST or HF were?

We can not blame the reason they do it, we all want more money in our pockets. But we can blame their decision. And they can (and will) ignore us, by the way.

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Pretty much, yeah.

There may be some things that they take into consideration, but Capcom doesn’t listen to us when making the game. They shouldn’t. I hope they don’t. I avoid wishlist threads because they’re horrible. The vast majority of you have no idea how to make a fighting game. Myself included. If Capcom gave me the reigns and asked me to redesign the game, I can’t promise I’d make something better than SFIV. Probably worse.

I went to the loketests for SFIV. There were survey boxes where people could write down suggestions for improvements. Some obvious things got fixed (Vega’s ultra tracked…and if you think Gief’s Ultra is hard to escape from now…lol at you). But some things we suggested got ignored for good reason. Viper started out with some decent normals, but with every loketest iteration they just seemed to get worse. At the time, we couldn’t understand why Capcom kept nerfing what already seemed like a mediocre character. But knowing what we do about Viper now, if she had the good normals she did in the first loketest she’d probably be broken.

And then there’s personal preference as well. If Capcom changed throws back to one button, you’d have one fragment of players who’d be happy with that, and another who’d complain and want to go back to two buttons. If they increased the blockstun to make block strings tighter, again you’d have some people who are thrilled with the change, some who wouldn’t be.

There has never been a perfect fighting game. Ever. Every Capcom game we’ve played has had some degree of brokenness/nonsense to it. ST, A3, 3S, CvS2, MvC2 - for each of these games, we could fill pages of things that are wonky that we’d want to be “fixed”. Back when they were first released, people did just that. And then time passed and everyone realized Capcom wasn’t going to make a patch or a sequel/upgrade, take it or leave it. And then complaining about stuff became tired and worn out, and people stopped and learned to just play the game.

SFIV may have been designed with certain elements in mind to better appeal to new players, but its not like the masses of new SF fans lined up at Capcom’s door and said “We want this!” and Capcom said “Sure!” and gave it to them. Even if you, the “true”/hardcore SF fans lined up and said “We want this!” and Capcom granted it, the game that resulted would not be perfect, it wouldn’t necessarily be better, and people would still be complaining and looking for places to finger-point.

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And Capcom gave a fuck about what the fans thought before? Third Strike and Street Fighter II turned out to be accidentally great games imo. Some Street Fighter II fans quit the game after HF because they didn’t like all the new shit being thrown in there(such as characters, movesets, mechanics, etc.).

In the end it comes to:

A)You buy it
B)You quit the game and don’t play the newest iteration
C)You play the Vanilla Version exclusively

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I feel sorry for anyone who honestly believes this. As an ST player (and many other games) I feel like I can say, and many others may agree with me, that this game is NOT a throwback to 2. He might as well say Alpha too. But it’s just the characters, that’s not enough to be an homage. Saying SF4 as an homage to older games is like Chevrolet saying the 80’s Nova is a throwback to the 60’s Nova: Consumer friendly but it gets you from point A to B, has an engine despite it being dumbed down, and probably features of the old car, if not more, so it’s good enough for the hardcore.

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Don’t worry I don’t necessarily agree with it, but its obvious that’s the foundation/homage he was aiming for.

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I realize that no fighting game can be perfect. It just can’t happen. However, the games you listed DID NOT cater to scrubs on purpose. Capcom intentionally dumbing down a game will create a bad game over all and thats the jist of what I’m trying to say. By appealing to that market, we will never see a good game again. Even TVC is ass.

Also, the system elements that plague sf4 were not as apparent in the modern games. Sure, 3s has some auto correcting going on but its not nearly as present as it is in sf4.

the technical aspect to SF is gone.
the mind game layer is gone because of ultras.

these 2 concepts in particular are what made SF, SF. Being able to execute and out think your opponent. Its not even a factor anymore and these 2 concepts are present in every game you mentioned and the degree they need to be executed is 100x harder than sf4.

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The “SF2 homage” probably stopped at the character roster. Admittedly, the SF2 cast is the most popular FG roster ever. Even my dad recognizes some SF2 characters (dude with the claw, dude that stretches limbs, etc. etc.) and he’s never played any of the games in his life. So Capcom/Ono probably went for that “nostalgia” effect, with the intention of reintroducing the series to a newer generation.

