Non of those characters are buffed to hell. From SF4 to SSF4 to SSF4 AE none of those characters where high tier or particularliy popular or had a large nuber of top 8 showings.
or did they actually make them useful this version, secondly, are those buffs offense or defense.
from SF4 to SSF4 they made mix up characters kings.
sSF4 to ssF4 ae they still made mix up characters stronger, made others stronger, or made offensive footsie characters stronger.
the game favors offense. Vega ruins this idea worse than Guile or Dhalsim. A vega equiped with tools to stop bullshit and initiate his plan is both offense and defensively strong.
doing the same to Guile or Dhalsim doesn’t yeild such a strong character unless you gear your engine to be footsie dominant and poike strong like SF2
This whole post makes me have to ask “Where the hell have you been?” Those three characters have all been hella good ever since Super, and they were okay in Vanilla.
Back in Super SF4 (not AE), Guile and Chun-Li were both considered the best characters in the game at various points, along with Bison. The game heavily favored the footsies and ground control of charge characters (while also having basic tools, so Vega didn’t show up that much). And Guile has had a very strong tournament showing in AE thanks to Dieminion and Knuckledu, much more than Vega.
And those three characters ARE getting buffed to high hell in Ultra:
(CAPS AND BOLD FOR EMPHASIS ON IMPORTANT BUFFS)
Sim:
-damage increase on far sHP, b+LK, b+HK, far stand MK, EX Yoga Blast damage buff, pretty decent buff, more damage on moves that hit a lot
-generally improved frame data, decent buff
-Yoga Blast is better in general
-stand MK hits twice, PRETTY HUGE BUFF, focus was one of the few reliable ways to deal with Sim pokes
-u1 can no longer be cast while Yoga Fire is out, significant nerf but outweighted by the buffs
Chun-Li:
-life increase, pretty HUGE BUFF, she now wins any close matchups/double KOs that she lost or tied before
-df+LK being a good AA now, HUGE BUFF, another tool that Capcom is willing to give to other footsie characters but not Vega
-EX SK consistently hits all character now, never drops, HUGE BUFF, Chun-Li’s reversal is now even more reliable, and it’s another tool that Capcom gives out to similar character but not Vega
-normal SBK knocks down, buff for normal combos in that you’ll actually want to finish combos with SBK now for the knockdown, nerf to people who would do her SBK loops or her infinite
-headstomp hitbox improvement, okay buff
-EX overhead armor breaks, HUGE BUFF, focusing used to be the main way to react to that and punish her because it’s + on block, now she gets free pressure if she has meter unless you react with a clutch reversal (WHICH VEGA DOESN’T HAVE)
-increased damage and invincibility on U2, pretty big buff
Guile:
-fixing his wakeup hitbox, adding a frame of invincibility to all Flask Kicks + adding DWU
these deserve their own paragraph, that’s a MASSIVE GUILE BUFF. Before there was two ways to safely pressure Guile on wakeup: 1) perfectly time safejumps, FK is a 4f reversal so your safe jumps had to be absolutely perfect or you got tagged. and 2) wakeup crossups, particularly non-meaty ones. Capcom has been balancing around his wakeup hitbox glitch for a while now, afraid that fixing it would make him OP, and now they’re doing it. He can consistently auto-correct wakeups now. So now perfect safe jumps are you only safe pressure option on Guile… expect there’s DWU so safe jumps suck now. They made it so that if you are not blocking on Guile’s wakeup, he can tag you, PERIOD. And he also seems to not be getting the dp fadc nerf that everyone else is getting, OH BOY. Trying to attack Guile on wakeup is going to be scary as shit now.
