Ryu changes in SSFIV thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
561

Sarcasm whoosh? Your arbitrarily claiming that these characters are easy. Ryu is as much of an introductory character as Bison, Akuma, or Dhalsim is. It’s not hard to learn any characters moves, but not a single character is easy to play at a high level.

And Ken an introductory character? Like hell. You seem to be confusing “Having relatively few easy to perform moves” with “Introductory.” What exactly is introductory about Ken? He relies heavily on kara-throws, effective pokes, and a rushdown that isn’t particularly easy to perform on people… Akuma has a hell of an easier time doing what he does than Ken does, I mean hell if you want a -challenge- I’d say play Ken in that regard.

Point being, an introductory character is whoever you happen to pick up. Every single character is designed to be easy to get into and get the jist of. Every single character has enough depth to constantly learn new things about them and have an extraordinarily high skill cap.

THAT is good business sense and game design, and they followed through on that design well. Not a single character is difficult to learn the basics of, every single character is difficult to master.

562

Right, and I agree. I can’t play a Daigo level Ryu, the only thing I’m saying is that it’s easier to “level up” your play so to speak with Ryu than it is Gen for example. I’m not trying to disrespect good Ryu’s I’m just saying if you choose him you have somewhat of a head start over most characters.

Strong edit.

Ken is fairly easy, I can’t believe you’re citing things like kara-throws as evidence which makes him harder to play. Kara throws are easy as hell to perform, am I missing something here? He requires more knowledge than most with his footsies I’ll give you that, but he’s lower mid tier on the difficulty list. There are definitely easier characters, but he ain’t that hard.

Oh, and Akuma is definitely one of the hardest characters, much harder than Ken. Akuma hasn’t just fought from slightly upper mid tier to S+ tier for no reason. I could write a book on how hard Akuma is to use, but I’ll spare you the bull shit.

Oh, and not everyone is meant to be an intro character. Certain characters ARE meant to be harder to use than others, Ono said himself that Gen is for advanced players only. We can infer from this that he does actually make certian characters easier and harder to use on purpose. Almost all game designers do this, it isn’t new.

563

**But the point of the matter is that he’s a PERFECTLY BALANCED CHARACTER. **

You go by the tier list to get to this conclusion yea? Balanced is having strengths with a weakness, and it seems in the past two weeks people have realized that ryu doesnt inherently have any weakness at all.

**It’s fucking ridiculous that just because I’m a fucking Ryu player, a well thought out argument gets thrown aside. **

I for one, appreciate that you have logical arguments as a ryu player as it seems pretty rare. Whenever you usually point out a fault with Ryu, they go and bring up sagat to justify themselves, but sagat is going to get nerfed and ryu doesn’t have much of a problem with him so i don’t see the logic there.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but a flood of ryu players came to the guile thread and pretty much opposed every buff the character needed for the stupidest of reasons:Guile has better normals than ryu, so he shouldn’t have any of them buffed to what they used to be like, his ultra is fine 'cos i say so l2p, flashkick recovery is fine because HP SRK has a longer recovery…

Point is, you ought to be happy that atleast people make sense here. It’s not the tier list that bothers me, it’s the fact that for every nerf i got this guy got a buff, and like someone else said it’s at the level where he’s at an introduction level. It’s not just a coincidence that he benefits so greatly from auto-correction, absolute guard, huge reversal window,easy ultra setups…etc etc etc.

If you want a perfectly balanced character, look at akuma because he can be mid tier normally and with abit of knowledge he’s top tier, all while having strengths and a weakness. It’d be nice if we just said “buff this character and don’t nerf anyone” but i don’t know if it’s very realistic

564

Ryu. Hmm. I might get yelled at for this, but I feel these are reasonable:

  • Reduce hit/blockstun and increase recovery frames on c.mp
  • Slightly reduce range of c.mk
  • Remove trade hit Ultra juggles (though this is not Ryu specific)
  • Ultra juggle doesn’t invoke all eight hits (think ST’s juggle mechanics for his Super - not all hits connected. Things scaled back - particularly when you juggle from j.mp)
  • Reduce blockstun from ground hk tatsu

I feel these are fair changes for Ryu to help bring him into line with the rest of the cast whilst still retaining his key advantages and benefits. He doesn’t need a great deal of changes and if anything he is likely to become even more versatile with the addition of a new Ultra and possibly Super.

