If someone created a thread on the unity board, I’ll create an account there to back you guys up. That’s about the last thing I’m going to do, twitter won’t do shit when speaking to the troll bastard that is Ono.
We shouldn’t ask for any buffs because that’ll only make 'em think we’re greedy and we’ll be ignored, just let them know that they’ve hit Akuma too hard, either remove the nerfs or at the very least make them less for God’s sake because each and every one of these nerfs directly effects how Akuma plays!!
We are writing to express our sincere disappointment with your balance changes to Akuma for SSFIV:AE v.2012. We feel as though the changes go too far in nerfing a character which was already well-balanced and which required many, many hours of practice to master.
The addition of the two extra frames to Akuma’s forward throw recovery combined with the change to the move properties of the Demon Flip Palm, which makes it possible for all characters to block it while crouching, takes away many of our options for mixing up our opponents on wake-up. When these changes were announced we assumed that this meant that you wanted to change Akuma’s playstyle to be less focused on mix-ups and more focused on footsies. This was always going to be hard work for Akuma given his low health, easy stunability, low stun output, lack of active frames on his normals and the weird hitbox on his fs.HK which meant that it whiffed on the majority of the cast.
However, the latest balance changes (in particular changing fs.HK so that it -2 frames on block) have left us dumbfounded because they mean that not only have we had our mix-up abilities nerfed, we have now also had our footsies tools nerfed, as fs.HK will be punishable on block by several characters even if both hits are blocked, and it will also no longer be able to be used as part of a frame trap.
Moreover, the majority of Akuma players feel that the buffs we have received are hardly worth the name, given that they relate to Demon Armageddon (which in the majority of match-ups is far less useful than Wrath of the Raging Demon) and the ability to use EX Zanku Hadoken during an EX Demon Flip. The latter will likely be too costly in terms of meter to have any application in higher level play.
Many of us have invested hundreds of hours into mastering Akuma and are now seriously considering either switching to a new character or quitting SSFIV:AE altogether due to these changes. If they were designed to remove unblockable moves and to make some of our most favourable match-ups less lopsided then that is admirable. However, please bear in mind that these changes have wider consequences on the overall viability of the character. As such, we kindly ask you to reconsider your decision to make Akuma’s fs.HK -2 on block. That is one nerf too far.
Signed,
-Akuma players"
How does that sound? Edits are in bold. Whoever wants to post this up on Unity feel free to do so. If nobody is willing to do it, I’ll do it but I’m not familiar with the board so someone will need to tell me where exactly to post it (i.e. on the regular forum or the complaints section or whatever).
I suggest that you would focus a bit more on the throw nerf too. Saying something like ‘The throw nerf is extremely significant, because it takes away our safe jump and mixup setups mid-screen, and since Akuma relies heavily on his mix-up options in order to win, the consiquenses of such decision may be a bit too much. If you wanted to fix the unblockables in the game, please do so without changing his core gameplan and setups that were established and developed for three years, not only are this is dissapointing because we need to relearn the character, but the forward throw setups is one of the main tools in Akuma’s arsenal, it’s meaning cannot be underestimated.’ - something like that.
And maybe end it not with the request to remove a certain nerf, but to reconsider the whole series of decision they made ‘As such, we kindly ask you to reconsider youre decisions regarding Akuma’s balance, please do not fix what isn’t broken’.
P.S. u know what I just thought? They could fix the unblockables AND maintain our muxups, by simple shortening the distance which the opponent flies after the forward throw, that way we could came up with some new setups (like wiffing certain normals to time it right) although as sad as it is, I’m sure they will never think of it. I got the feeling theyre not aiming as much as to fix the unblockables, as to get rid of his mixups after his froward throw, knowing Capcom they probably did that on purpose ):
Yeah, cover all the bases Laughter. Mention the palm and throw as well like Ganishka suggested.
The “Please do not fix what it is not broken” is excellent. For someone who claims to not have good english, you’re more articulate(well spoken) than most of us Americans!
When Laughter’s final revision is complete and he posts it, I will definitely sign up to Capcom Unity and support. I’ll help in anyway that I can to save this character. These nerfs are BEYOND ridiculous.
