1

SMH @ capcom’s handling of Vega
this has been long overdue… I feel like Capcom hates Vega and/or doesn’t give a damn about what Vega users/fans want, regarding him.Idk about everyone else, but I know that all I want is for the guy, the character, to make sense when he’s played. There’s a TON of things that do not make sense concerning him….
1) His slide sweep. Vega is like “the original” slide kicker in of the street fighter fighting game. So why is it that so many characters have come after him, and have had moves he originated, like the sliding kick, but all of their slides are better than his? This doesn’t make sense. It’s like ryu being the original fireball thrower but having the WORST one in the game. Other people can slide under fireballs or other projectiles… Vega? Nope. He can flip, yeah, but anyone who knows him can make him pay every time he does by throwing a slow fireball and walking forward to extend the screen so he gets hit. C’mon man… this makes no sense…
**2) **Vega’s U1 has him jump to the wall… he ONLY gets invincibility from projectiles while Mokoto a character who possess NO OTHER WALL JUMPING MOVES gets complete invincibility on the way to the wall… Vega, again, is an original wall jumper… yet has the worst one. How does this make any sense? Almost forgot to mention… WTF @ whiffing after it hits airborne opponents at times!? This issue still exists after “re-balancing” which proves they don’t give a fuck about Vega nor his users.
**3) **Lack of a legit jumping cross up. This one is really dumb… Vega is a NINJA yet lacks a “ninja-appropriate” move like a cross up!? A misdirection move that so many others possess! Misdirection is a basic ninja art, but Vega doesn’t get this despite have attack animations that look like they SHOULD be hitting cross up just like other character’s. this isn’t about how hard Vega is to anti-air or anything (even though it’s not THAT hard lol), because BLANKA is just as hard to anti-air, jumps just as fast, and…. Surprise, surprise…. Has a cross up. Wtf capcom!? This doesn’t make sense.
**4) **EXTREME lack of priority. It’s crazy how little priority ALL his attacks lack. I don’t think I need to elaborate much here…
**5) **Odd hit-boxes. I’m sick and tired of watching close to half of may claw enter the body of my opponent only to see no damage or block be done… same thing with my feet. His needs to be fixed because it makes no sense. Not only that - one of Vega’s merits is supposed to be his range… which this obviously works against. After more recent play I’m forced to add to this… I note how vega’s sliding sweep gets hit by akuma’s two high kicks… while I hit a focusing sakura or makoto with a vega’s high kick, and the first gets absorb while the second MISSES as the DASH FORWARD. Seriously… WTF! I’ve also had my lowest non –ex sky claw forward dashed under by juri -_-
**6) **focus attack cancelling. Why does Vega only have 3 attacks (ending RCF with a FA, st. HK with FA done after the first hit connects, st. HP after the first hit connects) from which he can perform a focus attack that will actually hit the opponent if connected to another hit, and why does all but one, result in LESS DAMAGE than if you DIDN’T focus attack? This is retarded, and just a way of WASTING the ex meter. Vega is supposedly one of the fastest characters in the game… yet is one of the hardest to perform a FDC that will actually continue a combo. To my knowledge, this is only possible with ONE ATTACK and of course this is a 1 frame combo… meaning you have to time it perfectly to hit that 1 frame window… that 1/60 of a second opening…. Wtf!
7) SSF4AE CH change… seriously?? They nerf arguably his BEST “normal” attack by making it very punishable. Did they make Ryu’s forward +HP extra vulnerable and punishable on block? OF COURSE NOT! Some damage reduction but I assume it can still be thrown out there with reckless abandon. And the really messed up part is that Cosmic Heel already had a frame disadvantage (-1) on block while Ryu’s attack is even on block. Vega has no invincible attack he could follow this with… Ryu obviously does. How the hell is it ok nerf Vega in this way, and not Ryu (or any other similar attack)?
**8) ****SSF4AE SC… **it’s bad enough that this didn’t do a legit job of intercepting an aerial target (as in, they could safe jump directly on to the Ultra and block it… instead of being hit like with Dudley’s U2)… but now when these people jump in on vega attacking, it’ll they’ll have more time to miss their attack and block anyway.
**9) ****Vega’s super… **seriously… few supers possess this level of near-uselessness. Of course this wouldn’t hit an enemy on the way, up right? C’mon… this super should hit on the way up just like his U1 can, or his ex FBA does. They have options here too. Some people would be quick to claim that it would be haxxed if it could to that, but Capcom could make it so that if he hits on the way up it can only do the max of 350 damage, as opposed to its 400, while keeping it at 400 for when he doesn’t hit on the way up (or change the damage for going forward as opposed to backward). Additionally with this… is the non-grab version of his supper which is SUPPOSED to hit 4 times, but so often will only hit 3 times with the strongest hit missing or rather not even coming out… again… WTF!!?
**10) **Lack of juggle ability… not only does he have VERY few attack that can place a foe in a juggle-state despite the opponent looking like they should be able to be juggled… he also only gets one measly hit from his juggles outside of cosmic heel -> ex FBA combos. Fair? Hell no! especially with the addition of the twins, mainly yun… vega’s lack of juggle ability is totally unfair.

