Should We Ban Akuma In local HDR Tourneys?

Regional Matchmaking Northwest
21

no. there’s no hard, concrete, reliable evidence that he’s broken enough to screw up tourneys and there won’t be until we see tourney results. all this shit about looking at what he has is just theory fighting imo. you can’t base something as major as banning him off of theory.

we also need to make sure we make proper conclusions from results. half the people who look at results would cry if half of the top 8 was akumas before realizing it would make complete sense that that would happen if half of the entrants were akumas. a little bit of an exaggeration but you get the point.

and yeah while i see that there’s very little point in picking ryu because of akuma, ryu still has fake fireball, which i think is still godly as hell in the right hands. but i haven’t seen too many people doing anything very awesome with it just yet. i don’t think akuma has that much of an upper hand against the rest of the cast (if any…we’ll see), and i think banning him would basically end up meaning that the balance in the rest of the game is near perfect. which would be fine with me ;p

22

I just don’t want to ban him and then see him at EVO.

23

It is not theory, you can plainly see that Akuma is capable of far too much within the limited engine of SF2.

He has the upper hand against every other character in the game. If banning him makes this a perfect game, and not banning him makes everyone return to ST where he is already banned, why is the second choice even an option?

Brent: If Evo doesn’t ban him, then that tournament wouldn’t even be worth entering unless you were planning on picking him as well.

24

I will master akuma, just to spite you for never hanging out with the homies.

25

Is this a joke?

26

Hammer don’t hurt em.

27

okay, THAT much. kind of subjective use there. i guess i just failed to communicate how much i meant because tone of voice doesn’t transfer into text. ignore that sentence if you want.

and saying that the character clearly is better than the rest of the cast is not evidence that this character will invade tournament top placements and fuck shit up. a tournament where the character invaded the top placements and fucked shit up would be evidence. sure, there’s a connection there that makes sense that would logically and theoretically happen, but there’s nothing concrete to reliably go off of.

realize the action being discussed here. banning a character that anyone has really seen much of in a big tournament yet. it’s a lot better to let him go for at least one good local or big tournament and then decide for sure based off of what happened. it’s not like voting no means you want him unbanned forever regardless of what happens later on

28

^S Blade, not too sure I agree with you on those points. If a character is heads and shoulders above the rest of the cast, why wouldn’t that character dominate tourney rankings? Why wouldn’t people take the time to learn this character? Were talking about a character that wasn’t made to fit the game (classic ST Akuma) where balances changes were attempted to make him a viable character. If anything he still doesn’t fit the game. Remix was created in order to shorten the gap between the characters and the goal was to have a bigger pool of tourney viable characters, and really Akuma undoes this. It’s not just about air hadou, he has more tools than just that on another character’s wakeup. The fact that all of his shoryukens juggle for three hits is nutty. Factor that in with random zaniness like red fireball invulnerability (dunno how many crossups I’ve avoided on accident doing this move), great projectiles, great hitboxes (standing forward, standing rh, neutral jump rh), and that you can’t safe jump against him. Kinda unfair I think, that’s without listing raging demon =/. As far as lack of tourney evidence…

Akuma won NEC and that’s an EC major.
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=170041

Yet another EC tourney that Akuma won, one that has videos to go along with it.
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?p=5874150#post5874150

Since the game’s release there’s been a handful of tourneys but those are the most recent ones AFAIK. I completely understand everyone that wants to take a wait and see approach as it’s the most sensible thing to do, and it’s worked for us in the past concerning other games. The difference here to me is that this is a special, isolated case. We aren’t dealing with a game with lots of different subsystems, were dealing with Super Street Fighter II. Nothing new is gonna jump out at us. We were informed of all the changes, and the one character that threatens the balance is the character that happened to be banned in the prior version of ST. The end result being Akuma and the characters that can fight against him, as opposed to a 17 character game.

