Phase 3 Beta Feature/Gameplay Suggestions for Capcom Unity

NOTE: I know people were bringing up issues with the sound design in comparison to SFIV and people were having issues with AA boxes/damage so I’ll throw those in pretty soon.

We’re doing it again. For this one now that we know a bit more of some of the features that will be offered for SFV, it will be good to focus on getting a list of features that people would still like implemented. Then of course the typical gameplay/balance stuff.
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Features:
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- A strict punishment for people who rage quit. Make sure this is tested thoroughly so it doesn’t accidentally negatively affect the person who didn’t drop. The game should be able to tell close to 100 percent of the time who dropped and punish them effectively for it.

- Make hit boxes and frame data available in training mode and an active displaying frame data tool whenever you land an attack on hit or block. Would be preferred to have VF/DOA style active frame data listing where you can bring up an active menu that displays the data mined in the game everytime you land an attack.

- The ability to record a combo or set up and then restart at any point during the middle of said combo or setup. Like if you want to practice timing the last 3 hits of a juggle combo, you can just restart right before the last 3 hits of the juggle combo instead of having to perform the entire combo again. If you’re trying to practice blocking against a setup you can rewind to right before the setup crosses up or goes high/low.
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  • Allow players to choose whether they want to be on player 1 or player 2 side in local vs mode before the character select screen.** This would make things a lot easier for tournaments or just casual play so people don’t have to hold home buttons, switch controllers or even switch seats just to be on the right side of the screen.
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  • An actual TUTORIAL mode for the game that teaches people how to play SF.** There are still a lot of people who just play games and don’t read forums or watch streams much. Have them at least get a way to get quick entry into the competitiveness of the game by having the computer train them in aspects like anti airing, footsies, hit confirming, blocking, tech throwing, basic bnbs, educating them on how and why “cheap/spammy” tactics are beatable etc.

Guilty Gear Xrd did a good job creating different challenge trials where you learn how to do deal with things in the neutral.

**- With rollback netcode being utilized, allow us to see the exact ping numbers for our opponents **and give us a visual of how many frames of delay we are encountering during the fight like GGXrd. Allowing us to adjust that delay like in 3S OE or GGPO would be nice also.

**- Add in features that help eliminate issues with pausing or wireless controller synch issues during tournaments that are notorious for negatively effecting big matches. ** A function that stops issues with people pressing the home/share/options during matches would be nice as well. People are regularly accidentally hitting share and options buttons which brings people back to the home screen.
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  • Online Training Mode**

**- Tournament Ready Mode that sets all rounds, timer and other things to the default necessary for tournaments. **It should first ask for which side of the screen each player wants to be on, ask for button input check then go straight to the select screen. If possible, make sure all colors, outfits and characters are unlocked for this mode. Disable trophies for this mode as well.

- Create a player card/stat tracking profile feature for players that can show off things like what tournaments they’ve won, their battle points online and pre set all of their button config and character color/accessory options. Like a more robust version of what’s used in the arcades for SFIV, Tekken or Virtua Fighter. Let this be something that people can use for offline battles and tournaments.

- Frame skip in training mode and replays so we can freeze and see individual frames of things that are happening.

**- 2/3 or other options for ranked. **Possibly when you move up far enough in ranked you can make games 2/3 or higher to promote adapting to people’s play and less getting points just for going wild on the opponent for one match.
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  • When people aren’t watching streams, give them options to spectate other people playing ranked or in lobbies right from the game itself.** Like allowing up to 20 or more people to purely spectate instead of play. A large set of ways to create, save and distribute replays would be nice as well.

- All play feature for lobbies. In lobbies let everyone switch between playing other people like at a BYOC or Japanese style LAN cabinet. If everyone is online there isn’t a need to have people in traditional single file line on one lobby/cabinet. Give us options to play or spectate different parts of the lobby at anytime. Sitting in a traditional long 6 to 8 person line is very archaic and gives that feel of everyone crowding around the one machine the day a new fighitng game released.

Gameplay: (Includes some of the stuff that I felt are still relevant from the last post with some newer stuff)

  • **We heard that you plan not to add in any balance patches during the Capcom Cup season after the game launches. ** There has been a lot of messing around with data during the beta and it’s got us feeling that you will not adhere to this after launch. Please save the changes after releases until after the season is over so we can adjust to a meta and simply play the game and learn our characters and matchups.

