R.i.p st

Classic Fighting Games Super Street Fighter II Turbo
81

I would honestly love to hear a strong (ie. credible) ST player break down why they feel that vanilla ST is the better game. I want the really nitty-gritty stuff. I’ve heard generalities from people who I’m sure know what they’re talking about, but they’re always so brief and vague, and I’m interested in the details.

A few months ago, Nohoho was nice enough to send me a really cool, long PM about how he felt Blanka’s remix changes hurt him more than they help him in high-level play, and it made me want to hear more. I mean, hating the new graphics or having no patience for all the bugs and glitches are perfectly legitimate reasons to dislike HDR, but that’s some Average Whoever Guy shit. I want to hear some real, deep explanation from high-level players about how and why vanilla ST is more enjoyable for them.

(On the same note, I’d also really like to hear an explanation in detail from someone who was a very strong vanilla ST player and now genuinely prefers HDR, about why they prefer HDR. I’d probably have to ask in the HDR subforum to find this. Usually all you hear is Average Whoever Guy paraphrasing Sirlin change lists, so it would be nice to have a credible player go into depth about it.)

I do play both and I’m deliberately leaving my personal opinions out of this.

82

I don’t fall into the whole “love one-hate the other” mentality at all. I play both regularly, and enjoy the heck out of both. I’d say that the two are different enough that there’s no real way to say one is objectively better than the other. When it comes down to it, it’s basically just an issue of preference, and unfortunately expressing preference on the internet often comes down to polarizing the issue. When I compare both, I have to look at the good changes versus the bad, and familiarity versus playing something new. My preference is toward classic ST, though a lot of that is being able to find more consistent competition with that than HDR.

83

This is a pretty ironic statement here; maybe you should try to find the other side of the story…

I’ve heard multiple reasons from good players ranging from not seeing enough improvements worth switching to, not liking the feel of the new game, not liking their character’s nerfs, or just not liking Sirlin’s attitude. As I said, since the 2 games are so similar but separated by over a decade apart, it’s not clear which game to follow. This isn’t a case where we just got 2 new revisions of SSF2: ST and STHD, and must now choose the more balanced version. You don’t replace the classic game of chess with a new chess variant just because it’s proven to balance out the starting advantage more.

That said, with claw, I don’t know if it was deliberate but every change he got was a nerf.
-No knockdown on wall dive: obvious. Plus, it’s extremely positional to combo afterwards.
-Fake wall dive: a new option but pretty much useless because it falls too slowly and doesn’t really fool any top player into doing anything crazy
-No flipkick storing: hurts in numerous defensive situations
-Easier backflip: makes his b&b combo much harder to pull off since pressing the buttons too fast backflips instead

84

I love playing chess and have always thought of SF2 as the closest fighting game version of chess. I don’t necessarily think that white has a starting advantage over black, and I’m not a pro chess player or anything but I’ve beat people better than me starting as black. However, if there was a variant of chess created that evened out the starting disadvantage for black, I would definitely hop on that bandwagon. Which is why I like ST Remix so much.

-Every nerf to Claw was deliberate. The top tier in classic ST (Dhalsim, Boxer, Claw, O.Sagat, Chun) were nerfed cuz they were top tier, and the bottom tier were buffed.
-Fake Wall Dive can be pretty useful against fireball characters, especially Guile and Ken.
-Correct me if I’m wrong, but Claw couldn’t store his Flipkick in classic, but I do disagree with changing the motion to db instead of back.
-Also changing the command on his backflip got rid of accidental backflips from reversalling Flipkicks. I’d rather slow down my combos than not get my reversal Flipkicks.

IMO I feel like Remix does balance out the classic matchups more, but I’m not sure if it doesn’t go far enough or if the changes are too far. I feel that way about certain characters (Fei and Hawk were “buffed” in the wrong way) but other characters I think are now perfect (Ken, Guile). Either way, I feel with just a tiny bit more tweaking (especially on Akuma and Honda), Remix will be the most balanced that ST could ever be.

