(SSF4:X) SF4 full conversion mod thread. v0.39 Alpha now available! [04/14/2014] (19 chars!)

See, IMO one of the main reasons you EVER see Tatsu used as a fireball read punish is because it’s mostly safe. It’s airborne, it’s lower body invincible, it is for most of t he characters relatively or completely safe on block, and other than Akuma/Evil Ryu it breaks armor. However those options aren’t always available for every move, and the situations that you’d use it aren’t the same for every character. Shotos have a fireball of their own as an option as well, they also all have the ability to alter their jump arc to SOME extent.

I do think that is the right track though, hence why Cody’s EX Ruffian is invincible on 7F which is the same as a Tatsu though he trades safety, travel distance, and startup time, for speed, damage, and a hard knockdown.

I have to take each thing on a case by case basis IMO. For example, Blanka’s EX Rolling is a charge move, is unsafe on block and in some cases on hit, and costs meter (which as I’ve noted before is a bit more valuable in this mod). You can’t really expect it to be the same amount of projectile invincible as a tatsu when the safety net, damage, and usage requirements are so much higher.

At the same time, Ibuki’s EX Neck Breaker can be used at any time, her regular neck breakers while not actually projectile invincible are low enough to the ground to avoid most projectiles, the attack also goes full screen, breaks armor, causes a hard knockdown, and does 160 damage 250 stun. Plus Ibuki has great mobility options including the ability to alter her jump arc. I think that is one that could stand to have the projectile invincibility start after a like 8F instead of being 1F-28F be 8F-28F

Dhalsim’s Yoga Tower isn’t even an attack and is limited in what it can do, making it not projectile invincible starting on 1F would severely weaken an already somewhat underutilized move on a fairly slow and defense oriented character.

Abel’s EX Roll’s main draw is that it is invincible starting on 1F while his regular rolls aren’t invincible until 5F. Removing that gap would make it kind of pointless to ever use EX, likewise even now you don’t see Abel’s roll past fireballs THAT much unless they are nearly full screen as the roll is almost the same frame count as the fireball’s recovery.

My point here is that there is no real simple answer to this and everything needs to be taken based on a character by character and move by move basis.

I do appreciate the feedback though and it’ll certainly be something I think about more.

also worth considering is how fast the fireball travels, how much you can vary the speed between strengths, and what the hitboxes look like. most fireballs are awful in 3s even without parry. but just looking at the startup and recovery frames you wouldn’t be able to tell.

I’m not trying to claim otherwise. I actually agree with you on this, my point was merely there is a lot of other factors to consider about fireballs that make them less useful in SF4 than in ST that go beyond focus or moves that pass through fireballs and that simply nerfing moves that pass through fireballs might not be the right path. It could be the right path, but I just want to mention it is a more complex issue than it appears on the surface. People mention how often you had to simply read a fireball and jump over it in previous SF games and that is completely true, but I felt that is only part of the story since fireballs had more recovery in previous games is something people often don’t realize.

Ultimately, as you can kind of see from my previous paragraph the issue is one I’m quite torn on and somewhat contradictive to my own arguments at times because it is one that I’m not certain I have all of the variables to the problem available to even create a GOOD solution yet.

Since writing up patch notes takes a long time I figure I’ll share some of the more drastic changes either in mechanics or frame data to some of the characters since that would be relatively quick and whet peoples appetite while I work on finishing patch notes for these characters (and developing the remaining cast before pre-alpha release.) Note: These are NOT the complete change list for any of the characters by any means. If you’ve looked at my patch notes for Gouken/Cody you’d know this is barely scratching the surface.

Blanka
Walk speed buffed from 0.05 forward 0.045 backward to 0.0525 forward 0.0475 backward
crHP is now cancelable to forward or backward hop on hit/block. Recovery reduced on the move as well.
Coward Crouch (Down + 3P) now allows for slow movement forward or backwards during the move. In addition you can now cancel it to amazon slide (DF+HK) any time you could perform a special move cancel.
All electricitys now do 25% chip on block (up from 10%) and in addition they now do 25% STUN on block as well. (Just like Cody’s badstone or Gouken’s Denjin hadoken this cannot cause a dizzy when blocked, only on hit.)
Forward throw (the neck bite) animation sped up 25%. No change to the frame advantage after the move recovers, only changes the preset animation time.
FJ HP now causes a fast fall knockdown like Cody’s NJ HP or Juri’s FJ HP or Gouken’s FJ HK.
Up Ball now gains extra damage when hitting as an anti air after the first 4F active.
Rainbow ball breaks armor.

