The "Make Fei Long competitive" thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
561

If Justin had practiced his execution with Fei, he wouldn’t have been dropping those combos. It was a combination of being nervous and not being an expert with the character. Justin hits far harder links like clockwork with his other main characters. It’s not Fei’s fault Justin couldn’t finish a combo in those matches. Daigo mashed when it became apparent Justin couldn’t finish his combos, and I don’t really blame him.

Not that this really is the forum to discuss it, but I don’t know why you guys want chained normals to be special cancelable. It would degenerate the game so, so much. Here, at least Capcom has control over characters getting a ton of offense off chained cr.jabs by making the links extremely tight (or impossible) if they so choose. Making only linked normals cancelable is one of the things Capcom did RIGHT with the combo system. How much easier do you want the system to be? Rufus dive kick, mash crouching jab, mash EX tornado (or EX messiah) for big damage and possibly ultra?

If you think your character has an unfairly difficult link off linking crouching jabs (like perhaps Fei does), petitioning for the link to be loosened is fine. But this system-wide change has repercussions I don’t think you guys have fully thought about.

(And yes, I’m aware many other games don’t have this limitation, but those games don’t have the particular combination of speed, reward off jab -> special -> ultra and other mechanics that SF4 has, which you have to take into account here. Think about how long characters have to confirm off 3 chained jabs in this game, and couple that with how good of an option a 3-frame crouching jab is.)

562

Excellent point. Playing a character, learning a character, and mastering the timing of a character is what playing SFIV is about. It’s more rewarding to pull off something with tighter controls than just mash things out, and as has been said, the links increase the games required skill level, which is “one of the things Capcom did RIGHT with the combo system”.

563

No kidding, when I am fighting Ryu and I watch him ding me twice with cr.mp then cr.mk then a fireball grrrrrr, why the hell can’t fei link him cr.mp to something its not like Ryu is weak and needs extra damage. Fei needs more options and I hope that Capcom sees this

564

that’d kind of make sense, but the skill required/reward is not there. Ryu’s links are a lot easier than Fei Long’s, and his damage output is just a good, and sets up a lot more shit. You have to learn to 1 frame link with Fei Long for BnB combos that do unimpressive damage. To me it just seems to be oversight by developers, when Akuma’s St. Fierce -> Lk Tatsu -> Fierce DP is easier to do than Fei’s cr.lk cr.lk st.lp, cr.lp xx Rekka.

So in other words, there are a lot of ways to make fighting games require skill without an emphasis on difficult timing on link combos. ST has 1 frame links, but even those feel more natural than sf4 links - and when you do a 1 frame link in ST, dude’s about to lose a shitload of life.

565

But does making the links harder actually have any affect on high level play once people are fully practiced? Rufus CAN do dive kick mash jabs EX tornado. He just has to mash slower. So the same things are in the game, they’re just needlessly difficult.

As for games not rewarding of mashed jabs… I know most people laugh at Melty Blood even though it’s actually a really skillful game but you can mash out 2-3 jabs into half-ish life combos on a lot of the characters in that game. The trick in SF4 is to just make jabs prorate like a bitch in combos. That way you don’t get huge reward off meaningless hits and you don’t have to worry about needless execution barriers.

IMO if they’re going to make something harder to balance it out, that’s poor balancing imo. People are going to be able to do it at high levels so you’re not really preventing anything.

566

Hehe, I agree with Sam on this point. 1 frame links are pointless in a world of Internet gaming. Arc Systems had the right philosophy if crappy execution with Blaze Blue. Do away with pointless dexterity barriers and concentrate on reacting appropriately.

Also, if a combo starting with any jab strength attack prorated like mad, it would instantly balance all those stupid hit-confirm easy/safe jab - something > ultra set-ups that almost all top tiers (cept Sagat) have.

Besides, as I grow older, I’ve realized how much more sloppy my dexterity with a stick/pad is and the younger gen really do not like technical fighting games as much as Smash bros. type.

