601

I agree with both of these reasons.
SF4 killed HDR. Why invest my time in HDR when I could be playing the new “king” of the genre (popularity wise) that everyone is playing now?
I think most of the people who are pissed at SF4 are not pissed just because of the game itself, but also because it’s such a “waste of potential” that the game that attracts so many newcomers and so many players from other games is not all that awesome as it should have been.

The last option (d) is really important but not because “we love to hug japan’s nuts” but because they were always our “mine detector” of sort.
They always discover (almost) everything about fighting games before we get to play them, so we use their discoveries to decide what to do.
Examples:
Should I play competitive Accent core or Basara X? Which one is more solid? Lucky me I’ll just see what the japanese did with both of them…
Sagat seems so IMBA in SF4? In Japan he seems beatable enough so I guess the situation is not so bad as I thought and I just need to step my game up.

The point is that games w/o arcade release feel like a competitive “gamble”, so why should I gamble when I can just play a game that was already “proven” to be good in the highest level of competitive play?
That’s what many players are thinking, along with the popularity issue.
Usually the japanese arcades are the ones taking the gamble and we play the game after it was “tested and approved”.

The funny thing is that Capcom are now splitting the community in all their games. TVC:UAS? HDR? SSF4? pfft! Now they are in the Soul Calibur 4 territory, which makes their future a one big question mark.
These days every Capcom fighter feels like a gamble, while in other games (GGAC,T6BR,MBAA,BBCS) you have the comfort of knowing exactly what you are playing and knowing that everyone is playing the same version.

602

Sixteen pages at 40 posts per page, and this was on the first one?

WHY IS THIS TREAD STILL OPEN?

603

i dunno…i’ve been diggin this thread

HAV and James Chensor made some really, really great points. Azrael and others included also of course

it’s not even about hating on new players anymore. I for one am glad there’s new blood in the scene and most tourney players and diehards will propably say the same i think

My beef is with what Capcom NOW has to do to attract new players. The 4 series is starting a trend that i dont think bodes well for the game that kept me out of prison lol

but seriously, after this game when they put out SF5 certain things that alot of people dont like will now have to be standard for them to attract new players, keep the sf4 school players happy and satisfy the OG’s. SF4 got stale quick imo. This is the only SF game that bored me after a while…im dying for ssf4’s release

This discussion is godlike as long as its civil. especially when you have Chensor and Azrael kickin that knowledge. i’m not even a true street fighter OG and can appreciate the jewels in here. when i was in the 05’ 3s xbox live scrub class i wish i paid more attention to discussions like these.

604

I too come from that class lol

605

I have been going through the whole thread slowly and the opinions about the game plus all the knowledge as to why they think that has been very helpful. Destins post a few pages back helped me to understand some more about the game. This has been a very useful topic, even if the original topic has long since been washed away.

606

One thing that I think this thread is really good for, is that I now have a much clearer picture of why some of the OG players were worried about the SF4 new player influx.

Being part of that influx, its helped me to understand what the real issues are for the OG players.

607

it will be interesting to see how these companies will toe the line in future installments. perhaps instead of trying to reinvent darkstalkers, they will keep the mechanics the same, or keep that game technically minded if they do decide to release a new version. essentially, have a “all denominational” franchise, or one that’s more complex or more history-oriented. i would expect that those games would be farther in between though, since the whole purpose of games like sf4 are to bank and have staying power. if tatsunoko ends up being worth the opprotunity cost, i think it would at least increase the risk capcom might be willing to take to target more specific blocks of a very niche market. i would hope that if they do bring back darkstalkers, that they don’t end up making a game like sf4, because we already have sf4 : D

608

Actually, it didn’t. WHat I said should have been achieved is subtle tweaks to the game with less significant changes to how the game already plays. Fei changed dramatically. Cammy changed significantly. And things like Fake Slide were added (what hole was it designed to fill?) and Vega’s Fake Wall Dive was added and so on and so forth.

I think Justin Wong said it best to me just recently: people LIKE cheap things. Hahaha. Technically, when a game is “broken”, it’s more FUN. Look at Marvel. No game has been more like Crack than Marvel and there isn’t a SINGLE FAIR AND BALANCED THING about the game! Hahahaha. :slight_smile:

As for the ton of new options, I don’t agree. I think hardcore players dismissed it because the changes were TOO significant. In a recent interview with Valle by Maj that was posted on the front page of SRK, Valle was asked who a player should pick to learn SFIV. Valle’s answer was: choose a character that fits your personality. I think that’s what the primary focus of HDR should have been: maintain the personality, especially because we’re talking about a 10 year old game. I was really strong on the mentality that HDR should have been tweaked with no significant character style changes. Try to keep character personalities as similar as possible.

