My point is that people talking about “valid ground games” don’t know what they’re talking about.
Lol, okay. Well you say you play ST a lot right? ST generally excels at the mid range and long range ground game, as well as having a strong up close game. While SF4 generally is extremely lacking in mid range and long range. Crouch techs into full combos, wide as the ocean reversal windows, focus attack (which hurts both pokes and projectiles), super jumps, jumping generally having little drawback, as well as many other things all greatly hurt the ground game of SF4.
ST has got a LOT of strong tactics - many of them not especially interesting. What’s interesting about throw loops? Wall-dive loops? Safe supers into 60%? OS throws into stun? 50% unblockable moves? 50/50 ground cross-up resets?
Yeah, some ST matches have the potential to have great footsie battles because of it’s roots, but there are so many matchups where footsies just don’t matter because there are simply much stronger tactics. And just because stronger tactics exist, it doesn’t mean the game becomes more interesting. Then you have the silly situations where your character simply gets beaten by design. Again, that Vega can slide all day against a Guile who has to guess nj.hp is not very interesting. That Dee Jay can spam cr.mp outside whiff-punish range is not interesting.
Yes, ST has high damage and strong tactics, but that doesn’t mean that SFIV’s ground game is automatically invalidated, and it certainly doesn’t mean the ground game is more interesting or deep.
And before you go any further with this, “long range ground game” is simply just zoning. Yes, SFII has some of the strongest zoning in the whole series. But don’t try to bring that into a discussion about mid-range neutral.
For the record: I’ve stated many times that there is room for improvement in SFIV’s ground game (my main beef is the slow walkspeeds), but the last thing I want is another ST where most you get from winning a footsie battle is a 2-hit combo, or a knockdown into loops. Or another 3S where the meta is hit-confirm into super.
3 out of the top 8 characters revolve around hit confirming pokes into super. Yun Mak Yang Urien definitely do not, and calling Dudley a hit confirm character would be pretty inaccurate as well. like yeah he converts off hit confirms but that’s not what’s really happening in the neutral.
unless your argument is that Chun and Ken matter more since they’re the strongest characters. then yeah sure I guess. people have seen enough high level Chun vs Ken that they think of walking back and forth whiffing low forward when they think of 3s.
Difference is quite clear and I will say it for the third time: Not every basic normal in SF4 can be special canceled. Every basic normal in SFxT CAN be boost canceled. It changes how normals are used dramatically as Sol breaks down here: Street Fighter V Lounge "We on South Central crack addict status"
Did I say that every combo always works in SFxT? Can you please point that part out? I said that most characters can do boost to launcher off a NUMBER of their normals. which leads to a position to do the same combos in most situations. Most characters have a couple of routes to launcher that almost always work. Again, NOT EVERYTHING ALWAYS WORKS. You can’t just roll your face on the buttons and always get a launcher to connect, you sometimes need to end it with a specific attack to consistently get the launcher. It’s just that you can usually get a route to launcher every time you boost out of a normal for a lot (again not all) characters. In most cases Ryu can do a boost to farHK or closeHK - Launcher off of any normal that hits unless the opponent extends a limb so he hits the attack from farther out.
I never said there weren’t spacing dependent combos. Again putting words in my mouth, I said that most characters have the ability to boost to launcher or simply cancel a normal into launcher from even max range on several moves and that landing a launcher usually provides the same positioning all the time allowing for a similar combo. If you choose NOT to go for a boost to launcher than sure there are plenty of spacing specific combos, example Lei’s wall bounce stuff can change depending on how close he is to the wall of the stage. Cody’s ability to followup his crack kick can vary depending on how far away he landed it. There are a ton of corner only combos in SFxT. Akuma needs to space some of his combos so he can get farHK as the starter but still be close enough to followup with a closeHP.
One reason you go for a boost instead of a link? Boosts are cancels. First off these means that you don’t have to worry about dropping it, second off it means that it can be done from farther out as many normals move you forward when canceled. Lastly boosts allow you to hit with a heavier normal that you might not be able to link into and then can special canceled into an EX Move. For example, Cody can’t link out of his crLK or crMK, but he needs a mid or heavy attack to combo to EX Zonk. He also needs 2 buttons to be held down for EX Zonk so that often removes the option of MP. So he does crMK-crHP-EX Zonk because the crMK moves him into range for crHP which he can special cancel. He can’t do that with a link under any circumstance. Or he can do crLK xx crMK xx sHK xx launcher because he has no way to link out of crLK and he can combo to launcher from far away, this allows his tag partner to come in for free and do a big combo since in general Cody’s damage outside of the corner or without 2 bars is pretty low.
Then you have stuff like Rolento where they require a boost chain for their best damage combos mid screen because of the fact that their normals don’t recover in time or don’t reach far enough to do juggles without a boost.
