Alright, I’ve typed up my novel request list I’m going to post when Cody becomes available. Now, obviously some of you will disagree with some things others with other things. Before you read this remember at the end I specifically note that I don’t even expect HALF the stuff I list to be changed. I’m trying to bring ALL of the possible changes to the forefront, all of the bugs and errors as well. The purpose is to try and give Capcom as much information to work with as possible and allow them to decide how to proceed from that so here it is (warning it is very long as I go into a lot of detail for EVERY change.)
[details=Spoiler]This is going to seem like a laundry list of changes, however I have taken a lot of time and effort to not only examine many many matches of Sasaki, Momochi, Furanjisan, and many other lesser known Cody players, but to also examine the actual files for Cody and to test some of these changes myself as I am part of the modding community for SF4.
I’m going to start off by listing ALL of the bugs/transposed numbers/missing data that Cody has. These are things I believe Capcom actually screwed up on and aren’t so much balance issues as they are bugs.
All of Cody’s crouching knife attacks are considered “standing” this means moves like High Tiger Shot, Guile’s Back Fist, Zangiefs Lariet (after first hit), or numerous other moves that are tagged to not hit standing opponents will hit Cody during any of his crouching knife attacks. It also means moves that gain extra frame advantage on standing opponents (many overheads) get the bonus as well.
Cody’s Badstone is the only move with a “charge” type move that is unable to cancel the move and release the current level. What this means (for example) is that if the player releases the button on 22F the game will not throw a level 1 badstone right away. Instead it waits until 41F and throws a level 2 badstone. It is the ONLY move that works like this, Sakura’s Fireball, Makoto’s Hayate, Cody’s Zonk Knuckle, Balrog’s TAP, Oni’s Fireball, Gouken’s Fireball, Focus attacks, ect ect ALL will immediately stop charging and release the current level of power immediately. This is because the “Flow” section of Cody’s badstone was set up improperly and only allows the move to cancel ON the frame where it reaches a certain level instead of between two points.
Cody’s Heavy Punch Badstone levels 2 and 3 both have transposed numbers in their “Speed” settings. The end result is that level 2 and level 3 HP Badstone end up having an additional 7F of startup BUT also have 14F less recovery. (The move is +16F on hit)
Cody’s bMP is unable to be counterhit on startup. This is due to an empty flag state that wasn’t properly set.
Cody’s crack kick (f.HK) is not actually airborne. Similar to Cody’s bMP not being counter hittable this is due to an empty flag state on his move for the frames designated to be airborne (8F - finish) while this is a bug, changing this would be a fairly hefty buff as well and I list it among the “buffs” section.
Cody’s far s.MK and far s.MK with knife have different size hurtboxs and hitboxes. The hitbox extends farther on far s.MK with knife, as does the hurtbox. By a fairly large amount too.
Cody’s super regularly drops people, many times even when used properly as an anti air or on grounded opponents. I have created a video showing numerous instances of how unreliable the move can be.
Cody’s Badspray from a face up knockdown has 20F more recovery than his Badspray from a face down knockdown. This is due to a missing “interrupt at frame” setting on his face up knockdown which forces him to go through the entire animation. Either way Capcom chooses to fix this (buff face up bad spray recovery or nerf face down badspray recovery) it should be changed as it is extremely arbitrary and merely adds a difficult to control aspect to the game.
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Now on to NON-bug related changes.