85

The other side of the story is just a lot of people abandoning the new version without giving it at least a tiny bit of the time/chance ST had…

86

Well, there’s some of your top players’ advice there.

I’m just mentioning exactly how he’s worse for me. Let me address the points one-by-one:

-Every buff/nerf has been deliberate in its intentions but not in all its implications. That’s why Gouki’s new air fireball angle and tiger knee’d properties were intended for good but ended up with a broken tiger knee’d cross-up air fireball->super. Claw’s backflip is one instance where his best combo now has stricter input simply because of move overlap. And when messed up, he’s placed at a far position not ideal for the matches where you have the opportunity to normally land it. I highly doubt this was intentional since it was never mentioned, would be a pretty lousy intentional nerf, and Sirlin generally doesn’t believe in this form of obfuscation.
-Alright, fake wall dive works for Guile because his HK flash kick goes so far now. But against Ken, there’s little reason to use it because nobody falls for it and it falls too slowly to always punish an anti-air. Only if you can get someone to forget that you’re still playing STHD or if you’re playing online (where the lag makes reaction at a certain range infeasible) will this work.
-The storage was simply holding back after charging enough in the db position. It’s not the same as the real stored moves and is more a property of the flipkick itself.
-The normal backflip motion is still there so that’s not a good reason for making his combo (already not exactly easy and missed at times by everyone, even at top levels) more difficult.

87

Hmmm, did not know that. I always thought it was b,f charge not db.

Dude, I totally forgot they left the old commands in there. What is the combo you’re talking about? Cr.Forward, cr.Forward, cr.Strong? Cuz I can get this all the time and never get a Backflip.

88

Blitzfu we need to play classic on HDR sometime. No one ever plays classic :(.

89

Yeah, it’s the only true diagonal charge in the game. If the flipkick was just “charge back,” the claw-Dhalsim match would be pretty lopsided. The b&b combo I’m referring to is j.HP/HK,c.MK,c.MP although the combo you mentioned (also useful at times) fits as well. If you can get this out all the time in a match situation, then kudos, but what works for me in ST doesn’t work very well in STHD. And shoto players oftentimes try to reversal in between so if I do the motion slowly, I might even get hit if the string doesn’t combo.

90

actually I think guile’s super motion and claw’s super motion also both require a true diagonal db to execute. but that’s just being nit picky

91

For non-combo situations in STHD, Guile’s probably is. But for ST, both supers are actually charge d,f,b,u.

92

HDR>>>>>>>ST

Runs

93

My personal feeling on HDR is that it’s simply too much of a different game to be considered ST. I think the comparisons are inevitable (heck I do it myself) but they really aren’t the same game; too many characters have to play differently. I think two great examples of this are Honda an Blanka:

For Blanka, the changes to Blanka ball completely change the way he plays; they completely reinvent whiff ball-throw ticks, in some cases removing sweet spots that he had for zoning in ST. Also, the extra damage he takes on ball nerfs him worse in some matchups now than punishable ball did in old ST; it also makes ball a worse proposition in general because the risk/reward ratio is heavily in the defender’s favor

For Honda, the change to Oicho, for example, relegates him to having no constant way to stay on certain characters. In ST, once Honda was in, he was in and in certain situations there was no getting him out. He was very much an all-or-nothing character, and while that’s not balanced, it was why people enjoyed playing him: up close he was a monster, outside he was harmless (against a lot of characters that is). In fact, against fireball characters I don’t see how any of his buffs really make up for what he lost. To whit:

  • The super buff is more of a glitch fix, imo, so I don’t really count that
  • more steering on air neutral fierce: this just makes doing what ST players have been doing for 10 years easier. I’m pretty sure he still can’t avoid most slow fireballs or max outs, though, which would be a true buff (if I’m wrong someone please tell me)
  • easier HHS input: again, nice and easier, but not better. The nerf to strong and fierce hands really puts the shame to this one. In ST, Honda can use hands to advance on other charge characters while providing the chance for a positive trade or snuff of a fireball. This is particularly true vs. Claw, where hands beat a lot of his pokes and when it traded it was still good for Honda. Now, as with Blanka, the risk/reward for hands is all mucked up making it a much worse option.
  • the fireball eating property of headbutt doesn’t honestly do that much for him. It has enough recovery that he’s still in the fireball trap or is punishable, and doesn’t go far enough to advance him against most characters. It does, at least, offer a non-trade option vs. fireballs at the beginning of the round.
  • jumping short, however, is an honest-to-god buff and I approve :tup:

Whether you agree if ST or HDR is better is moot; the problem is that many players feel their character has been changed too much to play him/her the same way they always did, thus possibly removing why they had fun with the game. That NKI stopped playing Chun in HDR is pretty indicative of the problem. And because of this, the newly-revived ST scene is splitting.

In the interest of transparency here, I’ll admit to really liking HDR when it first came out. At the time I was playing DeeJay and he’s really unchanged so I didn’t understand a lot of the fuss I was hearing. However, after switching to Honda I realize just how different some aspects of the game can be: playing Honda in ST and HDR feel like totally different characters to me. It was put best to me, imo, when someone said he really would have preferred HDR to have been ST with fixed supers (Honda’s fixed, reversals for Ken, N. Sagat etc) and unrandomized reversal windows.

94

Classic or Remix, they’re both ST.

95

Yeah, I agree with Milo. I like ST, but quite frankly I have felt absolutely no reason to go back and play it with HD Remix out. As I’ve said elsewhere, I didn’t get into ST until last year, when I finally got a copy of the DC version for myself. Prior to that, it was all Hyper Fighting, and AE with hyper fighting characters. I could have cared less about super turbo! So I have no emotional attachment to ST, even though I played the hell out of it in 2008 and had a lot of fun doing so…hell I got halfway competent at the game in the process.

But frankly HD Remix is more fun for me to play overall. There’s less BS, if you will. No walldive BS, more risky throw loop BS for Balrog, Sim, etc. No O. Sagat fireball BS, weaker Oicho BS, etc. and the new motions and fixed input times are fantastic! Yeah, if I practiced enough I could get stuff down, but I have no qualms whatsoever with making it feasible to do, say, Guile’s super on reaction. It sorta worked in ST, because there was just so much BS flying around, but the game was pretty unbalanced and stratified in matchups, especially after 10+ years of experience with it.

Not to say HDR has no weird shit of its own, but there was no serious way that a new SF2 revision could exist and still have that stuff. The complaints about graphics and music are laughable - you can just turn that shit back to classic if you really care - but honestly. Can you tell me that it’s a bad thing that Gief has a shot of winning matches now? That Vega now has to watch out when he wall dives? I can get being upset that a character you poured the better part of a decade into learning got changed up in some inherent ways, but that’s less the game’s problem and more your own.

Everyone keeps likening ST to chess, like it’s some constant that’s been around for thousands of years. They are overlooking that ST is the 5th revision of SF2, and arguably not even the best one. I hear a lot of stories from old school players round here who didn’t like ST and just stopped playing SF2 by the time it came out. Yet enough people jumped onto that from HF and Super to eventually keep that game going for as long as it has. By that same thinking, if enough people jump on HDR then that’ll eventually supersede ST, but I wonder if SF4 has killed any hope of that happening.

96

no…

theres a difference
remix is noob friendly

97

I think there are a bunch of misconceptions here. The main issue is not O.Sagat (which was already soft banned in Japan), and not all were against reducing some throw ranges a bit. It was about changing some things which were not necessary, say, have Cammy with a safe drill instead of cannon spike, or Fei with no flying kicks to combo after. Also, it was already easy to do Guile’s super on reaction, and that is coming from someone who sucks at the game, and even more when playing Guile.

Gief already had advantage against Ryu, Ken, Hawk, DJ and Dictator, and not a bad matchup against Boxer. Not sure what you are talking about.