I was inspired to post my thoughts on Akuma as I’m bored and just realized I poured a bowl of Lucky Charms and there’s no milk left. Not too happy about that, anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I just wanted to explain how the pro ban Akuma peeps felt. I created this thread so that come tourney time, there isn’t any confusion. Twenty to eleven is pretty convincing, even with that I don’t plan on using Akuma =/.

Julien-Yeah, it’s hard for me to play Remix these days. You really need to play SFIV when it comes out, you would like it! Boxer and Dictator are great in that game!

29

I think somebody needs to showcase Akuma at the next couple get-togethers and then revote.

As far as I can tell, that’s one of the impossible fights for Zangief. =\

(I voted with Mandel because he’s boss. I don’t really have an opinion yet as I’m not really good enough to voice one.)

30

Akuma is not broken, Akuma is not overpowered. East Coast has the WORST players for old skool (we really cant judge off their tourneys, they still lose to blanka shananigans)

Plenty of chars beat the shit out of akuma. Akuma vs gief always an impossible match and will always be an impossible match, even in SF4.

You guys cant really sit their and vote on this when most of you are just barely starting to understand ST and how it works.

So much a player can do and who cares if he has advantage agaisnt other shotos. Upgrade and be happy.

Anyway, my vote is no and always will be no. Impossible for him to be so overpowering, that no char can beat him. That in itself, is a joke =P

Cole

ps - go vf4 …booo vf5!!!

31

I have a vf4:evo board in my garage…

32

Who?

33

Wow, you’re really saying that? I think it’s generally accepted that no character could beat him in regular ST, so what makes that impossible(a joke, even!) in Remix?

You can’t just come in here, insult the entire EC, make an absurd claim like that, and then not even give any reasoning. I could provide a very long list of things that are wrong with him, could you do the same for your side?

34

All the reasons he was banned in orginal ST are gone in Remix. Even then, multiple character could still beat him. Dhalsim, Rog, Sagat, Blanka, Chun, vega, Bison…shrug.

Its also fact that EC has VERY few old skool ST players…mainly Nohoho and Damdai, maybe what 2 others that actually compete. Other than that, its a sea of new skool ST players. Yeah, I CAN stand here and make that claim. Nohoho already proved how behind they were when he won with blanka doing old as shit. Anyway, go ahead Axel id love to see your Akuma breakdown on why u feel he needs to be banned in a game that suppose to be somewhat balanced.

Everyone has a way out, nobody is traped, even if akuma plays like a whore, lots of chars can still cheese the fuck out him, he takes a shit load of damage…teleport only good on the first few frames.

Wtf is akuma going to do to Rog? Sim lock him out, bison can punish him HARD, Vega can run all day and flip through fbs. Lets hear all your guyzes reasons?

Cause honestly, you wanna come at me like that. Come to think of it, NOBODY has broken down anything on WHY they think akuma should be banned. All I fuckin hear is “wah wah wah, akuma is to hard, ban him.” Lots of crying but nobody giving any reasons. So far the few reasons people have given, have ALREADY BEEN PROVEN WRONG!!

Example…Blocked air fb into raging demon…IS NOT A FUCKIN COMBO!!! Every one can get out, nuf said on that bullshit. So what else is cheap?

Cole

ps - lol cammy beats the shit out of akuma =P So does new fei hahah OMG and Thawk…good lord he fuckin can analy rape akuma for free.

35

Sup NW guys. Actually I just have two off topic things:

Did the dec 14th SF4 Tacoma tourney get snowed out? If not how many entrants, who got top three what chars did they use?

I didn’t fight any of the top east coast people at MWC. Some kind of crazy luck I dodged Justin and Chris Doyle. In the past those two have beat me 100% and ~70% respectively. They don’t lose to Blanka shenanigans.

So whatever. Yeah east coast is the worst. Justin Wong is a “nobody.” Jeron sucks. Phil sucks. FlashG sucks. Julian Robinson sucks. Shag. Doyle Bros. Rahsaan. Brian. Arturo. Cen. JetPhi. Pete Talley. Garbage all of them. Yeah. Sure. I don’t care about that type of thing. I try to Blanka best I can otherwise mind my own business. But you’ve got your facts mixed up about midwest 08.