If you were playing Capcom fighters since way before SF4, there’s a big chance you got let down by it. I mean, were you playing Alpha 2/3? Maybe 3S? Vampire Savior? CVS2? ST? You were likely playing games with mechanics tailored for experienced FG players, whose complete depth is intended to be reached by a select few, and over the course of months (years?) of playing. But I think SF4 wasn’t meant for that kind of player. The SF fans that stuck with the series since the beginning are a ridiculously small portion of the potential sales, how could Capcom possibly appeal to them, and them only, and expect to turn a profit? SF4’s goal likely was to make the series “pop” again, and I’d say it succeeded. Now kids that would normally only play Halo or Madden are giving SF a whirl, and maybe some of them will actually move to the meatier SF titles that came before, who knows?

EDIT: It appears even Ono himself said something that compounds this theory: (Sorry Shin Akuma, stolen directly from your sig!): * “… In other words, Street Fighter IV is easy to start up with, and if newcomers play it and reach a professional level, those players may be able to move onto Street Fighter III.”* So there you go. You can naturally swap “SF3” with any other equally oldschool fighter of your choice.

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and then you’ll have that said person play SF3 or any other old game, stick for a bit, then lead to:

A. “This game sucks/boring” -goes back to SF4-
B. Tries to start a scene or get some other players into said game. people stick with it, others dont.
C. This thread happens.

It’s a neverending cycle when you look at it. Just done in it’s own different/various ways that people don’t see.

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How?

I always hear people complain about ultras. “Its being rewarded for losing! They take off too much life and require no skill!” But, most ultras have significant startup and even longer recovery, so unless you are just pushing fierce/roundhouse buttons endlessly in your opponent’s face, ultras have to be set up.

How is this any different from what we’ve dealt with before? In A3, I could lose the entire round because I didn’t block once (CC activation into corner infinite) - and that could potentially happen at the beginning of the round, as everyone started with full meter, and considering my opponent got half of it back during the corner infinite, it could happen at the beginning of round 2 as well. In 3S, Chun could stick out a over-prioritized c.mk, wait to see if it actually connects, and then hit you with super. Yun could just activate Genei-Jin whenever he wanted to, nail you with it, and then get half his meter back while doing so. CvS2 A-Bison had plenty of easy setups to hit his very damaging CC. A-Sakura forced you to play a Groove with Alpha Counter, because with her chip damage on Shosho she just didn’t care if you were blocking it or not.

Sure, eating a big damaging ultra sucks, but how is this any more sucky then eating big damaging whatever in all the games that came before it? I dunno, maybe I’m biased - I was an A3 player, and like I said you could lose the entire round just for pushing one button at the wrong time. V-Akuma/V-Sakura with meter was far more intimidating than SFIV Sagat/Ryu with ultra and super meter.

Capcom thinks that the reason why SF3 “failed” was that they made it too hard. There’s a lot more to it than that - timing, ditching the old cast, etc. Plus, OG SF fans hated the new systems in the game. So by their logic, SF3 is the most difficult game in the series - but that doesn’t necessarily make it the most advanced/technical. In a lot of ways, 3S is further from SF than IV is.

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people act like sfiv is full of bullshit
what about st throw loops, a3 vism infinites, 3s genei/optionselect parry,

ALL THE GAMES HAVE RETARDED BULLSHIT. IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY.

but i think that (of course) a thread about new people being detrimental to the scene will degenrate into 3s versus sf4. to me it seems a lot of 3s kids are mad that their game is falling out of the spotlight. there are plenty of people who have perfectly legit i’ve-been-there-before reasons for preferring one game to another, but a lot of this degenerates into fanboy bullshit.

these guys will be perfectly content to bitch over their “perfect anti scrub games” until they’re blue in the face. everyone else will be moving the community forward.

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SF4 doesn’t have enough glitches to be good. Didn’t you hear?

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I think it’s because for a low level player, the set-up and the execution of those CCs is harder to do than anything -> srk -> FADC ultra. It forced you to practice not only getting to build that meter through fighting but then you had to be able to set up and execute rather than the jab. V-Akuma/V-Sakura is intimidating on a high level but if it’s just 2 people who can’t use those then neither has a reason to be scared unlike the SF4 ultra set ups.

Ultra and FADC in the hands of pretty much anybody who plays SF4 for half a day is a greater threat than someone who plays Alpha and V-ism for a lot longer or tries to use Genei-jin properly and because of this, it makes SF4 feel more watered down and random than the Alpha and 3s bullshit because you actually had to spend time on those and practice them and no one could just walk in and do it unless they had played fighters for awhile before.

Plus you had to do things to get the meter to start V-ism and super meter where you’re getting Ultra meter for free.

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Is it such a big deal that FADC to ultra is easier than things like CC? I mean in the grand scheme of it all I fail to see why it matters.