- Get rid of the invincible frames on a PP or KK quick rise that make it overly difficult to meaty people as they rise back up. Make it more like Alpha where there are vulnerable frames as people roll back up.
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  • Revert stun values on throws and heavies back to 200. ** At least for the characters that aren’t super mix up heavy. 150 stun is rough for a game that’s trying to emphasize use of heavier buttons and harder to tech throws.

**- Adjust pushback on hit and block for attacks. ** Pushback on blocked jabs should be lessened, pushback on negative heavy normals and specials like fireballs should be increased. Pushback on hit lights still seems a bit rough.

- Make hit/hurtboxes react more naturally. Some things are still visually way off.

- Increase range for lower normal hurtboxes.

  • Improve walk speeds a bit, especially for characters that have slower speeds like Bison, Birdie and Nash. Would prefer something closer to old game walk speeds for characters. Especially if throws are as short ranged as they are.

- Improve throws (will add to this as throw damage/stun was changed again).

- Either increase the time that white chip from normal lingers or make the white chip damage larger. Right now walk speeds seem to be too slow and the white chip recovers too quickly for it to be something that will hugely effect matches.

- Continue to emphasize block stun and allowing a majority of block strings to be true block strings. Only jabs creating true block strings in SFIV really limited the type of pressure you could apply in conjunction with the invincible dashes.

- Try to create a better medium between fireball and anti fireball options. There seems to be a lot of anti projectile options per character and don’t want another SF game where the projectile zoning characters always have to be walking on eggshells with every projectile they throw. Projectiles should be pertinent and players should have to learn to get around them with spacing and patience rather than just have a ton of tools to bypass them.

- Allow draw games to reset the round or award neither player a win and move to the next round. No more both players being awarded a win.

Backward Teledash for Bison!

Seriously though, walkspeed and throws are my #1 for gameplay. Thing is both have been stressed out since Beta 1, and they barely acknowledged them. This makes me think that these things not only are intentional, but foundational to what they want the gameplay of SF5 to be, and changing or adjusting them too much may jeopardizes their vision.

PC Version: Support Directinput so sticks work without work arounds

I disagree on faster walk speed for Nash, personally.

Fix the stubby hitboxes, especially on low medium attacks. Either make the hitboxes bigger, or make the hurtboxes on the legs bigger.

We need a benchmark test for PC users and the ability to filter out those toaster who don’t reach a certain threshold (let’s say a score from 1-4 or something).

Increase health and stun values for Gief and Birdie

For gameplay purposes.
The damage of anti airs across the board should be increased and some need adjustments to reduce trading on the correct read. The reward for doing an anti air seems to be negligible. An anti air that does 50 damage will not discourage an opponent from jumping opposed to one that will do 90 damage.

Non cancel-able pokes should do more damage during footsies combined with a slightly faster walk speed.

I admire your diligence dude, but on Capcommunity the end result is going to be a 2-3 replies from scrubs complaining that there’s no crouch tech. I’ll throw in my 0.02 still:

Can we get DirectInput for PC?

Fix certain hitboxes.

Have ping numbers for connections.

Give players the ability to preview a connection to detect ping spikes.

Add a filter to automatically kick players with bad connections.

I echo the need for throw buffs. Throws need actual range and possibly faster startup or Jabs/Lights need slower startup.

Bring back Trip Guard.

Character-specific:

R. Mika:

Extend the range of her t.MK back to what it was in Beta 2.

Give her a better crossup. Literally every other character has a better crossup but she doesn’t. If the opponent moves very slightly forwards, Mika’s crossup will whiff completely. This is a big problem in a game that doesn’t have trip guard.

Make charged and uncharged HK an overhead. They could make the uncharged version more unsafe on block, I’d be fine with that, but she needs something a little extra in the mixup department. Especially in comparison to what Laura has.

V-Skill no longer buffs command grab damage. Instead, it adds either V-Trigger or Critical Art meter.

Necalli:

Make his Dive Kick better. It’s almost completely worthless and it’s a free AA with any character. Give it some better priority and make it so he can do it from a neutral jump.

PC: Better dual monitor support. Second monitor is currently blacked-out when running full-screen mode. Windowed mode doesn’t center properly. There is no borderless windowed mode.