-can now link c.LP into Ultra 1, LOL WTF HUGE BUFF, HEY VEGA USED TO HAVE THAT IN ULTRA TOO BUT IT’S OKAY ON GUILE BUT NOT ON VEGA
-upside down kick hits crouch techs more consistently, pretty significant buff, it actually leads into Guile’s most damage meterless combo, like 350ish damage
-bigger air throw range, pretty nice buff
-extend hurt and hit box on c.MK, overall buff but a bit of a double edged sword, but more range is more range
-30 more damage on U2, pretty alright
-60 less damage on u1 at max charge, boo hoo, you get to combo into it now tho
Vega never even had as good of a ground game as these three, yet these guys are getting buffed to high hell like I said, while Vega gets shafted and isn’t allowed to have basic tools to deal with characters.
I’m seriously fucking sick of Capcom’s hate-boner for Vega. It’s like they focus on keeping Vega in line so much that they don’t notice how ridiculous they’re making characters like Guile, Ken, Evil Ryu and Rolento.
Yeah, this is what I don’t understand about Ultra. Their reasoning for not buffing Vega is retarded in the face of all the above and then some. Everyone else gets to hit confirm into Ultra off a jab but we’re not allowed to do shit. Other characters get 300 meterless combo damage but oh no, we can’t because 2 frame jab links is OP but mash chain jabs into whatever isn’t.
I just don’t get it. This is why I don’t have even the slightest faith that Capcom is going to help out Vega. He’s the ONLY character who isn’t in upper-mid to top getting nerfed.
They got buffed, and for the first months people assumed they where stronger. But they wheren’t the strongest.
Viper, Fei, Akuma where stronger. There was the secret beast Sakura, and then there was that Cammy broad. Lets not forget how Abel, Rufus got a huge boost just by the weakening of fireball characters.
yeah, they where OK, but they wheren’t the best, and they didn’t dominate, win, or used at the same level the others where. after the new car smell dissapeared, they wheren’t in the top.
END gAME is all that matters, and END GAME SSF4 doesn’t paint the picture you are trying to paint.
OH, and a competent vega is superiror in every way that guile wishes he could be.
refer to alpha 3, SF2Tournament Edition, and CvSnk 2
Yeah, but in those games Vega is actually fast. Not this slow SF4 shit he is.
Check it. This is what SF4 players who’ve never played the classics like ST has to say about ST:
“Sagat looks like an alien.”
“The graphics are good” (Sarcasm) “Why does Vega (Claw) fly around like Superman?” “Why is Vega so fast?” “Why can you throw from so far?” “This games takes so much damage.”
“How come when I do a Yoga Fire, a Yoga Flame comes out?”
“Guile is strong here.”
“Why are some of Ryu’s fireballs red?”
“This game is broken.”
These are key reasons why he is so good in the game. In SF4 feels like he is so slow. I know he’s a “fast” character in the game but it feels like molasses half the time. He could really use a speed boost to get around better, that would be a huge buff and would make his offense a little better as well as increase his defense. Another thing that made Vega strong was he literally could fly around the screen making it extremely hard for an opponent to hit him because he’s all over the place. That’s something SSFSlow-Vega can’t do, he has to remain neutral most of the time weakening what made him strong and what’s supposed to be his strengths as a character. He’s supposed to be a catch me if you can character, with hit and run tactics. Always has been, and always should be. You simply don’t play SF4 Vega the same as any other iteration. Fast get up and dashing kills any wall dive mix ups he could have, even though he still has the wall dive knock down. It’s simply too easy to AA and get around it and he is simply too slow to be effective at it anymore. The high damage per normal also contributes to him being good because his normals are some of the better ones in the game (but not DeeJay good) which makes him an effective range fighter. Catch me if you can while I smack you out of the air or stop you from walking in. That’s how Vega was. Even Alpha Vega was much better, at least he had speed and air recovery options and air blocking, although he could not cancel any punch other than jab. On the other hand, he could cancel standing shorts and RCF was a lot better as well, it still had that 2D bouncy RCF rhythm that SF4 Vega lacks. I really hate how RCF feels in SF4 it still doesn’t feel correct even after getting used to most of his other changes.
