Game balance is a precious and extremely difficult process. The slightest tweak can make a character go from bottom tier to godlike. As far as the system goes, it just naturally goes hand-in-hand with Ryu’s moveset and playstyle. Here is an example of how giving, say, Vega more usage of FADC would almost be broken.
The main reason why Vega’s don’t use FADC often is because the moves that he can use it to cancel from are already safe, and even on hit the FADC barely leaves you with enough time to combo after since vega has 4-frame normals and a surprisingly slow forward dash. The easy way to make FADC useable to Vega would be to make his jabs 3 frames with less recovery so that he could link on combos after RCF (Rolling attack). This would give playersa reason to use FADC after RCF, however, Vega would now be a poking machine, he could keep people out so easily it would be ridiculous.
He could score combos off of pokes like its nothing, all while keeping you from ever getting close to him.
Imagine how this would affect his matchups? Just giving him a 3 frame cr.jab with less recovery (all for the sake of FADC usage being equally distributed) would increase his potential by a long shot. He would easily be mid tier from just that one change. He could rushdown with cr.lp and mix in Kara throws more effectively, and its already pretty damn effective. This is just one example.
FADC has its usages but its not meant to be equally used by everyone. Capcom realized this, so to make game balancing less of a mind-blowing headache, they decided to nerf the moves that benefited the most from it. A smart choice if you ask me. Look what happened as a result.
Ryu is still solid
Other cast members now have a better fighting chance.
c.MK into SRK on rog works only is you are at least 4 charc space away from rog on reaction due to mk long startup. If you do it on anticipation up close, then it can be baited by a good rog - which is what all the talk abt skill comes in, with rog having advantage. Rog can lp normal dash, sweep, standing hk, standing mk, ex-normal dash/ex-overhead mix up. A good rog does his tricks at no more than 2 charc spacing away, up close.
If you focus and wait for that one moment to counter while he rushdown, you would be beaten by a good player. Ex-dp do work, but ryu doesn’t charge meter fast enough, esp if he is on the defensive.
If ryu has an 2 hit srk, then you can reaction normal srk on all rog’s dashes regardless of which version he use. It still take skills and quick reaction, but would adjust the advantage back to ryu slightly.
Btw, I did not say he have the worst tool in the trade. But he have barely just enough. His SRK is quick and strong, but does not have enough invincibility frame. Get stuff by many setup moves such as meaty ex spinning bird kick, t.uppercut, ken’s srk on wake up or if the fadc off other moves, UNLESS the ryu player delayed his srk in which can be baited by a good player as well. Yes, strong other charc players know their stuff to get in on ryu.
His backdash and normal srk does not allow him to escape from a t.uppercut fadc then t.uppercut again mix up. Unless you time the back dash/dp at the v last moment. If sagat delay his t.upper, u r mopped doing that backdash/dp. If you predict a delayed t.upper, then you could try a jab or immdiate dp. But if sagat predict a jab or immediate dp and do an immediate t.upper, you r mopped. Sagat gets to pressure ryu for free with 60% damage potential! And what does he gets if ryu escape? 200 damage in worst case, and no damage in most cases. The same goes for a Chunli FA attack then ex-spinning bird kick mix up.
His chase down moves as I mentioned before, is too slow. That gives dhalsim players advantage. They could just FA attack then back dash, or just backdash away when you get into med range with him. FB or tatsu is too slow to catch him on reaction. Hitting him on anticipation require the ryu player to be able to correctly predicted his backdash. And tatsu is punishable, while FB on block pushes dhalsim further back.
Ryu does not have the BEST TOOLs in the game. They give him a complete set of 2nd grade basic moves to compete. Make them linkable and useful, give him an srk, and limit his ability to escape cleanly when faced with mix up. If you cant teleport/backdash/jump to escape effectively, you r gonna depend on a good srk. The most obvious part on ryu’s limitation, is his ability to escape mix up. Top ryu players knows that, thus they would never give that chance to other charc. They never allow you to get that setup move on them easily, and they don’t let you knock them to the ground. Good other charc user forces it though. Other charc have much more gimmicks and strong moves but doesn’t have a complete set. Well, ppl could argue abt his srk and fb being one of the best, yeah that view I think is argueable because I certainly think ryu srk is excellent, but it’s not a free out of jail card and get stuffed by other invincible move if used correctly as mentioned earlier. His fb is good but not as good as sagat as it can be jumped on REACTION of seeing a FB at a certain range for a free combo (try using sagat/balrog and jump in from abt 3 charc space when seeing a fireball). And apart from honda, every charc have effective moves to get around it so a ryu player need to always know when to throw fb in the heat of the fight, while other chrac just key some input when they see a ball (doesn’t take much skill as compared to having to predict your opponent possible anticipative movement, position, whether he have ex-meter, his reaction time (some players have faster reaction time than others, so certain tighter fb cannot be thrown).
