girdman what are you talking about? You said which lopsided matches are better. I listed a whole bunch of them. Each one I listed is closer to even than it was before. That is exactly what you asked. For example, Dhalsim vs Guile was way in Dhalsim’s favor. Now it’s closer to even than it was before. It is not “almost exactly the same as before.”
The more steps toward balancing that are reviewed, firmed up, approved, and vocalized in harmony by the “top player consortium” and community, the more attractive/visible it will be to a developer toward picking up and running with those ideas as a primary component in development.
If you can’t have a Change Bible, then you can define a process (pipeline) within which a developer could then adopt and handle creating that bible.
Cover:
- what players can benefit from this. (and how: better PR/hook, better gameplay=more fun + longevity, etc.)
- expected manpower/time costs. (including expert knowledge of designer)
- select individuals to be contacted for each specific area, get them on board if things kick off, get some rough ideas from them
etc.
You would be in effect creating a Design Doc toward this feature.
With details on why it’s worth including and solid breakdown on budget, it both promotes the idea to developers AND provides them with a calorie count on the process to then be able to budget for it.
This falls under marketing/promoting the feature.
There are many things that can be looked at in terms of ways to get a feature developed and added. (and this is a feature)
You could try to get it patched to the HDR games on PS3/360.
Figure out what could sell a patch/upgrade and bundle it with that:
- record matches + replays
- better stat tracking
- display inputs
- alternate outfit/stage downloads
- another round of bug polish
- etc.
You could try to sell it as part of an Arcade release for HDR.
You could try to sell it as part of an HDR II release.
You could try to sell it as part of an HDR release on the next gen of consoles: consoles DO cycle out every few years.
Whatever the approach or approaches, it’s something to puzzle out in terms of how to sell the rebalance feature.
Right now most developers probably look at the community feedback from Remix and are uncertain if a careful rebalance feature for ports/sequels is worth doing.
I think most of us do want to support rebalance features in our games, and would do well to make sure as a community we voiced our support.
I wish MS would consider a different method for developers to make money: $ for initial sales + bonus $ for %/frequency of online usage of the game.
This would encourage developers to design for longevity of gameplay and help pay for ongoing support of the game.
I couldn’t possibly agree with you more homie.
David, you did a great job and the game is hella fun. This was highly apparent to me this weekend as I taught a number of people how to play HDR at Alex Valle’s RTSD sessions here in SoCal. I played with at least two handfuls of people that have never played it before and most actually mentioned how much they like HDR over SF4.
There are people here that don’t pick apart all the changes and place blame. I totally agree with SJV (we’ve discussed this at length before) and I also think HDR was a success for the mere fact that nothing was introduced that seriously broke the game, or made a particular character (aside from Akuma) so much better than the majority of the cast.
Plus, before HDR I wasn’t all that interested in playing ST, or fighting games in general. Now I love both. So thanks man! :lovin:
megaman: thanks. And cammy vs honda is winnable for cammy, isn’t it? 
NKI: Ok, but I don’t know what to tell you man. I did the best I could.
Totally, she’s a slut!
It’s also very winnable for Fei. I’ve played hundreds of matches with Jumpsuit, and if I give him one opening I lose. Seriously, I’ve seen him dismantle great players, no matter who they played. It’s a shame he’s not going to Evo. He’d probably shut a lot of people up.
who did David Sirlin consult when considering the guile changes? For the most part I’m very happy with the new guile, the over head is a great feature and gives guile another option for following up a slow boom, which give guile more guile.
The new round house flash kick is awsome. Its range helps to escape cross up attempts. The blanka & boxer matchup is still very difficult for guile, but the vega, sagat and dhalsim match ups are considerebly more balanced.
I guess the only changes I would have liked for guile are to address his blanka & boxer matchups and perhaps to give guile the ability to combo a boom off a low forward.
But as guile mainer I really cant complain guile has been given some powerful and useful tools.
I don’t think anybody doubts that. I certainly ‘thank you,’ for the efforts.
If I said I agreed with everything, I would be lying. There are a handfull of changes I wish were explored a bit more before they were implemented. I make no qualms about being vocal about how I feel. However, I understand that I am in no real positoin to question or directly challenge your methods.
I play HDR quite a bit. As do 1000’s of players, and that should really speak for itself.
:china:
-fatboy
I’d like to know who he talked to about Fei.
It would be a great help if you can record your matches with Jumpsuit. I want to see how he’s dealing with Honda.
Alright seriously, you’re just plain wrong that Fei got “nerfed” and is worse then he was in ST.
Let’s run down a list of what he lost:
- A chicken wing that was easy to combo after
- A flame kick that stayed really low to the ground
- Shorter invincibilty on his super
That’s it. Honestly, the chicken is so damn hard to bust out in a pinch in top level play in ST it’s damn near useless. Comboing after it is really a non-issue against most characters and against most players that have a pulse. The flame kick ending a bit higher sucks, but honestly in most cases where you’d be safe or get hit in ST is pretty much the same in HDR. As far as his super goes, more often then not, the last hit of the super would miss unless you did it point blank, and you got punished for doing it. If you did blow through a fb with it, more often then not, it would connect for 1 hit then get blocked, yay.