565

First off, “balanced” doesn’t mean “having strengths with a weakness”. Referring to a single character’s game it means “adequate in all areas, overpowered in none”. In the scope of roster balance, it generally means having a fair or even matchup against just about everyone across the board (6-4, 5-5, 4-6 win ratios).

Ryu has that in this game. That’s what makes him a very well balanced character. He doesn’t have any inherent weakness, no. But he doesn’t have any overbearing strengths either. He’s just an all around good character, as he was always intended to be.

That whole “introduction character” shtick is complete Bull. There are easier characters to play with. Learning the game, the easiest characters to pick up and win with are Blanka and Zangief by far. Sagat is clearly better at Ryu and Ken’s basic game than they are. All that intro crap is just based on the notion that since SFII most newbs started out trying Ryu and Ken.

What does that have to do with the character, especially at a higher level of play where no one’s new at it and tiers actually matter? There are relatively simple characters, but Street Fighter is supposed to be a relatively simple game. That that simplicity should matter when deciding whether to make a character good or not in terms of roster balance makes no sense to me. There’s a tradeoff in getting by with basics, a basic style is read with ease. A character being easy to use doesn’t equate to a character being easy to win with, especially in balanced matchups like Ryu’s.

I doubt anyone can give a detailed rundown on what makes an “intro character” an “intro character”, without describing like half the roster. If you want a game where a character has to utilize advanced and complicated tricks and maneuvers to be good, go play MvC2.

As for Akuma, no. Tier lists don’t change with one person’s knowledge. He has arguably the best toolset in the game and killer damage output, which is hardly offset by his low stamina. Low stamina which was absolutely necessary, or Akuma’d be flat out broken.

566

**Referring to a single character’s game it means “adequate in all areas, overpowered in none”. **

But people have been listing quite a few things that are overpowered, we already went over the tier list. I don’t see how someone can say blanka or zangief are easier to play…unless your opponents know nothing about the game at all and are easily exploited.

Both characters have glaring weaknesses, blanka revolves around crazy creativity to be effective against anyone who’s informed of his tricks, zangiefs weaknesses are the same as always…we asked in the other thread where the red army was if he’s so easy to use and lariat is so overpowered.

Why not akuma? Ofcourse the guy is the same…that’s not the point, the point is that in order to take advantage of his strengths the player has to be really really good and even then he still has a clear weakness to balance him, can’t say the same thing for ryu.

567

Im totally with you. There’s good reason to suggest that such a concept as “introductory/begginer characters” doesn’t even exist at all, and it makes it that much more depressing to see that several people in this thread who have no legitimate arguments left are extending it endlessly and using it as a means to further the silly argument that Ryu is broken. It’s quite sad.

“Oh fuck! This character is stupid, he throws fireballs when Im grounded and uppercuts when I jump, so fucking broken! and look what he does when he gets ultra fuck!”

:lame:

568

Sigh Tier List. As you can see, Ryu has mostly even matchups, is only 6-4 against the rest of the cast (which is only slight advantage), with the only exception of Dan, the worst character in the game (7-3).

People haven’t been listing anything OP about Ryu in this thread. Whining about crap, yeah. The more stupid things I agree with (like trade DP to Ultra). But then you have the bawwing about stuff like AA LP SRK to Ultra when you clearly shouldn’t jump in on Ryu anyway… heaven forbid he actually be a decent character. :lame:

We were talking about learning the game/starting off/intro/scrub characters, no? Get with the program.

Zangief and Blanka destroy scrubs, even in the hands of one. Were I to classify such a thing as a “beginner character”, it doesn’t get more compelling than that.

You can’t say that Ryu can completely zone you out with air fireballs and 3-hit ground ones, link Tatsus to sweeps and SRKs, escape effortlessly across the screen with a teleport, hit an Ultra that deals 75% your average character’s life bar, or destroy you with a semi-infinite either :rolleyes: Since the Akuma semi-inf was discovered I’m pretty sure he shot up to S-rank.

Being overpowered has nothing to do with the amount of skill required to effectively use the character. Do you even know how tier lists are supposed to work?

Come on man, pull it together. I’m beginning to think you don’t know what you’re talking about, and are just tossing around terms you heard other people using.

569

**Sigh Tier List. **

Yea, that list is totally legit too, see how blanka is easily one of the best characters in the game.

