You know, as far as this whole 3S deal goes, you know what i see? I see one game that’s Kuroda’s Sean Vs. MOV’s Elena, and then i see Corner Fighter 1-hit Super Confirm v3.0. Not everyone who dislikes what SF4 automatically idolizes any other game. In fact, the 3 most iconic moments of 3S are, in order:
Daigo v. Wong
Kuroda doing goddamn anything
Viscant’s posts on what “mindgames” mean in 3S
Deal.
That’s not entirely different from what i think about SF4 coming back to fighters after 10 years. Everyone considers Akuma to have a lot of options, but really it’s just the vortex which itself is easy to understand since it’s several options based on one move, supplemented by a few extras like crossup tatsu and such. Otherwise it’s a few pokes, and most combos are whatever’s linkable into lk.tatsu into: sweep vortex when applicable, fp.srk otherwise, and srk FADC shaku when you have EX to spare. Oh, and despite a lack of comboable ultra he has nerfed HP to compensate, because that makes a ton of fucking sense.
When it comes down to it, the most powerful chars are the ones with the most options, but those options aren’t that radical. As such, the tiers and their reasons for existing come to the forefront pretty clearly. If you have a fireball, you can zone. If you have a strong AA, you can keep people on the ground.
Wakeup depends on reversal AAs. Who has those? Guess. Everyone else depends on situation or meter, if they’re lucky. Top tier chars? Oh look at that. Akuma has an SRK and a 0-frame teleport. Bison has a teleport, right? Yeah, you know how that goes. Ryu’s Ryu; Sagat has plenty of options and can take the damage to compensate for his 5-frame TU; and Gief, on top of not only lariat but crouching lariat, has the highest HP in the game. Fuckin’ whatever.
Hey, Ken has an SRK too, right? And as much HP as Ryu, right? And one of the few good kara throws in the game, even! Yeah, think on that one for a while.
If you have an ultra you can reasonably land, you can make people worry about that. If you have a deficiency in one of those areas, you’re exploitable, especially by chars that don’t. Hence, Sagat, Ryu, Gief (except to Sagat and Ryu, go figure). Viper’s got a mean mixup game, but it takes technical proficiency, and since she’s a sterotypical female char she doesn’t have the vit to compensate. But it’s emphasized because not all chars are Ryu or Sagat – give her an fp.TK that was as good as SRK and Ryu’s vit, she’d be god tier. Easily.
When you think of it like that, SF4 gets really stupid, really quick. Mindgames are entirely dependent on options, and few chars actually have all that many options. Once you learn what beats what, that’s pretty much it. That’s what the game’s based around, because even if you know what beats it, it’s a crapshoot if you have antyhing that does.
What equates to mindgames in SF4 is whether or not you can fenagle a lesser player into falling into a trap based on your crappy options. Hence the respect Iyo gets with Dhalsim. Which is a weird case, because 'sim’s probably the weirdest fucking char in SF4 terms. He has crap vit and zoning options that make him vulnerable (hittable limbs), but he actually has options.
I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Yes, the fighting game community needs the masses in the same way any genre needs the masses. Which is to say, we need more shit out there so people can find what they like, contrary to the idiotic assumptions of executives. Progress just can’t be made without new people coming in who are interested in the concept, but utterly uninterested in the dogma that preceded it.
Where it goes wrong is that games take a lot more money to be made than they need to, and… jesus. This is really an entire other clusterfuck. Long story short? People making decisions in the videogame industry are fucking stupid. Did you know?
Sorry, but when something reaches the point of making the Greatest Hits line on the PS3, of all systems, i stop caring about monetary concerns and start thinking about balding Japanese men with small penises who ride their fucking corporate culture into job security en passant to riding their company into the ground. Wave hello to SEGA for me, will you?
It’s natural for competitors to admire competitors better than they are but does a red carpet need to be rolled out, no. You are always trying to win but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a fan of more innovative players or accomplished players. I’m a fan of Shane Mosley, I guess I should quit being a fan, hop in the ring and try to KO em. That would go great. Or I could learn from him by training with him or discussing strategies and tips.