Fights will get worst/painful to watch as we remember our glory days. I’d prefer looser links if only to allow good matches still when the bunch of us hit 40-60

567

Here’s what I think would be a list of what would make Fei Long MUCH more fun and interesting character to use and watch:

*c.lp +4 on hit, +2 on block. c.lk, c.lp, c.lpXXhp Rekkas would be made infinitely easier. Normal people would actually be able to do them consistently. Much easier than any of his 1 frame link variations he has now.
*Slightly more range on tenshin. More range on the EX version as well, and (I think) 1 frame faster startup on the EX version.
*No pushback, or at least less pushback on blocked or hit FA2. This would make Fei Long a REAL threat up close coupled with more range on EX Tenshin, due to his ability to cancel out of cl.lp into EX tenshin on block right now with only a few frames in between to hit a reversal or jab. With 1 frame faster EX tenshin, on block you are forced to either react or jump away, but can’t do a normal inbetween. This also means more incentive to use meter rather than just store it up for Super.
*Chicken wing either needs overhead all hits or to have armor break on all hits. EX needs to get back the fireball invuln properties.
*Rekkas to have 1 more frame of advantage on hit or block for each of them. It also needs 1 more frame leniency for chaining them.
*Reduced startup on lp Rekka by 1 frame. I don’t think a 6 frame Rekka with -3 on block is all that bad.
*EX rekkas to have armor, because fireball breaking is just stupid unless it’s Bison’s EX psycho.
*s.lk and forward HK have no use. Either make a use or just get rid of these moves.
*a little more damage on Rekkas.
*Shien needs to be better for anti-air. It’s an alright anti-air, but the timing is pretty strict. The hitboxes need to be altered slightly so that it can at least trade well.
*Ultra I to juggle hit 1, 3, and 5 for the mk Shien>FADC>hk CW>Ultra. have the damage be slightly higher than a hp SRK>FADC>Ultra. Hits 2 and 4 need a damage boost for full Ultra.
*Speed up hk CW so that it doesn’t combo out of cl.HP, but is actually useful outside of a reversal escape.
*General travel speed of CWs to be increased. Frame data kept the same.
*At worst, a 14 frame dash. I’m pretty sure his is 16 or 17 frames right now. Just cut some of the end animation off. There’s no reason Bison needs a better Dash than Fei Long if most of his other tools are better to boot.
*Faster walk speed. I’m talking Chun/Bison speed here. He is an up close fighter who needs to dance around the opponent, and he really needs a faster walk speed than Ryu…
**7 frame startup Ultra I and 7 frame hit window after Tenshin

I guess he could use some more tools against Gief, Seth, Akuma, and Sagat, but I can’t really think of any.

It seems the problem Capcom has with some characters is that they don’t really want to make them all that powerful for one reason or another. Fei Long and Cammy always seem to victims of this. I guess they don’t want them to be broken. Having Rekkas and Spiral Arrow be safe is a really scary tool, I think, because they can already punish moves from really far away and have solid anti-air games, and good normals on top of that if they are made right. I’m pretty sure they just want the characters to have weaknesses, but end up underpowering them in the process.

568

The sad thing is, most of the smash crowd likes Melee which is by far one of the most technical games you can play. It’s sad because no one realizes just how much skill it takes to play at high levels. Brawl is also actually takes just as much strategic thought as SF4. I’ve won tournaments for both games and I can definitely say that Brawl is under respected. People see the party game aspect of it but really there’s just as much poking, zoning, and mind games in it as any other fighter.

I’ve posted balance ideas for fei but never got into the technical aspect of it. So since liquid made some good suggestions, I’d like to add what I would change.

st.HP hitstun is short enough that chicken wings can’t be comboed off of it.

HK chicken wing is fast again and now fireball immune. EX chicken wing hits low to the ground so it can’t be ducked but is not fireball immune. Gives plus frames on block and a much bigger window on hit to combo. LK and MK chicken wings both have start up slow enough that they can’t be comboed into. LK CW is overhead and is +2 on hit +0 on block. MK chicken wing will have the same frames as HK but just that shorter range and slightly faster.

Rekkas: First hit safer. EX rekka has armor. Increase damage slightly.

Tenshin: Throw invulnerable and more frames on connecting to allow ultra. Current EX version range on all of them. EX version has invincibility. Faster recovery on whiff.

Overhead: Allow combo of cr.LP afterwards, add jab-ish proration to reduce damage off overhead combos to promote offense.

First ultra: First hit ground opponent. If connected after a DP, add proration to reduce damage. This should be a universal rule across the board.