Juri
Walk speed buffed from 0.035 forward 0.03 backward to 0.040 forward 0.034 backward.
All FSE normals now share the same hitbox and frame data as their standard versions. Except for her overhead which retains it’s increased hitstun during FSE to allow for combos. No more randomly having slower normals with worse hitboxes!
All Counters now startup in 2F instead of 3F. You are able to act sooner after a successful counter. However you now take 50% damage of whatever you countered as recoverable gray health. Counter while in FSE however still retains the no damage taken aspect.
crMK hurtbox width reduced to make the hitbox less likely to be stuffed by other low attacks during the active frames, however the hurtbox height was increased by 5% to make it a little less likely to low profile some crouching attacks. Active frames increased by 1F recovey reduced by 1F.
Juri now has a target combo of crMK - f+MK (overhead) this does not combo even if the crMK hits however. It is still a useful tool to open people up as her overhead has been buffed to be better.
Overhead is now airborne on 8F-16F instead of 12-16F. Active frames increased by 1F recovery reduced by 1F. Damage increased to 80 stun increased to 80. Is now +3F on hit.
Far MP is now +8F on counterhit instead of +4F allowing a lot more combo options including giving Juri a combo to sweep that doesn’t require Fuhajin.
All 3 versions of EX Dive kick are now possible even when not in FSE mode.
FJ HP is now flagged to allow for cross ups naturally. Now can perform much deeper cross ups and requires less careful spacing to crossup.
Fuhajin Store hitbox moved slightly forward and increased in width to make it easier to do crMK - FS from farther away. Also damage increased on FS from 50 to 60.

THawk
Walk speed increased from 0.031 forward 0.03 backward to 0.037 forward 0.0325 backward. Forward dash now travels farther
D+F+LP Now causes a fast fall knockdown on air hit. Recovery reduced by 4F (now 3/7/8F)
Close HP is now a 2 hit attack that deals 70x2 damage and 100x2 stun. Frame data changed from 8/3/14 +1 on block +6 on hit. Now 8/3(1)1/16 +2F on block +6F on hit
crMK is now special cancelable. When canceled to Condor Spire it uses a special version of CS that has faster startup and travel speed to allow for comboing from farther away. close MP - crMK - LP CS will combo.
All Condor Spires now break armor (not just EX)
All Condor got frame data adjustments with Light version starting up faster than Medium and medium faster than heavy.
D+MP in air can now hit grounded opponents.
FJ MK hitbox adjusted to be a cross up
FJ LK can now cross up but spacing is tight
FJ LP can now cross up
EX Tomahawk Buster can now be FADC’d on hit/block. Both hits of EX TB now have JP1 instead of only the 2nd hit. This means that EX Condor Spire - EX TB is now possible. In addition it means that EX TB - FADC - EX TB is now possible. Also close HK - EX TB will get you more damage than previously.
Focus attack frame data now matches Ryu’s. Damage reduced from 80/120/170 to 70/90/150 to compensate for this change.

Blanka’s rainbow ball breaking focus is the only Blanka change that made me a bit huffy. Seems like that’s just promoting the use of a silly gimmick. Other than that, solid ass list.

Generally you don’t want supers to cause stun because the opponent might fall out of a super while getting hit. If you add stun to supers, then you somehow need to prevent the stun knockdown from occurring mid-super.

Also IMO, changing the crouch tech command to output a throw doesn’t really address the issue of crouch-teching, which is that the basic low/throw mixup doesn’t exist, only the throw/counterhit and throw/whiff-punish mixups, which are much harder to land. Forcing a throw animation causes the throw/whiff-punish to be stronger, but doesn’t really address the other two situations. Reducing the crouch tech window to something like 5f would improve both the counterhit and whiff-punish mixups, but still doesn’t really address low/throw. If you want to encourage universal upclose pressure, the best option really is to make the throw tech command require a standing input and have the whiff animation have a slow startup and laggy recovery, like a whiffed heavy normal. So basically something like f+hp+hk or b+hp+hk.

Good luck on your project.

If you add stun to supers, only add all of it to the last hitbox, simple.

Thanks for the heads up, both are things I hadn’t really thought about. That said, I’d like to leave my current plan for crouch tech removal in place for the first version and see how it pans out in practice.

Yeah as for the stun thing, that wouldn’t be a terribly elegant solution for one reason: Not every super lands the last hit. Juri, Balrog, Guy, Adon, Cody, Chun Li, Fei Long I can think numerous times the last hit has missed for these characters. It is something I’ll have to re-examine though as I hadn’t thought about stun drops.