i think the reason for the slow game is because capcom wants to attract more casual players in. 2008 was a time where fighting games weren’t that prevalent. smash brothers did the same thing with melee to brawl. everyone hated brawl because it was slow as well. the direction is more thinking then reaction based and i personally like it like that. i like to out think my opponent rather than “hey, can you block this bs i’m about to unleash on your sorry ass? no? i’ll keep doing it till you develop better reactions”
Do you not think that Guile is a good character? OK buddy. You can make a case for Chun and Sim not being that good right now (I was more talking about their power relative to Vega, he makes a lot of characters look really good) but Guile is way better than OK. I have to question if you ever fought a competent one if you really think so. You don’t even have to play game, just pay attention, top players have been showing how strong the character is for years and still are, and he’s only been nerfed since Super, his best SF4 iteration until Ultra comes out.
I don’t think I ever said that I thought they were better than Akuma and Viper (tho some tier lists rated them higher in Super). Akuma being OP from the beginning and getting nothing but nerfs since Vanilla and still being awesome doesn’t invalidate other characters being good. Sakura wasn’t that great in Super, she was good but it was her awesome AE buffs that rose her up (it just happened that god-tier Yun was also in that game). Same with Fei Long, actually, I think you might be confusing Super with AE. I would argue that Chun, Guile, Abel and Rufus were at about the same power level in Super, they were all super-good. Cammy didn’t show up that much in Super but I could chalk that up to the character not being as discovered as she was in AE.
What the hell do games that aren’t SF4 have to do with this? Yes, Vega was top-tier in ST, CvS2 and Alpha 3. He also had all those basic tools he lacks in SF4 that we’ve been talking about. Guile is the best in all SF games because he was the best character in the CPS1 SF2 games, right?
And none that addressed the actual argument, which was along the lines of “Vega is going to suck because he lacks basic tools.” and “Vega is not getting basic tools that similar characters always had.” and “Vega having basic tools and options won’t present any problems that similar characters already do/will.” and “Vega is getting shafted while similar characters are getting wildly buffed.”
he isn’t winning like fei and the others. Guile being good really doesn’t mean much in this game. A character being good, really doesn’t mean much of anything now in days. See, vega is a good character, he isn’t bad per say, but he’s a really good piece of shit, but he’s still shit.
I don’t know if I’m getting my point accross, but it sums up to good doesn’t really equal success or long term constant viability when it comes to winning championships.
Also, did you not catch the
"OH, and a competent vega is superiror in every way that guile wishes he could be.
refer to alpha 3, SF2Tournament Edition, and CvSnk 2 "
meaning, when vega had the tools to do his job, he was better than guile.
Hmmm not really
SF2 is a footsie heavy game where you loose the match for losing the footsie war once, because damage output is high, unlike this game. You really don’t lose a lot of life in this game, unless it’s two characters with subpar footsies going in at it just poking each other until there’s a hard knockdown. In SF2, those pokes really hurt.
Vega was also great in that game because he could capitilize of footsies. his 3 hit combo hurt, and landing one slide equated to alnost guaranteed victory. It’s why tokido used vega in sf2. It’s why T.Hawk is strong now in days. Characters that win the footsie matches easily, and then have the ability to inflict enough damage to kill you in one go are dominant. Of course, in SF2 everything does so much damage, but that’s what seperates the top from bottom.
Which again takes me to a point I made so very very very very long ago. the game mechanics are against Vega’s favor. It’s slow, throws do little damage, Vega is slow, footsie pokes do little damage. Capcom doesn’t want a true sF2, it’s not begginer friendly in any way.
This begginer philosophy can be seen in MvC3 too. Simplified scheme, a button for launch, save me button via assists not being canceled by being hit, fast meter building.
Capcom has an idea as to what they want this game to be, and if that idea isn’t satisfied, they will change it to meet it. It’s a basic Japanese principle of buisness, it’s up to them to decide what you need or don’t need, not the other way around. Refer to Japanese car engineering principles, or other areas of industry.
