I mean making things weaker and making time you spent on learning those things less meaningful are the same thing.
But unless you accidentally put in the wrong disc and pick Wolverine, hard work will still have rewards.
I didn’t say anything about pokes. I said his moveset is dominating. The char has several good options in every possible situations in this game. Range, Mid range, up close, AA, air-to-air, oki, waking up. And for one of these, he even has incredible options.
Still top 10 in AE2012, a game with hopefully no S tier. Sincerely, you should rejoice that Capcom has not taken a flavor of the month approach this time and nerf all top 5 into oblivion (hi Sagat).
i can see how capcom thinks with the st.hk nerf. its close to how they thought about seths old jump fierce
neither is really needed to win any matchups, but its kinda stupid against some characters, so they make it weaker/take it out
they dont want characters to have stuff that you can just do without thinking about the consequence
rose U2, blanka balls, ex lunge, rekka 2 on block, bison scissor loops, sagats +4 on block knee, hk cw on wake up into 350+ , jab sweep combos with fei and ken etc
if its kinda stupid/abuseable in many matches where its not needed to compete, it gets removed or weakened
i’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way to balance fighting games, which basically takes characters of different shapes and sizes (i.e. weight-classes), throws them all together and has them duke it out, unless you have something like parry in every game(focus is nowhere near as good). the very fact that 1player will have a faster jab than another player, or a bigger throw range, (based off of a designers decision) leads to stupid stuff: people winning because of their character and not because of their skill or “yomi”(i know people hate that term). predicting, execution, and to a lesser degree frame data(uniqueness) should be the only criteria that determines wins and losses; and this is where i think capcom goes bonkers with current sf.
modern sf is all about frame data, and less about skill, per se. yes, execution is crucial, but if a good player faces off against a moderately good player , and the latter chooses a high tier, while the former chooses low or mid, the high tier will most likely win. that shouldn’t happen, imo, but there’s no right or wrong answer beyond something just being 100% game breaking. so, if i say ‘reduce characterx’s throw range, and buff characterz’s backdash’, and it isn’t game breaking, then who can say if i’m right or wrong: it’s subjective.
anyway, at the end of the day, it’s about money–specifically, capcom’$ money. so i guess until pro-gaming(specifically, pro sf) blows up, and there is a large, diverse, spectator pool then capcom will continue to make whatever changes they wish. i mean, in traditional pro sports, the BASIC rules of the game rarely change, and the skill of each player is determined at random (nature, god, aliens,whatever, and steroids on occaision). fighting games are weird because the BASIC/ONLY rule of the game is to win (there are no fouls, no delay of game, no point deductions, no restrictions whatsoever), and the skill of each character and therefore the rules of the game are inextricably linked; and both can be changed at any time if the designer chooses to do so. like, no one nerfed michael jordan, but no one “designed” him either, so you see the problem. in theory, the nba could’ve made adjustments to the MANY rules of the game(like fouls,or basket height, or shotclock time, or handchecking, or lane width, etc…), but they couldn’t alter michael jordan or his abilities.
that’s why you have to bring back parrying, in some form (i’ve always said make them meter based), and universal overheads, because without them, the game is too strategically limited.
^^ stick to 3s. modern sf is not all about frame data.
Pro sports rules change all the time.
Just this year the NFL changed where kickoffs took place, this effectively nerfed the kick return game because of the high amount of touchbacks.
MLB reduced the height of the pitcher’s mound at one point to nerf pitching because it had gotten too good.
College Basketball nerfed Kareem by making dunking against the rules.
Every year the rules of sports are subtly tweaked to fix balance, and to fix any issues that may arise.
Your other arguments are wrong, but more subjectively so I won’t bother to argue them.
This is a broken analogy. The characters are the rules of the game, not the players.
You can add the nerf to Vipers ex sesmo to that list too. I pretty much agree with everything you said here.
Also, I find it stupid that someone asked a very interesting question about the Gen and Gouken changes and within half a page were drowned out by the shouts about Akuma again 
Im sick of Akuma discussion at this stage… its impossible to find any other information in this thread lately without having to try ignore 80% of posts.
True. NFL adjusts the rules for player protection, Capcom adjusts the rules in the same manner. For the record I HATE the kickoff/return nerf.
Nice analogy there.
If anything the adjustments will keep you on your game, since you need to find ways to use them or get around nerfs. I see it as a type of game extension, keeping us interested until the next one comes(SFxT, SF5?)
i made basic rules bold, because i knew someone would bring up those examples.
subtly, is the key term.
the nfl nerfed kickoffs, but it can’t nerf devin hester, and despite their best efforts, he still returns for td’s.
the pitching mound height change is one of the reasons that arms get blown out, but they still can’t nerf or buff the speed of a pitch (i almost wrote character. lol)
capcom can alter any character in the game, thus, alter the rules by which the game is played. no sport can do that.
and, nerfing kareem would’ve taken way more than removing dunking. did the ncaa say any team playing against kareem could play 7 men on the court to compensate? no, because subtly is the key. the game is 5 vs 5. if i get some freak of nature, like lebron, i can play him.
the difference with capcom is that they decide, from game to game, who the freak of nature will be. the intrinsic nature of the game is tied to each character, so for me to win (at the highest level), i am forced to use that character. conversely, no team CAN(obviously) or should have to have a lebron to win a title, despite his freakish attributes.
anyway, those are team sports. fighting games are individual sports, like the ufc or boxing. and like i said, in those cases weight classes exist, etc…obviously, street fighter isn’t a sim, it’s fantasy, but i still think that if you’re going to have so much wild diversity of play then you have to have parries, in some form or fashion.