**We were talking about learning the game/starting off/intro/scrub characters, no? Get with the program. **

And ryu still beats them out, sorry. You’re one of those guys who makes the other ryu players look bad by missing points and saying ridiculous things.

Zangief and Blanka destroy scrubs, even in the hands of one. Were I to classify such a thing as a “beginner character”, it doesn’t get more compelling than that.

Why aren’t they more popular then? The argument from the thread where people want lariat nerfed still needs to be answered.

You can’t say that Ryu can completely zone you out with air fireballs and 3-hit ground ones, link Tatsus to sweeps and SRKs, escape effortlessly across the screen with a teleport, hit an Ultra that deals 75% your average character’s life bar, or destroy you with a semi-infinite either Since the Akuma semi-inf was discovered I’m pretty sure he shot up to S-rank.

Not according to the holy tier list that was seww valid just a few seconds ago, what happened? See why that thing is useless to use in this argument? I guess you don’t because even after this glaring inconsistency you continue to bring up the BS.

If you think that list is legit i can’t wait to see how many ryu players agree with you.

570

Honestly I don’t feel Ryu is overpowered (I am a ryu player)
Ryu is very easy to read if put into a bad players hands as he only has a few setups and majorly wins off solid basics and a couple 50/50 situations he has the tools to abuse.

Ex tatsu is really my only problem with him. Unless the rest of the cast is buffed in some way it linking to ultra in the corner really takes his corner game to a stupid level. I think it being a throw bait gives a purpose to a move that otherwise would be ignored and really go a long way in improving ryu as a whole. But it linking to Ultra is to much reward for a safe move.

Trade DP against good players is a once in a couple match type of thing. Nothing that happens a lot, unless someone is just being stupid. Ex tatsu, however, is a consistent tool for high damage (200+350(.9) = 515 ish.)
200 damage and a knockdown is plenty of reward, it doesn’t need to have an ultra followup that’s the purpose of EX fireball in the corner.

So fix

  1. Ex Tatsu throws them at lower arc so corner ultra followup is impossible.
  2. Shoryuken FP is more invulnerable till it is airborne making trading impossible. Also means Ryu won’t get thrown out of LP Shoryu anymore …
  3. Lower reversal window majorly so Shoryu doesn’t auto-correct so easily.
  4. Shoryu hitbox is a bit more forward so it doesn’t hit behind itself and trade or win now that it’s more invincible like it currently does.
571

Just thought I’d add some fuel here:

  • To the people saying Ryu is “perfectly balanced” - he has just as many 6-4’s as he does 5-5’s, and not a single 4-6. Not a single losing match up and goes on advantage against half the roster.

  • Ryu’s specials are godly, his links are godly, his normals and footies are godly, his Ultra set ups are godly

  • Extremely mobile

This list goes on and on. I don’t see how the second best character in the game can be considered “balanced” when he has an answer to every situation possible. Is he broken to the point of absurdity? Of course not. However, there are so many strengths and nothing that we can say “Oh yeah, that isn’t so great, is it?” to. That makes people scratch their heads when every other character has something that offsets whatever good they have.

It just seems like Ryu’s biggest weakness is the player, not the character. The character has everything he needs to win. This is not the same for other characters in the game, because most other characters have actual deficiencies in their play/move sets that are crippling when exploited.

…And for a word on “Intro character”'s

Any character that is basic to use by beginners is an Intro Character. No complex motions or difficult timing requires.

As said before, Ken is also an intro character. Ken however, has weaknesses. I wouldn’t call any charge character an Intro Character, because most beginners have no idea what the hell “charge” is or how to hold it strategically.

Sagat may seem like an intro character, but his incredibly slow mobility and hard links makes him stand apart despite his high damage output.

As said before, Akuma is practically S tier, but no newbie is going to be able do good with him. Akuma requires set ups and longer combos for stun - and a killer keep away game (just jump>fb doesn’t cut it)

I’m not going to list out the entire cast, but you get the idea.

Ryu happens to fall under the Intro Character design, and he also happens to have everything at his disposal. Whether this is good or bad, is up to your view point I guess.

Finally to end my piece: lol@Bison being an “Intro Character”. I’d love to see a newcomer pick up Bison and yield similar results had they picked up Ryu. (Sorry to end on a negative tone, but yeah =/)

572

I can’t believe people are actually suggesting more invulnerability for shoryukens as a valid way to fix trade to Ultra.