Given that ryu’s backdash and back jump distance sucks (lose to vertical upball, rog head butt etc), he need to be able to srk properly in tight situation. It takes huge risk to attempt a reversal as it can be baited. Chunli, dhalsim, blanka, Viper etc could simply backdash out to safety with significantly less risk. So I do not see what’s the arguement is abt on ryu srk. We all know that you have to rush down on chunli, trap dhalsim up close. Now if they could backdash out and people can’t catch them easily, we r gonna call those backdash cheap also? Those weakness are not free for exploitation. You have to work hard to get in. Good players guard their weakness.
Sagat - Rufus-> I agree that. But that’s Sagat we r talking abt. He is half broken in some matchup.
That’s silly. Giving Vega a 3 frame jab wouldn’t be allowing better FADC use, it’d be giving him a 3 frame jab. And better recovery has nothing to do with FADC.
Instead, they could make Rolling Crystal Flash give enough hitstun to leave Vega at least +4 after RCF FADC. Add charge partitioning so that Charge Characters can FADC into things like Ultra. Specifically allowing Vega to Scarlet Terror > FADC > Ultra, or FADC > EX Flying Barcelona. This is broken how? That would make Vega a lot more viable, but wouldn’t give him anything that other characters can’t do or is hard to get around. It’s not about giving the easy fix for things, it’s about fixing it correctly. Which is my problem with nerfing SRK in the first place.
And, you can check this at the door. The game’s not out yet for the masses in the first place. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the balance is at all better than SFIV at this point. Just different. Again, Ryu’s the only character with less priority on DP. This doesn’t give anyone a better fighting chance, it just gives Ryu a worse one. The game isn’t everybody vs. Ryu. His being nerfed doesn’t help any other character unless they’re fighting him.
And that doesn’t help the game balance, just lowers Ryu’s place in it. Need I remind you that Ryu’s not the only top tier? Or that most characters had an even or near even matchup against him?
Ok I watched a few ryu matches. His dp seems to get stuffed or trades on ground attacks. I did see him beat out a ken jump in that was deep. Other characters dp type moves do not seem to trade on the ground. i noticed this a lot with adon. It broke through a lot without trading. I also noticed that lp srk worked pretty well. didnt seem o trade often on ground attacks.
Metsu srk comes out fast. Ken initiated his super at close range and ryu said “gtfo” and ultrad him. The distance was about long standing jab distance.
Ladies and gentlemen, what someone has to offer to an internet conversation when they have nothing to add about the subject at hand. Omg, and all that.
That quote alone along with all the other crap should be a bannable offense.
Again with the barely, his toolset isn’t the best of them all but they’re WELL ABOVE average in comparison to everyone else - his toolset is so versatile that:
he can be played in different styles and still be competitive
He has the toolset to deal with any given situation whether he is being pressured or turtled.
His fireball can almost keep up with sagat’s tiger shots and recovery is quick enough which makes it hard for opponents to jump in on a ryu without running the risk of a SRK or a trade SRK. The only way to jump in on ryu is if its premeditated or if you guess that he might throw another fireball, you cannot really jump in reactively and get a jump in without risking a SRK.
His ultra although not the most damaging makes up for the fact that it is reliable and consistent, there are so many ways to land it making it one of THE best ultras in the game.
His normals are above average too and he has alot of links with them. d+HP isn’t too bad of an AA as well as far HK, c.MK is a given good poke to use as well.
His AA move is one of THE best in the game when you’re comparing to sht like ken’s(with the exception of MP SRK), fei long, sakura, dan, guile etc. It’s got 3 frame startup and it leads to great damage output and is a SAFE defensive tool with bar AND it allows you to press on the offense.
Chances are if you feel ryu BARELY has the tools to deal with every opponent then either you haven’t touched any of the other characters (like daigo) or you’re just not very good at the game in general.
I think the chances are that you r not very good w ryu or any charc, because it have been proven that good players don’t have much of an issue with ryu with all the 5-5 match up.
If after I shown you so many scenario or situation in which ryu have a problem w (unless the player himself is really good and correctly predicted the opponent’s intention), and you still claim “Ryu have the proper toolset to deal with any situation” when pressured. Then forget it.
PS: Let me give u a hint abt Ryu “mashing” srk reversal, on why good players dun even find it a problem. In games, you can “hear” or see from the corner of the eye a player mashing dp reversal when locked in block string. If you notice that, just block and let him whiff. Excellent ryu player do the mashing quietly or simply do a non-mashing reversal.