I think this is the main reason I will continue to play on PS4 over PC. My el gato hd60 is already hooked up and get full screen play with it while streaming. PS4 is naturally going to be full screen for standard playing

Different hitsparks on counter-hit plz.

Games needs proper benchmark tool and fixed framerate.
I don’t want to ever see toasters being allowed into ranked matches.

You adressed so many points and i can’t disagree with any, except one. The capcom cup “season” basically continues throughout the entire year, which means if there will be any balance changes and they adhere to the thinking you mentioned in your post, only the beginning months or end of the last month are viable to bring in balance changes. If you balance too often you don’t give the game its breathing room it needs to grow, and things that might seem good at first will be nerfed while in hindsight they weren’t that good to begin with. However once a year i feel isn’t enough, i rather see 2 major balance changes in a year. One during the offseason, and one in the middle. Ofcourse obvious broken stuff like glitches and moves acting in unintended ways can get fixed no problem.

I still have some concerns about the limited linking/juggling/reset possibilities, however i seem to be in the minority regarding that atleast on this site, however i’m certainly not alone in this regard. I’m talking about stuff which was take out which was either found in the earlier beta’s or stresstests or at conventions.

Another thing, the side switch after a round ends(when you are defeated on the otherside from which you started the round), it has no added value due to you always being positioned in the center of the stage, it can bring unnecessary confusion in mirror matches.

Things i would like too see improved

  • Loading times faster
  • option to select to hear one’s character theme and stage theme

gameplay

  • Increase the damage of anti airs on later active frames or remove completely the damage reduction
  • Crush counters sweep are good addition i think capcom should know how we feel about this.
  • Increase the Damage on non-cancelable pokes this is @Eternal opinion which was popular btw.

The rest is already mention above like white health, stun increase, pushback, hitbox/hurtbox adjustment and etc which i fully agree on @“DevilJin 01” post.

Put Mexico in North America where it belongs, not South America.

DevilJin 01

Some of these features seem very nice, but others seem like you want the game to fit your style of play not the style that’s best for the majority of us. But then again this is still beta and they have plenty of time to make some fine tune adjustments as well.

Thats why the key word is suggestions. Were all ready to adapt to whatever Capcom gives us just like we had to do with IV.

There are certain things that I will be editing that I know have slim to no chance of being implemented. Ite pretty obvious at this point that they’re not going to mess with the blockstun much anymore

This is super important. I mean aren’t all these SF5 branded MadCatz PS4/PC sticks and pads also DirectInput? People will maul them if they buy a stick and it doesn’t work out of the box with the game it’s being marketed with.

Pretty much agree with everything listed by everyone in here other than perhaps very character specific changes. I’ll try and sum up and provide explanations for many of these I’ve seen in here or thought of myself if I haven’t seen it. I think most of the non-gameplay stuff everyone can agree on.


Key things that are not gameplay related but core to creating a better experience for the product

  • Improved tutorial mode. Take inspiration from Skullgirls and Guilty Gear Xrd (especially Skullgirls which goes even more in depth). Give proper explanations for all game mechanics individually with small repeated trials to learn them. At the moment the tutorial is EXTREMELY short and lacking though a welcome improvement over previous entries.

  • Allow disabling “favorites” system on character selecting for casual matches. Having a favorites system for online play is OK, it has it’s quirks positive and negative, however having the ability to switch out and practice a different match up in casuals should be allowed without having to go back to main menu.

  • An “All Play” feature for lobbies. It is basically standard nowadays. You should be able to opt out of it and select to view a specific set of players but All Play improves everyone’s experiences by adding less downtime.

  • The ability to enter into a “2 out of 3” set in ranked. With the ability for the loser to change characters. This allows players to practice a tournament setting and can encourage people to go to those events by providing an experience similar to what you might face in pools. It teaches people to read opponents habits and adapt and discourages large gambles.

  • Rematch button for 1v1 casual/private play. This has been requested since extremely early in Street Fighter 4’s life time. It simply makes sense to have.

  • The option to enter in an input delay similar to GGPO systems but make the automatic system default. Have the ability to enable selecting your delay something put into the “Options” menu in game. The actual selection of delay occurs during the match start but you need to first enable the ability to change it at all. This means that your average player is less likely to try and find it and mess with it as many people don’t ever go into options. However it keeps the ability to do it for those willing.