Cody needs a faster backwards walk speed. Something along the lines of 0.027. Cody’s current overall walk speed is the 5th slowest in the game, as a frame trap based character Cody needs to be able to get in and out to bait throws and reversals, unfortunately Cody’s backwards walk speed (0.024) is tied for the 3rd slowest in the game. In addition his back dash has unarguably the worst in the game having the same range as dry hakan, having only 6 airborne frames and 16 grounded recovery frames (Ryu has 9 airborne and 8 grounded for example.) this makes it very difficult to “gootecks shimmy” or even space your anti airs and footsies properly. If you watch Sasaki or Momochi you’ll see them randomly just jump backwards at mid screen and then move forward again because it is simply easier/safer/faster than trying to walk backwards into the position you want to be in. Cody is meant to be a somewhat slow character though, a walk speed of 0.038 forward (his current speed) and 0.027 backward (currently 0.024) would make his overall walk speed only 0.01 faster than Zangief who is currently FASTER than Cody. (Gief’s walk speed is 0.035 forward 0.03 backward)
Cody’s f.HK (Crack Kick) needs to be airborne from frame 8 until it finishes recovery. This would match its settings in both Alpha 3 and in SFxT and the empty state settings that are in the move for SF4 but capcom missed setting properly. There is multiple reasons for this. Cody has to rely heavily on footsies to get in as none of his special moves are safe or fast. In addition all of special moves lose to lows and many of his normals completely whiff on crouching opponents. If you watch any match of a top Cody vs a top Ryu or Akuma you’ll find that getting around their c.MK/sweep is extremely difficult for Cody as he is unable to alter his jump arc OR focus dash safely against c.MK OR zonk it. In addition because the move is tagged to not hit crouching any move that cody’s f.HK doesn’t avoid will simply beat the move entirely, this is especially bad against Evil Ryu when trying to get around his c.MK which beats all of Cody’s pokes in both range, hitbox, and being cancelable. Cody has to do a risky f.HK which if read by the opponent Evil Ryu can perform a full 350+ damage punish on him as Cody will be considered grounded and wont air reset after the c.HP or c.MP - fireball - fadc. In addition making this move airborne would make it so that Cody is able to hop over many slides that would simply remain active and beat f.HK when it is in recovery (Vega’s slide, Guy’s slide, Ibuki’s slide, ect.) these all currently due to being grounded Cody is unable to pass over the opponent but the slide is still active when the lower body invincibility wears off. It also would give Cody the ability to corpse hop on knockdown greatly improving his somewhat lacking mixup game. This is arguably the single most important change for Cody.
Make Cody’s far s.LP +7F on hit. Currently Cody has no way to hit confirm into his sweep or c.HP outside of his close s.MP which generally means hit confiming a 1F link (f.MP - s.MP - c.HP all 1F or c.LP - s.MP - c.HP also all 1F and you can’t perform 2 c.LPs as you’ll be out of close normal range for the s.MP) this would also make the normal a bit more useful as currently it is mostly outshined by his superiour c.LP which while 1F slower has 2F more active frames and a much better hitbox.
Allow Cody to special cancel far s.MP the move has a 7F startup so it is only able to be comboed after his close s.MP or (if buffed) his far s.LP. This would give Cody an additional way to apply pressure from outside of throw range while not having to rely on his crouching normals. Possibly reduce the damage from 90 to 80 to compensate for this addition.
Cody either needs a slight adjustment to the hurtbox on his c.MK OR alternately have it go slightly farther. As it stands the move is the single shortest slide in the game by nearly 15% (I’ve measured). In addition his hurtbox while goodish requires very strict timing to go under fireballs and that timing varies based on the speed of the fireball the opponent throws. Cody is actually completely unable to slide under a LP Sonic Boom or LP Air Slasher as he will get back up while it is still above him. Not only that but it is functionally impossible to get the move to hit on the last active frame without performing it meaty on a knockdown due to how little he moves forward. This means that he cannot make it better than -1F on block or +2F on hit (the move is -6F on block -3F on hit normally but has 7 active frames.) adjusting the movement to go a little farther would actually allow him to space it out more.
Cody’s fake badstone should be 26F not 31F. At 31F the move is the slowest feint in the game by a large margin (most at 21-24F) and it makes it very difficult to take advantage of the feint to anti air. As it stands, some characters can actually ultra punish the feint just as easily as they could his badstone.
Move the hitbox on Cody’s far s.MK slightly forward and/or reduce the hurtbox slightly in width. Currently the hurtbox width is one of the largest in the entire game (larger than Rufus’s c.HP or T.Hawk’s splash) and the hitbox ends at his ankle. Considering that the move has an 8F startup and only 70 damage it should be a little better. As it is Cody has to perform the move early AND spaced perfectly to beat moves like Ryu/Evil Ryu’s c.MK and even then sometimes it loses.
