Anyone who thinks tiers doesn’t matter is fooling themselves. Yes skill matters, but when you have two people who are approximately equally skilled and versed in their character the tier factor becomes more obvious - especially in high level play. However, anyone playing low/mid tier that complains about top tier is being silly. Everyone has access to the same characters. If you think a character is overpowered and you decide not to play him, that is your choice to handicap yourself.
All that said, SF4 is pretty balanced, even AE. Super was probably better balanced but w/e, it’s irrelevant now. Even FPS games get patched, why are people surprised every type of game gets patched? For consoles, SF4 was Feb 2009, Super was April 2010, and AE was June 2011. Dunno how people can say it’s too much when SF2 had a new version every year as well. Once every year and some change seems relatively long to when balance patches usually happen monthly or more for most other competitive games (RTS, MOBAS, FPS, etc). But hey, whining is easier than actually playing.
People will point to games that were played for years without changes like MvC2, CvS2, 3s, and ST. For the first 3 there, what other new Capcom games were they competing against? Capcom Fighting Jam? ST is considered a classic but that game is infinitely more broken than SF4 has ever been.
TL;DR - Stop crying about patches and tiers. Just play and adapt = it might do you some good.
No I agree that SFIV is not as bad as Marvel 2 or 3s balance wise. But just because its better than those games in terms of balance doesnt mean it can’t and shouldn’t be improved upon. Regarding Sak there is an amazing Japanese player who has mained her for the longest time, Uryo, but he isnt winning anything big with her and in MMs or challenge matches I have seen him play her once, get bodied and go right to Viper. Regarding top players in town its usually Cylus, Woot, Anthony in the top three and there is no doubt that whoever they play they will be good with to a degree and all three of them are leagues ahead of me but Woot is gonna have to put in way more work to stay at number 1 with say Hakan, if its possible at all, rather than Yun same with Cylus and I dont think either of them would disagree with that.
Re: Bruce Lee/Combat: I doubt we would ever agree here at all, I think Bruce was overrated so we can agree to disagree.
I know I am quoting you but I dont mean this as a personal attack but I dont understand how our community gets so hung up on this kind of thought process. If you put Mario Andretti in a ford focus and some random guy who races at a track for fun on the weekends in a Lambogini and let them race Andretti isnt winning. In no other “sport” of this kind is this kind of thinking accepted. Thats why the cars are so monitored in racing, its why there are weight classes in combat sports ect.
I have no problems with improvements at all when they’re absolutely necessary but I feel like it isn’t really the case regarding SFIV. No character is completely useless. Some just require more to A LOT more effort to win with than others, lol. Which I don’t think is ok by any means, but I wouldn’t be crying for a patch about it, ya know? Most of the stupidity in SF just needs to be read before hand to either avoid or counter if possible. If not that, then just block that shit. I could go on about this but Im gonna stop there.
As far as Bruce goes. Knowing what I know about how he lived and what kind of person he was, I feel like he was actually underrated. But hey, maybe Im just a fanboy. lol
Severin: I don’t have a link, they are on his Facebook account (The Kung Lao/Yun stuff)…he actually came up to me at the PDP tourney asking about Kung Lao specifically about him not being patched (I think he thought I had something to do with that)…
I know Cylus and Woot both use Yun, I don’t know how “serious” Woot is with Yun, but I am 100% certain he has had more success with Bison than Yun. The fact of the matter is playing these types of characters require you to continuously use them because people have way more access to players that play Bison and Yun as opposed to Blanka, T. Hawk, Juri; etc.
I’ve personally always chosen characters based on my style…when I first played Street Fighter II I was a Chun-Li player until Champion Edition, then I used Guile, Zangief, and then moved to Bison and Blanka in Hyper Fighting…didn’t start using Honda until Super Turbo but I was still mostly a Chun-Li/Bison/Guile/Gief player and then switched to Vega and Fei Long for awhile…it just depends on how I felt but only a few times (and it just so happened to be the games I was best in) did I happen to accidentally use a top tier character and was a top player because of it (Chun-Li Alpha 2, Gief/A Dhalsim Alpha 3). Everything else took a lot more work (CVS1 ratio 1 teams) but I never look at characters from that standpoint and just think “I must learn them because they are great!”
Then what happens when the low tier player know the match up really well to the point he can counter everything the top tier player does? Yes, I know this rarely happens but maybe I’m just dreaming for too much.
