I can’t pinpoint when it started or what the root cause is but as time goes on I’m noticing the risky and aggressive play style Alex Valle is known for which used to be accepted as equally valid as playing it “safe” is being seen less and less. All the stream commentators criticize players for taking unnecessary risks, not taking advantage of the clock, and doing anything that isn’t the optimal thing to do at the time which sounds logical but many players have quirky, unorthodox styles that have suited them well.
There was a time when the general mantra of fighting games was “there’s no “right” way to play a character”.
I understand playing to win is the #1 rule of anything competitive which is why I respect someone who has no shame spamming phoenix fb’s to win. I’m just saying the negative stigma of the aggressive and/or offbeat play style wasn’t always there and it may be stifling creativity and diversity within the scene. I notice now a lot more people are x copying top player strats rather and waiting for others to do the “work” for them rather then experiment and figure things out for themselves.
For example Wolverine is one of the most powerful rushdown characters in any fighting game and rarely do you see anyone do something with him without having an assist to cover him. I’m not saying people should be reckless for no reason I’m just saying that maybe sometimes doing your own thing rather then copying what everyone else does will yield an even greater reward.
decline of rush down has everything to do with the way the games are being built. Magneto in mvc3 is about 1\10th of what he was in mvc2 and they did that on purpose. Even the best players in the world could not consistently block him so they nerfed him to the point where a lot more people can block him and Capcom has applied this across the board. Magneto used to be a 4 corner hi\hi character. Now he’s 2 corners and hi\lo, nerfed the living shit out of him.
Only certain characters can be played multiple ways, primarily the characters with big tool sets can do that. Shotos usually have all the tools to either be played defensively or offensively but its not like el fuerte who has limited tools is going to be a defensive monster. I don’t exactly agree with that statement that any character can be played any way effectively. You always have to play within the confines of the character UNLESS said character has a wide array of effective tools from the fundamental angles.
Its more true for modern fighters than it is for older ones though. Older ones allowed more room for creativity, most games these days are incredibly black and white with a patch every 6 months to get rid off any BS a player figured out. So instead of banking on broke layers that will get patched in a few months, you can stay ahead of the game by working purely on fundamentals as they can’t patch those and fundamentals aren’t exactly exhilarating to watch.
from b4-2k8 or whenever sf4 was released, a player could sit and work on a specific tactic for their games and it may take years but they knew it would be there still. Who wants to put that much work in now when the scrubs will cry about it and then it gets patched in a few months? this crap where scrubs complain and it gets patched is getting rid of the creativity process because no one can hold onto their fruits of their labor. You’ll use it for 3 months and there is a patch removing it from the game. Since no one really knows what or won’t get patched, I think people just take the safe bet and don’t fuck with shit like that.
the reason you see wolverine+assists is because of the multi option they apply. Doing stuff like that can cover up to 5+ counters from the opponent and if you were to do it solo, it wouldn’t work half as good because those counters are now a factor.
Risky? Alex Valle never plays “risky”, he just masks his actions very well to fuck with your mind, but the “real” actions among the chaos are safe and optimal. Basically he creates situations where “unsafe” moves become much safer than it seems.
I understand that is this a pretty good prediction of what happens when over-patching occurs, but could you give an example of where this has actually happened? Specifically, when someone has worked on a non-gamebreaking tactic and it was patched away, since overpowered tactics outside the planned balance of the game should be patched, of course.
I don’t play Mahvel, but look at SF4 as it came out first, and was the “introduction to fighting games” for many players. Then look at SF4’s mechanics. Generally slow tempo, super jump level jump heights, shitty dashes, untrustworthy hitboxes, easy mash reversals, focus attacks…I’m not saying rushdown is not possible, but the mechanics of game definitely don’t go in favor of rushdown unless you’re really aware of what’s going on character-to-character, and you’re on top of what your opponent’s options are. Which is a lot of work, more than most players are willing to engage in.
It’s just more simple to play safe in SF4, and find success at a low/intermediate level.
