Top 5 Controversial Design Guidelines for Ver.2012

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
41

Left/Rights are among the hardest things to block in a 2d fighting game. There’s a reason Wolverine is so good. Ambiguous crossups are some of the dirtiest things in SF4 because done properly its difficult even to reversal. I think you haven’t played a good viper yet. Even a Ken can be difficult to block if he knows how cross with j. FP but that’s nowhere on the same level. And I play Tekken. Try playing a great DJ and tell me what is and isn’t hard to block.

One last point, while execution is one of the most visibly evident indicator that a person has been practicing, its not the only one. Proper spacing, timing, footsies are also valid indicators of skill. Something lost in the new age of FG players. and super jumping burn kicks.

42

Viper’s burn kick is legitimately difficult to block because of a lack consistency (perceived) in the way that it hits you.

There is a difference between the following:

Case A: I got hit by that ambiguous crossup. I know that I should have blocked the other way but I still got hit by it.
Case B: I got hit by that ambiguous crossup. I don’t know which side I should have blocked that. I actually thought that I got it right.

Viper is more of a Case B to me. Whether or not it’s good or bad is debatable (I personally think it’s really bad), but there’s not much that can be done about it unless the character is completely redesigned.

43

So because they are hard to block they should be made easier to block or be removed?

Well that seems to be the motto here, so I can’t say I’m surprised.

44

Viper I think can stay as is for the most part. And as the guy above me said, its not going to change much unless you just massively overhaul the move. Just as long as she doesn’t get buffed I’m fine. No, mixup is not my concern. Its the top 4 or so chars complete and utter disdain for conventional footsies and other styles of play. Makoto, ok. Strongish, but reasonablyyyy tolerable. Makoto + Fireball invincible move, not very fun to play against. Makoto + Fireball invincible move + DK, something is VERY WRONG.

Here’s what I wanna see just so I’m clear. I want the top tier to be Viper/Makoto/Ken/Guile/Chun or Fei/Honda. And I want them all to be able to fight against each other in mismatched ways. As things are now there’s only so much you can make chars vary by so the top chars in each field will generally be the best in the game. But I want there to be lots of representation from every type. Not just the aggressive 50/50s. Not just the DB EX Headbutt. Aggressors are currently top, so they get my bile. Finished?

45
  1. There are 4 archetypes of play styles in street fighter. Rushdown, Zoning, Jack of all trades(aka Ryu), and grappler.
    A.In most fighting games that have been released since 2008/2009 rushdown has been mid to top tier. Rushdown characters usually have relatively good oki, and okay to good damage (depends on the player because they can choose oki or combo damage). Weaknesses are they usually low health and since they have to move forward, their pokes are usually not great.
    B.Zoning characters are usually bottom to mid tier. They have two types high damage bad oki and damage spread out with good oki, but both have godlike pokes. Weaknesses are a slow walk speed and pretty much no pressure because of their slow walk up speed.
    C. Jack of all trades (seriously needs a better name). They are kind of everywhere on the tier list… They do okay damage and have decent oki setups. They have good pokes and decent walk speeds. These characters are “balanced” because they have everything they need. They don’t have any weaknesses if you play correctly, but they their character archetype is their weakness. It’s hard to explain…
    D. Grapplers. They have to be at the bottom/lower mid tier list. NO ONE, I repeat NO ONE wants to play a game against top tier grapplers. Only zoning types can kill them. They do high damage or realllllly good oki. Weaknesses include slow walkspeeds, no damage off anything else but grabs, and bad pokes. If they ever became top tier, I personally would drop the game right away… (in street fighter I mean, in other games not so much).

Now to the OP.
Viper, Akuma, Seth, are relatively balanced because as rushdown characters they have their weaknesses. Yun on the other hand does not, and he has a command grab… To balance him requires that his safe lp> lk>mp xx lp shoulder block string is no longer a true block string and arguably palm changes. Yang and Fei need their rekkas to be less safe because they gain distance with these moves.

Charge characters are crap. They are pretty decent and keeping you out but decent damage(ssf4). The biggest problem is the fact that they are charge characters. If they turned into motion characters they would be much easier to balance and would fall under the rushdown/jack of all trades archetype. However, in their present form they are too good if buffed and crap if they stay like this. But there is another solution, charge partioning like urien in third strike would make charge characters more offense oriented and therefore they could be nerfed defensively and buffed offensively.

Ibuki vortex was op in ssf4 like akuma’s in vanilla. Seth is a good character if you can play safely with him, and do good mixups to keep your opponent guessing.

Now for some personal thoughts… command grabs on rushdown characters make them broken. Its a fact look at eddie from ggxxac broken as hell with command grabs, bang in bbcs1 command grab at 100% p1. Remove them capcom >.>

46

What is at all wrong with having characters be proficient at defense/keep-away? You act like the goal should be for all characters to be geared towards rushdown. That would make a pretty uninteresting/one-dimensional game.
And when were charge characters “too good” in any iteration of the SFIV series? Was I not paying attention or something during SSFIV’s tournament life? Were Guile, Bison and Balrog S-tier in Super? Not that I recall.