Second ultra: Instant startup, no super freeze. Upon getting hit, Fei goes into super freeze and combos. If you whiff the counter attempt your ultra meter drops to half.

Walk speed and throw range increase. Remove recovery frames on his dash.

cr.MP and cr.MK special cancelable.

DP vertical hitbox is larger. Won’t just lose to jump ins unless timed as late as possible.

More active frames on cl.HP and cr.HP to bring back old school meaties on wake up to help Fei’s pressure.

Now you might say “wow those are some pretty good changes to fei!” but it’s my opinion that EVERY character should have a lot of great tools to work with. I think everyone should be brought up to this level of usefulness.

569

So you’re saying that Fei’s particular one-frame links aren’t worth the risk because the reward isn’t there. That’s fine, and a valid point to make. Asking for a system-wide change to let all chained jabs cancel to specials is a bad solution to this problem which only affects a few characters. Rufus, for example, has a hard one-frame link off crouching jabs into his specials, but aren’t you glad it’s hard for him?

Change the individual characters, not the entire system. Give Fei an extra frame or two of advantage on hit with his crouching jab (maybe Guile as well, etc). There.

I disagree. It makes a big difference at high level play, where links are missed with more regularity than people seem to want to admit in these discussions (Daigo drops forward fierce combos surprisingly often, Kindevu misses Rufus BnBs in videos during clutch moments, etc).

It’s not so much about difficulty (though that’s a part of it), it’s the fact that it’s mindless offense. It’s the same argument as why spamming reversals is lame in the game. Doing a reversal dragon punch is a very strong option and a person playing sloppy and mashing should not be rewarded with this difficult, momentum-changing option without supplying the execution to match it. We can’t just start giving people auto-godmode-combo buttons just because “well all the pros can do it”. If the option is really good, it should also be reasonably difficult to execute. Mashing cr.jab and wiggling the stick to get SRK as a guaranteed cancel is far too good, because the execution does not match the reward. Many characters’ best options are reduced to mash-and-wiggle, instead of being precise with timing.

And yes, pros can do it, but that’s why they’re pros. They can do hard combos which do more damage and are riskier because they’re good players, and these options should not be supplied to just any person for free. And, let’s not forget, pros often drop these combos and lose rounds because of it. They aren’t machines.

I just disagree with your use of the term “needlessly difficult”. Some things NEED to be difficult. This is one of them. And Rufus can’t “mash” crouching jabs to EX tornado. I mean, if you can mash within that 1 frame window, sure. But you have to time it. You can’t press the button as fast as you can while wiggling the stick and expect to get a combo, which is my definition of mashing.

570

As much as i would agree with almost everything you say, i think the only reason as to why capcom didnt make all characters like this, is the fact that it makes them play alot like ryu if they did it.

571

As much as i would agree with almost everything you say, i think the only reason as to why capcom didnt make all characters like this, is the fact that it makes them play alot like ryu if they did it.

572

I was actually thinking that you wanted that level of usefulness just from you saying that overhead should be able to be combo’d afterward. Every character should have that, even though none of them do except for Balrog…but he only has the Dashpunch overhead which is probably the easiest overhead to block in the game, aside from Honda’s.

I actually forgot to add that Ultra should be able to be combo’d into off of tenshin. I think 7 frame startup Ultra I and 7 frame hit window after Tenshin would be great.

It’s not that I don’t like your idea about the first hit grounding the opponent, it’s just I think that having all hits always hit the opponent makes Ultra sort of boring. And Fei’s would get stale after watching it from Shien FADC for the thousandth time, even though it does look cool. I just think having a decent damage, juggleable Ultra that can also lay down big damage as punishment or after a focus attack is something that isn’t really seen. I think it’d be easy enough to set this up; just make it so the 4th hit in the rekka repetition doesn’t take so long to recover before the 5th hit. Leave it unsafe on block, and it’s a useful Ultra that you can’t just toss out willy-nilly.

Obviously, having c.mp and c.mk be special cancelable would be useful, but I think it would take away from some of the uniqueness that Fei has. Those moves are also really good pokes and whiff punishers. Just being able to lp Rekka x2 after a c.mp(x2; or c.mk) would also be retardedly good, because it would space opponents out to the range where lp Rekka x2 is safe, and if you hit them with the poke then you get a free hit confirmable 200-250 damage. It’d be like Balrog’s rush punch canceling, only it can be done from further away and more repeatedly. Not only that, but Fei’s c.mk makes his hitbox even smaller than the Shotos’ c.mk.