All this effort to keep the guy down… then they take even more away from him while totally ignoring the very few things that Vega fans tend to really ask for…. But worse than that is that that the things that didn’t make sense aren’t fixed/addressed either! SMFH!! Don’t get me wrong, some things have been done to improve him at times but they always seem very stingy with the improvements while they have been liberal with nerfs and simply ignoring Vega users. Almost no vega user expects or really wants him to be “god-tier” but he’s supposed to be a lot better than they tend to make him (especially going but how hes described)… and that just makes no damn sense! And the sad part is… there’s more that could be mentioned…

End of rant (for now).

2

Switch fucking characters. It’s not that important buddy

3

Backstory has no bearing on the game just ask goken.

4

i don’t want to, dammit. he should be made better in the first place. on top of that, they shouln’t be taking options away from him to make him weaker or more difficult to win with.

in any case… it feels good to get all of this out finally…

Gouken is still very strong in the game from what i’ve seen. he not lack nearly as much as vega does, that’s at the very least.

even with back story aside, there’s so much that doesn’t make sense. Chun Li is alwways strong, and they’re supposed to be rivals but she has how many advantages over him? especially if you consider damage output, ease of stunning, ease of combos, ease of linking into a Ultra. hell, she’s also one of the very few characters who can punish vega’s rolling crystal flash… super combo or ex lightning legs (which can lead to an ultra).

if i’m not mistaken, ALL other rival match ups are a lot closer and competitive.

it’s like to be successfu with vega, you must outplay, outthink, and outexecute your opponent. miss one of those and you’re done like more than half the time versus a decent opponent.

5

Cool cool, you could use a fat joint to ease the pain brah

6

lol i don’t smoke though lol.

in all honesty i’ve been observing these issues for a long time… then head over to eventhubs and see videos that are never about vega lol and see how people don’t care about him or shyt on him… eventually i began wondering wtf @ capcom lol.

to make matters worse… yesterday i fought a guy user and dude jumped in at me… i used H scarlet terror… which missed him as he went right past it… he was using his elbow drop… tell me why the tip of my foot swung around and i was hit by his elbow while i was behind him…

wtf!? that move isn’t eve na cross up lol

shyt like that just reminds me of everything i posted here.

i have a fight against a blanka lol, where with no life left, he does blanka crouching thingy as i use cr. MP. i see this and i’m like “dats yo’ ass!” and mistakenly press MP again while crouching… this misses too of course… then i press what i’ve been meaning to press the whole timewhich is cr MK… WHICH ALSO FUCKING MISSED and the dude wins when he hits me right after (if i remember correctly). i have this replay saved on my PS3.

these moments just make me say “why capcom? why? was he not one of the damn bosses back in the day? is this the way to treat him nowadays? seriously?”

