No. If you have ultra meter and full super meter, what’re the chances of hitting PPP or KKK? What about only hitting PP or just P? Using Ken as an example, I can justifiably get his ultra :qcf::qcf::3p:, his super :qcf::qcf::p: or I can get an EX fireball or DP (wit the leniency of (S)SFIV, you can get either/or):qcf: or :dp: :2p:
The way SF4 read inputs give gigantic leeway for a 3P/3K, so if you can’t get 3P or 3K or get them instead of individual inputs you’re probably seriously uncoordinated
I drop 3Ps on ST from time to time but never or extremely rarely botch them from Alpha onwards (2P/3P for supers in A2, 2P throws in A3, etc. etc. - It’s an input that got easier and easier)
If we accept that it’s necessary to go with gimmicks to sell the game then I agree this is the way to go. I think the problem is developers don’t consider the effect their gimmicks are going to have on the game. Especially when you’re dealing with a very precision-balanced ecosystem like the SF2 system, there is a danger that anything new you introduce is going to throw things off. A new mechanic should open new spaces for exploration, but pretty much everything Capcom has ever tried has ended up taking options away. Even Focus Attacks, on the surface one of their most innocuous gimmicks yet, have all kinds of negative implications for the complexity of the midrange footsie game.
This is the approach I’d prefer they take. If you look at the PC gaming scene, the games that have the most competitive longevity are those that create their own gameplay ecosystem, trim all the fat (gimmicks) and then tweak it to perfection. This is why StarCraft and Quake 3 have lasted so long, while games which pitched themselves as “it’s Starcraft/Quake… but with new gimmicks!” have fallen by the wayside. I won’t bother exploring all the reasons why such a model never took off for fighting games, but I think it would be the ideal one. Make a one SF game, then continue to tweak and perfect that game and support its competitive community while you make distinctly different games, rather than continually churning out variations on the same theme. Blizzard shows that this model can be profitable.
I’d like to agree with this, but I know people who can’t consistently get fireballs/DPs out even in SF4. Where do you draw the line?
I’ve always thought the execution requirement for countering throws in SF2 was far too high for the low level player. Being able to jump out of throws was a totally sufficient way to rectify this as far as I’m concerned. In general though, the problem here is I think one of knowledge. The game should always be balanced for high-level play first and foremost, because, if all else fails, the answer to a player complaining about a low-level effective tactic is simply “get better at the game.” Where most fighting game developers have failed, though, is in giving low level players the requisite knowledge to get better. As you said, much of the stuff going on in even low-level competitive play is totally hidden from the average user, and unless you happen across SRK or some competitive players it’s most likely going to remain a total mystery to you. Thus a big step forward would be for Capcom, rather than saying “people don’t like getting thrown so let’s nerf throws,” to include tutorials with their game saying “this is how throws work and here’s how you deal with them.” I guess to Capcom all this might seem like a lot more expenditure for little monetary reward, but again I think games like Quake and StarCraft show that supporting the competitive longevity of your games keeps them in the public consciousness, translating into more long-term sales and much greater hype for your inevitable sequel.
Yes. I’d add that I think developers underestimate their casual audience sometimes. Like, the aforementioned notion that introducing the TvC button layout into MvC3 is going to make it ‘more accessible’ is ridiculous. Likewise the stupidly long 16 frame window to hit a button after doing a DP motion in SF4 addresses a problem absolutely nobody could possibly have, while also making autocorrect happen which is pretty damn damaging to competitive play.
For that matter I think they have the wrong idea about competitive players too, since all the FADC stuff and link combos are in there presumably to cater to us, as if hard combos are more important to the competitive crowd than crossups, meaties and throws actually being good. I think a lot of this is the SF4 team not really knowing what they’re doing though, as evidenced by the crazy stupid frame data and hitboxes on many moves. I remember one thing that personally annoyed me was when the Japanese developers blog claimed that rapid-fire normals were uncancelable because they wanted to make it like SF2… Yet the system is even more restrictive than SF2 (no cancelability by changing button or going from standing to crouching/vice versa), but pretty much everyone can link off their jabs/shorts, which almost nobody can in SF2 
Well, then conversely, if I want to piano reversal, I’m stuck in a similar situation.