I think his counter Ultra does need instant startup. I wasn’t aware that it didn’t have instant startup. As it is now, it will make the Blanka MU and the Honda MU pretty easy, especially if you can hold the life lead until half health (which, against Blanka, is totally plausible. I’m not too keen on the Honda MU though). If you try to counter a move you aren’t sure is coming, I think you should lose your full Ultra bar. But, I think it should also counter grabs, command or otherwise. I think that might actually help the Gief MU.

Fei Long could also probably benefit from a stun increase on his combos. It’d be nice if it was easier for him to stun opponents, and it would make him more of a thread up close, as he should be.

And don’t think that I wouldn’t be happy to get all of your suggestions added. I do like most of them, it’s just that I want him to keep the playstyle he has now, just to be more solid and have more answers. I actually consider him a mid-tier character, not low-tier like he is in most lists. Again, just to have a few more options with a lower execution bar would make him enough better for me to continue to play him in SSFIV. I’m sure everyone in this thread has seen at least one video of HNIC Mike, Bubblan, or Jibbo playing Fei, and probably played Judge as well, so you know he can be played well, it just takes a lot of patience and practice.

573

As opposed to playing like Ryu, only poorly?

I mean I’m not saying give everyone the same tools, just saying everyone needs to be really good. Then the game’s fun and not just pick x or y and have more tools than everyone else.

Man I need to get my matches from this weekend uploaded so you can add me to that list haha.

Actually I think Fei is like mid-upper mid. I’m just wanting him to be the best he can be. For me he shuts down a big chunk of the cast and only really struggles vs a few characters but even recently I’ve been having more luck vs Sagat and finding stuff that works in that matchup. It’s by no means easy but if Fei had a couple of these buffs I think he’d be right up there with the top.

574

i also would like fei to walk faster. at first i didnt think it was necessary, but now i understand how important walk speed is to footsies. feis lower hit box is too wide to walk so slow

also, i posted before, characters with overhead specials dont get a functional overhead normal. i would rather keep feis current overhead instead of trading for CW to get overhead. id take it if it was allowed in sf4, but apparently it isnt

standard throw range would also be sweet, but i think it is low because they want us to use the command grab. which i still think is good, but underdeveloped in terms of good ways to land it

lp rekka #1 and #2 should be -2 at worst. they are relatively safe now, but require absolutely perfect spacing

first ultra confirms into itself without pushback, and always gives three hits on juggle

575

O yeah definetly, they need to make some kinda rekka safe.
O right, I REALLLY want ex tenshin to go into full ultra but meh…
They have to do something to BOTH his ultras right now, and they probably will…
O btw Iv’e heard that they made cws only 2 hits on super. I believe they did this so you could fadc into l or m cw and ALWAYS get 3 hits. Idk if that was good a good trade off or a bad one.

576

xS A M U R A Ix, you’re asking for game wide changes in a character specific thread. Game wide changes which from what we know about SSFIV are incredibly unlikely to happen. Nobody’s has, or are likely to get overheads which aren’t blockable on reaction and can be comboed after. They’re not going to take out the limit on canceling chained normals. They’re unlikely to give a character + frames after dp FADC (Fei at +0 is already the best). We’re not expecting normals to have significantly raised active frames. Many of these changes only make sense in context of a game I’m not expecting SSFIV to be.

577

Well, it’s just proposed stuff that’d make the game better. Not like I expect them to actually do any of this shit. It’s just my “ideal world” fei.

578

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does the dash seem to be fixed?

he seems to be a little more responsive

579

…wait? CW is only 2 hits?

Not sure how that’s gonna affect him but I got this sinking feeling Fei is gonna suck in super.

Hmm it’s hard to tell but he did dash pretty fast back to back at one point. Really hard to tell in video though since his neutral animation and recovery animation for his dash look the same.

580

2 Hit Chicken wing could be a very good thing as long as the total for those 2 hits = the total for the original 3 hit CW. Most of the time you never land 3 hit CW in a match anyways so this 2 hit one could mean higher damage output. And if we are lucky Capcom will make non ex CW have fireball invunerbility frames or more + frames on hit.