  • Changing connection views from Bars to actual Ping values should be allowed. Ping values provide a more accurate amount of information but many people don’t understand it. Like selecting your input delay this should be something you turn on or off in your options menu with bars being the default.

  • Offline Tournament mode, take inspiration from Skullgirls’ tournament mode. This mode should disable gaining achievements/trophies. Costumes / colors / characters should all be unlocked, or at least non-premium ones. Allow players to choose Player 1 or Player 2 side. When sticks are unplugged the game automatically goes to a button check screen when new stick is plugged in before entering into the character select screen. When a wireless controller is unplugged the system automatically removes it preventing a desync issue. Pause buttons gain a 2~3 seconds “Hold Required” feature that prevents accidental presses from pausing the game, requires the player to hold down the button for an extended period to pause the game. However the button can still be pressed to skip round start/end cinematics without button hold.

  • Allow online player cards with stats viewing. Allow you to view players game stats just like you can view your own. See what characters they prefer and their gameplay stats. See what their default button config is, track their replays and more.

  • A spectator mode where you can watch a specific player play ranked or casuals. Basically a sort of live streaming system in-game.

  • A way to send messages between players or other spectators. Communication is key to any experience, allow yourself to receive messages or send messages easily. This can allow you to find a friend in ranked and maybe set up a set of casual matches. Make sure there is also the ability to block a player or flat out disable receiving messages.

  • A way to create and retain “friends” across platforms. Along with the ability to send and receive messages you should be able to create friends regardless of platform. This would be tied exclusively to street fighter 5 of course due to the limitations of Steam vs PSN.

  • Make sure that people who quit mid match are punished. Players who choose to leave should not be rewarded fight money or points whatsoever at bare minimum.


PC Specific things

  • Add a benchmark and show your benchmark rating before a match. This was an important feature in SF4. Showing the rating isn’t that important but it’s helpful, however having a benchmark is a MUST. Many people are unsure of the settings they are capable of using for a consistent value.

  • Direct input for joysticks/gamepads. This is the standard in almost every fighting game. Direct input allows for many more peripherals to function than xinput. This includes many PS4/PS3 peripherals which people are more likely to use due to the compatibility with the new main console platform of the PS4. However it also allows people to continue to use their old Xbox stick. There is basically no reason NOT to use direct input.

  • Better rebinding display and system for keyboards. At the moment the game does not display the actual keys you have switched things to, there is no way to view what keys are bound to what buttons, and you are limited to what keys you can even bind to inputs. This is another step backwards from SF4.

  • Dual monitor support. Many people utilize dual monitors for their gameplay experiences and currently the game does not seem to support it properly.


Training mode

  • Add a frame data and hitbox viewer built into the training mode. Frame data is going the be recorded and mined within a few days of any patch, hiding it from players and requiring them to go outside of the game to check things just reduces their time playing and distracts from their experience. Many contemporaries have implemented this into their games. Skullgirls includes it, Virtua Fighter has had this for a long time as a feature already, and recent games produced by Netherrealm Studios have implemented frame data information directly into their training mode.

  • Ability to import a replay into your training mode and watch it with frame data and hitbox display on. As well as allow pausing and frame by frame skip forward. As well as input display. This allows players to learn setups, figure out spacing, and helps teach players the mindsets of other players. It also can help you learn from your own mechanical mistakes on things like spacing for whiff punishes or what sort of execution/frame trap timings you can improve.

  • A state save / load feature. This was added to USF4 and is a welcome addition. This feature allows you to quickly reset situations you want to test such as a specific spacing for a corner combos or other situations. The option to also save multiple states and choose which one to replay without being forced to undo a previous one would be welcomed.

  • Online training mode to allow you to play with a friend in training mode.


Gameplay related ideas/requests.

  • Remove or lower the damage reduction on early anti airs. Many moves have damage reduced when hitting a player on later active frames such as some characters crouching HPs or special move DPs. This feels like you are punishing a person for making a good read and having good reactions. It also make gamble jump ins more rewarding and less risky.

  • Overall increase in both forward and backwards walk speeds for many characters, especially the ones currently very slow. One thing many players have always enjoyed is the quick speed of characters. A common request in Street Fighter 4 was to increase a characters walk speed. Walk speeds allow you to utilize your variety of normal ranges better as well as force the opponent to commit more to a poke which you can get out of the way of and counter poke if you read it correctly. This increases the active nature of the game will promote offense.