@m16ghost Actually did some testing tonight and because of how throws function in SF4 there is only 2 ways to remove crouch tech as an option entirely. (AFAIK)

  1. The way I did it
  2. Remove the ability to tech a throw after you were hit entirely and create a new system.

I tested it with it requiring a standing input AND a strict forward + HP + HK input for a forward throw and Backward + HP + HK for a back throw. I even tried making throw the lowest priority move in the game (lower than LP)

all of that still allowed crouch tech to an extent the only difference is that you had to crouch tech with a heavy normal. The reason is that a throw tech occurs AFTER the throw has hit already. Because of this you automatically stand up due to the animation for getting hit by the throw, you are breaking the throw after it occurs. The forcing crLP+crLK to whiff a throw even if you use other normals in conjunction is actually the strongest whiff punishable option for some characters since I also increased the whiff frame count from 20 to 25F making a full throw animation 30F while some sweeps are less than or equal to that. (Gouken’s is 27F. Honda’s is 30F exactly, ect)

Plus it makes throw teching whiffing a universal constant. If done with HP/HK (which still allows for crouch tech as I noted but now with heavies) some characters are SIGNIFICANTLY worse off than others. Sure all of them it is MUCH easier to frame trap their throw tech due to startup difference on most sweeps. However characters like Gouken or Balrog or Chun or Gief are going to get off much easier on a blocked crouch tech than a character like M. Bison or Deejay or Hakan who are much more negative on their sweeps.

With the crouch tech always causing you to attempt a stand throw it is the same for everyone: 30F total. 3F startup 2F active 25F recovery. And it can’t be blocked and FADC’d or canceled like some characters are capable of with their sweeps.

Yeah in other games you can actually crouch tech as well, but they usually compensate in some other way by either making the tech window relatively smaller, or by making whiffing dangerous. However, I would have thought that changing throws to require either a back or forward input would prevent the use of crouch tech. Interesting. I would have to do some testing.

Making throw tech performed with a heavy normal was really just meant to make it easy to counterhit. You could make the animation go into a taunt or something if you really wanted to make throw tech attempts really dangerous. That, and making universal whiff animations are all design decisions though.

With all the talk about fireballs, I’m surprised no one brought up Tataki’s old fireball damage thread.

Hadoukens have been dealing different amounts of damage in different games. They did the most in SFII and were weakest in late 90s games like 3rd Strike and Alpha 3.

Ryu vs Ryu, FB/Kill values for SFII
New Generation: 17 FBs
Second Impact: 20 FBs
Third Strike: 21 FBs

Ryu vs Ryu, FB/Kill values for SFII(HDR)
HP - 10
MP - 11
LP - 12

Ryu vs Ryu, FB/Kill values for AE2012
16

Ryu vs Ken, FB/Kill values for Alpha 3
15 point blank
27 full screen

Combine that with what Eternal and IglooBob have said and you’ll get a clear picture of what makes zoning strong or weak in SF and how to adjust them in any attempt to mod the game.

Well the whiff animations are AFAIK already universal speeds outside of Gouken’s back throw aren’t all throws 3F startup 2F active 20F recovery?

ATM the mod has 3 / 2 / 25F for it’s throw frame data on whiff. One change I could do is make it so that you are in a Counter Hit state during the recovery frames, though I might want to reduce the recovery back to 20F if I did that.

Btw, one thing you might find interesting: Teching a throw is based off of the buttons that the person performing the throw used!

For example, say you’re playing Ryu and you have him modded so that forward throw is F+HP+HK but the opponent is an unmodded Ken who still uses LP+LK. If KEN instigates the throw on Ryu then Ryu has to tech it by inputting LP+LK even though that wouldn’t result in a throw for Ryu. Likewise the Ken player has to tech a throw from Ryu by inputting HP+HK even if the Ken player is completely unmodified.

Yes, the throw whiff lengths are generally universal across the board, but I was referring to the crouch tech whiff animation, which were originally not uniform. That’s really up to you.

Heh, that is weird. I wonder why Capcom programmed it that way.

Rose is now “content complete” however I still need to apply some of the universal changes (meter adjustment for moves on block / hit and pushback / blockstun on normals.)