Sirlin Snake Shirt - I am going to copy your sig because I like the quote so much. =)
…Do you really feel the need to piano reversals in SF4? Isn’t the window 6 frames? That’s very easy to nail with single punch/kick input
Today, yes. Absolutely. Not when the genre’s like 5 or 6 years old as it was then.
Instead of dumbing down the gameplay Capcom should have a better training mode that teaches new players the basics. The tutorial dvd that came with BlazeBlue was great idea. I am a total newb when it comes to gg/bb style games, but that dvd helped out a lot showing how they system works and the basic strats for each character.
They need to take it a step foward include a walkthough of all the basics for a player to do. It could be like the trial mode but instead of doing combos the challenges could be something like: hit an opponet with a crossup or escape a tick grab. Add achievements to this mode and everyone will be a pro
Yeah…almost none. Maybe smash?
I should probably expound on my original statement. It’s kind of tricky to talk about this because on one hand, we’re talking about new fighting games in general. But really, when we get into the details, we’re mostly critiquing the design of SF4. The thing is, SF has a legacy. They couldn’t really make the controls in SF4 as easy as smash. Changes like that would have consequences that would cause the gameplay to change in such a way that it probably wouldn’t feel like SF anymore.
What I really meant by my original statement is that if we’re talking about a typical do a motion + press a button input system, then if you’ve played any traditional 2D fighting game (SF, KOF, GG, etc) before, you should be able to pick it up and do a given characters moves within a day. And I don’t mean great players. I’m talking about the guy who played Ryu back in the day on SNES and could do his basic moves. If you have that skill set, then all of the moves should be intuitive IMO.
Agreed. When starting from ground zero, doing SF style moves takes quite a bit to get used to. I do think SF4 did a decent job in making the basic moves easier to do for newbs. Unfortunately, they went too far to the point where it actually makes getting the right move out harder once you get better at the game. Ironically, this ups the overall execution barrier. I think there is a better balance, somewhere between SF2 and SF4, for traditional motion + button type games.
Now, if you were to make a brand new fighting game, you could definitely explore completely different control schemes. However, I’ve actually given that a fair bit of thought, and it’s tricky. The control scheme has a large impact on how the game can play.
I essentially agree. For the general public, you’re absolutely right. Graphics and a cool presentation is all you need. For more hardcore fighting game fans, the gimmick doesn’t even need to really affect gameplay. MK managed to woo many SF fans back in the day, despite it’s clunky play, just by adding blood and post-match animations. However, to attract the core fighting game fans, I do think it depends on whether you’re making a brand new game or making a new iteration of an existing franchise. To draw core fans into a new iteration of an existing game, I think you need something new and interesting. It doesn’t need to be as drastic as CC’s, parries, etc., but I think you need something.
In theory, that’d make sense. But in practice, I don’t think it really works. At least not in the ways that have been tried. Just look at the champion mode in SF4. People love to stat whore. People will disconnect, run 1 round 30 second matches, use lag switches, etc. to boost their rank. So, you end up with a pool of awful players in the elite tier. On the flip side, many of the really good players dont play ranked type matches much, so you end up with them occasionally jumping on and just trouncing their low tier peers. If there were a legit way to rank people, it’d work. But I have yet to see one.
One alternative that could have some potentially, is a user controlled system. In other words, instead of segregating people based on their ranking points, allow people to choose who they’re looking to play. When searching for a match, allow them to filter their search by “New, Average, Pro, or Any”. And when hosting a match, allow people to check off which category of players they will accept. I think if it was done this way, you *might *get more honest match-ups. Sure, some people would think they’re “Pro” when they’re not and some people could go try to grief the “New” players. But in general, I think this would work better, especially if you could do this in non-ranked casual matches.
I get what you’re saying. However, I think you may be overestimating some of the new players. Most of the scrubs I run into on SF4 aren’t trying to play what we’d consider “legit”. They’re not trying to do proper things and failing. They never miss a link combo because they just don’t do them. Whether they play on a pad (I’m sure 99% do) or not, you can bet they always use the 3P/3K button, so they won’t miss that either. Also, the only times they tend to do their tricky moves (SRK/SPD/Super/Ultra) are during wake-up, during block stun, or at the end of another move their doing (ex. Tatsu -> Ultra), thus allowing them to mash out the move for ~100% success.