7

Pretty obvious

This shit isn’t as important as you think it is brother. Toke up a blunt, chill, and you’ll see what I’m talking about

lol

8

lol…yeah, not many angry pot heads

we have all raged at this point…we just have to adjust

9

Petty shit is so transparent after pot. Shit’s put into perspective; makes street fighter fun rather than some crazy game of competitive monsters only playing to say:“I whooped your ass”

Makes a lotta shit better, actually.

10
  1. slide has always been beaten by fireballs. i personally think it’s fine… and the nerf to the damage is also fine because it puts people into a mix up situiation.
  2. i agree that vega should have i frames on his ultra 1. I also agree that if the first hit connects then the entire move should connect. For the most part tho i think it’s fine.
  3. he has a cross up. his wall dive. if you ask me a whiffed wall dive should have the same recovery as a whiffed srk. whiffed ultra and super recovery is fine.
  4. priority doesnt exist. a move only has more “priority” when their acitve frames hit before yours. I think he does need at least 1 3 frame move. I also think at least some of his normals should have more active frames and less recovery.
  5. hitboxes need to be enlarged for sHK, cHP, and lengthened for pokes… OR give him i frames on ST. SHC is meant as an anti air. speed on it needs to be upped greatly if it’s still going to be punishable on hit. otherwise make it safe.
  6. I think it’s unfair for ST to not be fadc-able but flash kick is. other than that… it’s fine
  7. yes CH change sucks… SOMETHING with lots of active frames needs to be +4 at a minimim.
  8. SC was fine in super… they shouldnt have touched it.
  9. super is fine… except that they removed the 4th slam from A3 to SF4. Keep the damage… add 4th slam. everything else is fine.
  10. yes, we should be able to do ST into ultra. if we can time it that well to pull it off we should have that reward.

EX RCF also needs startup time reduced. MP Version SHC negetive edge needs to be harder to do. sLK hitbox needs to be enlarged. not all of those changes need to be made… but enough need to be made to make him viable. i say pick any 5 and go with it.

11

I think the most ridiculous shit of Vega is that you can’t combo ST into his Ultra 2…

12
  1. i didn’t even know they nerfed the damage (SMH). that annoys me lol. especially considering how much recovery it has on block, and how slow it is to come out. compare that cr HK to ken, ryu, akuma, chnli… it looks like shyt. bison’s is better than his too. i’m not all that salty at fireballs hitting his slide in and of itself… but when ibuki , and dahlism can slide under fireballs and damn near everything it makes me say wtf can’t vega do it too for? worse yet… can’t do it under sonic booms… which s a disc shaped projectile that should be much easier for him to get around. IMO.
  2. if it had the invincible frames and all of it always connected on the initial hit, all would be fine. OR they could modify it so when that firt hit connects but the rest won’t vega does something different to inflict damage or we ourselves can inflict some damage (a la mokoto)… but for vega? of course not -_-
  3. that shyt doesn’t count for what i’m talking about. if that’s the case he has ONE legit cross up while most people have 2. this particular cross up is all but negated by Focus dash canceling. it’s not hard for people to execute to escape this move. if vega had a legit normal jumping cross up, he’d be FAR batter. doesn’t even need to do much damage. just give the guy something to work with here.
  4. active frame vs priority… little difference. especially when the very tip of a scarlet terror can be beaten out by 90% of the jumping attacks that are worth while in the game. same goes from having my claw hit by the opponents punch and only i take damage. whatever we call it, it could use some fixing.
  5. damn straight. i for got about the crouching HP that often whiff. retarded much? especially give the fact that the animation if like, identical to the end of RCF. they can EASILY fix this issue. might i add, i noticed that cr lp -> cr mp xx l.RCF doesn’t work on Guy… WTF!? was this like this before?
  6. hell yeah it’s unfair… but it’s not fine otherwise when you think about things we see from other characters to extend combos and damage.
  7. 100% agree
  8. i agree for the most part, but i fully believe that it shouln’t have been something that can be avoided simply by doing an empty jump. in the same way that duds U@ will intercept you from the air, even f you don’t attack, this Ultra should too… at least it should as long as BHC Anti Air properties = shit.
  9. nah… go use it in training mode and note how often the 4th hit won’t even come out (and it happens to be the strongest hit of all of them). not to mention that it’s way too easy to avoid or even punish… with a normal attack no less.
  10. 100% agree.