  • Increase white health chip from 12.5% -> 18~20% OR significantly reduce the speed it regenerates. White health a very unique mechanic that helps separate Street Fighter 5 from any other Street Fighter game, it should be emphasized. In addition throws and overheads are more unsafe than previous entries, this means that the ability to capitalize on that white health carries more risk.

  • Return trip guard. Trip guard is an important tool in Street Fighter and most 2D games, it helps create the jump in vs empty jump mix up.

  • Improve stun and damage on purely poke oriented mid/heavy normals. Ones that are not able to be cancelled or followed up. This helps emphasize the neutral game without dragging it out. In addition having a variety of damage values on different attacks helps keep things fresh and really emphasizes the uniqueness of each move’s utilities.

  • Improve the damage on overheads or reduce the damage but allow for combos. Overheads have become almost universally punishable on block, in a game based on hard reads this is fine. However the reward on making a proper read should be more equal to the risk on a bad read.

  • Return the stun values on throws to 200 and/OR make the “average” damage on throws 130~140 rather than 110~130. In a game oriented around frame traps the reward for a throw should be improved. Positioning is a good reward but at the moment many characters are negative when attempting to follow up their throws with any pressure outside of the corner. Having a high stun would be better as stun is usually a mechanic that only shows up when a match is basically already over, having the threat of a stun show up more often makes people more likely to go in hard to try and land the stun. It makes the interactions more dynamic and aggressive.

  • Return some of the pushback on fireballs or improve the damage on them. Many standard situations fireballs are not true block strings, when the number of fireball counters in the game is increased the ability to utilize a fireball in strings should be offset. Fireball FADC combo is no longer an issue and neither is chip death. However the risk of a big jump in combo or fireball counter move is retained.

  • Return the stun values on many heavy attacks to 200, possibly make some poke heavies have even more than 200stun. The game is oriented around shorter combos with slower normals, like with throws having the potential for a mid match stun is exciting for many players. In addition counter hits gain smaller bonuses in damage and stun than previous Street Fighter games. 225-250 on a couple of heavy pokes could be a fun threat, making the damage lower but stun higher for instance on a specific attack could help give it a unique identity. When you know the opponent is close to stun you might utilize this one to push them over the edge with less scaling.

  • Improve the reach and hit boxes on many of the low attacks. Several attacks have situations where normals feel like they should hit but do no, in addition lows are a key part of the footsies game. Off set this with some improvements on anti-low normals such as hop kicks or standing mid kicks. In general hitboxes for pokes should be improved and lengthened. This also helps give a sense of variety to ranges/utility on attacks like changing the damage/stun values on raw pokes.

  • Make activating a V-trigger no longer scale your combo by 1 hit. Utilizing a key resource should not reduce your damage when most combos are relatively short unless you use all of your resources.

  • Improve the throw ranges slightly. At the moment many tic throws are impossible as the throw ranges are so short that a blocked light will push you out of range of a throw. In addition the short range reduces the ability to punish attacks with a throw.

  • Add a few instances of true block strings for characters. Block strings help you to push yourself out to a range where you can emphasize your counter pokes for footsies as Maj’s footsies hand book had outlined. At the moment true block strings are very rare. True block strings can also allow you to chip an opponent since many light attacks do not provide enough block stun to make a special move a true block string, having something like a light attack - mid attack be a true blockstring but not combo could also create an interesting dynamic with how lights are meant to be utilized. At the very least add one heavy - mid or mid - mid for some characters.

  • Add a distinct color shift for a counter hit attack hit spark. This allows you to keep your eye on the action. This game is meant to emphasize counter hitting so making a counterhit more recognizable would help show that design direction.

  • Be careful with balance shifts throughout the year but don’t be TOO conservative if its felt needed Try to avoid performing major shifts shortly before key tournaments in the season. Once every 6-12 months at most should be major shifts while small balance changes are ok but should not occur often. Try and time balance changes to occur shortly after a key major in Capcom Cup but not right before to allow players to learn the changes and adapt before their next large event.

Rematch button for 1 vs 1 private lobby matches.

-buff dmg of H normals
-buff dmg of H/EX specials
-buff dmg of throws
-bring back fun Ryu
-give Gief and Birdie 1150 HP