I think an unhealthy disgust for fans might be from not having any or not getting the recognition one feels they deserve. Just depends on how it’s approached.
Well I think it’s more like people are fanatic about the player and not what or how they play. They don’t care about the tactics and strategies and everything, they just know that these people are winning, and that’s all that matters. This is a big issue in fighters now, we have fanboys for players and not the games. I think a great example is when SB4 had Daigo vs Justin FT10 but refused to stream it: People got pissed off like the world was ending.
However, when we were there, the players, not many people cared to see that “event” because we were more concerned about our own games while people at home bitched because they wanted to see Daigo whoop on Justin or Justin get his revenge and couldn’t, we just kept on wanting to play our things and leave that to them. The only time anyone there wanted to see that match was at the grand finals because we knew Justin would pull out Fei or some other character and maybe we’d see some new stuff from Fei Long, not because OMG JUSTIN DAIGO CRAZYYYYYYY
How many people do you think would post a link to a video with OMG and really try to break down what’s happening in the video rather than just watching in amazement as their favorite players beats on people? It’s like people buying the Kuroda DVD’s to learn, and then the people buying them because they want to see him just stomp on opponents endlessly.
Well it’s a dead horse by now. People who hate SF4 dismiss it for whatever reason. With that in mind I guess we can agree to disagree.
SF4 doesn’t rely on mindgames and is all about limited options. But then again in ST opti9ons of chracters are pretty damn apparent as well. It’s not like O.Sagat or Chun-Li has ridiculous option trees. Sitting on meter. Wow this like never happens in ST, Alpha2, Alpa3, 3s, or CVS 2. 2D games rely on meter and having meter generally changes the matches. I can’t believe there are people who pretend this is new in SF4.
ST is offensive? Yeah sure. For all the wrong reasons but whatever. Balrog easy mode corner pushback and pressure. Balrog is an increibly easy and braindead character in some matchups. And matchups where he can’t go ape shit get are matchup where he fears what? Reversal DP. Reversals are every bit as dumb and slow down offense in ST. Just because they’re easier to do doesn’t give them a pass. And its amazing how chracters with strong defensive options are sitting pretty on the top of the tier list. Ryu, O.Sagat, Dhalsim, and Chun Li are on top and where are the offensive juggernauts like Cammy and Fei Long sitting?
I can turn it all around to. Hell block strings can be done they just take tight timing. But they’re still usuable in SFIV. Theykre just harder to do. Just like ST gets a pass for dumb reversal block strings in SF4 should get one too.
But I digree because I love ST. Probably because the chracters are better fleshed out and complete than in SF4. But I don’t mind its hard to get it perfect the first time around. And seriously its not like SF4 is unplayable. On the contrary actually.
I like my old games too but why do we pretend old games never had problems. How soon we forget about people complaining about the randomness of Magneto, Boring bac fierce standoffs with Chun, down/back turtle fest in CVS 2, Wall dive bullshit in St, sweep activate lightlegs in Alpha 2. I remember people just complaining about this before Feruary 09. Now it never happened. Now 3s was a balls out offensive game, and CVS2 was a creative masterpiece in every matchup. Sure. I guess some people need to be linked to 07 and 08 evo finals.
Kind of strange how people complain about the 2 chracters who make SF4 boring. You know Ryu and Sagat who rarely win tournaments. No doubt they are the best 2 chracters in the game but these guys aren’t winning tournies. Itks been a year, more than enough time for people to figure stuff out. So we should see only Ryu and Sagat winning tournaments in the USA and Japan. SF4 is a prosaic and boring mess right? So it should be hard alll they need to do is FADC ULTRA! Thats all it takes.
SF4 sucks because top tier can’t win in their own game consistently. Hmm. I mean Chun dominates 3s. So apparently she can shut down peoples options way better than Sagat and Ryu can in SF4. So tell me about less options. What good are all these offensive tools when you can’t make any headway against the top 3. Where mid tier can shut down reputable Sagats and Ryus in SF4. Seem like SF4 gives you more options or at least broken shit that can be beaten.
Sorry had to rant. A lot of bullshit going on in this thread
It’s not that SF4 gives you more options, it’s that even the best characters in SF4 have less options than some mediocre characters in other games.