Dream: I agree I also choose chars based on if I like them and if I think there style will suit me. Its why I played Able for so long then moved to Gen. I dont go into it looking for a top tier. Though one of these days I will get lucky enough to like a top tier char…one of these days.
Bishop: I dont think we are too far off. I think the big difference is I think patches to correct legit issues are valid and should be encouraged. At the end of the day to me the goal should be to make a game where more of the cast is useable, well that and to make lots of money to keep making games.
Locke:Thats thing though in some cases it doesn’t matter how much you know your char doesnt have an answer for what the top tier char can do. Even Dream, hands down the best player in the state, said Blanka ball needed some changes since members of the cast had no answer to it at all. Something like that is what I want to see patched/adjusted.
I like this post a lot. However, the human mind is not bound like a machine. Cars can only go as fast as they were made to, no matter how hard your press on the pedal. Fighting games and I believe fighting in general, are more on the plane of brain vs brain. Unless the game is broken, x player vs x player is really decided by the tactics used by the players. If this was not true then Daigo would’ve won EVO for free. I also heard that a Hakumen player won BlazBlue at EVO this year as well and from what I recall, Hakumen IS NOT top tier. I understand the theory of if 2 players were of equal skill played then the better character would win but in reality, there are no “equals”. No 2 brains, fingers, or reactions are the same so there is always someone with an edge.
For clarification, I think complaining about patches/tiers is dumb but so is complaining about people complaining about patches/tiers. I realize I can be perceived as complaining about the complaining about the complaining but it’s my naive hope that people will realize this horse is far beyond dead and no longer even recognizable as a horse. However, I realize you are all really bored and read the SRK frontpage too much.
Also I use Yun because I was getting really bored with Balrog and wanted a change of playstyle. I also used Yun for a long time in 3s so it’s not exactly a difficult transition for me (also slightly because he’s really good :P).
The most “obvious” things right now I think everyone has on their mind for patching involve Yun…we all know SOMETHING is going to be punishable because as of right now it’s very difficult to punish anything Yun does…the most glaring thing to me is that he has advantage on his EX dash punch and his stand strong punch is hands down the best move in the game (3 hit knockdown anytime from it) but we won’t know exactly what is up Capcom’s sleeve but I had a feeling Rose’s U2 and Blanka’s ball would be changed in some way…I believe damage reduction for Yun on his You Hou in combination with Genei Jin stuff may happen…
As good as the dive kicks are in this game, the punishment window against Yun is very hard because you can’t “always” hit him clean so you take a chance but stand jab (if everyone had a good one) would be the #1 weapon against the dive kick…
Cylus, you like to complain about me complaining about everyone else complaining to Capcom
But seriously, I am glad you use Yun; the more different Yun playstyles I (or anyone for that matter) get to play against the better…I really don’t know why I am stockpiling all these playstyles and character matchups for, I don’t really use them for anything important, lol
Aside from all this motherfuckin balance talk in this motherfuckin FG thread as Mr. Jackson would say, anyone interested in a $100 MM FT10 in Marville during the Memphis tourney?
Yun does not bother me. My main beef is with Zangiefs ridiculous throw range. That is the only bitch i have with AE. But even then it doesnt matter to me because Gief vs Vega is not to difficult because I can keep him away for the most part.
Also I am happy with what changes they did make for Vega but honestly I like AE vega still.
Poshib: And the person that puts the most work in as well…Latif/wolfkrone/Juicebox put in a hell of a lot of work with their characters…and Deejay in ST (afrolegends) showed everyone what happens when you take a character to the max…matchup experience even against the worst ones…
I got my Madcatz Messenger bag today in the mail. All i can say about the messenger bag is if you have the option to get the backpack do it. The messenger bag has no padding and it made of that thin weak plastic like material. I see a rip in my near future. Since I tote messenger bags everywhere i can tell a good one from a cheap crappy bag and this is a crappy bag. The backpack looks much nicer and also has the plus of having full on padding for your stick. The messenger bag has what appears to be a mini koozie for your ball top and shaft but doesnt seem to be something that would effectively protect your joystick. All around the messenger bag is a bad idea and feels like a waste of money to me. I can only hope that it lasts a few months.
The EVO stick bag from last year was garbage too. Too bad the quality seems so shoddy on these “specialized” stick bags. It has the potential to be a really cool item but always falls short.
My Friend got the backpack and it is worth the extra money. The Backpack is sturdy and has plenty of padding. It also feels a lot more durable. I would definitely purchase one in the future.