Let’s see what he gained:
- Easy motion chicken wing
The easier motion chicken wing actually allows you to react to moves a pull it out in a pinch and still hits as an overhead and you recover fast enough to start a throw/fire kick guessing game. It’s still really effective. - Invincibility on the chicken wing
The invicibility on the chicken wing has it’s uses besides going thru fbs. You can even use it on wake up sometimes to reversal. - A super that moves farther foward that connects consistently and is safe on block.
The super is hella useful in passing thru fbs, reversing block strings (i.e. low roundhousexxfb from far away) and leaves you in a way safer, yet close position to maintain pressure. - Flame kick juggles
The flame kick juggles are actually a nice little touch to inflict some major damage if you can guess right when an opponent jumps. A strategy that many people like to use against Fei is to jump back in the corner to kick him in the head when he tries to rekka. If fei guesses right when you do this, it a free chicken wing-> flame kick for 35% damage. Yeah, that sucks. - farther, better rekkas
The farther rekkas actually help him against Honda and Sagat. They were two characters in particular where the 2nd rekka would miss almost everytime from a distance. The longer rekkas improve Fei’s mobility and footsie game big time, he now has the longest sweep in the game.
The fact the DGV mopped you up proves nothing. He’s one of the best players on live, and Fei typically loses to shotos anyway. The one thing I wish they did to him, was give him a smaller Chun Li-like hit box so he could consistently block cross ups and not get blown apart by one combo.
Fei may not have moved up in the tiers much (if at all), but he’s still hella fun to play and is much improved over his old incarnation in ST.
-wes
Its really not that important as I’m not that bitter about it but you said a bunch of lopsided matchups got dramatically better and I was saying that there wasnt too many that did. My reasoning for saying that is that the tier list remained essentially the same. Maybe a few characters switched places but no one really moved up a whole tier (ie: low to mid).
I believe the entire goal from the onset was to compress the tiers not change them if i remember correctly.
IE:
Top less Top
Low less Low
But not make any Low - Top
Or any Top - Low.
Getting all characters to be Mid is fairly impossible.
VF5R ver. B has S through B tiers. No C tier in that game meaning no one is low tier or even close. If people know what they are doing and actually create mathematical formulas and play-test balance changes over time, it isn’t such an impossible feat to make significantly compressed tiers in a fighting game.
Sega spends hours creating points systems and talking to top level players about balance and year after year it shows because VF4/VF5 have been quite well balanced in their final revisions.
HDR is the final revision of ST, a game that’s been around for 15 years, a game that people have been talking about balancing for 15 years. HDR doesn’t seem like the product of 15 years of discussion. Within this thread and a few other threads in the ST/HDR section are probably a combination of the right ideas to make HDR a heavily compressed game regarding tier lists. But implementing those changes would require cooperation with Backbone, Capcom, and Sirlin which I don’t think we are going to get at this point or ever in the future.
In my opinion, the real problem is that HDR’s focus in game play wasn’t on balancing the game for high level play. It was making the game more accessible for noobs and making it easier to play for scrubs. Evidenced by the easy motions for many of the moves. In my opinion, less time making the game beginner friendly, and more time catering to the hardcore crowd would have been a better service to the people who were around for the previous 15 years keeping ST alive.
The fact that T.Hawk’s motions were changed to reward scrubs who refuse to practice and figure out how to use a walk up command throw within three frames, scrubs who complained that they’d rather have easy motions and not work hard, shocked me. Wasn’t one of the justifications for T.Hawk’s whiff the fact that the new motions allowed for a walk up throw without the possibility of a jump? So a new motion implemented for lazy players ends up hurting the better Hawk players. Yet Honda gets to keep his walk up command throw with button up option select that’s not even a 360/270 motion so he can do it grounded anyways. No parity for Hawk I guess.
VF5R ver. B has S through B tiers. No C tier in that game meaning no one is low tier
That is merely a semantic difference.
If the tiers go from S to B then:
S = Top
A = Mid
B = Low
Compressed tiers does not mean there is not a high, low and middle.
I think the difference is
top
mid
low
or
great
good
average
With the second one implying that there is no true bad characters.
On that same token, I understand you POV. B tier is still a low tier in a way that means there is a noticeable difference between B characters and S characters.
I still don’t understand you reference earlier to the KOF games, about my post. I don’t play KOF or even understand its history.
Yes my point is that even if there is a high compression of the tiers there will always be a high low and middle regardless of how close together they are.
KOF was in reference to how badly they screwed up the netcode for their games.
So wrong it’s sad.
S = Top
A = High
B = Mid
C = Low
D = Sean
VF5R version A had a D tier meaning tiers ran from S to D. Now with the second revision it lost it’s C and D tiers because characters moved up to the S through B tiers so the game became so compressed that it has been reduced to having characters who are mid level competitive at best. There are no low or really low level characters in competitive play.
Just because no one in your class got a D on the latest assignment doesn’t mean that a D wasn’t possible. 
The difference between a Wolf and a Shun in VF5R ver. B is not nearly as dramatic as the difference between a Chun and a Sean (3S)or Claw and Cammy (ST/HDR).
Thanks for clearing that kof thing up.
You’re clearly not a fei player cause otherwise u would understand why ur entire post is usless. I know DGV is a good player and even when i did adapt to his play style and started to win more frequently…fei just had the vast limitations to get in close on him. Srry dude try again…
You do not seem to understand.
In A ver C was the low tier.
In B ver B would be the low tier.
Whichever tier is at the bottom will always be the low tier and whichever is at the top will always be top tier.
It is basic logic.