If there’s one thing I never complain about in relation to SF4, it’s balance. I think the game is very balanced. I just think Capcom sacrificed creativity for this balance.
Personally, I prefer games to weigh on the side of creativity, than the side of balance. I don’t really value balance at all. I think it’s an arbitrary quality that misses the point of fighting games. When people say Marvel is boring because you can only use a small number of characters, my response is that there is more variety of gameplay in Magneto alone, than in loads of other games’ full rosters. That’s what’s important to me. Depth of the game play, not depth of the character select screen.
I see the new reason to hate on SF4 is its lack of options. Funny, when I see high level vids of ST, A3, 3S, CVS2, and MVC2, I see the same old shit times infinity. ST O. Sagat has options? 3S Chun has options? CVS2 A-Bison has options? MVC2 Magneto has options? Oh that’s right, high or low into infinite into guard break into infinite into Hailstorm is an option.
SF has never been about the number of “options”. It’s about reading the opponent and executing when it matters.
> How many people do you think would post a link to a video with OMG and really try to break down what’s happening in the video rather than just watching in amazement as their favorite players beats on people?
I have a better question: How many people do you think could post a link to a video with OMG and really try to break down what’s happening in the video rather than just watching in amazement as their favorite players beats on people?
The simple fact is, the majority of people watching any kind of high-level tournament footage are incapable of analysing what’s actually going on. And that’s okay, as long as folks don’t look at high-level footage and say to themselves or others “That’s player’s not so good. I could do that shit” (which invariably happens, but that’s another story). If players get fans, or even fanboys, then so be it. Not everyone can be a top level player, or even a good player, and if fighting games reach critical mass, some people don’t even have time to play, period. But this doesn’t mean that fighting games shouldn’t be enjoyed by as many people as possible.
Mihai:
It depends on the game, but the best characters in the better fighters usually have many options. If you see them beasting with only a few tactics, it’s usually because those options are the best to use when facing other top characters/best players. In SFIV, though, a lot of the cast doesn’t have a lot of usable stuff even before you reach the high levels. As I’ve said in other threads, the problem with SFIV isn’t that Ryu and Sagat are too good; it’s that the other characters aren’t good enough to match them. Everyone should get buffed up to their level rather than toning them down to any extent (well, maybe Sagat could use some slight weakening - if they haven’t already, I would lower his damage slightly and reduce the hitbox on his Tiger Knee slightly; Ryu’s pretty much perfect as is though).
We’ll see how SSFIV turns out, but I haven’t see anything thus far to show a major shift in overall character strength.
Magneto has way more options to deal damage than any fighting game character…ever. Magneto would fucking rape real life in options. He can even summon Psylocke for more options. :lol: I mean fuck…he can even remove you from the fucking game and then insta rape the backup character that comes in. If that ain’t options I don’t know what is.
3S Chun has way more options to deal with people’s shit than SFIV Chun. At least she can actually combo into something that does real fucking damage anywhere on the screen and has many more normals she can do it from than SFIV Chun. Bitch can’t even do any damage on like half of the cast. That’s why they’re giving her that new Ultra in Super cuz fuck if half the cast gets scared if she hits them with a combo mid screen and she has Ultra.
You can keep your SF that’s about “executing when it matters”. That shit’s boring. Every matchup is the same. Which character has shit they can use and which fucking doesn’t. Which character can do damage and which character can’t.
I really hate that Ryu and Ken can Link into DPs form their Crouch Jabs, I agree. That should go away. But if everyone had easy Rapid Fire Weak Attack cancels, it wouldn’t ruin the game for sure. But given that damage is generally higher in SFIV and Third Strike, giving everyone the ability to easily combos from easy to hit-confirm sequences may make the game rather monotonous, and people are already complaining about the game’s pace. Every character would just end up fishing for their easy to hit confirm sequences. I’m glad they found a weird balance between allowing it and still requiring it to have enough skill, so that it CAN be missed.