A lot of the Cody tech still being used and the max damage combos are ones I was the one who found or I worked with Zukuu to find. I chated with CoolKid a lot before I got tired of playing. I also helped do the frame data stuff, though I wouldn’t say I did a huge amount I was one of the top 3-5 people in terms of contributing and proof reading it. No where near street11’s work or zukuu but I did a fair share of it. I’m not going to claim expertise in SFxT by any stretch but please don’t shit on my views by attacking my credentials.
The dudley not having EX Ducking was a legit mistake I forgot about since it has been a while and I never played dudley in xT. I forgot he didn’t get that till AE2012 and the characters in SFxT were ported based on their AE builds.
In a number of cases in SF4 an FADC has a gap allowing a punish and rarely ever + on block or lead into a full combo if the special hits. DPs are now all punishable unless you spend 3 bars for an EX DP + FADC. Many times you need the special attack to hit to be able to FADC unless it’s a fireball. in SFxT the boost chains always move you forward far increasing the likeliness your special cancelable normal hits and allows an EX move. In addition you spend far more meter, and a lot more moves in SF4 can’t be FADC’s than normals that can be special canceled in SFxT.
Also @intuitive2011 I know you are an SFxT player more than anything, why not weigh in on this discussion rather than just lurking on here and SF4 forums all the time and disagree/agreeing people. Engage in a discussion and post your viewpoints! That’s the whole point of a forum 
What does SF4 have that makes it special, and the most played competitive fighting game in the world?
It has a lot of promotion and support.
Lots of support from Capcom. The game has a large cast of characters that people have history with. In general the top tier has never been extremely dominating except in AE and Vanilla allowing a lot more upsets and underdog wins and in general allowing people to feel they have a chance with whoever they play except for a small number of characters.
One of the games biggest faults is also it’s biggest strength, the hitbox/hurtbox system being wonky and working based on character animations allows for a HUGE number of character specific combos so there is always new tech coming out on a near weekly basis for someone.
It really helped revive the fighting game scene in terms of the general public eye.
Most important though is that it’s an entry into the core street fighter franchise bringing name recognition and thus mass appeal.
I’ll add to what @Darklightjg1 and @Eternal said and say that I believe the FGC wanted SF4 to succeed, it’s almost like we willed it and didn’t want to have it any other way so much that we suspended any doubts we had about it (for a time at least). There was a mainstream revival when SF4 was released, it was an opportunity and the FGC took it and ran with it. SF4 may not be perfect, but it gave us the perfect wind for our sail.
I can’t hate on SF4 because I remember SRK and the FGC before SF4, and I’m SO grateful for the life SF4 breathed into our community.
Meh, I think SF4 is fun. I really didn’t realize there was such a strong distaste for it here (however I am kind of new to these boards). It really can’t be successful because it’s a genuinely good game?
In other words, about 40% of the top 8. We can play with the numbers to make it better or worse, but that’s not the point.
3S is a game where many top players have said over the years that one of the main things that sets strong and weak characters apart is the ability to hit-confirm into super. If you couple that with fact in many tournaments the top 8 results feature mostly characters who have this ability, it’s not hard to see why it’s considered a big part of the meta game.
O yeah, I also forgot to mention. Unless I’m mistaken but SF4 was one of the first major FGs with reliable online play on consoles. I mean yeah you had dialup back on dream cast and some net play on PS2 but nothing reliable or really viable for playing the game.
360/PS3 had better services than any previous console to help match make as well as converse with other players or keep track of friends and SF4 really came not long after online gaming truly was exploding on consoles. Before that it was pretty much just xbox classic with a handful of games like Halo AFAIK.
SF4 basically came out at the perfect time.
Unless I’m mistaken about there being a major FG with viable online play on 360/PS3 before SF4 I think it may have been the first or second. That played heavily into it’s continued success outside of japan I think.
It has quite a bit of good stuff, just that this long after it’s release the bad stuff really has been hammered home. The thing is that none of it’s shortcomings are really a deal breaker for most people. A lot of it is complaining due to seeing how much potential the game had to be even better than it is. When you really like something you want it to be the best it can be and you notice it’s shortcomings and wish they could be improved.
At least that is how I view SF4 and many other games.
In ST damage is high and combos are short. Winning a footsie battle often rewards you with large damage, and many times a momentum shift that can quickly spell the opposing player’s doom. The longer combos are the more it trivializes individual pokes, cause generally the overall damage per hit goes down. It becomes more about setting up combos rather than smart footsies. In SF4 your reward is maybe a long combo, with so so damage, and giving a ton of free ultra meter to the opponent…yay. If you like long combos there are a million other options, and it fits over the top games like Marvel and some other fighters, but it looks ridiculous in a grounded methodical fighter like Street fighter.