yeah… i’m not saying ALL these things need to happen or be fixed… but what i am saying is, how the hell do they allow SO MANY ridiculous things to remain in place? most of these fixes are fucking EASY for them to fix too…

13

oh yeah… getting thrown out of my attacks when they should be hitting has also been annoying me more than usualy lately. how many times do i get to see the frame where vega is kicking or stabbing the opponent, only for it to get retconed into vega being grabbed? this also happens on the edge of my attack at times, a la dahlsim being grabbed form across the screen by ibuki. except this doens’t even require a command grab and it’s far less strict of a situation. i’ve seen myself grabbed after the frame of vega attacking in cr lp, cr lk, cr mk, cr mp (especiially), cr HK, standing HK… wtf!?

it’s like when ryu gets thrown but we still see the fireball… except that situation is dumb to begin with because the fireball comes out before he even does his animation facepalm

14

i’m not talkign about the 4 hit slash. i’m ok with that. i know how hard it is to get all 4 hits… but it’s way easier if they jump. of course if they jump it’s way easier to grab as well. i’m talking aesthetics. in lpha 3 his super was a 4 slam deal. in Sf4 it’s a 3 slam deal. it just doesnt look right without that last big slam at the end.

and btw i asked seth this last year. his answer was “Well Vega was top tier in every other SF game before.”

15

Seth is crazy then =.= Vega usually makes it to mid-high but never actually dominated.

And yea, I always wondered why jump fierce had such low cross-up potential. The trajectory is fair but theres little to no threat in it. Its easy to assess where he will land and little to no fear of cross up for almost the whole cast.

16

It’s true that he was never at the very top of the list, but being third or fourth doesn’t imply that a character doesn’t dominate. It depends on how many matchup points really separate him from the best. In lots of games that space was pretty tight, but he was still put in sub categories like “mid high”, though in the grand scheme of things he was top notch.
Personally I don’t think they nerfed him because he was good, but because he was stupidly easy to use in almost any SF. That’s just the nature of his moveset; Vega was never a very technical character. He was top tier in ST, CvS2, A3, fyi.

17

I have to agree with a lot of this, it seems like they just didn’t put a lot of detail into Vega even though they’ve had chances to do it.

18

Well, I’m still behind Claw 100%. Yeah yeah he doesn’t have a full top-notch spectrum of incredibly effective moves/combos, but he still has a lot in my opinion.

Capcom messed up some things in AE, but I think they truly love all of their characters including our Vega. I think the dicey decisions they made were probably a result of too much group-think (where everyone immediately agrees with suggestions based on laziness/appeasement). Of course Capcom wants to stand by their decisions as fully thought-out design choices, and doesn’t want to agree with players’ allegations of there being mistakes.

This kind of thinking is actually PART OF THE PROBLEM:
Shadow wrote: “**3) **Lack of a legit jumping cross up. This one is really dumb… Vega is a NINJA yet lacks a “ninja-appropriate” move like a cross up!? A misdirection move that so many others possess! Misdirection is a basic ninja art, but Vega doesn’t get this despite have attack animations that look like they SHOULD be hitting cross up just like other character’s.”

Shadow, you have a lot of good things to say and I’m not trying to pick on you here, I’m just highlighting one thing that I think shows how Capcom might have gone wrong. You said Vega should have a crossup basically because “Vega is a ninja”. Capcom could say “Vega LOOKS like a ninja, ninjas are badass, so lets make sure Vega is a total badass” but they could also say “Cosmic Heel LOOKS kind of like a giant movement that shouldn’t be safe, so lets make it unsafe”. My point is that it is bad to make decisions off of any old premise, but due to groupthink and an unwillingness to complicate the process, I think this is the kind of thing that happened.

