@d3v if u wanna re-open the parry and focus attack threads, please do. I feel sorta guilty that my feverish arguments there caused them to be closed. don’t worry I wont post up in either one of those threads ever again.
I think the reason balance in SF4 lead to the game being lead to a boring game is:
A. They balanced by generally making sure that the characters weren’t very scary compared to how they are in other games. I feel that this kind of balancing by weakness isn’t necessary since the games can be patched now
B. Recently combofiend said that the dev team cares as much about how the balance of the game is perceived around net(what the common opinions are I guess) as they do about how the balance actually seems to be in matches. I may have misinterpreted this, but if its true I think it could explain why the devs always seem so predisposed to nerfing everything interesting. Many players call anything strong or anything they can’t beat yet overpowered and ask for it to be removed.
The problem however with SFIV is that balance came at the cost of having a cast where just about everybody was bad. I mean, it may not be obvious to folks who have only played IV, but to anyoe else who’s played to older games, the characters in IV feel somewhat “lacking”, either due to shittier normals, or lower damage or a combination of both.
Hello Guys, I am new here <3
Am I the only one who noticed that the first trailer looks a bit better than the 2nd one ?
I’ve always played the devil’s advocate when it comes to catering to new players, but I have to admit I’m not ready for the “riot plz nerf” era.
I can live with input shortcuts and comeback mechanics, but let me have a fun engine and some interesting characters. I don’t think that will be enough. Bad players feel entitled to beat good players or they wont play, that’s just how it is.
In retrospect, it was pretty clever how ultras were implemented in sf4. Older players were used to being at a clear advantage after a knockdown so they walked into wakeup ultra all day for 50% and the new players felt good. Once the sales started to plateau they started nerfing that in order to let the remaining guys play street fighter again.
Luckily SF is still dependent on the hardcore players. Seeing Nintendo piss away the competitive smash scene has been rough.
Do you think what they did with Omega alleviated this problem? (broken stuff and infinites aside)
Yeah I noticed that too. They turned down the lighting a whole lot
Plus some of the attacks seem faster in the First trailer compared to the second one
Like take Ryu’s combo into Denjin in the end for example , if you observe closely, it seems Ryu is doing it quicker and more fluidly in the first one compared to the second one
Plus the Air Combo Chun li does, it looks fast in the first one but in the live match(I think its the same build as the 2nd trailer ?) when Combofiend does it, can’t help but notice it that it doesn’t look as good as it did in trailer( like if theres a slight pause between each attack)
Am I the only one whos noticing it ? or Am I seeing things ? 
Yeah, I think Omega was step in the right direction, as far as fun and interesting movesets go.
Obviously a lot of stuff is OP/straight-up broken, but I think they did a good job as far as the spirit of the game goes.
The characters are strong and have a lot of options, and the OP stuff is only in comparison to the non-Omega characters (besides glitches/infinites).
Honestly, I think it comes down to this, and it’s interesting because it’s mirroring a discussion I had for Yugioh of all things (yeah, mock me later for it).
Basically at first glance people seem to want variety, with everyone being playable and thus a multitude of different things being played. However, it eventually tends to get railed against for tournament play because you can be outed just because you ran into a couple of bad matchups along the way. Less of a deal for FGs because you’re allowed to counter pick or go to a secondary in case you ran into a bad matchup (whereas for TCGs, you only have one deck so if you run into bad matchups you’re SOL) but it’s still something to be noted.
Over time though, people tend to appreciate more top heavy formats and games though because instead of things like matchup advantage deciding matches more often, it comes down to nuance and mastery over the one or few characters/decks being used while also simultaneously making any rogue character/deck coming out of nowhere to do well and win a lot more special and well earned. It’s funny because with SSF4AE, that’s exactly what they were going for with Yun/Yang/Fei being above all else. Wasn’t as liked though if anything because they forced it.
Both philosophies have their pros and cons. It comes down to, do you want variety more where nearly any character (I would add playstyle but usually top heavy games still do have a variance of playstyle) can be played without much if any penalty but the trade being that matchups and counter picks play a much more important part of the meta? Or do you want a top heavy game where there are only a couple of characters able to really be played (though Rogue options are available for the truly great) but the trade being that a winner will more likely be decided due to mastery of the game and all its nuance.
Obviously things aren’t nearly that cut and dry, but it is a topic of conversation to be discussed.
Omega is a step in the right direction. I’d like to see (and probably will see) some ideas/moves carried over.
I do think Omega’s characters are a bit over done - it’s hard to explain really, almost like they are too much from the character’s core.
Basically what I mean is some moves are like “what the heck!?” while others are "That makes sense, why isn’t that already in here!?"
Damage output is perfect and stuns happen almost every other game.