Here is the current quick rundown of some of her more major changes that will be in the beta build:

Walk speed increased from 0.045 forward 0.035 backward to 0.048 forward 0.036 backwards
Focus attack frame data normalized to match Ryu’s. Hitbox moved slightly forward and slightly widened (still doesn’t cover the ENTIRE scarf but is better than before.
Far LK/Close sLK now are low hitting attacks.
close MK hitbox was moved slightly down to make it whiff less often against some crouch techs.
Far HP hitbox was moved a small amount forward and the hitbox height was increased slightly. The hurtbox height was also slightly reduced on the scarf. Damage increased to 110. AND now is super cancelable onhit/block.
Far HK hitbox was moved a near imperceivable amount but now actually goes past the hurtbox. Frame data changed from 9/2/19 to 9/4/18 (blockstun REDUCED by 1F) now should be -5F on block 0F hit but has more reach and double the active frames making it harder to avoid.
Slide hurtbox loweredd by 10% during startup frames (no change to active frames hurtbox) making it easier to low profile some moves.
crMK hurtbox lowered by 22% during active frames to make it able to low profile some attacks.
FJ and NJ HP hitboxes were changed. FJ HP now has a hitbox that matches NJ HP which appears after the original FJ HP hitbox disappears. Likewise NJ HP has a hitbox directly below that matchs the hitbox from FJ HP and it appears BEFORE the hitbox from NJ HP normally would. Basically imagine that NJ and FJ HP are the same move but in reversed. This makes them both significantly better as jumpins or air 2 airs. Also FJ HP can now cross up.

Soul Spiral reworked somewhat. LK/MK/HK versions only got damage adjustments (LK = 90 dmg 90 stun. MK = 100dmg 100stun, HK = 110 dmg 110 stun) however there is now a faster traveling and faster startup version for all Soul Spirals when canceled from a crMP. This allows crMP - Soul Spiral to almost always hit when used at the end of a combo, preventing instances where the crMP - SS would whiff and leave you punishable
EX Soul Spiral dramatically reworked. Startup reduced from 13F to 10F invincibility adjusted from 1-12F to 1-11F (this is actually a buff as now it covers the first active frame since startup is 10F now). Recovery increased from 21F to 24F making the move -9F at point blank and spaced can be -3F. EX Soul Spiral damage increased from 120dmg 100 stun to 130 dmg 150 stun.

New move: Air Soul Throw. You can now perform a version of soul throw during any neutral or forward jump. This has 9F of landing recovery. ALL soul throws now have had their hitbox size increased from 0.2x0.2 to 0.4x0.4 except for EX Soul Throw which was increased from 0.2x0.2 to 0.5x0.5 (same size as Guy’s air throw). In addition EX Soul Throw damage was increased from 160 / 100stun to 180 / 150 stun. All soul throws are now performed with a QCB+Kick input instead of a DP+Punch input.

EX Soul Spark now has a special “reflect” hitbox during the startup of the move. This reflect box will absorb any fireball in a similar fashion to Rose’s LP reflect. However the reflection time is VERY short, it occurs on 7-10F of the startup of EX Soul Spark. If you successfully absorb a fireball you’ll gain 10 meter (not a typo, only 10) and of course your EX Soul Spark will automatically gain the 5% damage bonus. EX Spark damage increased from 3070 to 3575. Regular Soul Sparks damage increased from 80 to 85. All Sparks are now QCF input instead of HCF input.


As always these are just some of the highlights, there are more detailed changes to be listed later.

Any chance you gave (or could give) her scarf a pushback hitbox when she does Soul Spark?

I probably could but it would likely ruin her ability to use soul spark in the corner. I thought that was a cool feature in Alpha but not one I ever understood the benefit of.

Dan still not quite content complete but here are some of the changes I thought I’d share I’ve done so far that are big for him:

Far LK - now special cancelable. Hitstun increased by 1F and blockstun increased by 2F
Far HK - Now moves dan forward slightly when he thrusts his leg forward (think: Evil Ryu’s far MK but not as far moving.)
NJ MP first hit now causes a free juggle state similar to Ryu’s FJ MP and Gouken’s FJ MP. Now a 2 hit attack, the 2nd hit will cause an air reset. Now special cancelable on first hit. Damage changed from 75[25] to 6525. Startup reduced from 8F to 7F.
NJ MP and FJ MP have been swapped.
LK Dan Kick damage lowered from 90 to 85. Air version from 90 to 80.
MK Dankick damage buffed from 60
40 to 6060. Air versionalso buffed to 6060
HK Dankick damage buffed from 504040 to 605050. Last hit now has 1F LESS blockstun (making it -3F on block). Air version damage changed from 504030 (wiki says 50x3 but is incorrect) to 605040

Crouch taunt now builds 30 meter on startup. Crouch taunt now breaks armor. Crouch taunt now does 200stun on hit (250 on counter hit.) Crouch taunt now causes a level 2 focus crumple on counter hit vs standing or c rouching opponents. Recovery reduced from 21F to 15F (still leaving it at -30F on block -27F on hit unless it’s a counterhit.)
Jumping taunt now builds 20 meter on startup. Landing recovery reduced from 22F to 13F. Now does 200 stun on hit. On air counter hit it causes an untechable knockdown (with 1 JP used. You can combo after with EX DP or an ultra but timing is tight.)