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I always felt that while getting Ultra does reward the player for losing, it’s definitely over exaggerated by the people that complain about it. Even to a point where it’s one of SFIV’s more minor issues.

Unless you’re pixels away from losing a round, it feels like Ultras normally don’t do that much damage, and have to be combo’ed into or setup, hell, you don’t even have to worry about wake up Ultras in this game due to their poor start up. But you do get them for taking a few hits, and can even get them twice a round.

Why I do feel that you are rewarded for Ultras is because you take damage, you get ultra meter built. Take a few more hits, you got an Ultra ready. While there are similar systems in previous games, at least you have to sacrifice something for it. Take CvS2 for example, sure K-Groove emulates the same situation as far as getting beat up gets you a level 3, but you had to sacrifice a lot for that. No roll, no counters, you get chipped to death by A-Groove combos. And after all of that, you still had to work for landing that level 3, and had a limited time to use it, as well as worrying about setting it up as well.

SFIV, everyone gets it, no sacrificing whatsoever, the only thing you actually have to worry about is how trashy the Ultra is coughClawcough

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So basically, while all games have the retarded nonsense, the IV hate is because its more accessible to lower-level players.

But its not like DP FADC Ultra is a godlike tactic that always wins rounds. There are numerous ways around it. Force your opponent to burn EX stock (fireball fight, for example) so they can’t FADC. FADC doesn’t work if the DP whiffs, so stay out of DP range. Or get into it intentionally to bait it out - the risk of eating throw/regular DP is far less than DP FADC Ultra. These are things that most low-level players probably don’t consider, but high-level players do. Even if it is a tactic that low-level players can use, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be used at a high-level by high-level players.

But all of this just sounds like “I don’t want to lose to people who aren’t as good as me just because they had easy access to a powerful tactic.” Don’t we all? I certainly do feel salty if I make one dumb mistake and I lose a match to someone who I feel is not as good as me.

Really though…is that the end of the world?

Also, think about the shoe on the other foot. I beat Uryo’s Viper once. It took me 7-8 tries, but I beat him fair and square. Does that mean I’m on his level? Hell no, not even close. I know that, I’m sure he does as well. But I was happy to get the win, and Uryo gets one loss to stack up against his 5000 arcade wins or so. I leave the arcade feeling pretty good, and wanting to play again. Isn’t that GOOD for the community? Sure, Uryo beating me 10 times out of 10 would be an accurate reflection of skill, but me just getting that one felt like “Hey, I can play this game. I can win.”

If new or low-level players who can’t do the advanced tactics keep finding themselves losing to V-ISM CC’s or Genei-jin, why would they continue to keep playing? Everyone is quick to scream PLAY TO WIN, but not everyone can or wants to play on that level. Its like forcing kids to try and train to be NBA stars, when all they really wanted to do was shoot some hoops and pass the ball around. Again, remember when we used to sandbag in the arcades? You had this kid who was trying his hardest but you know he wasn’t ever going to beat you? And you’d drop a round, or if you were feeling generous enough, the whole game? Why? Because just beating him senseless wasn’t going to be fun - he’d walk away frustrated and maybe even hating the game. Sandbag a few rounds, and he walks away feeling like he can do it if he just tried a little harder. Have we lost that initiative?

The game is supposed to be fun. Not everyone can or wants to be a top player. There’s not a whole lot of money in the scene, and for what little there is there are already a lot of people vying for it. I’m sure there are people who just want to enjoy the game - playing their friends, messing around online, maybe even a random tournament here and there. The scene is still relatively new, and small, and it needs more people in order to grow. Beating them over the head with advanced tactics they have no hope of overcoming doesn’t really help the scene, it just discourages people. It turns away the people who just want to play around with their friends, the people who don’t want to study frame traps or link combos or ultra setups or whatever.

And that’s just low-level play. If we’re talking about mid to high-level play, where most people here would claim to be at, where people can utilize the tactics of V-Akuma or V-Sakura or Genei-jin Yun - which is worse? Personally, I’d take DP FADC over those things by a long shot. People complained about the brokenness of these tactics back when these games were new, and now that we have a game where the brokenness has been evened out people complain that its not broken enough.

And just as an aside - remember that in A3, you started the round at 100% meter, and in V-ISM you only needed 50% to activate. So basically, your best tool was immediately available, and even if you hit/missed it it would be readily available again in no time.

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SFIV is the kind of game that everyone believes they are good at.

SFIV forum says wassup.

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also the broken sf games had whiffing to build meter. sf3 and alpha 3 were horrendous.
sf4 took that shit out.

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how do you do a fireball?