And I say SFIV does more damage than CvS2 and Third Strike because in CvS2, getting hit by things like Iori’s Low Short x 3 into his Rekka move, overall does very little damage in the scheme of things. CvS2 is VERY MUCH about landing your Super Meter, and combos like the Iori one aren’t huge in the overall plan of attack. Same for Third Strike. Even when characters like Ken can easily combo Low Short x 3 into Shippu, Shippu in the grand scheme of things does very little damage.
Meanwhile, Ultras are easy to come by. They are guaranteed every round. So giving people easy ways to Combo will allow a lot more easy hit confirms into Ultras. So the damage output would be too high for something too easy. Again, it is still possible in some cases even how the game is now, but I’m glad it still takes some more skill and effort on the user’s part to Combo from Low Shorts.
SF2 worked as long as you changed from crouching to standing or vice-versa. Crouch Shorts canceled freely into Special in the Alpha games, but Special Moves, overall, were designed to not combo from Weak Attacks very well. And I agree, I think SFIV would be better if they allowed for cancels to work if you switched from standing to crouching or vice-versa. Mainly because most standing weak attacks have bad range, so it would still be restrictive in a way.
Honestly, there is very little technical about Hyper Fighting. I think what makes it technical is the match ups, which has nothing to do with the systems of the game. Each match up was very unique. Unfortunately, this is why I enjoy SFIV so much: because match-ups matter again. It’s my biggest gripe about Third Strike and CvS2, that match-ups aren’t as important. Third Strike killed match-ups thanks to Parries and CvS2 killed match-ups because of the team system. Third Strike gives a universal method by which EVERY character can stop the opponent’s attacks the same way, so it doesn’t matter who you are using. And in CvS2, while you can learn specific strategies for Maki vs. Sagat, for example, in the end it makes less significant difference because, once Maki dies, you still have your Sagat killer on your team. Meanwhile, in SFIV, if you use Rufus, you are GOING TO LEARN that Zangief match-up, regardless of how bad it is for you, because you HAVE to. I love that kind of thing, and it’s one of the things I love most about SFIV… that I have to study match ups again. It feels great to have this feeling, and if that’s what makes Hyper Fighting technical, then SFIV has that same technical aspect.
Yeah, but that’s because you’re familiar with those games and understand how to adjust for lag and scrubs. I play with lag, too, and honestly, I don’t have any problems beating scrubs online. It’s because once you get the game, you also get how to adjust to deal with external problems. It’s like playing in the old arcades when a button died. If you knew the game well enough, you could compensate.
That’s just because of your preference. Frankly, Third Strike looks pretty stale to me. I don’t see anything new in that game. Same goes for MvC2. It’s all just really what you’re a fan of. I’m still learning new things about SFIV. I’m still growing as a player. Characters like Honda were perceived to be low tier for a LONG time, and now he’s widely considered to be top tier, which is a more recent development. Over the past year, I’ve been using exclusively Cammy, and her tier position CONTINUES to change, even today. I learn new things about her that change things drastically in match ups.
The problem is that if you aren’t a fan, you can’t notice these changes. I can guarantee that SFIV will continue to change and grow for 10 years if people continued to play it as well. You can’t help it. These games, in general, are impervious to becoming stagnant. Even a game like SFIV. I mean, this is why I keep pointing out that Hyper Fighting is so simplistic. Because it IS, but years of play have MADE it become technical. The same thing will happen to SFIV. It’s simplistic, yes, but its limits are still very much in question and I think it has huge room to actually evolve still.
That is actually a pretty horrid thing to say, IMO. I would rather say:
More players, more fans in 2010. Please.
We need both. I mean, we get mad at all the Daigo dick riders and such, but let’s be honest: the MAIN reason why the poker boom happened and that people began enjoying watching poker was BECAUSE of the fandom. If we didn’t have people like Daniel Negraneau or Phil Ivey or Johnny Chan and such to becomes fans of, poker would almost be irrelevant to the general masses. Fandom is HUGE for any scene, and the fact that people ARE becoming such fans of streams and such I think is GREAT. If 2010 brought more fans than players, I’m good with that. Why? Because fans can always BECOME players. So the more fans there are, the more players we WILL end up getting. So I’d rather bring people in by turning them into fans FIRST and then hoping they become players later. It’s a lot easier than trying to get players from the get go.