Get a whole new generation of new fighting game players starting with SF4, this is what they’ll learn with, and carry it over to other games…which is why you see players complaining about people trying out 3SO or KOF for “playing like it’s SF4”
I have a better question which one is more fun? Watching pure balls out rushdown 24/7 or watching people play defense effectively? Ive actually seen interesting matches where characters fought for spacing and zoned.
Have you seen what they’ve been doing to runaway, keepaway, turtling and zoning? Do you see all the options to get around fireballs in SSF4? Do you see what they did to Guile, Honda and Dhalsim? Do you see how easily keepaway got blown up after the 1st month of MvC3?
All these new “more accessible” games are weakening anything that scrubs think is boring or spam.
More like this topic should be about the decline of defensive tactics. The fact that people hate the concept of zoning/turtling/spacing/etc. Performing a dragon punch on wakeup is automatically considered “scrubby”. How even characters that aren’t top tier like Arthur in MVC3 get call “spammer”. How MVC3 was cater to rushdown soooo much, that Capcom even admitted that rushdown was too powerful. The fact that SSFIV is called TurtleFighter edition when Super Cammy had her uber TKCS. The fact that many games create penalty for blocking, or being defensive such as Soul Calibur.
Rushdown isn’t declining, it’s more powerful and dominate than ever. It’s the fact that many games these days won’t allow other tactics to exist because people would rage out of the concept that a top tier character isn’t offensive.
I find the opposite happening. SF4 gets more offensive with every iteration, and fireballs were already weak in vanilla. MvC3 favors rushdown to a ludicrous degree.
Poongko plays an extremely aggressive Seth that teleports in and throws uppercuts like he doesn’t care, and most people absolutely love and respect him for that. Fuudo plays a turtling Fei Long and almost everyone seems to consider him the most boring SF champion ever and they groaned when he won EVO and Godsgarden. So I don’t see any negative stigma for aggressive style, just a negative stigma for those who think they can style and show off in a tourney. Which is extremely disrespectful of their opponents.
I don’t see a decline in rushdown at all. If anything, these newer games invite more of it, albeit in a more gimmicky way IMO. Look at SF4 at Evo this year. Who got the top places? Fei, Viper, Seth, Yun, etc. All rushdown, mixup, characters. Hell, Daigo got worked by rushdown!
I’m not a fan of Honda/Guile down-back play, by any means. But honestly, I wish the main games would feature a little more tactical play and less of the “guess which way to block” style that’s become so popular with the kids these days…
It’s true that the balance in SF4 has shifted in favour of “rushdown” as the series has been updated, but it’s not like this is the kind of rushdown you see in previous SFs (everything up through CvS2). “Rushdown” in SF basically used to mean “aggressive footsies” - walking forward a lot, putting heavy spacing-based pressure on the opponent, stuffing their buttons, forcing them to whiff shit and punishing. Once you get a knockdown you get a little mixup but you don’t win the game off mixups alone. “Rushdown” in SF4 means avoiding playing footsies, getting in almost for free because your character’s design allows you to, using no-height-limit divekicks or some fly-around-the-screen move that nobody can really deal with on reaction to apply braindead pressure with little regard for spacing or whiff punishing, and running braindead, ridiculously favourable mixups (“vortexes”) until they die.
There are some exceptions (see Valle’s SSF4 Ryu, or Daigo’s when he’s not throwing a shitload of fireballs, or an aggressive Guile, or Fei Long even though has dumb stuff) but largely what constitutes “rushdown” is incredibly dumbed down from previous games. Even ignoring the existence of characters who get to avoid playing footsies, SF4 just doesn’t support that kind of gameplay; incredibly slow walkspeeds and shitty throws make walkup throw (the core threat of “aggressive footsies” - gives people a reason to hit buttons) almost no threat at all. Focus attack offers a braindead, almost totally safe answer to midrange footsies. So yes, I’d agree that rushdown is in decline, even though SF4 is dominated by in-your-face characters.