Devin Hester is the player. Capcom can nerf Rufus but can they nerf Justin? And he has not returned a kickoff for a TD in years. He has returned punts for TD’s however.
And yes sports can change how the game is played. Do you know forward passes used to be illegal in organized football? Now they are an integral part of the game. The ball itself has been changed in various sports. Those aren’t subtle, those are huge things.
You are once again mixing the players with the rules/structure of the game.
Lebron is Daigo not Yun.
Capcom can’t nerf Fuudo’s reaction times, Daigo’s intuition, Mago’s fundamentals, or Mike Ross’s believers. I don’t follow why you’re equating professional sports players with the characters in the video game.
It also sounds like you’re basing too much of who wins and loses on the character select screen.
edit: ninja’d
you got me on the football, stuff, i thought he was still returning kickoffs, despite the rule change.
but you’re missing my point: **the characters in sf are the rules. **you can change many things in sports, but that doesn’t alter a player’s individual talents. the only thing rule changes can do is make certain talents more or less valuable, BUT, you’re more focused on team sports. in 1v1 fighting sports, the rules makers use weight-classes to try to balance the action. no one wants weight classes in street fighter. lol. however, no one wants the actual characters to be the ONLY deciding factor in victory either. you see. if the characters are tools for us, then our thinking ability needs to be factored into the fundamental game design of sf. daigo, for all his talent, is not winning evo with a.e. gen, or dan, or gouken. the top tier always wins, and the top tier is decided by capcom. in pro sports, sometimes the top tier loses.
show me a major street fighter tournament in which a low tier character wins it all.
cinderella scenarios have always happened in traditional pro sports, but it never happens in sf. ever. it could happen with some form of meter based parrying, because, if i can out-think you with my use of parry meter, and my skills and knowledge of the game, then you could see a low tier cinderella.
problem with parry is that it weeds out a lot of customers for capcom. capcom knows that sf4/ssf4/a.e./… is a very forgiving game, and they like it like that because they know that it gives hope to weaker players who might not have the ability to use their parries properly.
This is interesting. I was actually in the process of writing a piece about the analogs of the NFL and SF. But instead of Daigo being Tom Brady, I think Daigo is more Bill Bellichick, Yun the NE Patriots, Tom Brady as Genei Jin, and with these patches as the offseason. Much like how SF characters (Yun) lose and gain moves, NFL teams(Patriots) lose and gain players and just like how players change mains (Daigo switching to Yun from Ryu), coaches change teams (Bellichick used to coach the Browns way back when and now he’s with the Pats).
if you all want safe specials and normals, go play cvs2. then again, it might be too advanced for most of you.
You have to play the player, not the game.
The game is just the means(rules) to compete with the person. Every single thing in the “game” is nothing more than a construct or arena that you accept to compete within when you begin playing another person. Its like poker, NFL, or even scrabble.
i agree. i dunno gouken well enough to comment, but any positive changes have to be good for him at this point.
the gen stuff is a mixed bag of things that could be useful like hard knockdowns and meter boost to RH upperkicks , useless like FADC roll combos, and things that are potentially good like faster ex roll versions and ex wall dives
really it will come down to if the new ex versions of wall dive and roll can reaction punish a mid range fireball. currently gen has no real answers to zoning outside of focus dashing and neutral jumping. normally this would be ok, but gen has a lot of other weaknesses to go along wiht being weak to zoning.
but hpnestly, even if buffed, theres a lot of other characters who are going to be better, so he may have some of those matches become worse as well
edit-can we pls stop with the real sport analogies. they make no damn sense
but doesn’t the nfl always “buff” the crappiest team in by giving them high draft picks in each draft? isn’t that why the lions are 4-0 now? suh, stafford, johnson, fairely, coach, etc… luck is also a factor too. ryan leaf was #1 pick once. plus, each team owner can decide to either run their franchise into the ground or be diligent. that’s why ono has said that he has thought of a street fighter game in which each player’s character is unique to them. not sure that would be a good game, but it shows that they are aware of the limitations inherent in balancing fighting games.
i just want to have some tool that lets me use my “yomi”. for example, if i know you’re going to jump punch before you do it and i am too close to you to do anything but jumpattack, as well, why should i be forced to either stay on the ground, dash under or jump and lose due to frame advantage?
anyway, with respect to the real topic, i’m excited for my ken and dj changes.
And just like the NFL no matter how much you buff something, bad teams seem to always suck till they change their mentality. 
How are you losing due to frame advantage. Do you mean hitboxes???