No, their Rufus’s are the same because Marn lived with Wong and Wong taught him Rufus. So of COURSE Marn is gonna play the same. Watch Ken I’s Rufus. Watch Sin’s Rufus. They are significantly different.
No. I play against the Balrogs of Keno, Bryant the Tyrant, Ed Ma, and Gootecks. I can tell you that all four of them play WILDLY different from each other. In fact, I really have to adjust my strategy depending on which of them I play against. So I KNOW that argument doesn’t hold water. Play style variation is still quite alive.
Agreed. Thank you, HAV, for saying this. It should be emphasized.
That’s funny, 'cause I feel the opposite. I enjoy that SFIV is stripped down, because I think it EMPHASIZES the mental game. I feel like things like Parries and Rolls and Custom Combos take away from the mental aspect of Fighting Games. Keeping the game down to the point where you have to know the match ups and really study your character without relying on universal systems like Parries and UOHs and Rolls and such make the game very fascinating to me.
I dunno, maybe that’s just all it is. I strangely enjoy the game because I’m old school, and I’ve always preferred games where characters were varied and universal systems didn’t save your ass. It made it more important to learn your character, because switching wasn’t as simple. I use a character with an uppercut, but if I switch to Abel, for example, I have to learn something completely new! That’s exciting to me. I’m GLAD I can’t just Parry sequences with Abel just like I can with any other character. I’m GLAD I can’t just Custom through Fireballs for free with Abel like I can with every other character. I’m glad I can’t just Roll through Meaty Attacks with Abel like I can with any other character. Okay, the last example was bad, because Abel CAN do that. Hahaha. But he’s the only one in SFIV who can.
Really? Hmmm… See, that’s odd to me. Parries are free. And there is very small amounts of commitment to them. I mean, Jump-ins with Option Select Parries are really hard to really punish clearly, for example. I don’t see Parries as high risk as people think. That’s probably because I haven’t played 3S enough. But that goes for SFIV as well… play the game a lot, and every time you burn your meter on a failed FADC, it hurts. Not only that, but when someone baits it by making you whiff your DP, and punishes you enough times, THEN you’ll probably start seeing it very similarly to Parries not being risk free.
But see, I can do FADC dash forward, and UltraDavid has caught me with Gief’s Ultra. And that’s inescapable. Stuff like that CAN happen. Or I try to get a free FADC with Cammy and the opponent back dashes instead, so I die. There is risk involved, people just don’t see it. If you play the game a lot and start to die a loot from trying these things, then yeah, you’ll see. THe problem is the game is STILL NEW, so people are still falling for it because it’s still different than other games. Once people continue to GROW AND EVOLVE ALONG WITH SFIV, that tactic will drop in reliability. Those that have already adjusted are the ones who are winning. Which is why it’s funny to me that people say SFIV has no room to grow, and they complain about dying to tactics because they are still playing the game the wrong way.
But that’s awesome strategy… holding onto things for threat. That’s what SF is all about, really… should I unleash the Ultra now? Or save it? I like that kind of thing.
And again, it’s not nearly as reliable as you think. It’s just not. I’ve played the game enough and I recognize the players who LOVE that shit, and I’ve learned to adjust to their play style.
And Parries can be thrown, yes, but I’ve seen plenty of option select Parries and Throw Teching. So to me, Parries just aren’t vulnerable enough. I mean, I’ve seen matches where people win because of ONE Parry. I don’t feel like they deserve to win those matches. I just don’t. Third Strike fans see it as “OOOHHHHHHHH!!! SNAP!!” I see it as… “really…?”
Again, it’s that character variance that makes me LIKE the game.
A Jab DP in Super Turbo drains nearly 1/6 of your life. And it costs no meter. Everytime I play ST with my old school friends, we laugh because Jab DP whiff into Jab DP still hits us every time, even after 15 years. But what have we learned? To adjust to that and punish him out of the air, for example. Things like that. So once you bait it out of Ryu, he loses Meter, and he can’t do it anymore. UltraDavid has also shown that there are tons of option selects and such that can beat DPs on wake-up, so that’s another good wait to bait out FADCs and reallypunish them for it.