Reduce the startup on fj.MP from 9F to 7F and make it a 2hit move similar to ryu’s fj.MP. Cody has no way to alter his jump arc, and in addition he has the 4th SLOWEST set of air normals but only the 8th most active frames. In addition Cody has no way to convert an air 2 air attack into additional damage, and no way to beat an armored move on a jump in. Plus 9F startup and 3F active on a medium attack with such a huge hurtbox is nuts.
Badstone needs 2F cut off of the startup on NONEX versions (don’t touch EX version) Making the total frame count for LP 42, MP 44, and HP 46. While the recovery time on badstone really helps at times, the thing to realize is that not only does badstone do poor damage (especially chip damage) it also has a 29F startup which means 29F that Cody can be counter hit. While other fireballs can be FADC’d to be made safer and reduce the recovery or extend combos, Cody has no system to make badstone FASTER. If Cody blocks say a HP low tiger shot at full screen and tries to reversal LP Badstone he will get counter hit by the next HP low tiger shot from FULL SCREEN. In Addition the badstone doesn’t go full screen on any version and is easily avoided by neutral jumping (and many characters can simply use it to build meter with things like air tatsu.) Cody is unable to combo into badstone (and should NOT be able to.) and even at 27F Badstone would be unable to be a viable Counter Hit bait off of a cr.HP as the gap would be 10F between the blockstun and the badstone becoming active. This simply allows Cody to apply pressure and chip slightly better.
Making LP Criminal Upper slightly safer on block (Between -2F and -4F) on block would greatly help his pressure. Currently Cody has NO safe special he can cancel into during pressure. Even spaced perfectly LP CU is -5F and many characters can tag him with a special cancelable move (Sakura’s c.MK, Vega’s c.MP, Akuma’s c.MK, Ryu can even raw sweep him, Zangief SPD) plus c.LK - LP Criminal Upper is not a true block string anyways and can be reversaled between to hit him. The move shouldn’t be SAFE due to Cody’s 3F c.LK but making it a little bit safer would at least help him maintain pressure or perform chip damage.
EX Criminal Upper should be invincible till frame 8 to strikes. The move is -11F if not FADC’d and has a 7F startup, and loses to neutral jumps or crossups. Even changing this would make Cody easily pressured as 7F for a reversal is easily safe jumped and as I said it wouldn’t cover things like crossups which he has NO way of dealing with on wakeup as EX Zonk also does not hit most jumpins.
HK Ruffian Kick needs adjusting. Currently the move does not fufill it’s role as either a combo oriented tool OR an anti air particularly well. It does them both, but it does them both fairly poorly. HK Ruffian has a 7F startup and his hurtbox actually gets LARGER rather than smaller, this defeats the purpose of an anti air. In addition due to not actually rising up but instead moving horizontal many characters are able to simply jump over the HK Ruffian if not performed late. However because it has a 7F startup and no invincibility and larger hurtbox than normal Cody can’t perform it against a deep jump in usually as it will get counter hit or trade. Plus the move has more recovery on whiff and is more unsafe on block than a LP SRK or most invincible AAs. All of this wrapped up in the fact it only does 100 damage and 100stun. As a combo tool, due to the long recovery unless you hit late in the active frames or hit a person at the very top of the hitbox to get the maximum launch height you will not be able to followup the move without an FADC. The move is unable to hit crouching opponents, has no airborne frames, has no invincibility, and is -19F on block. It needs to perform one of it’s two roles better (NOT BOTH as that would be WAY too good) it should either be a better anti air (reduce the startup to 5F, reduce the size of the hurtbox to end at the upper portion of his waist so he is still suseptible to grounded pokes or make it straight up invincibile on startup since it can’t hit crouching anyway. OR make it better as a combo tool by reducing the recovery frames from 27F to 24F allowing Cody to perform HK Ruffian - MK Ruffian mid screen more consistently or perform HK Ruffian - f.MP in the corner without an FADC or special setup to hit on the last frame in a combo.)