P.S. Is Chicago on the east coast? You need to talk to DreamTR and Sabre about misnaming their events.

36

Cole, can you schedule a match with Damdai and play him online? Give it a shot, we’ll see if Cammy, Hawk, Dhalsim, or Fei beats him for free :slight_smile:

Have Apoc fight him too.

37

^-- vids plz

38

As was said above - let’s stop playing theory fighter (and drama fighter) and have some street fighter.

I’ve heard some complaints about Akuma, the solution is to really test it out. Preferably with some videos. We’ll take it apart and see if it’s really unbeatable.

39

You cannot jump out of air FB into demon from crouch block, and only have a 25% to escape from stand block. and while you’re in stand block waiting to jump out of the demon he can just sweep you and start it all over again. Yes, some characters can use a reversal attack to escape, but not everyone.

"If you block a jumping toward air fireball and Akuma is now right on you, you have to guess between throwing, blocking low, and holding up or doing a reversal to escape a demon attempt"
Does that sound like fun gameplay to you, when air FB is generally a very safe option? Air FB has zero recovery in addition to trip guard.

1st frame uppercuts, unfixed hitboxes, specials superior to all other shotos, a fireball that escapes crossups, a jumping kick that beats dragon punches clean. It all adds up to a big pile of bullshit.

The lead designer himself has admitted that Akuma is not working as intended.

What kind of cheese do you suggest people use against him? You can’t safe jump against him, you can’t out fireball him, you can’t cross him up, you can’t DO ANYTHING. 90% of the time when fighting Akuma, the smartest thing to do is block.

I’m not trying to start a fight here, but I don’t feel you’ve been exposed to all the facts when it comes to this issue. If you play a set against Damdai and your mind isn’t changed, then lets continue this discussion then.

40

First of all, I have all the respect in the world for the East Coast players, but seriously, everyone jumped to conclusion with this whole Akuma thing. A very good player was using Akuma and won a tournament. This tournament was on PS3 and had random problems with TVs from what I recall. Damdai screwed his own defense of banning Akuma himself by stating he could probably beat 99% of players with Cammy. This is the PLAYER, not the character winning this tournament. When you try and create rules for a character that has been toned down and has bad defense, I’m not sure what to think.

I’ve heard people say DSP has the second best Akuma in the EC, and people here are discussing playing online as the basis for comparison why the character should be banned. DSP has not said anything about being good with Akuma, and I don’t think he would say his Akuma is the best by any means. I played against his Akuma and don’t even think he won a round in the 3 or so matches I played against it. Again, he’s not saying his Akuma is the best, people are falsely creating this Akuma issue because Damdai won and no EC player could defeat Damdai’s Akuma.

Did anyone ban CE Bison in Hyper Anniversary? DSP won EVO East with that because people did not have experience against it, but again, he lost with that character at MWC and EVO Worlds. It’s just an issue of coming against someone that has experience against the character.

Therefore my point is, you shouldn’t count online as the basis for comparison. Let a few tournaments go in the books before you decide to ban a character or else this will end up like the Smash community. I haven’t had issues with any Akumas online, and granted it is the PLAYER that makes the character good. If not, we’d all be losing to AKuma like everyone loses to Gill when he’s chosen in 3s. THAT is black and white, Akuma experience is something a LOT of people don’t have because they never played against Akuma before. I have played against Akuma tons, so it’s nothing new to me, but I think people should:

A: Not take one tournament winner as the reason for banning. DSP did not get second, it was just Damdai beating people with Akuma. Plain and simple.

B: Don’t take online as the basis for comparison because based on that, Honda should be more banned than Akuma at times.

C: Please don’t use HDTVs for this game. Some of them have latency and refresh rate is not going to tell you the latency level. Just because the game is optimized does not mean it’s going to be as good as a CRT sometimes. It’s just too much of an issue I would say for a game this precise.

D: Keep in mind, all these traps seem to only be done/winning with Damdai using them. Why is there not a slew of unbeatable Akumas? That is my question.