So that meant just remove the only true broken things in the game: Sagat Fireball recovery speed and Vega Wall Dive Knock Down (which wasn’t even technically THAT broken… even when Choi lost to it at Evo to Tokido, keep in mind that that was a VERY poor representation of what should have actually happened. It was played on CCC2, which had 4 frames of input delay, and was played on Gief stage which caused odd speed inconsistencies. Everyone kept yelling at Choi to change the stage, but for some reason, he never did. Four frames of input lag will make it nigh impossible to block the Vega Wall Dive). Other than that, minor tweaks to characters to tone down things that shouldn’t be there (Stored Ochio, super safe and invincible Jab Headbutt from Balrog), fix glitches (Reversal glitches with Ken, Sim, and Sagat, Dhalsim Teleport glitch), and give real improvements to the FUNDAMENTALS of the already existing, low-tier characters (give Gief slightly better footsies for getting in, give Cammy better speed and range on her Normals for improved footsies, speed up Fei Long’s Jump a little, give Honda more options on how to get around Fireballs, improve Hawk’s offensive threat level, etc.). These kinds of tools will help low tier characters in the LONG run, because they are real tools that can ENHANCE their already existing game plan.

Most of the changes were crap shoots. Hawk Dive, for example, being safe and not knocking down is a “guess.” Rather than expounding on what we know already about Hawk, the change was made to have it be safe and not knock down. For Cammy, the Drill was made safer, and other moves were weakened as a result. But that, again, was a crap shoot: what about the fights where she couldn’t get in to be in range to drill at all?? What about fights like Balrog where Low Jab eats Drills for free (and the Drill was given worse priority to boot!)? They were all crap shoots, not changes designed around WHAT WE KNEW. For example, my fix to Hawk would have been to make Hawk Dive come out REALLY fast. No delay in the air. Now he has a poke and chip damage and can dive over Guile Low Forwards and HIT Guile easier with a tool WE ALREADY KNOW. It’ll still have the same weaknesses as before (can be punished, has to commit to Jump, can only do it on the way up). Otherwise, unchanged. That’s the sort of thing people were looking for: tweaks, not changes. HDR provided too many of the latter, and focused not enough on the former.

Add to that that HDR also introduced some new glitches to the game. The code funkiness, for example. I still challenge people to use Fei Long and, while facing right, do Jump Roundhouse, Low Forward XX Super. Then go into Classic Mode and do the same. It’s night and day.

A) comes more from not knee-jerk reactions, but it’s like Watson said earlier: it’s already known that most change ideas were shot down even before being considered from many of the pros. B) is true to an extent, especially for a 15 year old game that wasn’t actually new. C) is definitely true. Probably the biggest contributing factor. And D) hurts a lot, considering it’s the Japanese that we look up to for ST, so it’s sad to know we aren’t playing the same game as them anymore. How do we compare ourselves and compete with the likes ok Aniken and Daigo and Gian and such when they don’t even play the game we do?

Cammy is fun. Just in a completely different way. I’ve always admitted she’s MUCH better than before, and can compete better than before. I’ve also always admitted that she’s probably more enjoyable to use. It’s just that her personality changed. She’s no longer a careful, thinking character. She’s more brute force. I mean, in the change logs, the character she got compared to most was Balrog. To say that Cammy became like Balrog is weird. They should have nothing in common.

No, that’s a good point, and people seemed to be entertained by wherever this conversation has gone. Hahaha. No one has complained about the HDR talk, so no need to move it. :slight_smile:

And that is a huge point: HDR did have a goal of trying to get more people to play the game with the easier motions and such. Should that have been a consideration? I wasn’t a fan of the easier inputs, for sure, but I can see their practicality. The only ones I really didn’t like were the changed SPD codes, because that seemed to cause some weirdness in the game, and we’d be better off without those.

I think it WAS a major point. 1) Dhalsim’s Super missed a lot, and landed only three hits the majority of the time. Also, the code was FAR more obtuse than everyone else’s Super code, which I think was done with the EXPLICIT REASON of making it an harder-to-use reactionary anti-air move. And 2) Landing on half of a Super usually equated to just about as much damage as just the regular anti-air. I know whenever I used someone like Ken and got three hits from my Super as anti-air, I always felt like it was a HUGE waste. I fully believe it was a VERY CONSCIOUS decision from the ST designers to make sure Supers could not be used as easy anti-airs for a ton of damage.

Right. It’s because Guile and Honda have anti-airs that are so effective already. Honda is one problem, but with Guile, he WILL get you to jump at him from time to time. You have to, in order to beat Fireballs. For many characters, it was impossible to get in without risking to Jump occasionally. And if Guile successfully baited you with a fake Sonic Boom, you would eat a Razor Kick. But now, it can take half of your life. And it’s not like it’s hard for him to build meter.