47

I would argue that all those chars [guile being a standout possibly the one S] were VERY VERY good. Anyway on the concept of archetypes, aye, that’s the type of balance I’d like to return too.

Rushdown<Grapplers<Zoners<Rushdown

Footsie chars sit somewhere outside of this with their pokes and speed giving all archetypes problems. This is usually balanced by life and dmg, but if AE Fei were in another game. Say. Some kinda other version Street Fighter. One that was pretty good. Super even. I think he’d be pretty durn good.

The thing is rushdown is the hardest to balance as a game wears on. They’re gameplay is to lay the hurt on people in many ways and so they get damage and oki as part of just doing their thing. And unless the offense is heavily skewed[as opposed to +frames, hi burn kick] you WILL crack people eventually. Defense is harder to play than offense, period. Anyway, usually they’re segregated into two types. Mixup and pressure. Mixup chars are plain hard to defend against. When they get in on you they have 2 or 3 or 100 ways to crack open your defense. So the only option is to keep them out and prevent them from getting their guesses to begin with. Generally this is their weakness. Poor footsies and advancing can cause them never to get to play their game. [See SF4 Rufus, DO NOT See AE Yun.] Pressure chars have bianary generally low dmg mixups. They get their dmg by pressuring the opponent into making a mistake. They can advance more readily[probably still lose to zoning, but BETTER] but lose to a steady mind which will eventually force them to try something more unsafe in cracking you open. [See SSF4 Cammy. DO NOT See AE Yang]. I would say that Viper and Seth are stronger than I’d like, but its at the peak of the acceptable bounds. Both are strapped by something slightly different. Viper has weaker wake up and poorer general options. Seth is a do or die char. So fine. Leave them as is, and lets see something cool for Chun now.

48

viper is too strong because of seismo and ex seismo. why? because it’s not street fighter, and it kinda doesn’t belong in the series. look at it this way. mk2 jax invented the ground pound move; before that, no game had ever thought about a ground shake move. plus, even with all the unbalanced play in old mk, even boon knew better than to allow multiple ground pound to be a legitimate move in the game(at least until he officially allowed it in mk9).

street fighter has never had a ground shake(MULTIPLE ground shake at that!) move in any game, except sf4. why is it bad? because it forces predictable defensive options on the non-viper player: focus, crouch block, jump, or stay out of range. that is a fatal mistake in a competitive game, because no one should be able to force predictable defensive scenarios so easily. seismo is too good as a variable that you always have to account for, which turns it into a “conditioner”, for the viper player, that’s op imo.

my fix for viper would be to remove her true overhead move, add more recovery to normal seismo, and give ex seismo the fast recovery. that way, you could leave all her other moves the same, and normal seismo would basically act as a move to stop people from turtling (like her true overhead does), but it would be less spammable… imo, if capcom had looked at mk2 jax before they gave viper a ground shake move, they would have understood the fine line you have to walk with a ground pound character. in mk2, jax is basically in top 3 with liu kang and mileena, essentially because of the threat of runaway groundpound; and in the hands of rapidfire controller players online who glitch the game to be able to do multiple ground pound, he’s broken.

other than that, i’ve always been in favor of making people have to surrender an ability if they have a good move or tactic. take guile for example. i have heard people whine about his airthrow nerf, and some even want it restored from ssf4. lol. so, a character who can choose (not every guile is the same but be honest, most are) to play very lame–and who is very strong doing so–should be able to dominate the advancing airgame and the jump-back airgame with an enormous airthrow range? lol. on top of that, most guile players are only able to bait out airthrows because they condition their opponents by playing so lame. that’s why they nerfed the hell out of him. his options were so good in ssf4 that he became a closed loop of strategy.

i 100% agree with the op. no character should have an answer for every situation. that’s why fei long is totally broken, imo.

49

I find it very hard to believe all this talk about Guile being too good in Super, when the only player really doing anything notable with him was Dieminion. Yeah, he shat all over some of the lower tier characters (Dudley, for example), but that says more about how bad those characters really were than how OP Guile was.

And for the record, I wasn’t arguing that Guile, Bison, E.Honda and Balrog weren’t good characters in Super. They were certainly good, but they didn’t run the game or turn it into a giant turtle fest as some people like to pretend. The more offense oriented characters (Cammy, Rufus, Adon, Akuma, Fei Long, etc) did just fine and arguable won more tournaments than players utilizing defensive charge characters ever did.

My post was aimed at the comment that charge characters were ever “too good” in the IV series. Which I find silly, because charge characters have never been dominant in this series.