Some other things Capcom might have discussed hastily, while some overly-polite employees may have held their tongue instead of disagreeing and causing a fuss:

“We really really liked Juri’s cool style and wanted her to be a great addition, but she turned out not to be strong enough to make it far in a lot of tourneys. Let’s make EXTRA SURE the twins are very strong because we want some of the new additions to be prominent!”

“A lot of people seem to be complaining about Abel. How can we reduce his effectiveness? How about THIS? Sure. How about THIS? Sure. How about THIS? Sure. How about THIS? (Jeez, I don’t want to blow off these other guys suggestions…) Sure. How about THIS? Sure. How about THIS? Sure…”

“Wow we nerfed Abel a lot, lets throw in some more nerfs mixed with buffs (to cancel out the nerfs which don’t need to be made) on other characters too so it looks more like we are making adjustments across the board. Hey! I heard from someone that Claw’s df-HK seemed annoying…”

“Look at this video of Claw landing U2 off of Cosmic Heel! OMG WE DONT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN A LOT. But it’s really hard… BUT IF YOU GET GOOD AT IT YOU CAN DO ALL THE TIME!!! Ok maybe you are right… +2 frame startup on U2, this should help more people pick U1 as well.”

Luckily, Capcom tried to balance it out with the cr.MK buff (I do love it) and the ex-RCF link (useful for close safejumps, crumple dash-ins, and dizzies). Capcom has heard a good amount of Vega complaints, and will probably give Vega a tiny tiny boost in the next balance update, assuming there is one in 2012.

In my eyes, Vega is still beast in AE.
incredible walk speed
incredible kara throw
incredible poke speed that can hit-confirm into EX-FBA
incredible range for punishes
options for scoring random damage at full-screen
great air grab
has an overhead
has an instant overhead
has a walljump
has ambiguous corpsehops
has a 4-frame double-hitting anti-airing normal attack (st.HK)
has a good backdash
has KKK evasion maneuver that avoids what would have caught a backdash
has damaging hitconfirms
can pass through fireball properties with EX.ST, EX.RCF, or either ultra
good range on focus attack
cr.HK and df.HK provide some extra mobility options
U1 can hit without an Ultra Flash and can crossup the same way EX.FBA can
U2 is still pretty fast and autocorrects almost ridiculously easy
and of course is the coolest character

What do I feel like I have to pay to get all that shit? Honestly:
Vega gets pressured/safejumped more than most characters on wakeup due to U2 being the only reversal with invincibility
jab hit confirm links are difficult
jab hit confirms require meter to do damage
no reasonable hit confirms into ultra
super can only be used as a telegraphed and random attack
needs better positioning than most chars to effectively anti-air

other than that, I find Vega’s other attributes solidly average and not fantastic but not bad (e.g. forward dash, FA speed, meter building, safejump/OS options, speed and comboability of low hits)

In the right hands, I believe a very gifted individual could play Vega at an A-Tier level. I mean, compared to the best players of the rest of the cast (slight but clear disadvantage to S-Tiers only).

19

Makes you play so much better. Things that make you rage are easily brushed off ya shoulda. I’ll almost throw my stick usually after some gay shit happens, but after some tokin’ I’m more inclined to learn from it, brush it off, and just play the next one. I require myself to take some goods to tourneys for some pregame action, nawmeen.

Needless to say if I didn’t smoke I probably would have given up on Vega a while ago. The character is just too much fun though and bleezin makes you not care so much.

20

In all that good shit hes overall broken or rather broken in this street fighter game. His play style just doesnt work when you have retards like the twins and fei and every other character that has a decent set of options. Hes broken by design. Look at makoto play he relies mostly on pokes and kara throws and fba/ch > st to punish. SHC, izuna drop, rcf…whhen the pressure is on no one actually uses these moves because they’re unsafe and unreliable.