Again, in the end, anti-air supers don’t make a huge difference. But it’s just one of those things I appreciated in the careful design of ST. ST feels more thought out. HDR just feels sloppy and strangely LESS consistent.

That’s what I should do, but it’s a tough sell.

I agree.

That’s why if I played, I’d use Ryu for sure. :slight_smile:

Yeah, there are definitely not enough rewards for offense, but without adding in Guard Break, it’s really hard to do without making characters super offensive a la Guilty Gear and Vampire Savior. And to me, SF has always been more about the slower, defensive paced style. I mean, 3rd Strike and CvS2 are both shining examples of super defensive games. Yeah, there are tons of examples where people get rushed down, but in general, they are all very defensive. I can show you just as many videos of Justin Wong and Alex Valle rushing fools down in SFIV, but that doesn’t mean SFIV isn’t still a defensive game.

Hahaha, the coast differences could very well be it. :slight_smile: Also, I try using smart Throw Breaks as well, but I’ll say this: right now, as an SFIV player, it is my BIGGEST WEAKNESS. I’ve grown so accustomed to always hitting a button and “Option Selecting” it to something else if they don’t actually Throw. And now, I’m dying because of it. BADLY. The good players will know how to deal with it, and they’ll use it to their advantage. If you watch my recent matches vs. Justin Wong from the first FFA RanBat, it’s not pretty: he DEMOLISHES me because I try these “powerful” Throw Breaks. Valle does the same thing to me. Ed Ma does it as well. They just aren’t as effective as people think. It’s just hard to get used to punishing them because we’ve never had to before. But the innovators out there don’t care, and will kill you for it.

What IS a Frame Trap technically??? Hahaha. I hear that term all over the place nowadays, and I’m still not sure what it refers to. Apparently, it’s a Tekken term. How does it apply to Tekken? What does it mean in Tekken, and how does that translate into SFIV?

  • James
609

Frame trap has two parts.

First, it means having your opponent block an attack that gives you “XX” positive frames. For example, in Tekken I use an attack that gives me +3 frames on block.

Now the trap part comes in. I know that I’m at +3, and I know my opponent’s fastest move is only 10 frames. I also know he’s gonna try and counter-poke with that move. But because he blocked my attack (remember +3 frames) whatever he throws out will be slower by 3 frames. So now his fastest attack takes 13 frames to come out. If I do any move that is 12 frames and under, that move will beat out anything he does guaranteed. Most of the time this will be a counter-hit. That is a the “trap.”

Of course, traps are only considered traps if opponents fall into them, that’s why it’s very important in Tekken, and fighting games in general, to know your frames so you know when you should attack and when you should keep on holding back.

I don’t really know any SFIV frame traps because I never really studied the game but they are probably there.

610

It’s a setup that causes a counter hit if it lands successfully which either results in more damage or has some other desirable effect, like better combo potential. I’m pretty sure most people are familiar with the concept even though they’re not familiar with the name (it’s better known in Namco circles). mooyang90 basically explained how it works.

eg. If someone is mashing lp after Ken’s step kick, Ken can kara fp DP for a counter hit and then FADC for a full Ultra (edit: Actually it’s debatable whether this can be considered a real frame trap because it’s the invincibility of the DP that causes the setup to work, not the frame advantage).
Or against Balrog, Abel can cross-up and then hk, which will beat Balrog’s c.lp for a counter hit, and that will allow him to combo f.mk xx dash s.hp xx COD FADC c.hp. ([media=youtube]6mIMnWNiNG4#t=2m39s[/media] an example of AC Revenger trapping Kindevu with Abel’s s.HK. Kindevu was probably going for crouch tech and he ate the HK.)

The most popular frame traps are probably variations of the Nemo string which allows Chun Li’s f.hk to combo into hazanshu for a [media=youtube]dUtcSodBdxM[/media].

611

Ugh, tell me about it.

Melty Blood is my main game and I can tech throws in that game all god damn day, and it’s absurdly faster then SF4.

But in SF4 it’s like a I get thrown for free, and I hate that shit. Even when I know it’s coming I get thrown.

:expressionless:

612

Do you like things more when they are broken? You play cammy in both ST and SF4, she doesn’t have an ounce of cheap in her in either game. I can see why cheap appeals in the beginning, but as it wears on I tend to get tired of it. I think I am just too old and tired to enjoy playing against cheap. For the record though, Daigo seems to agree with both of you on cheapness, claiming that is one of the big problems of sf4, the lack of cheapness (or incredibly powerful moves, as he put it).

I think this is often overlooked, and is way more important than people think. One of street fighters biggest strengths is how different and unique so many of it’s characters are. It is sad to see people making suggestions that just ruin how the character has been played since the beginning of time.