It DOES make a ton of sense. Comboable Ulra would make him too buff. So it was smart to make it not work.
Again, I disagree. Rufus is top tier. He doesn’t have either of those things you mentioned. Again, these days, Honda is considered pretty top tier. He doesn’t have the options that look like they make him obviously good. I don’t think the game is as figured out as people think it is.
Bison’s teleport is ass as a wake-up move. And Gief hsa been able to do a Crouching Lariat since Hyper Fighting, and in EVERY GAME he has the most life. What’s new about that? I don’t get it.
What is the point you’re trying to make? Maybe I’m not understanding. Ken is ASS in the game. He’s horrible. Probably one of the lowest tiered characters in SFIV. So I don’t get it.
So… Viper is already fairly top tier, and… doesn’t that make it smart that she doesn’t have a reliable DP? If that would make her so good, then it’s good that she doesn’t have it, right? I guess I’m just not sure what you are trying to point out here at all.
So lemme ask you this: tell me about Hyper Fighting. Not a lot of characters are rife with options, yet the game is highly balanced and people love the heck out of that game and, even today, the game stands up. Why is that game so much better despite the fact that so many characters are missing options? Wouldn’t it be the same? Once you learn what beats what, that’s pretty much it? What makes it so different?
But isn’t that ALL Street Fighter games? Tricking people into falling into your traps? How are games like CvS2 or Third Strike different than this?
The best characters in all games since ST are usually the ones with the best super/CC/ultra, or with the cheesiest shit. Options has nothing to do with it.
ST: O. Sagat, Vega, Rog, Sim <— all are super predictable cept Sim. O. Sagat throws rh low tigers, and fierce TU when you jump in. Vega low strongs til he starts the 50/50 walldive BS. Rog does jab Low rush, looks for meaty low forward into headbutt loop. Sim throws jab fireballs, waits for you to jumpin, anti-airs you, back to jab fireball. Look for cheap Noogie loop. Notice a pattern? All have repetitive but highly effective stuff that you see in almost all high level matches.
3S: Yun, Chun, Ken <— all have top-tier supers. Chun’s “option” is either make you whiff something and she low forward xx super, or she kara throws you. b+fierce to build meter, low forward/fierce in footsies. Yun is build meter with low strong, then activate and dominate. Ken has the most options, and is surprisingly below Chun/Yun. Why? Because his many options aren’t as cheap as Y/C’s few cheap options.
I was gonna reply to your post but then you said Honda was top tier so I’m sidetracked. I’m sorry but do you see how free he is to Sagat? I mean without Sagat, Honda is earily within the top 7 or so characters in the game but you can’t be top tier when not only do you lose…but you fucking die to the best character in the game. A Sagatless SFIV would make Honda arguably top 3-5 but with Sagat I’m sorry…that’s just too bad of a matchup. Honda is great until he runs into a wall of tiger shots and kara knees.
Maybe that’s not all that bad though because it is interesting to have “top tiers” that can still lose to someone else but then u just have Sagat who just doesn’t really lose to anybody and has arguably way too much easy mode shit that he could easily do without and still be very strong. Tiger knees don’t need to blow people to the far end of the screen and shroyu FADC Ultra at most should do the damage of like an alpha counter.
jchensor, again I’m thread derailing but one thing in your post I want to bring up.
CvS2 does have match-up problems. No its not as prevalent as the SFII series but its definitely there.
For example, my Iori has pretty bad match-up versus Bison and Blanka (especially A groove); I always noticed this when I used to play in tournaments and it was confirmed when I happened to check out Bucktooth’s guide awhile ago that he wrote. I think he listed the match-up as 2-8 if I remember right. Not gonna go into too much, but basically they constantly irritate by having fast normals (especially Bison), killing Iori’s fireball game (they “fly” over them and you get hit with CH damage) and constantly resetting their positions at opposites sides of the screen whether they KD or not.
Now you’re right because of team format you can nullify this somewhat but again, an example in my case is that I use Iori as a battery. Now say I’m put up against a Bison or whatever in first round; against a really good Blanka or Bison player it can be very frustrating to get in even one rekka combo. Theoretically, you could “just” DP them whenever they do psycho crusher or blanka ball but this is surprisingly hard to do on reaction. You could also use GC, but of course you need meter for that…which is the problem in this particular example - it could potentially mess up my battery-building scheme as I chase those mofos from side to side; getting a KD is so important its not even funny. It gets worse with A-groove.