SF4 is weird. The shitty netcode, which makes it hard to punish idiotic sequences like SRK, SRK, ULTRA!!1, is part of it. Giving you an ultra for getting hit is another factor. When combined with goofy hitboxes and frame data, it lets scrubs do surprisingly well while only using a few moves. It’s funny, after playing SF4 for a bit I found I was running into a new breed of opponent. I call them “pro scrubs”. They didn’t jump in five times in a row into my crouch fierce, like most would. They blocked decently. They knew when to defend and when to attack. But their defense was weird and basic. No focus absorb dash, just backdash x 5, jump back tatsu, etc. They would pick the right time to attack, but when they finally would attack it would be something retarded like jump roundhouse, HK tatsu, SRK, Ultra! It’s an eye opener playing someone like that. On one hand, you have to play respectfully because they aren’t going to let you get damage for free. But on the other, you have ZERO idea what to expect next. Playing some of these people helped me truly realize how much mileage you can get in the game with some simple mashy stuff.
Yes, for real ‘legit’ play, I absolutely agree. SF4 is much more complicated. Once you get past the execution barrier of doing the basic moves in HDR, learning to 2-in-1, piano, etc. HDR is pretty simple. Most combos only consist of a few moves and are pretty easy to time/execute. The hitboxes don’t swim around during a move and the resolution of where your character is positioned isn’t as fine grained, so its a lot easier to space yourself correctly, time your moves, land cross-ups, etc. in HDR. I do agree that they seemed to make defense and running away pretty good in SF4. But I’m not convinced its to counterbalance execution, it’s probably just cause if a newb is getting rushed down they’d really like some way to GTFO! 
I don’t mean to speak for SSS, but IMO the problems people have with SF4 will never be fixed. The tweaks made from SF4 to SSF4 were far smaller than any previous series. On top of that, Ono has pretty much said flat out that there won’t be another SF4 version. So, SF4 is what it is.
Agreed. Each series has it’s own flavor. Alpha felt different than SF2. SF3 felt different, and now SF4 is its own thing. The gripe many of us have is that we don’t like the direction they’re going with the flavors.
Agreed. Honestly, it feels like the systems they’ve added are an ongoing experiment. They throw some new system in a game, do a couple revisions of the series to fine tune it, see what it’s become and then move onto the next. I can imagine that it must be hard to play test some of these things. After all, you basically need a working game and a pool of good players to really get a feel for the effects of it, but it would be nice if they felt more thought through.
I’m curious what you find the negative aspects to be about Focus Attacks. Honestly, while I also have some issues with them as-is, I think they’re one of the least game changing systems introduced. Certainly less than parries or CCs. What’s sad to me is I think they could’ve made a few simple changes in super to make them an all-around decent mechanic, but they didn’t change anything.
To be fair though, isn’t this kind of what they’re doing now. Well, besides the tweak it to perfection part. LOL. But it sounds to me like they are moving on to MvC and perhaps Vampire Savior and leaving SF to simmer for awhile. It seems to me like they’re doing this part right, its just the way they’re making the games that could be better.
I elaborated a bit about this above, but ya, there’s a limit. To me, I think the trick is finding the balance where its as easy for a newb to do a move as possible right up until the point where you start making it easy to get the moves on accident.
Yeah, there’s a lot of ways to solve it. Allowing you to jump out is one. Another would be to make you unthrowable for a small (~3?) number of frames while coming out of block/hit stun. Another would be to introduce a counter-throw move that has a non-option-select input. And so on. Many of these fixes would introduce some new side effects and game play, but I’m convinced that there’s a lot of ways to solve this in interesting and fun ways besides just making throws suck.
I agree more than I can express with words. The trials in SF4 were a stone’s throw in the right direction, but there is so much more that could be in this regard. Single player has always been weak in fighting games and IMO this is exactly the way they could make it so much richer. In fact, it’s almost ridiculous how much untapped potential there is in this area.
LOL, yup! Yeah, they don’t seem to have a great grasp on either group. Their understanding of online play seems lacking as well. I mean really, you have *ranked *matches that you can set to 1 round of 30 seconds…seriously? You have team matches, but there’s no way for you and your friends to form one team and go fight against other groups of friends that have formed a team. How is that not the most obvious way to play it? I haven’t read much about the upcoming tournament DLC, but I’m sure it’ll miss some plainly obvious things too.
