Official SRK Ultra SF4 Rebalance Request Thread

but are you really happy about just having solid characters, rather than amazing characters?

The problem with giving characters low health and then jacking up all of their other skills by a huge factor and calling it “balanced” (Akuma, Yun, Viper, ect.) is that health isn’t a great balance system.

Let me give you an example in a simple format. Character A has normal health, and average damage and average speed. Character B has lower than normal health but higher damage and higher speed.

Sounds fair right?

Ok if Character B has say 15% lower health but also deals 15% more damage you have just effectively negated the health difference between Character A and Character B because if they trade blows back and forth they will come out nearly the same (Character A can kill character B in 8hits and Character B can kill character A in 8hits)

However on top of the damage buff, you also have a speed buff. Now Character A is at a loss because Character B has equaled out the health loss via greater damage, but also is also faster than character A giving him a distinct advantage that goes beyond what the health loss is worth.

Low health is not a way to balance a strong character. Just like high health is not a “fix” for a weak character

That can be fixed by buffing damage output for every character in the game. ie. Vanilla.

Howso? Now character A kills character B in 6 hits and Character B kills character A in 6 hits.

character B walks faster and will be stuned easier.
i would say B has the advantage.
good players won’t let them self be stuned so easily.

Akuma and his character design has been around much longer. C Viper can be just as ambiguous, if not more so than Akuma, yet she does damage and stun easier?

I just don’t get it. I don’t want Akuma to be some sort of unstoppable juggernaut, but when I die in two combos and my damage and stun has been nerfed in every version since Vanilla, it just makes me shake my head

Viper doesn’t have the same level of tools for defensive options. If you want to have Akuma do the same level of damage/stun as Viper then you’ll have to give up the invincible 3F reversal.

There is nothing wrong with this scenario. All fighting games work similar to this. The problem is that you’re looking at things in a vacuum, and you’re not considering other possibilities. What if Character A lands the first hit? Now, he has an advantage because if they keep trading blows, he will win (not that things are ever this simple in real matches).

Or, what if I say Character A is better at keeping the opponent out than Character B? Who has the advantage now?

Sure, in some circumstances there will be characters who have clear (dis)advantages, but those are just good/bad matchups. Health, damage, speed, options are all legit ways to balance characters.

Example, imagine if Gief was as fast as Ibuki, but retained the same damage and health… Now that I think about it, that’d be mad funny

Ibuki is slow as shit. One of the slowest walk speeds in the game.

Please dont compare akuma and viper. just because they are both mixup dependent characters they are nothing alike in any other sense. Akuma has much more going for him that justifies Viper doing more stun/damage.

I should have been more specific, I meant as in having target combos, sjc normals, command dashes, her decent forward dash, etc

Health alone is not good way to balance a fighter. It is why Yun Yang Viper and Akuma are so dominate at high levels still, because their damage and options can more than negate their loss in health. Just as T Hawks, and Hakan’s higher health can’t make up for their weaker tools. Rufus lost health going from Vanilla to super and yet was still top tier because his tools were so good.

It’s actually their ability to play safe that negates the health difference.

Actually she is mid range on walk speed. Hardly “one of the slowest” She is rank 24 out of 35 on EHubs (they didn’t update for AE)

Faster than:
Dan
Ken
Abel
Cody
Zangief
THawk
Sagat
Seth
Hakan
Juri
Dhalsim
Makoto

Actually Ibuki is one of the last characters to have a relatively close to average walk speed. Once the walk speed chart hits Abel there is a HUGE drop off in speed compared to the relative closeness of the rest of the cast.

No characteristic alone is good enough to balance a fighter. That’s why you can’t look at things like that in a vacuum.

You say this:

… like it’s a problem, when it’s not. Look at Evil Ryu (for example) for example. He has low health, has good speed, and does really good damage, but he still sucks.

Character’s on their own don’t need to be balanced either. Sometimes the balance is provided by the system mechanics (so what if a char can juggle with 10 mp’s in a row in a game with high damage scaling?), or from other characters (who cares if they have the most powerful fireball if most characters can avoid it easily?).

This is what I don’t really get, when people say that Evil Ryu sucks. Is it just that he has to take risks to land derptron 2000 level damage? or is it that his mixup isn’t as confounding as some other glass cannons? His walk speed is incredible, focus attack is really damn good, c.mk xx fb is a true blockstring that FADC’s to everything, builds meter fast (and he needs it) and he does damage out the ass.

I guess I have always thought of him as just underdeveloped but I would love insight as to why he is considered so bad when he has such stellar damage potential. Basically he lands 2-3 combos and he wins, he gets hit by 2-3 combos and he loses. I honestly think he may be the new character to hate on in ae.2012. but I would be absolutely open to hear from some E.Ryu players or tier fighter 4 players why he is so bad. Is it solely that he is easier to zone than Seth, Akuma, Viper?

you can’t just look at there walk speed.
ibuki has good dash and jumps very fast, all this counts too.
makoto walks super slow, but her dash makes up for it. so walking with makoto is something you don’t do much for closing in on your opponent.

I never thought ibuki was slow, she has great mobility

^ At least some people see what I was getting at