Oh yeah, “small” characters with fast pokes and playing defensively give him trouble too, especially if they insist on making Iori go on the offensive. Plenty of match-up stuff one needs to remember about that game.
The best characters are the ones that take the least effort to win with, the ones that require making the least “right calls”. Yes, it’s nothing new.
Or rather, his options take a little more effort to pull off and the rewards aren’t all that big. With Yun, land a single target combo, cancel into GJ, do a 50% damage corner juggle. With Ken, stuff someone’s attack with a st.MP, link into SA3, deal…What, 20% damage at best? The risk/reward greatly favors Yun.
I definitely agree that SF4 is far more match-up dependent than the last generation of games. I played CvS2 for years, and I never felt compelled to make this.
I think studying match-ups like that is rewarding in a sense, but also indicative of the limiting nature of SF4 in another. We’ve been having extensive CvS2 sessions around here lately, and a couple of days ago, one of the new guys we’re trying to bring into the game asked me “how do you fight A-Bison?”. Now… I fight A-Bison pretty well, but I really couldn’t answer that question in the same concrete way that I can lay out most SF4 match-ups. Yeah… there are optimal ranges from which to fight, and things to look out for, but I feel like when I’m fighting a character like A-Bison, he can do so much, and he has such great answers to anything you can come up with, that there isn’t any amazing way to just shut him down. The fights are much more fluid, and they change from second to second. There are so many options on both sides of the screen, that there’s nothing I can really say, that would really encompass the match. To me, it’s that dynamic… and based on the creativity, and the insight of the players involved. That’s not a quality specific to A-Bison, either. I think you can run down most match-ups in that game similarly… they are generally very dynamic, and not based on whoring one or two clear advantages one character has over another.
I think SF4 robs a lot of that since the game is much more restricted. Sure, there’s certainly nuance there that changes match-ups drastically once you get to certain points, but the matches seem to devolve to those “certain points” very quickly, since characters’ limited options make for a well-defined, rigid plan of attack, IMO. There’s very little room for creativity in the meta-game, though I will definitely submit that there is a decent amount of creativity in the details, once matches come to a certain point.
I think the innovation in the details, and the kinds of changes that come form that are real and true in any decent fighting game (which I would definitely submit SF4 as). I think SF4’s innovation is completely in the details of the fight though… and while I do appreciate that, I don’t appreciate how I feel like it robs from the creativity possible in the grander scheme of the game. Obviously, innovation in the details will affect overall gameplans, but not to the same extent.
There’s also the huge issue with SF4, that isn’t so much related to SF4 itself, but you can’t really divorce the two… and that’s SF4’s player base. A lot of the nuance I need to be present in a match for me to enjoy SF4 just isn’t possible against the vast majority of SF4 players. I mentioned it before, but I think that SF4 matches can be very entertaining, but only against a small number of players. Most SF4 matches (especially if you use a lower-tiered character, like I do) come down to having to identify the level of the player, and then having to play down to that, since the game is so rigid. You just have to allow for certain things, and essentially let the other player kill themselves a lot of the time. I just find it boring.
I think this is a lot less true than people think. I was around Justin/marn kind of a lot in the infancy of SF4, and they hardly played each other. Sure, there was some influence, but I personally think marn gets less credit than he deserves for his SF4 game, for whatever that’s worth.
But to speak to the larger point, I can identify differences in some players when I see them play. Definitely. I think the differences are less distinct than in other games, but they’re there.
Yeah, blowing the 2 bars is definitely significant… and I know all about baiting DPs for them to WHIFF… that’s one of my major tactics with Abel. Still… by and large… DP FADC is one of the most braindead, risk-free tactics I can think of from any SF game. And even playing to punish it is annoying to me. It’s not just the effectiveness of it that bothers me. I don’t dislike it because I lose to it, per say. I dislike it because, whether I lose to it, or not… I have to respect it way too much, for something so free.