50

Ah ha so we come full circle. I do agree, I think Guile played SLIGHTLY against type and beat everyone but rushdown chars [even then he kept them all out, but still lost if they got in due to his bad wake up and poor stun]. He also lost to Sim, don’t really know what that’s about, but my friend keeps claiming it so watever.

Anyway I can roll with this post. I also believe that Super was more balanced. Not characterwise, oh no, not that. Counterpick central. But in terms of overall strengths and balances. So, here’s a toast to online agreeing.

51

The OP’s post is a pretty good read but you really need to tone down the hatred for characters and the bias. Yes, it’s 100% obvious you completely hate Fei Long…we get it. Yes, it’s 100% obvious you really love E.Honda…we get it.

I do agree that Capcom should take great care in re-balancing and not short change the player base. Fix lower tier characters by giving them new tools as opposed to just damage buffs. Don’t fix lower tier characters by simply nerfing higher tier characters as that simply does not work and typically ends up with ticked off players. Higher tier characters are obviously working when it comes to gameplay so that’s when you should break out the tuning knob and tone down some damage or extremely minor things to slightly lessen their effectiveness. Do not take a sledgehammer to them. Nobody wins then.

52

nice, srk scrubs ruined a good thread

53

Where was the good part?

54

This was never a good thread.

55

I was talking to a friend complaining about Rufus and Cammy divekick rushdown last year, and saying :

  • that could be worse, imagine if they had a command grab…
  • who the hell would be stupid enough to make that happen ?

Oh well…

56

ok, ok, it wasnt good but it had potential, my bad

Sol has command a command grab and is not broken; Zato and CS1 Bang arent broken btw, they are strong chars, that its all, there is nothing wrong on rushdown chars having command grabs, it adds more tools for their mixup game

57

I said charge characters not zoners. Sim is a good example of an active zoner compared to guile who is more of a passive zoner. A defensive game is boring, and charge characters are what make street fighter uniquely street fighter. By too good I mean they can turtle forever and still kill you with 2-3 combos, its kinda like sagat in sf4 who got full ultra and then you jump in for the kill, get tiger upper fadc f.hk ultra.

Also, with AE you see that capcom is pushing towards rushdown because people love to watch the rushdown. If they change charge characters to being more active, it would drop the # of archetypes to 3. Which basically turns the game into rushdown, active zoners(jack of all trades), grapplers.

@Hectacom Ok Sol is balanced, CS1 bang was a bad example if you saw cs1 valk… Well He was still top tier. Bang’s grab was better than Tager’s who is a grab character.

58

Disagreed. I’ve debated this with HAV before a few times, but I don’t think characters need to be “complete”. They should have strengths and weaknesses, and part of playing that character is learning how to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses. This is obvious when looking at characters like Dhalsim (who shouldn’t have a good close quarters game) and Gief (who should never have a good long range game).

A lot of this will be personal preference. I feel that in the games of the last generation, between character design and game subsystems, fighting games started to move towards the idea of giving characters lots of tools and then just letting them slug it out. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a type of fighting game style. Personally, I prefer the old school. Which is one of the reasons why I really like SF4 because I feel it goes back to those roots. I also think this is why a lot of people hate on it and call it “Snore Fighter” or whatever - because to them, as you say, the characters are “incomplete.”

So as someone who likes this particular style of fighting game, I would rather not see SF4 go in the other direction. If you like the style of fighting game where characters have various multiple tools that’s fine, but don’t turn my game into yours.

It’s difficult/dangerous to compare game mechanics in two games with radically different systems. Tager can magnetize and suck people in towards him, yet he’s fairly low tier. Give Zangief this ability…yikes. You have to look at it in the context of the game.

I think the major issue with Yun/Yang’s command grab is not the grab itself, but how it factors into everything. I wouldn’t mind the command grab if it were easier to zone them out, or at least make it so that only EX can be comboed into, preventing command grab into Genei Jin/Seiei Enbu.

59

I don’t get why Defensive characters equate to a boring game. Maybe it is because I love the Steelers, like the Spurs, and generally like Defense better than Offense. I rather see a Ravens Steeler game much more than some 41 to 28 game between to leaky defenses.

Did anyone realize that Capcom didn’t add any charge characters in SFIV or any of its expansion packs. Fuerte and Viper, Hakan and Juri, Oni and Evil Ryu. Bring back the charge characters please, this alone is a major reason why AE is worse than Super. This alone is a major reason AE isn’t balanced. Bring back the charge characters and then buff the remaining bottom and low mid tier, weaken a few of the top tier and you have perfection.

60

i completely agree with you there, im only saying that giving a rushdown char a command grab doesnt make the char broken, and that his examples are way of being broken, yes they are top tiers, but they dont dominate the game where they are, in fact bang before cs was low tier and on cs2 is mid tier and tbh i really feel that the command grab wasnt one of the factors that made him top, the same with eddie/zato

as you said there is a need of balance between the tools of the char and his gameplay, the balance on his strenghts and weakness, and the risk reward of their tools