“It’s really not fair that we tied, but I got my Ultra off. To fix it, lets just make it so I always win. kthxbye.”

What the fuck? :wtf:

573

^This
Finally who doesn’t want some buff for his main. Ryu is fine as he is, but he should be slower then Ken and Ken should also have faster normals… Ryu isn’t a rushdown char, imo and I think he has the right frames etc that Ken needs. It don’t makes sence that he’s faster than Ken. oO

I’m a Rose main btw and never play Ken, just sayin’.

574

Oh, my God! Most incorrect statement ever.

575

Ryu has 4 normals with 3 frame start, an unpunishable 200 dmg special that leads to ultra (ex tatsu) several ways of linking to his sweep, several ways of comboing into ultra, options selects that mess with many characters, c.mk has retarded reach, a variety of block strings, ridiculous damage, good speed, a very safe projectile (due to recovery), that gives him rock solid zoning ability combined with his DP.

I think somewhere in there, Ryu can be hit with a nerf bat.

This “Ryu is balanced, strengthen everyone else” is pretty damn vague. The fact is there no point in the game where Ryu is truly at any sort of disadvantage whether you be full/midscreen or right in his face. Should every character be like this? What’s the fun in that?

Maybe if they make blocked DPs extremely punishable even if FADC it will balance out, but with all of his current strengths combined with safe, easily mashable reverse DPs that can lead to ultra…this is where he starts to get ridiculous.

576

Ryu is only labelled as a good introductory character because you need to have atleast a basic grasp of pretty much all the fundamentals to play well. Starting with Ryu will ensure you get a good spread of knowledge as you progress. Most people are using the term as a derogatory comment like he is somehow basic or ‘easy mode’.

Ryu is most definitely not top tier for newer players, he’s actually pretty medicore at lower levels. Everything that makes Ryu top tier is out of reach of most new players.

FADC Ultra is one of the main reasons Ryu is top tier, obviously this just isn’t happening for all low end players and a decent chunk of intermediate.

Ryu’s fireball game is his primary tool yet to use it effectively is alot more difficult than most give credit for. With the jump-in happy nature of IV, using fireballs incorrectly will get you killed, I stand by a previous comment that most newer player would stand more chance of taking the round if they don’t throw a single FB (obviously they’ll never learn this way but that’s beside the point, your fireballs will get you kicked as a new Ryu player) Most newer players don’t even know why they’re throwing fireballs, let alone how to actually get some benefit from them.

This leads me on to the SRK. If you don’t time it so it hits deeps on the invicible frame (2-3f prior to getting kicked) you will trade with pretty much every character if they use the right jump attack. Ryu has no other quick AAs except maybe standing short which is hardly a deterrent to the millionth j.RH, c.RH Ken you’ve played today.

I’m getting off topic here but it’s quite wrong to say Ryu is easy wins for newer players.

577

You forgot f.hp->ultra in the corner

and snake strike->ultra if they try to jump out of the corner

and b.hk->ultra anywhere on the screen

Rufus has the most unique and simple ultra set-ups in SF4. Anyone telling you otherwise doesn’t know the game.

578

Rufus is fine as he is… almost no one picks him online, you always fight Ryus over and over again.

579

Blanka is ass. As a character. The player pretty much has to make him. Which when done he is quite versatile and tricky. It’s just on paper there’s plenty better characters.

580

First thing’s first. If you’re getting zoned by Shaku’s (3 hit red fireball) you clearly aren’t pushing “up” when you have the 4 second gigantic shouting sign above Akuma’s head that yells “I’M THROWING A SLOW START UP LONG RECOVERY FIREBALL”. It’s not like he can throw one FADC out of it and then air-fireball before it reaches you…

His tatsu to sweep works against about half the cast.

His ultra deals, on average, 59.8% of the average character’s life bar, actually. And since you seem unaware, it’s rather difficult to land on anyone who knows how to jump.

His semi-infinite works on very, very few characters, namely Sagat. For the average character he could occasionally pull it off maybe one rep?

Except crouching fierce and standing roundhouse? Also, trading is good for Ryu, it turns a 160 damage anti-air into a 260 or ~500ish damage punish.

In regards to my comments about introductory character: the point was a sarcastic one. I listed off characters at random to point out just how easy it is to arbitrarily pick a character in the cast and say “He’s easy to use so he’s an introductory character.”