I recognized a looooooooong time ago that, at least Abel, the game is about baiting reversals more than anything. Back when everyone was trying to learn silly roll resets, I was the only one trying to evolve Abel offense to account for SF4 players’ tendencies. It’s not the losing that bothers me. I don’t even find winning fun.
True story… I pretty much stopped playing SF4 the day I won I fairly significant tournament, just because I didn’t want people to say that I quit because I couldn’t win. Sad, I know… but that’s how I feel about the game. Losing isn’t fun… winning isn’t a whole bunch of fun either.
Honda’s problems aren’t all that special. Look at any top SFIV character and you’ll find that some of their worst matchups are…Sagat/Ryu/Akuma. It’s that way for Balrog, Zangief, Rufus, even Chun Li. There are a lot of overall weaker characters who don’t lose any worse to fireball/DP, but get walked all over by the upper mids. Viper can give any zoning character headaches, but Zangief? OH GOD NO. Blanka’s an overall pain but gets creamed by Balrog.
You could argue that this is an issue with SFIV, that while there’s tons of 5-5s and 6-4s, it works out that the “good” characters end up being the ones that lose to the “best” ones anyways, while low tiers still aren’t all that tournament viable because they lose to those characters. But the reality of that is that playing Blanka looks suicidal in ST for similar reasons but eventually became a viable tournament tactic. There’s the matter of SFIV being early in its lifespan, but I think some of the extra complication, huge cast, and high ass character specific execution for relatively basic cheese (woo, character specific loops) comes into play as well. It’s just a hard game to counter-pick in overall.
Plus saying all that, fireball/uppercut has been winning tournaments for nearly two decades tier lists be damned. You’d think Ryu was Akuma tier watching HDR tournaments.
I agree that variation in playstyle is alive and i did say there examples of this but there are FEW examples of it imo.
Kindevu, marn and Justin have taken rufus to the top already and sf4 hasn’t even hit a 2 year anniversary. To me thats just to quick. …and anyone who plays rufus and gets the most out of that character will mirror what the big three are doing because the character options are so limited. the choices are so limited it will look like one big character x-copy out there
at Nec I played a long, long casual set with VVV Scrub’s Rog and aside from playing someone who likes to rush or like to turtle theres nothing more ill ever see from Rog. Gootecks, Maeda, Javits and others have hit the characters limits already. I may say this because i dont know what im talking about or cuz i was lucky enough in 09 to play the absoule best players in the US but the wall has been hit already.
I saw Sim and Ryu pushed to their limit during Artuo and Daigos’ money match in my hotel room. that match has a legitimate argument for best sf4 set ever played and it happened before the games 1 year anniversary.
oh yeah…where are my 2007 evo east 3s finals vids James??? lol I still have no proof of my pad performance for my unborn son
i will say thought that i do hope all of my views are indeed incorrect. cuz i dont want my beloved franchise getting stale
I feel like I’m playing CVS2 Iori whenever I fight Honda with Viper in SFIV. :sad:
Yeah the main problem with shoryu FADC Ultra is that it shuts down everything you could do offensively for a good portion of the match. As long as the Ryu player holds on to it you gotta respect it and water down your offense. No buttons work against Ryu anymore. Now lets block. Fuck that. Even Genei Jin had a fucking timer so you would know when you can press buttons at Yun again. You could even guess parry mix ups inbetween like f+MK and punish. At least with O.Ken perfect timing will still allow you to catch a whiff or punish the few recovery frames on block if he’s close enough. shoryu FADC Ultra means Ryu gets to walk in your face and there’s nothing to look out for. He just uses it when he thinks you’re gonna press a button and you either get slammed by it or he wastes 2 meters to just stay in your face and continue his pressure. If Ryu is already plainly better than the character he’s fighting against it really just waters the game down too hard.
At least in Super Turbo everyone did high damage with or without super meter so if O.Ken is dicking you with safe ass LP shoryus good positioning and a couple well placed combos and throws will turn that shit right around. Ken will eventually have to get off the LP shoryus to actually win the fight and pretty much every character in Super Turbo has more incentive to come back and win against O.Ken than like half the cast does against Ryu in IV.