I sent a PM to Seth Killian on Capcom-Unity.com, and this was his reply regarding if Gen is going to improve significantly in SSF4 -
http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv137/DukemonDukie/SethKillianonGen.jpg
Wether or not the actual return e-mail is true, I love gen for his style. There is no other character quite unique like he is . I am so glad that they even considered bringing him to SSF4 when it was released last year. Lets hope what he says is true though and bring him to the capability that he had in vanilla an even in the ALpha series. He was considered pretty good in that one.
I like Gen for both of his styles 
He needs to be tweaked a little, I don’t want something that will make him shoot up to near top tier like they did with Guile. But just something small.
I don’t mind Gen being a solid pick. Okay, he’s not the kind of character that will be a powerhouse considering the rest of the cast, but a more decent pay-off for the .exe we have to master is always cool IMO. Look at Viper: she can be mushy, or a complete monster.
Whenever you get a “but…” or “that said…” or something else to that effect from Seth Killian, he’s put that there because he really feels bad about outright lying to you.
I think Gen needs that Invincible EX Oga again =D
basically he says: “Gen mainers are f*ucked” since “gen isnt about winning” xD hahah
This.
Sounds like something I’ve heard before. That said, hoping for the best.
- buff one move, nerf everything else
- ?
- profit
sounds like that -.-
That’s Seth’s job talking rather than Seth himself.
Gen should be a reasonably strong character. It’s not like he’s easy to learn. He needs to be exactly what any other difficult/high execution requirement character is - rewarding when mastered, like Viper for instance. This version of Gen takes work, but is unrewarding at the same time, so the only people that he’s for are people that either like him thematically, or want to challenge themselves artificially. Which translates into him being one of the least used characters in the game, and having the lowest tournament win percentage in the game - one that’s about 1/5th of the average and about half the next best (source. I know the sample size is low, sampling methods unreliable, etc etc but this data still makes you think about things).
I think Capcom took what was unintentional in Vanilla Gen out, then applied the typical damage/meter gain nerfs that a lot of characters got in Super on top of that, then decided to tweak a thing or two to make the character a bit more accessible. I really don’t think they were even thinking of what kind of effect on balancing this would have. For that matter, I think their approach to character design is more along the lines of “let’s give character X some abilities and see how it works out” rather than “this character should play like Y and have a Z set of weaknesses”. So they took out what he wasn’t supposed to have, but either they didn’t bother to realize that this effectively nerfs his damage output about twice as much as any other character in the game, on top of nerfing his footsies, wakeup, and ability to get in, or they used the “well somebody’s gotta be low tier” logic and shipped a version of the game in which Gen just happened to be really weak.
Fine, except that difficult characters should not be weak. Otherwise next to nobody’s going to play them.
I think they really need to take a look at two things:
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compare Gen to other low health/bad wakeup characters. They all have outstanding strengths that make up for that. Sim has a sick zoning game, Viper and Ibuki are offensive machines, and Fuerte has crazy mixup. Gen needs to have outstanding strengths too if he intends to compete - or he needs to have better health and stronger wakeup.
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take a look at how the game engine affects his gameplan. It seems that his best bet is to frametrap with normals when he doesn’t have meter, and confirm just about any landed poke into damage with super and fadc combos when he does. Fine, except that in this engine, if you’re going to walk forward and push buttons, you’ll have to deal with mashable reversals that can be made safe or comboable into huge damage anytime the opponent has meter. It’s a high-risk gameplan in SF4, and you’re going to need to either have the health and wakeup to deal with reversals or do enough damage where the risk/reward ratio is at least even.
Personally, I’m hopeful that they got the message. However, what worries me is not so much that they won’t tune him up, but that the changes won’t come to consoles or will come late. I think we need to raise a stink to high heaven to make sure that at the very least the balancing changes in AE come to consoles on time, never mind the DLC characters.
Regardless of how long it will take to get the new characters to the consoles, The AE balance changes is a must for consoles to every SF fan that has that competitive edge. What is the use to play SSF4 when the AE is released? Even the Slightest tweaks can and will change the match-ups in every respect. When the new characters come in we will still have to learn those match-ups in time. Hopefully not too late before EVO though as I’m sure many will want the new characters before then.
well gen not even a frame trap character, i been playing a little cody and watching how he plays in high level. his frame traps are scary and do great damage, plus he has great antiairs.
so for his slow ass speed, backdash and having no wakeup game he get great reward for his problems. i would not mind if gen could link most of his mantis normals like cody.
personally im not going to get my hopes up, but hey maybe 3rd time a charm.
Can you explain to me what gen’s archetype was back when he was first introduced? He doesnt seem like rushdown and he has no projectiles… What was the original gen playstyle supposed to generally be like?
“s.mk fisher”, really all about hittin that move. be it via zoning or mixup.
He was basically a character consisting of chains. He could chain multiple attacks together forming nice combos. Combined with Alphas system you could create your own ‘custom’ combos (sort of). He was basically a close combat character with strong combos due to his chains.
i don’t really want gen to be dominate. all i want in gen is to make him good enough that he isn’t a character only masochists use.
i really do like the character, and he is fun to play, but im not man enough to main him in the current state of the game.
I dunno what their test process is, but they need to include top players for each character and allow them to work together or come up with a better way to test characters before the final build. It’s pretty sad that a company can create a character a way they totally didn’t intend him to be. That seems like a lazy developement process. Instead of paying for lazy testers or what ever their process is. Find where majority of good players are located. Say SoCAL. Get 1 or 2 people per character, give them a run at 20 stations for a weekend and have them make notes for their character(s). Really would they need to pay everyone? no, hell I’d test a game for free just to play it before it comes out. Players would have a run at their character, try old tricks, try new tricks, and give their findings. Capcom and developers could take in the data and tweak as they feel necessary. I realize that they’ve had Daigo working with them with Super, but something in their process is being over looked. There are other ways to test, but that was just my suggestion. But between Vanilla and Super it really seems they are working hard with mid to top tier characters, then touch 1 or 2 of the lower tiers.
Anyways I’m just spit balling while I’m listening to some lecture at school.
its really hard to classify gen. best way to describe him is that hes a footsie based character.
good gen gen alpha 2 footage, look up leonhard on youtube and for alpha 3, look up DARK. both had the best gen in their respective games.
i sent seth a message last night, before i even saw this. i’m glad he sent you a response, but now i doubt he’ll respond to my gen message. oh well. i told him that there is only one thing standing in the way of completing gen’s game: projectile invincibility for Zetsuei ultra I and his supers. if zetsuei had the invincibility that chun li’s ultra I has, he would be the best character in the game imo. i have beaten good guiles to the point that we both have 1/4 life, but i can’t complete the wins, eventhough i have full super and full ultra, because the guile will revert to boom spam and i can’t punish it. it’s stupid. i played a guile who did random ultra 2 and i waited until the boom was just ending and did my ultra and it was too late. i think it’s “criminal” that players are allowed to play so mindless, because they know gen can’t punish idiotic play. zetsuei and super invincibility is all he needs. chun li has it. gen deserves it too…