As for ST not being the best one, pretty much anyone who really knows SF2 either thinks it is ST or HF. And that is it.

SFIV is something for the masses. Sure, there are pros at it, but pretty much because the player base means higher tournament prizes. But ultras, jab+short grabs, kara-grabs, grabs with startup (abomination), easily confirmable supers/ultras are just BS. Kids like exaggerated, flashy animations? Long combos? Give it to them! But all those “aditions” have no good impacts on mind games or strategy. ST will never be superseded by SFIV, just like it was not by alpha. As for HDR, it did not get a world resease, or an arcade release, so it can be replace ST in some tournaments in the US, but not everywhere in the world.

98

Well, a few points here:
SF4 is for the masses. Guess who all your new players are going to be? People from the masses. And in areas that were already tepid about SF2, SF4 pretty much just whomps it. Also, I don’t know why you’re talking about the best sf2 being either ST or HF. I gave HF props, and I consider it the best one. But HDR is still better than ST in my view. As I see it, ST is just a better iteration in a series that was pretty good overall that got a big rep because the only replacement in 13 years was a half-assed amalgamation game.

As for Gief, the only time I have ever had any trouble against him in ST was when I was playing Balrog. Maybe the goddamn zen masters of Zangief could utilize him well enough to do alright, but for most people he’s pretty much trash in most matches. Your solution to O. Sagat being a beast is pointing out that in another country, on another continent, he’s softbanned?

As for the “unnecessary” changes, for Cammy and Fei Long, they were both pretty crappy. I honestly can’t argue with making changes to try and make them better, but not extensively so. Fei’s flying kicks are pretty crazy for pressure and getting in…you don’t think being able to combo after them wouldn’t have made him totally insane? And Guile’s old super motion is still an unnecessarily complex maneuver when a number of people I know who aren’t hardcore players just couldn’t do it.

99

He can combo after them for 70%+ damage, but it’s pretty situational.

100

Hey. Well, I’m also a HF fan, but I simply see more people who prefer ST. Nothing scientifical, tough. And, even tough I love HF, it does have some really bad matchups. Worse than in ST, where I can’t tatsu Ken’s faces all around for throwing a single hadouken, making the pour souls rely on a SRK that will never get used cos I will never need to jump forward.

My idea speaking of O.Sagat was that they do not seem to care about his strength in the US, and outside it, the other country in the world with really big tournaments has him soft banned, so in these two SF2-wise important countries, he is somewhat OK, although in quite different ways.

As for Gief, the tiers consider the characters being played as well as they could. Being good - or even very good - does not cut it. The differences, some times, diminish when the characters are being played by pros. Gief is a character that gets scary in the right hands, just like Claw is not so cheap when both players are good. His long reach, fast speed and good jumps make him a beast among casual players, where he can decimate inexperienced shotos all day long, but as both players progress, the matchup, while still in Claws favor, gets much closer. Back to Gief, good players are patient enough to find the right opportunities for him to get in, and once he gets in, it is hard to get him out.

Fei was already bottom tier in ST, and he could combo of his flying kicks before. IMHO, the easier commands for them are okay, but pros could already do it whenever they wanted, and could combo of it, and it did not make the character broken in their hands, still. I - and others - am not complaining that he should not get buffed. The issue is that he was nerfed in situations that I think he should not. Same for Cammy’s canon spike. It was not like she could get in against everyone and start landing those canon spikes all around and not get countered.

The idea of making ST even more balanced and getting some special attacks easier to do were acceptable. I, myself, think those are good ideas. But one most not confuse the objective with the implementation. HDR did not solve problems without creating new ones (e.g., Boxer not being able to negative edge kick rush punches while charging TAP, Gief and Hawk’s super motions bugged, Hawk having issues when negative edging typhoon due to whiff animation with no throw window, Blanka’s new rolling balls messing up his offensive mind games). Because of that, it is debatable that it is a superior version of the game.