What you wrote pretty much agrees with what I wrote. What do you mean not really? If Vega was slow he’d suck in ST. His speed allows him to jump react fireballs and escape situations a slower character wouldn’t and it’s his speed that allows him to get in for those 3 hit combos. He has fast pokes and fast special moves that make it difficult for an opponent to keep him down and out. His strength at footsies is a combination of 2 things: good normal attacks, and speed. The speed allows him to play the ground game and get from point A to point B faster. This not only means react jumping things like fireballs or whiffed fierce attacks, but also running away when needing to or getting to the wall when you need to.
Sure, in SF2 those pokes really hurt. It’s the main reason why you can still be an effective fighter with Vega and not have to do a single combo in the match, although higher level will require it to lessen the chance your opponent can capitalize on a mistake. Losing the footsie war once doesn’t mean game over unless you got hit by a combo and dizzied. Landing a slide doesn’t equal win. Slide is only soft knock down and does not guarantee a free wall dive loop unless you are close to the wall and they are in the corner. But then, in that case, wall dive is a bad option because they can reversal for free. Slide knock down means you can bait wake up but, it’s not as strong as you think because he doesn’t have a great cross up option (he does have a few though but they’re difficult to do consistently) to apply pressure in that case. Hard knock down, well, wall dive.
Tokido actually does not have a good Vega. He’s good at one thing and that’s using wall dive, but if you shut down that part of his game then he is mediocre at the other aspects of Vega. MAO and ARG are much better representations of real Vega play. They’re both masters of his normal attacks and his dominating wall dive game. You’ll never see them flat out wall dive all day, you’ll see them play the ground game and hit and run game before wall diving.
I also disagree that SF2 isn’t beginner friendly. It’s extremely beginner friendly, you can play and learn the game and even get to master levels of play without ever having to look at a hit box or ever having to study frame data. It’s beginner friendly in its simplicity, and master friendly in the finer points of the game. SF4 is beyond complicated for no reason at all, and I don’t see how anyone can say it’s more beginner friendly than SF2. Maybe the only thing beginner friendly about it is FA and reversal window being a ridiculous 5 frames.
one aspect that makes Vega so powerful is that the game itself is accelerated at a rate that’s much faster than this game. It isn’t vega in general, vega is a fast character with respect to any character, and is fast with respect to the pace SF4 is. but with respect to other games, vega isn’t that fast.
Increasing the speed of the entire game, makes footsies more dangerous, and by extension it will artificially make Vega better.
So you saying
Why is Vega so fast? and implying that Vega’s innate speed is a cause of his relative strenght in that game
isn’t really true (unless im grasping at straws with the whole implying thing). One aspect of it is true. But it isn’t entirely true. Yes he is fast, but it isn’t what makes him strong. In SF4 Vega jumps faster than 90-95% of the cast, and is the fastest cat on legs. but it doesn’t make him stronger than the rest, it simply adds to his strengths. But the game itself being slow takes away any advantage this gives him because it slows down footsies.
In SF2, he’s fast, and almost every character is fast. And although he is faster than most, his strength in maneuvering doesn’t come from the fact that he is slightly faster, but that the game itself is accelerated. In SF2 part of his strenght comes from the games speed rather than **his **speed.
And the slide is still a powerful tool, much more powerful than anything he currently has. It’s a tool he doesn’t have now. Where he can bait, cross up the pay out is huge. Compared to what he gets in SF4, it’s a god send.
you also missed the entire point of me name dropping Tokido
Vega was also great in that game because he could capitilize of footsies. his 3 hit combo hurt, and landing one slide equated to alnost guaranteed victory. It’s why tokido used vega in sf2.