Yeah, both the hit boxes and frame data seem rushed and inconsistent. And the hitboxes are flawed at a fundamental level. How anyone can think that having the hitboxes float around during something like idle is a good idea is beyond me?
I don’t understand why SF4 needed to be easier anyway. Surely if you just advertised it well enough, scrubs would have bought it regardless of how hard it was to play? Only problem would be keeping them playing it, and honestly I don’t see that as a problem at all.
hahahahaha
i swear the jeff schaeffer interviews have created a legion of sycophantic wanna be old schoolers carrying the banner for a game they never played
funny thing with sf4 is that now the novelty is gone and all the newb have played sf4, they probably already gave up on it. im expecting the sales for ssf4 to be less than half of what they made with sf4.
Capcoms probably expecting the same hence the reduced selling price and lack of system changes.
not when people dont get what they pay for, really imho ssf4 was not worth more than a 10 or 15 dollar dlc.
Get out. Of my universe.
Yea but you’re a KOF fan first and for most I wouldn’t take your opinion about SF for much more then grains of salt. Almsot every time you post about SF it’s full of bogus info.
Yeah, I’ve noticed this too.
(someone from my city)
People who have never played HF before or at least at a competitive level, automatically assume that HF > ST just because Schaeffer said so.
Before the Schaeffer videos, not many people said anything about liking HF over ST. Yeah there was the HF crowd that posted in the HF thread on here, but then a bunch of people came out of the woodwork.
I first discovered Shoryuken while looking for news about Capcom vs. SNK 2’s location test, and I’ve been reading it since, but it’s taken this thread to get me to post!
I had a huge insight into Street Fighter while playing the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, specifically the Champion Edition characters in Hyper Alpha. I noticed that not only did they do tons more damage, which is a given, but all of their normals and specials were faster and more effective. I feel that this makes them much more fun to play. I used to play a lot of Alpha 3, but now I can’t shake the impression that everyone’s arms and legs are broken.
This got me thinking and I wrote out this gigantic 35,000 word essay for myself on the history of Street Fighter II, just to get it out of my head. The conclusions I came to very closely mirror what was written in the first post of this thread. Two things dominate the evolution of Street Fighter, starting with ST: nerfing and gimmicks.
Throws have been covered already, but I’d like to say that wakeup throws were a huge part of what made Street Fighter II work, in my opinion. I see videos of Third Strike (on the excellent Theshend channel on YouTube) where one player stands over another fallen player and forces them to guess how to react, and if they react wrong, they get hit with a normal, a universal overhead, or a throw. In Street Fighter II this would not happen; the downed player would get a free throw on the standing player if he was standing that close, every single time. Fireballs have seen some hard times, especially in Third Strike, Alpha 2 Gold, and Alpha 3, but Street Fighter IV seems to have made them a viable element again. (I wonder how many nerfs were to make Alpha/Virtual combos balanced… A character with moves as good as a Champion Edition character would be devestating in a virtual combo, even with toned-down damage.)
Damage has also been weakened dramatically, and is now mostly attained through complex combos. I think this is a bad thing. One of the appeals of SF2 is that a new player could get pretty good damage off a throw or a jump kick-foot sweep combo. I started with the World Warrior on SNES, and though me and most of the other people I played with sucked, we still had fun with it. I think one of Third Strike’s failings is that, though it is pretty balanced at very high end play, you need to play it for a very long time to even be passably good. I was watching a video of Real Bout Special on YouTube and I noticed that while the better player could get off complex combos for huge damage, they were hard to land, and that the weaker player wasn’t totally left naked in the breeze as far as damage went. The better player was rewarded for his skill, but the worse player was still allowed to play effectively with the lesser tools he had access to. This is what should be strived for, I think.