As far as loops, there is a reason SF4 is called Set up fighter. There are 50/50 vortexes aplenty in SF4.
Also you said the roots of SF2 are so good, well why not use that golden core and iron out the flaws and then build new fresh things atop it? Sounds a lot better than using the garbage core of SF4, and trying to eek out a game that is mediocre.
There are only a few true vortexes in Sf4 now. Much better than before.
Sf4 is a good game by the way. The ratio of haters to those that like it is a little skewed in this section
It’s funny, most people complain about ultras, long combos and the crouching lp fest that SFIV is but my biggest gripe after 5 years is the graphics. Never liked them. Characters always looked fat, distastefully exaggerated and plastic to me, but now do so even worse than when the game first came out. I think it’s ugly to look at. Specially Hugo’s hair…it’s one of the worst last-gen hair models i’ve ever seen.
Gameplay wise I enjoyed it a lot. Awkward hitboxes and ultras are what I resent the most. Dumb comeback mechanic which is way more useful for some characters than others, and about the hitboxes…well, blanka.
I don’t really find hitboxes to be much of an issue with SF4 either, that is except for the 5 newest characters. There were tweaks made but those hitboxes are still busted I swear.
That’s my point. In what way does it spell doom? Throw loops, or spammable moves with low probability of losing. That’s not fun or interesting at all. If you remember the words of Sako: In ST, a 3 hit combo leads to a winning situation. But in ST, you hardly ever land a 3 hit combo from footsies. How do you land a 3 hit combo in ST? From a jump in. The problem is that the same fundamental strategy that was used in previous games to bait that jump now suddenly depends on luck because of the random probability that your anti-air input will not be accepted as a special move because you inputted in 15 frames (which was a perfectly valid input window in previous titles) instead of 10 frames*. That’s what a lot of people, including yourself, don’t understand about ST. What Clockwork tweeted about the game was 100% - he would beat a veteran ST player in SSF2T more often than what they would beat him in an equally long set in MvC2. And MvC2 suffers from a lot of the same issues that ST does. But in MvC2 those issues aren’t that pronounced because of the type of game that it is. In ST, a scrub who knows basic wall dive setups can randomly beat a veteran ST player. Not so in MvC2. And that’s just Vega. Let’s not even talk about the other BS. Yes, they won’t win over long sets, but ST is a game that is full of randomness and BS that lends itself to situations where the opponent making you guess (for example) between SPS into Super or Throw can end the round. So when you say that ST has a “valid ground game”, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. And when I say it has the POTENTIAL to have those type of battles because of it’s roots, I’m talking about CE and HF that has less random BS. Case in Point: That CE Sim player in China who has single-digit tournament losses (that I know of) to this day (search SF2CE’s YT channel for his matches). And we’re talking about a 25 year old game here.
Don’t mistake high damage, randomness and cheap strategies for good gameplay. ST is a great game for many reasons, but as Ono himself said, SFIV was based on HF which, in his own words, is largely seen as the true model of SF. Now there are obvious differences between which fundamentals are relevant in HF and SFIV, but that’s got very little to do with anything you’ve mentioned.
*If you don’t believe this, try it yourself with a scriptable emulator and a copy of HSFII. Pick HF Ryu vs ST Ryu and script both players to do the same move in the same window.
damn, you niggas getting schooled in here.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing for the randomness that ST had. What people are arguing for is higher damage and a game that’s less about long combos.
Just wanna say a couple general things about the sfxt discussion since I don’t have a usable computer atm and don’t feel like going point for point on my phone. Plus I don’t want to keep bringing up this topic lol. Soo…
For anyone that might be interested in sfxt, don’t avoid trying out the game cause people generalize it as fishing for boost combos all the time cause thats not all it is. Also there are tons of interesting combos in this game that have many different purposes. Not all combos are similar cause if they were everyone would have the same synergy which is not the case at all.
People say that boost chains make only a few normals in a foostie game useful. Which in theory sounds like it could be right, but in practice is not how it works. Just gonna use ryu as an example. He plays practically the same as his sf4 counterpart. He doesn’t even use boost chains in his footsie game in xT for one, and hit confirms the same way he does in sf4.
Is confirming a cr.lk, cr.lp string into a dp all that different from confirming a cr.lk, cr.lp string into a boost chain?
It’s fine if you think boost chains are boring but in my opinion it’s not such a bad mechanic a lot of people think it is. Sfxt is a tag game after all and having multiple ways to bring in your other character is a good thing.
…Honestly I hate posting on forums lol, but lately I’ve been seeing really bad comparisons of sf4 to xT. Even people claiming all these flaws xT has, when it’s usually just comes down to their personal taste and not actual flaws of the game.
Even though guilty gear is my main game, seeing tons of uneducated bashing on sfxt starts to get annoying after awhile and just wanted to say a couple things.
… And that’s it lol