= getting a knockdown means options that hurt and perputate themselves over and over. Where you could have slide, you could also throw, essentially setting up what you need to win. ie, it’s easy to win with Vega once you win the footsie battle. Are there better players? Yes, by a large margin, but that’s not the point, the point was to show Vega’s ability to truly capatilize where he can’t today.
and SF4 is more beggineer friendly than SF2. where as I also believe that SF2 is more master friendly than SF4.
SF4 babies you by giving you easy tools to initiate your characters main strategy and over come weaknesses.
SF4 babies you by making damage output relatively low
SF4 babies you by increasing the window to initiate a reversal and allow for easier defense on wake up while making offense riskier
SF4 babies you by giving you the ability to cancel a mistake that should really cost around half your life
SF4 babies you by giving you 2 meters to deal high damage
SF4 gives you the ability to escape wake up situations by backdashing
SF2 gives you no such things except for one chance to land a high damage attack via super, and it can only be build by attacking.
Of course, all these begginer friendly nanies do make SF4 harder.
More damage? Weird EX cancels, or are limited to meter
Complicate the wake up game
Weird hit boxes and slow animations force players to really understand why this move works the way it works
Adds complex layers to matches by suddenly making a strenght into a viability, and diminishing the importance of fundamentals
All those things only complicate the game at a higher level and serve as a barrier to higher levels of play. Where in SF2, you can play reactionary games with a solid understanding of what your character limitations are and are not can get you grow, progress, and win than you would in SF4.
Vega’s speed in SF2 has always been a huge factor of his strength in the game. Even when he had 4 normals total he was still dangerous because of his speed. He didn’t have all the great normals he has now in SF2 until Super, which means his tool set for playing the footsies game was not nearly as good as it got until then. The game being accelerated helps his speed further but even when the game is slower he still has more speed than everyone else in a game where footsies count and normals hurt. If you were to make him as slow as Ryu in SF2 he wouldn’t be nearly as strong since he’d no longer have hit and run, he would have to have hit and block.
One slide knock down does not mean the round is over, I have no idea where you get that idea from. I still mainly play SF2 to this day and that simply is not the case. You ignored that he doesn’t have a reliable and easy to use cross up and that slide is soft knock down which means he can’t start hyoubal loops. Tokido picks him because of wall dive and that’s the only reason he picks him. Tokido only plays hyoubal Claw and it shows when someone shuts down that option, he can’t play footsies.
What does SF2 Claw do after his 3 hit combo? Runs away to get some space. It’s a hit and run tactic. You can try to wall dive after but you could eat a reversal which means knock down and getting crossed up during wake up, which even back then Claw was not strong against. Sure, go for wall dive if the opponent you are playing does not have consistent reversal, but the 3 hit combo is good to get to the wall if the opponent is in the middle of the screen. Otherwise, they will recover with plenty of time to knock you out of the air and reset. Which is why hit and run is better for the 3 hit combo. It does good damage but doesn’t end rounds. Slide won’t end rounds. Unless you score a knock down, Claw is mostly hit and run and poke from proper distances. Jump reaction against bad button presses, tag them with a combo, and jump away or walk back for poke pressure. It’s how he was in SF2 and how he was designed to be, a bull fighter ninja flying around. I don’t know what crack DIMPs is smoking but they completely neutered him and so does the game mechanics.
He’s much faster than most of the cast in SF2 and not everyone is fast in that game. Even speedier characters like Chun and Dictator have trouble getting around situations Claw can excel at, for example, zoning. SF2 isn’t just footises, it’s everything, zoning, footsies, wake up pressure, so the game doesn’t always revolve around winning the footsies game. That’s why, when an opponent like Guile or Ryu don’t play footsies, Claw has the speed and pressure to get around their zoning and hit and run as needed since they’re about ground and space control.
Anyway, this is getting off topic, but IMO he could use a speed boost in SF4 for his attacks, walk, and jump speeds, and that would probably be a damn huge buff for us, since they obviously don’t want to give us any of the tools everyone else has. At least let us do better what Claw was meant to do.
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