Let me rephrase…
There is a war on projectiles as a way to zone and control space.
Oh and chip kills/damage.
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Even the esteemed youtuber “Rooflemonger” has mentioned how this isn’t quite correct.
Stop it with the memes.
SFV was originally against having a real fireball zone/war character until Guile came in and they just said fuck it. Guile had a stronghold on strong fireball game until they put Sagat in.
Ryu finally has a real fireball game, but he’s still Ryu. If you want to chuck plasma all day in SFV then Guile and Sagat are the best to go to. Everyone else has fireballs, but can’t really fireball war to the level that Guile and Sagat can.
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I think your playing a semantics game. That is exactly what they do in DBFZ, the result however, isn’t keepaway. That’s the key difference. In the sense that zoning means keepaway, DBFZ does not have that. In the sense that Zoning means space control that is very much there.
I’ll give credit in that DBFZ fireballs are strong, they are just NOT strong at what they traditionally do in other games. Guile and Sagat are real fireball war characters whereas DBFZ doesn’t really have any of those.
Anyone checking out this AAF game. The quality of football is meh but I do like how they handle commercials. It’s nice watch a football game without a TV timeout every 30 seconds.
Dragon Ball just isn’t as popular. People want titanic energy blast battles, planet destroying attacks, Super Saiyans everywhere, and the like.
Dragon Ball does have more uniqueness between its characters. The “sameness” was a gradual factor (such as characters learning to fly) over the course of the series. Even early DBZ had degrees of uniqueness between its characters. People like to say that DBZ should have ended with Frieza; you could argue that is also the end of “uniqueness”. After Frieza, the number of Saiyans, with all their similarities, balloon. After Frieza, non-Saiyan characters can’t keep up with power increases, and become decreasingly relevant. It meant something that Frieza could casually bring out a planet destroying attack, as it showed just how absurdly powerful he was. But power ramping implied everyone after Frieza (and all the boosted Super Saiyins themselves) had similar potential (and several were outright stated to have planet destroying attacks) and presumably just chose not to use it.
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I’m not trying to play that game so much as say my point in a better way. I do mean zoning as a form of keepaway to be clear.
However it’s not just about the keepaway aspect directly. Lack of real chip damage makes offensive characters stronger by definition since they can safely block more attacks. It makes blocking too strong and safe. (Against space control characters)
Like you can still get some limited keepaway space control in SFV, but only if you use 2 or 3 characters.
To add, by bigger complaint with these games is that they are weakening my preferred tools and/or only allowing me to use them in certain ways.
In DBZ: you can flood the screen with projectiles, but spamming is ineffective and they are only good as pokes
In SFV: You can have you low attacks, but they’ll have poor combo options/range/hitboxes/etc.
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It’s not chip damage that’s the threat. It cuts off movement options, and any blocked projectile can lead to the opponent being on top of you with +frames. And any hit leads to damage and oki.
Chip is not the only way to make projectiles a threat. This why many air-dasher games feature very limited chip.
Chip damage isn’t what makes them threatening but its one of the aspects that makes them dangerous. Of course the real boon is the screen control you are given. But still taking real damage on block makes the dynamic more threatening since blocking is just less bad instead of safe.
Take Guile for example. Obviously light booms are great because it lets him safely control the screen. But if you can only block (just throwing out random numbers here) 20 instead of 40 then suddenly the person blocking is forced to take a much more active approach to contesting him.
How many projectiles in those games can leave you point blank and +2? ANd how many can lead to 1/3 damage on hit?
And that’s a simple situation. Its just a different game.
This is pretty much a big part of why I don’t like the game and why any zoner centric person would not like the game. Fireballs that just lead to being close just allows rushdown people to make fireballs work for them and doesn’t promote using them to win from afar and walling/chipping people down.
I can understand using assists to make fireballs convert into pressure/full combos, but just having that naturally happen with every fireball in the match is a big reason why you can’t have any real zoners/flooders in the game.
Definitely not for me, but works for other people.
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That is fair enough.
Another way to look at it is, you get your reward for zoning all at once, rather than over time.
But my whole thing is that i should have the choice of either of those rewards if not both.
The funny thing is that outside of SF I actually prefer rushdown characters and only like zoning/keepaway as a means to get in on my opponent or end the game from safety.
In one way it is like having instant gratification for zoning, but zoner people aren’t instant gratification people. That’s why they play them lol.
Instant transmission forces you to turn into a rushdown player everytime you land a fireball. If you’re truly a zoner character you want to keep that space any way, not just go all up on the opponent.
Like in Marvel Infinite Hawkeye doesn’t want to be near you unless he tags in Dante to convert off arrows. In Marvel 3 he pretty much doesn’t want to be near you at all and converting into a combo where he would be near you wouldn’t work for him (other than XF kill combos). He would be in a position that isn’t favorable for him due to his lack of pressure.
If I have to suddenly be breathing in the opponent’s face to make my zoning good, then I’m not really zoning anymore any way.
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Saying that you get to rush down now isn’t really a reward for zoning. The whole point of playing keep away is to deny the proximity to the opponent. Getting to convert from full screen means that you are inevitably ending up where you weren’t strategically planning to be.
Anyways, we need a fighting game made out of The Wire. This show is ridiculously top tier.
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These last two posts have finally made me understand why I hate Guile in this game when I loved him in 4. I could never put my finger on what changed, especially since he’s been high tier for a good part of the game’s lifespan.
I’ve been telling you guys for the better part of 3 years that Guile isn’t a zoning character in 5. Dude is exponentially better as a rushdown character.
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That’s a good thing as Guile as an archetype would never hit top tier being a hard 100 percent zoner. Same as why DeeJay is better than Guile in ST. It’s better when you have cross up into insta death than whatever Guile has when he crosses you up.
Zoner people finally got a top tier character for once in later era SF. Otherwise you’re relegated to mid tier cool pat on the back when you win your 1,000 papercuts match.
Or you go the anime way and let the characters convert (and I don’t just mean DBFZ).
But this requires a whole different design than what SF has.