Cody’s knife has many problems and even after the changes to Cody’s knife in AE2012 Capcom has yet to address the actual fundamental issues. Cody needs to be getting nearly as much as he gives up for picking up the knife. Not only is the knife unreliable as Cody’s limited mobility makes it difficult to retreive and it is easily knocked away. But he gives up A LOT of his best stuff, when Cody picks up the knife he immediately loses out on: his best anti air (b.MP) his best pressure tool (f.MP) his frame trap normal (close MP) his best whiff punish normal (c.HP) his best normal period (c.LP) his focus attack (which is key to his gameplay) his throws (also key as he has no command throw and cannot combo out of his overhead on crouching and has no dive kick), and his badstone. He also loses ALL of his frame traps as almost all of his knife normals are 0F on block or negative while doing VERY little chip damage. All cody gains really is a small amount of chip damage, a good poke (s.MP) and a good anti air (c.HP). All things considered it is a HUGE loss. In addition to that, many of his hurtboxes while holding the knife are HUGE but that is ok because the reach/hitbox is generally good too except for his fj.MP with knife which needs fixing.)
Make it so that Cody is able to throw opponents and tech throws without dropping the knife. This is a big one as without this, what is stopping people from simply down backing all day?
Allow Cody to special cancel his c.HP with knife, the first hit of his s.MP with knife and his s.LP/c.LP with knife. Cody only has 2 special cancel able normals with the knife (c.LK and close s.MK) and very few actual links this would make Cody able to actually whiff punish better as well as increase his overall damage output while holding the knife.
Increase the chip damage with the knife. Currently the chip damage is 12% for lights 10% for mediums and 8% for heavy attacks (5damage 8damage 10damage) this means to kill a person with chip damage with his c.HP would take over 40 full seconds of time not including walking back into range. Increasing the chip up to the STANDARD amount of 25% for all knife attacks would make blocking the knife actually scary and would make up for the poor frame advantage on the knife. Basically people wouldn’t want to block the knife which would lead to mistakes.
Make knife throw break armor. Currently the knife loses to strikes, loses to projectiles, has a 31F startup AND can be focus absorbed to negate everything while also only doing 70 damage 100 stun. Considering that Cody only gets ONE shot with the knife throw since he has to go pick it up again, the amount of ways to avoid the knife throw should be lowered.
Make the knife fall faster, currently it takes too long after dropping the knife or performing a knife throw before you are able to pick it up again. Alternately, allow Cody to “catch” the knife in mid air by performing knife pickup while it is flipping past him.
Allow Cody to focus ABSORB but not attack without dropping the knife. This would allow Cody a way to approach opponents who have fireballs without having access to badstone. EX Focus would still drop the knife, and performing an actual focus attack would drop the knife but he could charge the focus and dash cancel to absorb a hit without dropping the knife.
Lastly, please give Cody his Final Fight Chain Combo (Light Light Medium Heavy) similar to Guy OR give Cody his knee drop from final fight (down + mk in mid air) both moves are iconic to the character and have been lost. Cody’s Final Fight Chain Combo would give him a target combo as he has none which is nice and would give him another way to launch people for combos from mid screen which he has trouble with, in addition it would be good for frame traps. His knee drop should allow him to slightly shorten his jumps (similar to Deejay’s knee shot) while also being able to cross up. This would allow Cody to have a decent mixup game with cross up or not as he has no command throw and only 1 cancelable low and no linkable overhead. In addition it would make it more difficult to anti air him which is a big deal given his slow walk speed he tends to jump in a lot for approaches. Plus, I’m a huge final fight fan and I’m sad to see Cody lose so much of his history over the years (His knee bash throw, his ff chain combo, his knee drop, his desperation tatsu kick, his V Ism dodge move, his air throw, his X-Ism Super, Cody has lost A LOT over the years 
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I know this is a insanely long post, I hope you read the whole thing and take each point into consideration as I have put many many many hours of time researching, modifying, and testing these changes. I don’t expect all of them, or even half of them to make it through. However I feel it is best to bring as many possibilities to the table to allow Capcom to make a wise decision on how to proceed. More information is always better than less information.[/details]
Thoughts? Anything you think I left out? Keep in mind, as I said, I’m listing ALL of the changes I’d want and telling Capcom to cherry pick the ones they think are best.
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