Zangief, Abel etc can mash a grab also. Those not able to mash reversal (mainly the charge charc), can mash FA backdash (wonder y they all have long backdash distance?). So whats the problem?
When we talk abt tools, they include escapes and effective defense. Not just attacks.
Ok so he’s even with everyone. That means he deals with everyone much better than everyone else deals with everyone. Some matches have clear winners, the fact that no one clearly beats ryu says something about ryu.
errr SRK is a tool that can act as both offense and defense. It can be used in reversals, as an AA, as well as during combos and it has enough priority to beat a lot of stuff as well as deal additional damage and to escape from pressure with FADC as well as press your own offense following that, his FADC to ultra 1 is hit confirmable as well. You can’t compare that to a command grab, it doesn’t have invincibility so it’ll lose to pokes unless you use the EX version, you can’t FADC it to make it safe if you missed the grab, a SRK is a far superior defensive tool in that regard, analyze the properties of the move, not the fact that “anyone” can mash out a move.
Ryu does have problems but his toolset allows him to DEAL with them, while other characters have it MORE difficult than others in dealing with said situation, we’re looking in terms of CHARACTER comparison, not a comparison in skills of players. We’re talking under the assumption that skill level is equal among the fighters in various scenarios thus a more objective view which is what they try to base their tiers on - an objective analysis of the toolset available on each character and what they are capable of as a character, not so much the skill of the player, because what if say a good vega player beat all these scrubby ryus or sagats? Does that make vega TOP tier material? Does it make Sagat low tier in whatever location he was playing at? No, It would be illusionary. Many players also can’t play viper due to her execution barriers, does that make her low tier? Not necessarily because the analysis of her is more based on what she can DO rather than whether or not the player can do it. You cannot use the “good player” argument to argue the fact that ryu overall toolset isn’t strong.
And with that in mind, what ryu is capable of in general with his toolset is much greater than some of the other available characters which is why he is so high in the tier list.
Of course it does. Do you even play this game or understand frame data?
Right now, RCF > FADC > cr.lp is a one frame link. Also cr.lp x2 is a one frame link. So not only are you required to land a 1 framer to initiate a combo, but you have to land yet another one framer to fill in time enough to build a charge. Wasting 2 EX bars for this kind of risk? Especially when Vega relies on meter to stay competitive? Hell no.
Even if you sped up his dash speed and hitstun on RCF, a 1-frame link between cr. lp’s would still be hindering people from attempting it. Only by reducing recovery on cr.lp will people attempt to use it in combos, hence, after FADC.
Imagine being cornered by Vega while he has a 3 frame jab with less recovery than it does now. He can already keep people in the corner now with his pokes and kara throws. If those frame changes were applied, good Vega’s could keep you in the corner the whole match effortlessly.
Didn’t you ever play Super Turbo? Vega could poke you all day in the corner and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do. Anyone that had to put up with that in ST knows why they made his normal links harder in SFIV.
Damn, all of this just to explain why nerfing Ryu SRK is better than revising the whole damn system.
LOL, did you even read the rest of what you quoted? As in you could increase the hitstun on RCF, instead of just reducing the startup on c.LP. RCF > FADC > c.LP/c.MP become perfectly viable 2 frame links, and c.HP is the one framer for better damage. If you can’t see that that works for FADC purposes just as well as reducing startup does, then you don’t understand frame data.
Hindering people from attempting it? Because nobody uses c.LK > c.LPx2 > TU with Sagat, or c.LK > c.LP > c.MP with Guile, (all 1 frame links) right? Laughable. Also, if you need your light Vega links to be easy in general (which I’d personally be fine with), they could make Vega’s c.LP +5 on hit. That’s broken… how?
Yes, I did play ST. And this still doesn’t have anything to do with giving Vega decent FADC combos, or making all of his special attacks useful in the SFIV engine. Which is what I’m saying should have been done for all characters, since Ryu being one of the “few” to take full advantage of the system is such a problem. And no, giving Vega a 3 frame jab is not the only way to make this happen for him. Nor even a good one. Get real.
LOL, if you believe that, I don’t know what to tell you. The system has faults, and all the characters can’t utilize it well, so instead of fixing the system’s faults, or tweaking the characters to work better in it, making the character that does work in the system worse is such a better solution?
Please. GTFO of here with that. It’s nothing more than a quick and easy copout. Which is understandable, considering they were busy adding features and stages and 10 new characters in the span of just one year. But it doesn’t make it any less of a copout, especially considering how little the engine and characters really needed to be fixed.