When you are finished Laughter and will be posting, please show us the links here to youre thread on Capcom unity. I’d also suggest everyone who will be signing under to write down in that thread they’re PSN\XBL\PC game tags, would make it more believable.
I honestly doubt anything will happen and these changes stick. No harm itrying though, I twitted ono last night about this. Although my ship has sailed and I’m more or less planning on moving to evil ryu if akuma is shit in 2012.
I don’t think any of us seriously believe that they would listen to us, but there’s always a slight chance to be heard even if youre trying to speak to the president xD I mean, I personally just want to try, if 2012 hits and Akuma ends up being garbage, I would really regret knowing that perhaps we all had a chance to at least try and change it, and we decided not to try at all.
Also, I think implementing some of the points made in my post if you haven’t already would be a good thing, Laughter. I pretty much summarized exactly why these nerfs are bad.
We are writing to express our sincere disappointment with your balance changes to Akuma for SSFIV:AE v.2012. We feel as though the changes go too far in nerfing a character which was already well-balanced and which required many, many hours of practice to master.
The addition of the two extra frames to Akuma’s forward throw recovery combined with the change to the move properties of the Demon Flip Palm, which makes it possible for all characters to block it while crouching, takes away many of our options for mixing up our opponents on wake-up. **The changes to the move properties of the Demon Flip Palm alone would be a significant nerf, but the addition of two extra frame’s to Akuma’s forward throw is especially damaging given that it takes away many of the mid-screen safe jumps and mix-ups which we have been learning since the release of the original SF4 in 2008. **When these changes were announced we assumed that this meant that you wanted to change Akuma’s playstyle to be less focused on mix-ups and more focused on footsies. This was always going to be hard work for Akuma given his low health, easy stunability, low stun output, lack of active frames on his normals and the weird hitbox on his fs.HK which meant that it whiffed on the majority of the cast.
However, the latest balance changes (in particular changing fs.HK so that it -2 frames on block) have left us dumbfounded because they mean that not only have we had our mix-up abilities nerfed, we have now also had our footsies tools nerfed, as fs.HK will be punishable on block by several characters even if both hits are blocked, and it will also no longer be able to be used as part of a frame trap.
Moreover, the majority of Akuma players feel that the buffs we have received are hardly worth the name, given that they relate to Demon Armageddon (which in the majority of match-ups is far less useful than Wrath of the Raging Demon) and the ability to use EX Zanku Hadoken during an EX Demon Flip. The latter will likely be too costly in terms of meter to have any application in higher level play.
Many of us have invested hundreds of hours into mastering Akuma and are now seriously considering either switching to a new character or quitting SSFIV:AE altogether due to these changes. If they were designed to remove unblockable moves and to make some of our most favourable match-ups less lopsided then that is admirable. However, please bear in mind that these changes have wider consequences on the overall viability of the character. As such, we kindly ask you to reconsider your decision to make Akuma’s fs.HK -2 on block. That is one nerf too far.
Signed,
-Akuma players"
Added some more stuff on the throw/palm nerfs. I didn’t change the bit at the end requesting the fs.HK nerf be changed because I think we have a better chance of them listening to us if we only ask for one nerf to be undone. That’s my thinking anyway.
Okay so I put it on Unity. This is a link to the suggestion box post I did for it. Make sure to vote it up (you might need to filter by ‘street fighter’ and then click the ‘last week’ tab on the right):
And here’s a link to the thread I made in the SSFIV:AE forum. The more of you that post there in support of it the better, because you know it’s going to get loads of Goukens and Zangiefs in there saying the changes should stay:
Signed the thread and voted for it in the suggestion box, thanks for creating the thread there.
Any Akuma player please take a second and create an account there to sign the thread and vote for it in the suggestion box, this is our last hope.
If they heard what we have to say, then that’s very good. If they didn’t, well at least we gave it a shot by taking a couple of minutes posting there instead of wondering later if we could have done something about it.
@Laughter 7, wouldn’t it be better to create a whole new thread here in SRK about signing the unity’s thread so it’ll catch the attention of as many people as possible?
I don’t usually like creating new threads about anything posted, but this a very important subject.