But do you have tons of videos of Justin Wong and Valle rushing down people who weren’t fools? I know that’s just a bit of wordplay, but rushing down someone who is TOO predictable with their option selects is very easy, just put in a slight delay. At the end of the day I will have to concede that I might have just been out of the scene long enough now that the game has evolved past where it was when I was playing it.

I remember back when I was playing (must be 6 months prior now though), of course a big part of the mindgame was if the opponent was going to use the delayed os throw break or not, and when to put in the pauses to catch their hits and whatnot. I mean, both sides understood that it was in the game, and a big part of the defense, so attempts were made to punish it being used thoughtlessly. But it still seemed to stick out as one of the big reasons the offense was moving at the pace it was for me.

Simply put, it is a situation where your move will beat out your opponents expected move because of the frame advantage/disadvantage the characters are in. In streets fighters not sf2 (0f throws kinda throw it out of wack), crouch jab, crouch jab (non chained) is a frame trap. You are at plus frames, if you give your opponent enough of a hole to hit a button, then there is a chance you will catch their jab, but they could not possibly hit yours, because you moved first. It is not quite as important in SF as Tekken because in sf, you can often lead into your big combos from a jab, and the jab is often your fastest move, and gives you the most + frames. Leave the mindgame at a simple, do I jab or not. Scare them long enough, and you get a throw.

In tekken, it is a bit more complicated because you do not get great damage off your faster moves, and usually only get marginal frame advantage, if any. So when you have a small advantage, you want to use the fear of being hit to create bigger advantage with slow moves or counter hits, and the damage skyrockets. At every different amount of +/- frames, the options your opponent has completely change, it is like a different mindgame with its own set of risk rewards. From what I can tell, this is the meat of 3d offense, if not the whole game, because I find the spacing to be generally simpler when compared to 2d.

In Sf4, chun gets decent damage off her fast crouch lk, but she gets much better damage off her ch stand hk, which is 4f. At 4f the move is decent for offense, but placing it after a crouch jab makes it come out at the same time roughly as the startup of the opponents jab. This is a slightly more advanced frame trap in SF4. Cammy can try and set up her crouch fierce after certain frame advantage moves, get the counter hit, and land grounded ultra. Sakura can use her overhead, get a counter hit, and land a combo. Akuma can setup his crouch mp ch -> stand RH loop. Often, + frame moves into fast moves are used to catch the 4f jumps, such as poor abel trying to stop people from neutral jumping his command throw. I think this covers the general overlap of the term in 2d fighters. Clearly these are things that 2d players have been using for years, but with the mixing of players from different games, terms are bound to mix as well.

In games where Counter hit’'s matter more, frame traps play a more important role. I am sure ken players trying to get their CH dragon punches into ultra worry alot more about when moves start up than ryu players who just need to hit a lazy ex hurricane to tag the startup, active frames, or recovery. As guilty gear players we have been using the term for years, the difference between a counter hit and a normal hit can be 80% instead of 20%. But in ST, it makes almost no difference, and has these fast 0f throws, so it is little wonder that a uniform term did not show up.

Hope that helped clear frame traps up a bit.

613

You don’t really need a counter hit system to take advantage of frame traps. People frame trap a lot in the old games too.

614

Yeah like I said it’s not really called that. It was just one of those “tricks” you learn alongside stuff like footsies. The thing is a counter-hit system gives you more options like in Tekken or SC where it can cause crumple or stuff like that which opens up a lot of possibilities for extra damage (beyond the inherent counter hit bonus).

615

What they call it is irrelevant. And dude wasn’t talking about rogs throw loop and bisons blockstrings. Dude was talking about actual frame traps. If rogs throw loops and bisons blockstrings are all that come to mind for you I guess you just lack experience in ST.

616

:rofl: at the noob who said Frame traps arent part of SF
Yun’s whole gameplay on SF3 is based on that.

617

Like I said…Mihai + posting + threads = :confused:

618

Yeah frame traps are in every fighting game…period.

619

Hey genius, why don’t you enlighten us with the deep ST knowledge then? Give us some examples of these “frame traps”. Let me guess, you’re going to take a throw loop and a block string, and start adding some numbers into the equation to make it seem like it’s not a throw loop or a block string, but it’s a frame trap!!! Yeah, go frame trap! So yeah, I’m honestly curious to learn more about ST from your massive knowledge and experience.

620

so in other words, frame trap is a sexier way of saying “baiting”?

@ilitirt - I like those vid examples but if the rufus player did ex messiah after the c.lp…scratch that i watched it again and kindevu had no meter so he did try something and Abel’s RH stuffed it, lovely i might add

but in both vid examples ex messiah or ex flash kick would have shut shit down. After a blocked FA you really cant get frame trapped if you have two bars and you’re using shotos, guile, cammy…right?