One of Street Fighter II’s problems is that none of the entries was perfect. WW had tick throws, Guile, and Dhalsim. Champion Edition had Guile and M. Bison. Hyperfighting had moves that started to homogenize the cast and turbo speed (more on that in a bit). Though well balanced, Hyperfighting divided the strong playerbase here right in two and it never recovered. Super Street Fighter II gets more grief than it deserves, but it’s got its problems: lame new moves, mediocre new characters, terrible voice acting, and slower speed that divided the playerbase again. That said, it’s very well balanced, as well. ST has most of the problems of Hyperfighting and ST – homogenizing new moves, turbo speed, bad voice acting – plus lame new gameplay elements that were pretty half-assed: super moves, juggling, and throw softening. It also was the first large-scale nerfing of the cast. I had honestly never heard of anyone liking ST until I came online and was shocked to find that it was the tournament standard. I can’t help but to think we would have been better off with a subtle tweaking of Champion Edition, then right to Alpha.
On turbo speed: I know this will be contraversial on here, but I strongly dislike turbo speed. It seems to be popular because it opens the door for mistakes. As a subscriber to the intellectual approach to Street Fighter, I think this is a mistake. If someone tries to do a meaty attack on a downed Ken, they should eat a shoryuken EVERY SINGLE TIME. They made an error in judgement and should pay the price. The game should be more about decision making and less about reflexes. I think it is also a deterrent to new players, making it harder to learn the game. And really, isn’t sucking punishment enough?
Anyways, long first post, but that’s the gist of my feelings on the situation.
I have to say I totally agree with you on everything now you’ve expanded your thoughts SweetJohnnyV. 
So not much to add to most of that. I especially agree with the SF “legacy” and the desperate need for useful 1P training in fighting games.
Matchmaking is certainly a favourite topic of mine! I totally agree SF4 was pretty awful in this regard; both Battle Points and Championship mode had a myriad of problems, all of which were obvious to predict. Like you and SSS, I really don’t think Capcom (Japan especially) has any clue with what they’re doing with online modes. The new modes in SSF4 are sadly very illustrative of this as you say.
As for lag switches, turbo, and actual cheating, I’d put that in a different category to matchmaking though. Quitting shouldn’t be an issue - people should be allowed to resign if they want to; but the system should always handle it as a loss.
What do you think of the ranking in HDR though? It seems to work much better than any in any other fighting game. Most good players are rated pretty highly if they play enough ranked matches. The trouble is there is zero matchmaking.
I don’t see any reason why the matchmaking and ranking systems from Starcraft II can’t be CC’d onto any fighting game though. (Looks like Halo Reach has some nice ideas up it’s sleeve too).
I also love this nice simple solution of self-selecting your skill (especially to start with!) and essentially selecting your “difficulty setting” for online matches as well. If you won too much at your self-selected skill level, the system could automatically bump you up to one higher.
Again, Starcraft II handles it pretty well even in beta with placement matches, and then re-assessing your placement every so often behind the scenes.
This sounds interesting, have you published this anywhere?
even when i can see where are you coming from, the only thing that i can feel from your wall text is “Wahhh, Wahh i dont like change” 
i agree that some guimicks can be seen as only that guimicks, but denying that new elements can bring new layers of strategy is simply obnoxious, if every game played exactly like sf2 “insert your favorite here”, then it would be pretty pointless imo that they existst in the 1st place, like in the example that you used of 3s, even when i dont really like the game, i can apreciate that in that situation, both players need to evaluate how are they going to proceed, yeah you can probably can get lucky and punish your oponent, but a good player would meassure its decision based on how he reads his oponent, also you say that a game should measure desicions and not reflex, i totally disagree with that, part of the bauty of the FG’s are that a really good game rewards you for being dedicated to it, like in sports or other activities, the person who has more expertice and more knowledege will always dominate over a newomer or mid level, thats why they are pros, because they had the better skill set that allow them to face a given scenario and solve it.
again, this is merely subjective, maybe for you is a bad thing, but its now part of the games, im particular in favor of this (GG player for 12 years now), in hell i would be happy because a noob with 3 or 4 random lucky hits could be on par with me after im have been dominating, now what could be done is having a more accesible and intuitive yet with room for a deep combo system, pretty much like GG, SFA or even 3S to some extent, where a new player after some practice can land some hits and specials in sucesion and have a combo that looks nice for them, but at the same time a pro has room to explore and maximize the damage that they get after learning the ins and outs of the game
i have to go now, but im planning to continue later