I do wish SF5 would implement some sort of guard break or have blocking add to your stun bar (have a stun bar visible like 3rd strike)
To compensate for this the defending player would have access to an Alpha counter-esque move (Personally I like how Combo Breakers are done in KI, if you risk the breaker but guess wrong you get lit up) Not sure how SF would handle a combo-breaker maybe cost an ex bar to do it, I dunno just typing and thinking.
There’s also the fact that having too many characters or unothodox characters limits design space.
Take Dhalsim for example. The sole fact that he was included in the roster meant everyone should have a way to get in against him, and by doing so, you might give a character some moves that are OP against other characters, but he needed it in order to have an answer against Dhalsim. So in order to make things balanced, you nerf both characters, making nobody happy.
The Guile/dictator matchup is also a good example for this I think. The way they’re both designed clashes hugely in Guile’s favour, without much you can do to help Bison without making him OP against another character.
So yeah, having fewer characters can potentially mean having stronger and more fun characters overall.
Omega mode is a mess in terms of design of how far they were willing to push a characters toolset as well as who got the most powerful things. Outside of combos some characters are actually a bit weaker, especially in terms of footsies. I’d rather play USF4 Cody when it comes to footsies, getting in against zoning, and such rather than Omega Cody. I honestly feel USF4 Cody is stronger in those areas while Omega Cody has better frame traps and combo damage. Meanwhile a couple of characters got parries that aren’t remotely balanced for zoning/footsies while other characters within the same archetype got worse in that area. Some characters got 300 damage moves which work well with scaling while others had their individual move damage lowered but given more juggle options making scaling much worse for extended combos.
Some hard knockdowns are only like +10F at best, not even enough time to get close and throw out a meaty. It’s a bit too fast but it’s one of the better changes.
There is making characters more unique in ways that make them strong and varied and then there is just making them different to make them different so that they are different. Too much stuff fell into the second category where characters were simply changed in ways that don’t match up with how other characters were changed just so that there was variety when in fact the other characters changes are way more useful.
I’d say Omega mode was only a step in the right direction for maybe 8 characters and had a few interesting concepts that should have been better fleshed out for everyone else and had a couple of things that are worse such as many characters normals got nerfed for footsies but had buffs for combos.
Yun feels like trash in omega mode, probably a big part of the reason i think the mode is a snorefest entirely.
Yup, imperfect balance, people want broken characters subconciously. (i use that word loosely and half heartedly of course) 
To clarify I don’t think its a good thing that capcom pays attention to perception so much. The nerfing should have stopped back in SSF4. After that they started fixing imaginary problems for the most part.
For this game if Capcom makes major updates I want it to make significant changes to the game. I didn’t like how SF4 had 4 revisions and still essentially the same game.
I don’t know about this, man. I don’t think Capcom has the greatest track record of making changes that are actually rational and help the game. They also seem to make certain character balance changes that have zero direction. Some examples of changes I think that have not been well thought out:
-AE 2011 Yun and Yang broken for fun
-USF4 Sagat tiger shot nerf
-Dee-Jay pre-USF4 1.04
-DWU being a cheap way to fix unblockables
-Yun EX lunge punch because he “can’t get in”
If Capcom is making huge changes over the life of SF5 then it has more chances to make big mistakes. And really, DWU has changed SF4 but just for all the wrong reasons. I would MUCH rather they make SF5 on a good foundation, but leave that foundation untouched if the game works. Remember that DWU was a response to fanbase whining, nothing more.
Also, I think Capcom has gotten very comfortable with constant patching and thus uses us as a “beta” test for each release. People don’t seem to remember how insane vanilla Ryu, Seth, and Akuma were. Ryu and Seth alone had inescapable fireball traps, Akuma had loops, Sagat just needed ultra, and Cammy and a few others had untapped potential. That game was crazy as hell, it just didn’t last too long because of Super.
Wouldn’t you rather they make SF5 “good” and then keep it that way? I’d rather not give them the chance to screw something up. Know what I mean?
Not what I meant. If Capcom were to do a Super SFV a year after the release of Vanilla I want it to be what Hyper Fighting was to World Warrior, 3rd Strike to 2I/New Generation and SFxT 2013 to it’s vanilla version. Make the changes and improvements so big it feels like a different game. I never got that from any SF4 update.
I think they might just imitate what KI is doing and have seasons for new characters. It promotes the season pass on top of costume DLC but I dunno if Capcom will actually make it possible to buy individual characters.
That talk stopped, but i remember hearing from multiple people, and maybe even Combofiend that they aren’t doing any Super, mega, or hyper bullshit. They just want to release gradual updates in the form of patches, but i think we are going to get a lot of on disk content if that’s the case… I’m sorry i have no source, i just checked, but i remember hearing tons of people say that one the week of announcement… (even combofiend like i said before) I think it had something to do with Sony not liking the idea, because they are the ones publishing it after all.
The season model would work if SFV is a digital game with a budget price. No doubt this will be a full price retail release. I don’t think the season method will work for it. A season pass will be tricky business as it will have to cherry pick which DLC will be apart of it.