Dan now has a RUN! This is performed simply by holding forward after any forward dash (just like in KOF/cvs2). The run will continue to loop for as long as you hold forward. It can be canceled at any time with any grounded attack or a backdash/forward dash. However if you don’t cancel it the run has a 12F total frame count which it will go through the entire thing before you can move (this is unavoidable). This run can let you close distance faster than repeated dashes. It’s usefulness I leave up to you to decide (I like to use 1 run rep after a dash, basically a dash and a half.)

So I dunno if I’ll add the danretsu attack now but it’s on my list of possible additions for Dan as a whole new move. Dan (as you may or may not know) has 2 unused moves. He has a throw (or counter) of some sort and another attack called “Danretsu” what Danretsu is, is a spoof on a KOF style move that Ryo has called Zanretsuken. Robert has a similar move where he does it with kicks instead of punches. As a matter of fact, Dan actually has an input mapped out for it already which uses the same exact input as KOF Forward - Back - Forward.

(the move I’m talking about is at 0:27)

Now adding a whole new move with new animations is quite a bit of work it get it to feel/look right since I have to do it all in ono, save, start a training match, view it, tweak it, save, start a training match, ect ect. since I don’t have access to the ability to preview the move or animation it can be difficult. For Cody’s desperation attack it took a couple of days of work just for that one move to be at the point it is at now (~4-5 hours TBH but that was over a few days.) and I had the advantage of a pre-existing move to draw on for knowing the correct frames to add hitboxes and such (Cody’s F+HK) so it was a lot easier than doing it from scratch will be.

However the additional tweaks I’ve given to Dan do a lot to make him feel different and new as well as show his KOF parody roots. So I feel that the CURRENT changes to Dan will suffice for the beta release at least.

One change is that all of Dan’s Gohadoken’s (except EX) cause him to lunge forward before throwing them (Just like the heavy versions of Ryo’s fireball in KOF) his LP Gohadoken has been reworked entirely actually. It now lunges him pretty far forward AND causes a knockdown on hit. The move had it’s recovery increased by 1F and it’s blockstun reduced by 2F (making it -3F on block) but it’s now basically a lunge punch but you can FADC the startup and the hitbox will stay around. It works very similar to Ryo’s HP Fireball now. It can be spaced to be even safer than -3F obviously as it has 8F active frames.

His MP/HP/EX Gohadoken also all got frame count buffs and travel farther. MP = increased from 10F to 17F. HP = Increased from 15F to 28F. EX = increased from 20F to 41F and now travels about 2/3rd screen distance. Also LP does 80 damage MP does 75. HP still does 70 and EX still does 110 (but it got it’s chip damage buffed up to the normal 25% chip amount.)

Updated main post with a new video. :slight_smile:

I dunno if anyone even gives a fuck about this anymore with the Ultra information coming out of the woodwork but I think i’ll at least finish 10 characters and release it to see how people like it.

I’ve started work on the next character already and I decided to go with a top tier: Cammy

She’ll likely be getting some nerfs BUT just like everyone else she’ll also get a bunch of good BUFFS, sometimes buffs to things that were also nerfed. Currently this is in pre-pre-alpha stage so VERY possibly not making the even the beta cut but I’ve reduced the hit and blockstun on her crHP by 1F however I decided to also reduce the pushback on hit. She can no longer do crHP - sweep or CH crHP - Ultra 1 but as long as your execution is on point she can do crLP - crHP - crMK on more characters than previously as the lower pushback on crHP on hit means it’s less often a character specific combo.

For her overall design I have one word “Legs”

I want to emphasize the strength of those legs she has that seem to go on forever, or at least all the way up to her wedgie. To this end I’m redistributing a number of areas of her damage, her kick based normals are getting more damage while some of her punch based normals are getting reduced. Her crLP is getting a bit of a range buff for sure though. One thing I’m trying to layout a design for is modifying hooligan combination and her Spin Knuckle to both be more useful. I have a couple of ideas I’ll test out to figure out which one I like the best in practice. I also want to make each version of Cannon Strike a bit more distinctly useful, right now most people wouldn’t even know that they are actually different at all unless they played her a lot.

At this point I’m still in early planning and she may end up not nerfed at all. I’m just speculating on some ideas. If it feels like it hurts her and she is losing more than she is gaining it’ll be reverted. I want Cammy to come out of this as strong or stronger than she is now but with a little bit less 1 dimensional gameplay (Her EX Cannon Strike is def getting SOME nerfs though, that hitbox and frame advantage are too dumb to keep at that strength.)